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Some small, dark-hearted portion of my soul had been desperately aware of that growing pit of dread I harbored inside, fueled by the knowledge that an intended matecouldreject the bond, dooming her mates in the process. After all, I’d nearly done it to my own mates. I knew how easy it was to take the more selfish path.
Seeing the disgust and hatred in those luminous eyes had rent my soul in half. Effortlessly cleaving away years of hard work I’d toiled through in order to build myself up to be a better male, only to reveal the cowering youngling I’d always been on the inside.
The one who’d watched, powerless, as their world fell apart.
My stomach felt sick, yet my stupid cock wouldn’t settle the fuck down, because I could still smell her skin on me from where she had placed those delicate hands on my torso. See the fire fizzing and spitting in her eyes like the birth of a proud star while she stared me down. Defiant and radiant. Daring me to break, fall to my knees before this Earth-bound goddess, and beg for my place in her world.
Quasar had scolded me on the ride back, telling me to ‘thank my lucky stars’, but I wanted to curse them. Cursehim. So I bit my tongue instead, lest I say something I couldn’t take back.
He didn’t see it yet. The true danger stalking us on Earth. But I did. The Drakon Hunters might be set on our kind’s ultimate destruction, but it was the silent assassins in our midst who we should fear.
Our supposed intended mates.
With a single interaction, that bar owner had leveled my beast, humbled it and set its scales to bristling with her stinging rejection, but she had also revealed her hand. Tess had the power to not only reveal the cracks in my hard-worn armor for all the world to see, but to blow that much-needed defense the fuck apart with a single look.
In short, that woman was a fucking menace. One I needed to give a wide berth.
Shaking my head, I went back to disassembling the ship. I put my back into wrenching apart the deck plates, throwing them into the ever-growing pile we were gathering to stud Tess’ woods with our presence. Because, as stubborn and thick-headed as that infernal woman was, there was no way we wouldn’t be protecting her.
On this matter, at least, Zinc and Argon agreed. Even if our merged Wyer was still suffering from a lack of cohesive leadership, and we had no clear hierarchy, we could all agree on this one thing. The Drakon Hunters had clocked the fierce bar owner as an intended mate. As such, she fell under our jurisdiction. The Stellar Misfits Motorcycle Club had been founded to guard and protect our fellow Drakons and their Earth-bound mates.
Tess’ feelings about beingourfourth were irrelevant. As were mine, for that matter. My people would honor their new purpose. End of story. And, if the brutal actions of the Drakon Hunters MC were anything to go by, it looked like our presence was desperately needed in this area if future Drakons were going to live in relative peace on Earth’s soil.
Ripping the next plate from the floor, I tossed it towards the rest, while Spectrum stood at the back of the room side-eyeing the plans on how shit was supposed to fit back together in his hands. “No, that’s a C plate. It needs to go with the ties that are over there.” He gestured vaguely to a completely identical pile on the other side of the bridge. “And D plates are here.”
“They’re exactly the same,” I growled. Dropping my hydro drill onto the remaining deck plating and heaving myself to my feet, I kept tight control of my tail so it didn’t send one of the precious pieces of equipment skittering through a hole in the floor and down four decks. Something Spectrum had done not half an hour before. That was what had earned him a reassignment from Bromine. Now he was in charge of the plans, rather than the actual dismantling. “How about you put those plans down and move the plate yourself? Seeing as you know instinctively where it goes and all.”
“Not instinctively,” he argued. “I have the plans.” Spectrum carelessly waved the data pad around and shook his head, like I was the problem.
“Whatever.” I leaned down to grab the drill back up, when Quasar stopped me, his hand soft on my skin. The look in his eyes made me want to run and hide from the prickle of unwanted emotion building behind my eyes. “Fuck off, Q.”
“Rad,” he started, but I shook my head and pulled from his loose grip. “This is different.”
“Different from what?” I growled, teeth bared at my mate who just gave me a sad smile, not wanting to tear into an open wound which refused to heal no matter how much time had passed. “That’s what I fucking thought.”
I stalked out of the room, or what was left of it, smacking Spectrum in the chest with my drill. Pulling up deck plates was clearly not labor intensive enough to pull my mind from the grimace on Tess’s face whenever she looked at us. Nor that sexy and disturbing as fuck snarl that formed on her lips when it was clear we weren’t going anywhere. She had practically put up a “Do Not Disturb” sign over her heart, and slammed the door.
Down on the lawn, Asteroid was loading up the trucks to haul the recycled materials out to the bar. I watched him for a long moment, standing at the top of the ramp which led to the cargo bay. Damned thing had outright refused to go back up once we’d lowered it. I was happy to see the last of this hunk of junk. Fucking ship had been a deathtrap waiting to happen.
“Oh good.” My mate waved from the ground up at me, ignoring the look on my face. His grin didn’t mean anything good for this mood I’d dumped myself into with far too much introspection as he sauntered up the ramp toward me. “Just the male I was looking for.”
“I find that highly doubtful.” I ducked his embrace, folding my arms tight across my chest and raising a brow. “I’m sour company.”
“That’s when I love you best, my mate.” Asteroid’s hand whipped out as I went to stomp past him and sank deep into the hair that hung loose around my shoulders. His claws scratched at my scalp and I couldn’t hold back the moan which tumbled from my lips as he yanked me into his muscular torso, my back pressed against his chest. “I know just how to turn that sort of mood around,” he growled into my ear, low and full of wicked promise, as his hands twisted further in my hair until my scalp burned. “Come. We have a moment.”
“We don’t.” I pulled away, bruskly disentangling his fingers from my hair, even with the evidence of how well my mate knew how to play me. The hard state of my cock was evident to the entire clearing. I stalked down the ramp, my feet hitting the hard packed earth with a jolt. “The Hunters have our scent. We need to be settled before they gather their forces.”
“The scribes…”
“Are human and wield powers that the Hunters en mass will blast right through,” I shouted, back still to my mate. I forced the next words out though they felt like razors. “She’s vulnerable.”
“You’re scared,” Asteroid murmured, his voice thick with emotion and something that sounded an awful lot like regret.
“Aren’t you?” I turned to face him, a snarl on my lips and my hands balled into fists, ready to knock some sense into him, when I saw that crack in his armor. Mirroring my own. The tightness of his shoulders, the way his hair was pulled roughly from the braid he used to tame it. Oh, Asteroid was scared all right. His beast was just as twisted up by the gravity that was our unclaimed mate and her initial response to us. “You are.” My shoulders slumped in defeat and bitterness seared my voice. “So why are you wasting time on me? Fuck off, then. Go to her. Protect your mate.”
“I am.” The seriousness of his tone pulled me up sharp and bled my righteous anger straight into the ground. “Because Tess might be our fourth, but you and I are already bonded.” He lifted one shoulder as though his reasoning was obvious before reaching for me again. This time I let him pull me into his embrace and savored the feeling of his nails against the tender parts of my scalp. The base of my horns cried out for the possessive touch of my mate as he bedded me. “Because it’s important to me–to both of us–that you are right with this.” Asteroid’s plump lips brushed mine as he embraced me, lining up our bodies to perfection and crushing our chests up tight. The evidence of his own arousal rubbed against my needy cock, and the groan we shared at the illicit contact was a shudder of relief. “She will be our fourth, Radon. Shewillbe ours, just as surely as we will be hers. We will protect her from all the pain of this world as best we can.”
“And if we can’t?” I asked. I didn’t even bother hiding the fear from my voice now. It shook me to my bones as my mate ran his fingers around my horns, giving each one the attention he knew I craved. Soothing and arousing all at once. “What if there are some things we can’t protect her from?”
