Page 12 of Trained as His Mate

She glanced at him when she heard him chuckling. A smile twisted her lips, and she could have hugged him for his gracious laughter and the way it swept her out of her own embarrassment.

“Yes,” he said. “I gathered that.”

She shook her head and pressed her hand to her temple. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I really am not normally this… whatever I’m being.”

“Again, there is no need to apologize,” he replied, his laughter fading but not his smile. “It’s an unusual situation. To say the least. I can’t say that I’m exactly being myself either.”

That, too, eased her embarrassment, and she was grateful for it. It gave her the courage to take a crack at acting like a normal person. “Okay. I think I’m finished embarrassing myself,” she said quietly. “Feel free to tell me all about your flaws.”

He leaned low over the table and grinned. “The most important, the most consequential, is that I have a nasty habit of…” He let a silence stretch out between them, building anticipation like a cheesy performer on the story box screen.

She found that charming.

“…not always being very good at following all the rules.”

His dramatic delivery made her smile in spite of herself. A kindred spirit. Her heart fluttered with excitement even as she willed herself to calm down.

“Does that amuse you?” he asked, scowling.

Ah, yes. Here we go. Nothing more delicate than a tough guy’s wounded ego. “I apologize if I’ve offended you,” she said, not sure if he was being serious.

He grinned. “I see you’re not used to Voklish humor. It’s understandable. We can be… quirky. Your apology is not accepted because it is not needed,” he said, leaning back in his chair again.

“I only smiled because I’m also… you know. Bad… at rules.” Her breath caught in her throat as she pronounced these final words. She snapped her mouth shut to prevent herself from trying to over-explain and start babbling too much: she didn’t mean bad, like she wanted to break the rules and be punished for it… or anything like that.

“I have other deficiencies,” he said, saving her.

“And so how did that deficiency land you on the Andomocles?” she asked, grateful for an off-ramp from her potentially humiliating babbling.

He cleared his throat and huddled lower over the table. “I had two men down on Algamach. Artillery closing in from three sides. Airlifts spinning up behind my squadron. It was time to go. No time for a rescue.” His eyes focused on some far-off point as he followed the memory through his mind into the past. The air in the room stilled. Torian snapped back to attention. “I received a direct order to evacuate. I knew it was the right thing to do. There were fifteen souls already in the airlift.”

“And?” she whispered.

He looked up and locked eyes with her again, his smile faded, expression dead serious now. “But they were right there, Quaia Sangsen.”

The way he whispered her name sent a shiver racing down her spine.

“Lying in the sand, what, two dozen paces? Maybe three? But I knew them both. I knew their wives, their children. I knew their lives. I knew mine was not worth any more than theirs. I could see their vitals on my HUD. They were still breathing. Still alive. There was still hope. I knew it was wrong. I gave the order anyway. Liftoff for the airlift and drop the harnesses. Hover no longer than half a click. And then I ran. I ran to their position, grabbed the handles on their armor and, Seven Suns help me, I dragged six hundred weights of meat and bones and armor toward that ship. Strapped them in. Grabbed a line at T minus one second. They hauled the bodies up. I made it in a snap before the hatch closed where the atmosphere was already thin.”

She could see the temple in his forehead pulsing. His eyes focused a thousand paces away as he remembered. “Seven Suns,” she whispered.

He returned from the memory, his eyes moving back to hers, back straightening, his palms falling flat on the table. He drew a deep breath and sighed. “They lived,” he said. “But I disobeyed direct orders and protocol.”

He pressed a hand against his chest. “The admiral was more than kind. Demotion instead of court martial. He was an old friend of my father’s.” He leaned back in his chair again. “And here we are,” he said, splaying his fingers, looking around and smiling. “Sitting on the ship that I was given. A far cry from my earlier assignment, but not the worst thing that could have happened. Not the worst I was expecting.”

She shook her head, almost unable to believe the tale. A knot formed in her throat. It was clear from his expression that he missed the warrior’s life. “That’s not fair,” she said quietly.

When he looked back at her, they shared another moment of complicity: it wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair here in the Zoratic Void.

Again, a swell of heat seemed to engulf them, making the air between them thick and strange. The mixed emotions she’d been having boiled in her abdomen again.

“No,” he said quietly. “And yet, if it hadn’t happened…” He paused, like he was weighing whether or not to finish the sentence, his eyes on hers.

Her heart pounded and she willed him to say what she wanted him to say.

“I wouldn’t be here,” he finished, then smiled again.

It was close enough to something she longed to hear. She looked to the side to try to hide her own smile.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com