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“You mean the Mikos Territory. I renamed it after my eldest son.”
“Oh. Yes, I knew that. Sorry, but yes, the Mikos Territory.”
Blake had heard a little about Davos’s sons. All of them were by surrogates. He’d had six sons, but one of them, a younger son named Larz was now deceased. Sadly, he’d been killed in the war when he was only sixteen. Tygerian males all went to war at an early age, a fact that Blake still found shocking and tragic. Someone should have stopped him from going so young. Maybe if he’d had someone to look out for him, he’d still be alive.
It was an odd thought for Blake to have—random thoughts like this had been hitting him since he’d arrived in the king’s suite, in fact. He refocused his attention on this strange visit he was having with the king.
“Prince Mikos is also my Dyson.”
Blake nodded, waiting for him to get to the point. What did any of this have to do with him?
“May I ask why you were looking for me, in particular, Your Majesty? After the surrender?”
“I’ll get to that. But first, tell me about living in the Mikos Territory? What were you doing there?”
“I couldn’t find work on Earth. I moved there for a job I was offered.”
“Why did you leave?”
Good question. But he’d never been happy there. Because something always seemed to be missing in his life. There was no reason—or at least none he could articulate. His life just hadn’t gone the way he’d thought it might. Though Blake was dying to ask Davos what this conversation was about, he knew better. Tygerians didn’t like to be questioned. Especially royals. If they wanted you to know something, they’d tell you. He sat quietly and waited.
“This job you have is problematic.”
“It is? In what way, Your Majesty? I’ll stop writing about you and your sons if you tell me to, though I think accepting alternate points of view is a sign of a healthy discourse.”
“Hmm. No. I don’t like it. You would have to sign some sort of agreement and be closely monitored to make sure you adhered to it. That could work, perhaps.”
He had rendered Blake speechless. And angry, though he dared not show it. “Monitored?” he managed to say, trying hard not to panic. “I don’t understand. I told you I’d stop. Can I at least know what this all about? Was it any one broadcast in particular?”
Davos shook his head and seemed to be a bit agitated as he stood up to go closer to the window to stare down at the snow falling again outside the window. He seemed almost angry about something. Maybe Blake should just be quiet and let the king work this out on his own, but he was having trouble doing that. The king had told him earlier that he needed to learn to keep his mouth shut. It was probably damn good advice, but he felt as if he were about to burst with questions.
Davos gave him a smoldering look. “What do you remember about our encounter all those years ago in the arena on Tygeria?”
Stunned by the question, Blake sat back in his seat. The memories were painful and nothing he liked to revisit. After a long moment, he found his voice. “I remember everything. Every second of it. How could I ever forget?”
Davos nodded. “Then you remember that I pretended to do certain things to you that night for the crowd’s amusement, and to appease them. I was in charge that night, and my superiors were watching. The king himself was watching. But in all the excitement and the noise and the chaos of the ring, something happened that night. I’m afraid I lost control and I-I allowed myself to bond with you.”
He whirled around to look at Blake and his eyes were stormy and troubled. “I never meant for it to happen. Not ever. And I was horrified that I’d allowed myself to become so overwhelmed with lust and emotion that I allowed such a thing to happen with a human soldier.”
“I-I don’t understand. Of course, I remember the incident, but what does bonded mean exactly? You said before that it was unbreakable, but you didn’t explain. What is it that you think happened that night?”
Davos sighed. “It’s hard to explain to a human, because you have no frame of reference. Tygerians have to be careful never to form a bond outside of marriage, because a bond is forever and completely indestructible. Once we bond with a partner, that’s it. I’d always felt contempt for the idea, frankly, before it happened to me. The idea that I could be a slave to my lust and passion was—still is—abhorrent to me. Such a thing rarely happens in my world, because we make it a point never to allow it to happen. We know that it’s in the realm of possibility for us, but if we’re careful, it’s highly improbable. It’s rare, you understand, because we’re so scrupulously cautious. We try never to lose control. That night, I believe I formed a blood lust for you. With that riding me hard, and the screams of the crowd and you naked in my arms—I lost control of it.” He turned to Blake and looked directly at him. “I was very attracted to you. We bonded.”
“I don’t understand. It was just a kiss. A rough one, but only a kiss.”
“No. I lost control for a moment. I bit you and tasted your blood. I penetrated you with my fingers, and my beast took you for its mate.”
Blake was shocked into silence, but Davos kept doggedly on. “I still thought I could control it at that point. I tried. I sent you away and thought that might be an end to it. Hoped it would be. With distance and time, I was sure I could overcome it. We were at war, after all, and I was almost constantly engaged in battle. We were the bitterest of enemies. I even doubted I’d survive the war, when so many of my relatives had not.”
“It’s been twenty years.”
“Yes. Believe me, I’m fully aware.”
“Are you saying that in all that time…”
“If you’re asking if I had other lovers in that time, of course, I did,” the king snapped at him, beginning to pace in front of the fireplace. “But no one ever completely satisfied me. No one. My children helped my focus for a time, but I couldn’t seem to get you out of my mind, nor could I bring myself to take a mate that wasn’t you. Ridiculous, isn’t it? One, insignificant encounter twenty years ago shouldn’t have caused so much trouble.”
“It wasn’t insignificant to me.” The second the words came out of his mouth, it surprised Blake. He hadn’t really thought he felt that way until this moment. He glanced up at Davos in surprise. It had been the wrong thing to say, and he hadn’t helped his case one bit.
