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“You’re upset,” I say. “Regretting your mate?
“No, and don’t you dare joke about that. I felt like half of myself was there with you regenerating,” she sighs. “I missed you and worried for you every minute of every day and at the same time I felt like a fool for not knowing all this even existed!”
“To the rest of the universe, we don’t. I agree that my home is lovely and charming, a wonderful place to have grown up.” I sigh, not wishing to belittle the heir or argue with my mate. “That’s not why I’ve stayed away.”
“Is there something I’m missing? Did Mak do something to piss you off?”
I flick the water, annoyed to be discussing Mak when I should be deep inside my mate, claiming her. If I had strength, I would and perhaps I’d punish her little cunt for not listening to me and risking herself for me. But then I would make it better again, worship her pearl relentlessly for saving me, for being a stronger female than I have ever deserved in this life. I will make it so good when I get the chance. I’ll make her come so hard that she will need to recover in regen.
“Mak and Kalla have both lectured me and hounded me and guilted me for not wanting to participate in their war games,” I try to explain. “They think that the war in Sector 5 is ours to fight, even when those who should be our allies treat us like nothing. They think that planet still belongs to us.”
“Kar’Kal, you mean? Well, isn’t it your planet?”
I laugh.
“Except I don’t know what color the oceans are or what grows in the soil. I don’t know how to draw the shape of its continents or what animals populate the wilds. I never set foot on that planet.” I hate talking about this, but she deserves to understand what has splintered the bonds between me and the males I call brothers. “Mak will never stop trying to reclaim the planet, believing it’s our destiny. But it’s a lost cause. Our warriors couldn’t be called an army. We aren’t recognized by the intergalactic communities, and those officials that know of us want nothing more than to treat us like pawns.”
“How so?”
I shrug. “Every once in a while, Mak is invited to meet with some ambassador of this or president of that . . . It’s always the same. Some terrible deal is proposed. One where we’re a marketing campaign or puppets. False promises are made about what ‘might’ happen ‘if’ they get control of the planet again.”
“And you disagree with Mak about what? Hearing them out?”
“I don’t pretend to be a leader of the people. There’s no better male than Mak for the job, but those dreams of his are delusions. Why bother living in the past? There are other places, other opportunities. But instead, they stay here and wither away just waiting to return to a home we never knew.”
She considers this, worrying her lip. I can imagine what she’s seen here, the people she’s met. They’ll have taken her heart already. No one could resist Lalo’s doting and cooking.
“You told me before that you don’t want to watch them die.” She takes my hand. “But I almost watchedyoudie. Even days ago, I still wondered whether you were truly healing like they told me. But I swear I wouldn’t have left your side for anything. If you were in that regen tank for years, I would stay just for the slightest chance that you’d wake up.”
This is a Raina I could never have dreamed up. That she could love me like that is beyond my faith in the spirit or my faith in myself to deserve such devotion.
“Ti kaia,” I sigh, understanding what she means to say. “You cannot compare it.”
“I can,” she argues hotly. “Wouldn’t you rather be here, even if you feel it’s doomed?”
“All I know is how I felt every time I came home and saw less living here than the year before. Fewer matings than the year before. Seeing Mak try and try again, so hopeful that a new alliance could bring us our dues, only to see him frustrated by another hoax of a meeting. Or worse, there were times he found Deadhead spies among us.” Just thinking about it makes me furious all over again. “I didn’t stop coming because I wanted to. I stopped because it was painful to watch us fail again and again. Now Kalla has apparently disappeared, and seeing as assassins have infiltrated Alliance territory just to seek him out, I wonder what trouble he could be in.”
Raina’s expression flickers dark.
“Has Mak told you? Is this why I found you in his private quarters?”
“Yes,” she replies. “Don’t be angry.”
“Not my female telling me not to be angry with Mak!” I pin her under my gaze. “I’m telling you now, if I feel like wringing the king’s neck, I will and no one, not even you, will stop me. I can’t believe he’s already charmed you to the point where you feel the need to defend him.”
“He told me that he sent Kalla to Kar’Kal to investigate the mysterious happenings there.”
I don’t say anything at first. I stew in shock for a moment.Don’t be angry, indeed. Kalla could surely be dead!
“He sent Kalla to Kar’Kal while it is under the Azza Empire’s control? While they are currently trying to land their soldiers on the ground there?”
“Yes,” she sighs, scooting closer to me. “I didn’t want to have this conversation so soon after you’d woken up. I didn’t plan for you to get so worked up, but here you are . . . exerting yourself in every sense of the word.”
What she says is true. I’m mentally, emotionally, and psychically strained to my limits.
“But if they would attack me for information, it must mean that the Azza donothave Kalla and they haven’t killed him,” I conclude once my mind is done spinning.
“That’s what Mak believes too. He was excited, actually, to hear the news that you were stabbed by an assassin and not some random pirate.”
