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“After the ridiculous situation with Major Venkarr, my omak assured me I definitely could. If any of my guards ever displease me, I can dismiss them immediately and for no reason other than I want to. So…please go.”
My nerve almost broke then, because of the way he looked at me, but again, I was channeling my omak, who was known in the family for what Ryan called “cutting off his nose to spite his face.” I’d started this bluff—my omak had never really said any such thing—and I was determined to keep it up until he called me on it.
It was all a ruse and a subterfuge. A huge one that I hoped would work. I wanted Tariq as my mate, and I thought I could talk my parents into it. I sort of thought that Blake might be halfway convinced already, because I knew he’d already noticed my interest in Tariq. I could never hide much from him. My idea—I couldn’t even dignify it by calling it a plan—was that if I dismissed Tariq, he would get jealous of any other guard assigned to me and change his mind. He’d come back and tell me he was claiming me and dismiss the other guard. If he were anything like my father, he wouldn’t be able to stand any other man not a relative being around me so much for long.
It was a long shot and not likely to work, but I had nothing else.
“I’m not the one doing this, you know—you are,” I turned and proclaimed to his back as he walked out the door. “You don’t want to be with me, or anywhere near me for that matter, so I’m relieving you of the responsibility. It’s obviously burdensome for you. Don’t worry. I won’t tell my parents any of the real reasons. I’ll simply tell them you don’t suit me.”
There was a short silence so charged that I imagined the air was crackling around us. Finally, he turned to face me, his voice so bitter and angry, I had to admit I was surprised.
“I don’t give a damn what you tell them. Say anything you like.”
He stormed out of the room then, and I still didn’t turn to watch him leave. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the glass. Oh gods, what had I done? I was trembling with emotion, and I wanted to run to the door and call him back, but I just couldn’t. I stood there for a long time, gazing out at the blackness of space.
Most people who had never traveled in space before didn’t realize that emptiness makes up eighty percent of the known universe. There were places out there so dark that there was nothing around to light them for hundreds of millions of light years. Containing very few or no galaxies at all, these places were called cosmic voids, and known as dark space. But as dark as they were, and as empty and desolate, they were nothing compared to the void I felt in my heart just then.
I was probably—almost certainly—being overly dramatic. I didn’t know Tariq had bonded with me until just an hour ago. So how in the world had my feelings developed for him so quickly? It was insane. And yet I couldn’t discount the way I felt. It must be true that Tygerians didn’t need the time that other species needed to feel love for their intended mate.
If, indeed, love was what this god-awful feeling was.
If this was what was making me feel so vulnerable and so defenseless, then I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of it. I hated the idea that my future happiness was out of my own control and depended entirely on what he decided and what he wanted to do about it. But I didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. And I didn’t have to like it for it to be true.
If I told my omak, he would try to understand my feelings for my sake, but he would struggle to believe they were “real.” Because I looked so much like him, he expected me to be like him, but often, I just wasn’t. I was more Tygerian. I totally understood the Tygerian language, for example, while he still struggled after all these years. He mostly understood every word, but he couldn’t always replicate the sounds of certain words. Words that came easily to me.
I liked the food, while he despised it. I didn’t get as cold as he did, and I loved many of the same things my brothers did, like the violence of the Games and the ideology of a warlike society. I may have gotten most of my looks from my human father, but inside, I was very much a Tygerian, like my other father.
The king would come closer to believing I had bonded with Tariq, because, as he himself told the story, he’d felt like he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning when he first saw Blake. And that was before they’d kissed or had any contact. With Mikos it happened with his first kiss with Ryan, and with each of my brothers, it had been just as fast in various ways.
This kind of thing happened with Tygerians all the time, and I’d had some extra help courtesy of my Tygerian DNA. Perhaps at least a partial bonding had happened with me at the same time as Tariq, though because I wasn’t fully Tygerian, it hadn’t been as intense. It had been helped along with the totally human crush I already had on Tariq from the moment I saw him, but it had receded and faded a little over the years since he had left to go to Precept 3. Definitely a case of out of sight, out of mind. But it had come roaring back today in full force.
That was my theory, anyway, and I didn’t think there was a better one. I was tired of people telling me how I felt, and I wasn’t going to put up with it any longer.
Chapter Seven
Tariq
I walked straight to the wardroom to find one of the other Imperials. I was thinking of Bannos, because he was older and despite his talk of pardos he was still reliable. At least I’d never heard anything against him. And he was mated, my brain screamed at me.
It may have been his best quality at that.
Not that I cared. I was through with Rakkur and his human foolishness. After today, I’d wash my hands of him and never look back. I’d stay on Loros until the mission was over and maybe then I’d resign my commission and find a home somewhere else. Somewhere far away from spoiled princes and all human influences.
Word got around fast in our group, so I was hoping to find someone who knew which room was Bannos’s, so I could tell him about his new job before he heard it somewhere else. Right away, I saw our quartermaster as I walked into the wardroom. He was the one who had lists of all the personnel. A quartermaster’s job was to make sure each of us had any supplies we needed and that included a place to bunk and stow our gear, so I went over to him right away and asked for Major Bannos’s room assignment. He raised an eyebrow at my impatience, but gave it to me anyway, as I outranked him.
I tore off down the hall, heading for Bannos’s room, which wasn’t too far from mine. He came to answer right away as I banged on his door, giving me a surprised look.
“Is everything all right, Colonel? You seem agitated.”
“Everything’s fine. I simply have new orders for you. You’re going to take over my bodyguard duties with Prince Rakkur.”
“I’m…what? Rakkur? But who issued these new orders?”
“The prince himself did.”
He gave me a surprised and wide-eyed look. “The prince? But how does he even know about me?”
“He doesn’t. Not by name. He has simply requested another Imperial guard, and since you were sent, as you say, to replace me, I thought of you.”
