Thalia returned to the table and topped off her coffee, sighing heavily. “I don’t care, Havik. I know you and I dislike that you’re acting as if we don’t know anything about each other.” He opened his mouth to speak but she held up a finger to silence him. Really, talking was not his friend at the moment. “Correction, you know almost everything about me. All my dirty little secrets. I’ve shared lots of stuff with you, good and bad, but when I asked you just basic questions, you clam up. What do I really know about you?”
She knew that he very much wanted to do what was morally and ethically right, not just legal. He was fascinated by animals. He babied a venomous predator and had endless patience with Stabs. For her, too. He tolerated her verbal jabs and almost seemed to enjoy them.
He was scary when he needed to be but always gentle. Kind. Never once had he raised his voice to her, despite his short temper.
She held up a finger. “You were married. Divorced? Widowed? Who knows?” She added another finger. “You have no clan. You’re an animal lover. Four,” she added another finger. “Nope. That’s all. Just those three things.”
“I had a mate,” he said. “No, that is not the beginning. My father is the warlord. No, that shifts blame.” He tugged at the end of his braid. The end tie had slipped and the hair unraveled. “My mother died when I was born.” He nodded. “Yes. I think that is the place. My father took a new mate almost immediately. His second wife was kind and cared for me, but the duties of a warlord kept my father busy.”
Thalia waited, letting Havik formulate the words. He paced and worried at his long hair, further unraveling the braid. She rather liked the disheveled look on him.
“I was young to be matched to a mate, just twenty years of age,” he said.
“How long ago was this?”
“Four years.”
“Oh, wow. You’re younger than me,” she said. Not too much younger but the fact surprised her.
“Is that a problem?”
“No, just doing the math to figure out my husband’s age.”
He visibly perked, and in a flash, he kneeled at her feet. His tail danced behind him. “Husband. I enjoy the way you say that.”
She nodded. Nothing he could confess, short of physically abusing his ex, would change her mind.
A wide grin broke across his face, all teeth and tusks at the corner of his mouth. She loved the way his smile transformed his face. He was always handsome in a jaw-of-granite sort of way, but when he smiled, his features softened. His smile was like a secret shared with just her.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
“Vanessa is Terran. I was excited to finally have something for myself, that I did not share with the clan,” he said.
She noted the use of the word thing but also felt for the attention-starved young man.
“I was proud of the prestige of having a mate, but I did not know her. Vanessa was not my friend. We got along well enough, but we were strangers living together. Perhaps that may have changed in time, I do not know. Vanessa was pregnant with our son.” Havik paused, staring off into the distance. “My father told me I lost my mate and my son.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she replied automatically.
“He lied.” Havik spat the words. “The child was lost, that much is true, but Vanessa lived. My father, the warlord, told her that I rejected her and sent her back to Earth. She divorced—” He blinked several times. “We knew so little about each other that she believed such a poisonous lie.”
He sounded so calm and so reasonable. He had years to come to terms with this, but Thalia boiled over with indignation. For his father to lie to break up his marriage and to use the same method that killed his own mother—
“I really want to punch something,” she said. Specifically, someone.
Havik pressed his head to her knees. “It took me a year to learn the truth. I could not stay.”
“Your father betrayed you.”
“More than that. I did not value Vanessa as a person. I was selfish and I failed my mate. I know I am unworthy and without honor. The clan knows the worst of me. I fled.”
“Thank you for telling me but I don’t believe that at all.” She stroked his head. The braid had unraveled. She understood why he hadn’t dropped all that drama casually while they watched yet another nature documentary. “Why did Ren leave?”
“I honestly do not know. He keeps his own secrets.”
“Anything else I need to know?”
He lifted his head. “Is that not enough?”
“Well, this is a good chance to clear the air. So far, you’ve told me about a young guy who was starved for affection but wasn’t mature enough for a relationship. That’s not a crime.”
“Vanessa believed me to be cruel.”
“Because of a lie and a spiteful man.”
“No. My actions made the lie plausible.”
“So, you should be punished forever? Not allowed to learn and grow as a person? It’s all hairshirts and flagellation from here on out? What you told me doesn’t change my opinion of you.” Her fingers tangled in his hair. “You’re a good man.”
She tugged on the braid and the tattoos warmed from black to a silvery glow. Last night had been perfect as their bodies joined, but the dark hid her gorgeous husband. She wanted to explore. She wanted to appreciate every inch of him in the light. Plus, he had that tail. She wanted another taste.
“How long until we reach Rolo…our destination?” she asked.
“Six days,” he said.
“Hmm. That might be enough time.”
“For?”
“Come and find out.”
Taking him by the hand, she led him to the cockpit. She spun the chair around and pushed
