It’s important to know that. A good leader must understand his men. Kitos is under control.
It’s Hadrian I’m worried about. He hasn’t said a word – not since he and Kitos returned from Allie. I sense a dull violence lurking within him.
My mind rushes over our options.
One thing is clear – we’ve screwed up. We’ve mated with a prisoner – violating the strict statutes of Aurelian Law Enforcement.
Although have we screwed up? How could we deny her, since Allie is our Fated Mate?
There’s no easy answer – no way of telling if we’ve done the right thing or not.
I take a deep breath.
“The noble thing to do would be to turn ourselves in when we arrive on Colossus,” I tell my battle-brothers. “We explain that we lost control in the presence of our Fated Mate. We can hope that Law Enforcement will grant us leniency, but we can expect harsh judgement.”
I pause, about to answer the question I know my battle-brothers are poised to ask.
“Allie will go free,” I tell them. “She can’t be held accountable for her crimes any longer – due to our… breach.”
Breach.
What a word for it.
It sounds so harmless when you say it like that – like using the wrong cutlery at a fancy human dinner.
In reality, there’s nothing harmless about it. Aurelian justice is harsh. Fucking a prisoner can send you to an Aurelian prison for life – or, worse, see you executed in the arena of the Gods; with your shameful demise broadcast for the whole universe to witness.
Our transgression is dire. The Aurelian Empire already has a weakened hold over many sectors. Now, we three have forever tarnished the authority of the Aurelian Law Enforcement agency.
Hadrian presses down on the trigger of his Orb-Cannon - suddenly blasting a whirling asteroid out of the air.
I wince. I’d have preferred to keep our weapons signals hidden… But I have to forgive him for the outburst. I can sense the stress he’s under.
“Fuck that,” my battle-brother snarls. “If we take Allie to Colossus, they’ll take her from us – just you watch. You know Queen Jasmine will make an example out of us for touching a human prisoner.”
The way he says the word ‘human’ with such disdain. It’s like he forgets that he was balls deep inside a human female – our human female – just minutes earlier.
But what Hadrian just said isn’t untrue. Our Queen, Jasmine, has been ruling for over two hundred years now. In that time, she’s sired a dozen sons for our Empire – but that’s the only good thing she’s done, in my eyes.
Jasmine has her triad under her thumb – even the mighty Emperor. Under her rule, humans have been given everything – more rights, freedoms, and even the opportunity for planets and systems once under Aurelian protection to become ‘independent.’
The Empire has weakened considerably under Queen Jasmine. She puts the desires of humans above the needs of our own species.
Kitos slaps his hand against the console in front of him. “I’d rather live as an outlaw than spend the rest of my life in prison. They’ll lock us away – keep us from her. She’s our Fated Mate – and we can’t lose her now.”
I sigh.
I’ve failed my triad.
No. We were tricked.
Allie knew exactly what she was doing.
She knew we couldn’t bring her back to Colossus if we fucked her. Now she’s got what she wanted. First, she fooled that triad of Elites – now us.
Fated Mate or not – one thing is clear…
Whatever we do, we can’t trust her.
I can’t let our Bond cloud my judgement. I know already, though our Bond, that Allie craves her freedom even more than she craves to be our mate.
Anger suddenly surges up in me at my own stupidity. How can I even imagine a future in which Allie bears our sons? She’ll disappear at the first opportunity, Fated Mate or not. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let this happen?
Hadrian can sense my frustration. I didn’t mute it across our Bond – another failure on my part.
But Hadrian isn’t angry. He murmurs: “If you hadn’t taken her, Daccia, we’d have never known, one way or another. We would have lived and died always wondering if she’d been the one.”
Kitos sighs too, nodding.
“Without even knowing it, we would have put our Fated Mate in jail. We’d never have seen her again. One way or another, you made the right choice, Daccia. You made the right choice.”
But it’s a choice we can never take back. It’s a choice we’ll all have to bear the consequences of.
A leader leads. A leader takes the burden. I am the leader of our triad.
But, with the support of my triad, things become crystal clear.
“We aren’t expected back on Colossus for almost thirty standard days,” I tell my triad. “We have time, at least – the most valuable resource in a battle. We need to prepare for life once Law Enforcement learns what we’ve done. We need to liquidate our accounts, fix our ship’s Orb-Drive, and then stay under the radar – for as long as it takes to shift outside of the Aurelian Empire’s territories.”
I turn in my seat to look at my two battle-brothers.
“They’re going to send men after us. We may have to kill our former brothers. This, we must do for the sake of our Fated Mate.”
Hadrian’s aura loses the dull sense of violence. He was looking for an outlet in the confusion of the moment – and punching, hitting or crushing things is normally his solution.
Now, though, he knows I have a plan. Now he feels my certainty.
“Agreed,” my battle-brother nods. “It’s our only option.”
A wave of pain suddenly rises in me. I can feel
