While I can’t blame her for needing the pain – because the raw agony of the surgical procedure calmed her from the grief of remembering her little sister – I couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.
That’s why, even though I want to ask more about her sibling, I don’t. She doesn’t need that additional emotional pain right now.
I wish I could, though. I’d like to start planning right away about how best to help her track her sister down. Hadrian, Kitos and I might be on the brink of losing our ranks with Aurelian Law Enforcement, but I’m still going to treat this as an official investigation.
In my head, I work through a list of tasks. First, I’ll compile a list of suspects. The disappearance was years ago, which is going to complicate things, but I’ve solved two missing persons cases before and I know the procedure.
The only bad part? Both times, the missing person I’d been seeking had been killed long before I’d even begun searching for them.
Time is not on our side. I want to ask more questions, but I’m not going to while Allie’s under sedation and still dealing with her grief. Instead, I keep my mouth shut. Allie has suffered enough today. She’s faced enough challenges. I don’t want her being trapped in grief to be an additional one.
The steel tentacles of the AI begin their work again, this time searing away at the implant in her left arm. No pain flares through the Bond this time. Our Aurelian pain relief is much more effective than the crude hydro-morphines and opiates used by human surgeons. Allie will sleep peacefully during this procedure, and will wake up fully healed and with her device working once again. In fact, the AI takes only three minutes to restore the shift-disrupter on her left arm – recharging the capacitor cell within it to allow for another disruptive pulse.
I hope I’m not making a foolish mistake by giving her the back the very same tools she’d planned to use to take us down. I’m wary – but if I want our mate to trust and respect us, I have to demonstrate trust and respect first.
And at least now, if another Aurelian triad tries to grab her, they won’t be able to Orb-Shift away. She’ll have a weapon to use against them – and we’ll be able to catch up to her.
And now, if a human tries anything? A sleazy slaver, like that Spur character?
Well, that reactivated shock-weapon embedded in her right arm is very fucking lethal, even for a larger human male. She’s safer already.
But are we any safer? Am I leading my triad into death by trusting her?
There’s only one certain way of winning Allie’s trust, and ultimately her heart. We need to find her sister – alive.
And, if I can’t do that, we at least need to demonstrate that we’ll work to protect her, and help her for the rest of her life.
Allie’s head suddenly jerks as she almost nods off. She’s drowsy from the painkillers.
“The procedure is over,” I tell her. “Let me help you to your chambers.”
Allie gives me a loopy smile, and I’m happy to see it, even if it’s only caused by the potent painkillers and not because I’ve earned her beautiful smile.
I carefully help her up from the chair and escort her to her bedroom.
My mate will no longer endure the punishment brig – although the prisoner cell isn’t that much better. It’s a simple room – equipped with a bed, and nothing else. There’s a door on the interior wall that leads to the small, functional bathroom with a shower and toilet. Admittedly, it’s much nicer than the punishment brig she’d been in before, but still hardly to the standards of our crew quarters.
I lead her to the bed, gently helping Allie lie down on top of it.
At any other moment, being alone with the woman of my dreams – touching her, smelling her scent – would have driven me wild.
After witnessing her go through all that pain and grief, however – in addition to watching her flesh carved open during that medical process – I feel no arousal.
Because of the sedatives, Allie barely feels anything.
I might not feel arousal, but that’s not to say I don’t feel. I feel fiercely protective of my mate.
I know I am being naive to think she feels even a fraction of the affection my triad has for her – but I truly believe that will come with time – if we earn it.
And, at least, we have time, now.
Now she’s Bonded to us, Allie isn’t constrained by the ticking clock of human mortality any longer, like the billions of her race that drop like flies before they ever even witness a fraction of the wonders of the universe.
Allie now has thousands of years of life stretching ahead of her. Long enough for her to grow to care for me and my triad?
Even if we have to wait a century for that – a millennia - we have to keep her safe and alive in the meantime. One day she will accept her future. One day, Allie will grow eager for her destiny. Her entire life, she’s been used and abused by men for their own pleasure. My battle-brothers and I have to show her that life with my triad will be a totally different experience – and the best fate any woman could desire.
I tuck Allie into the bed.
She mumbles something under her breath, then slowly closes her eyes. I stand and look down on her – watching as Allie falls into a deep sleep.
Suddenly, I imagine two little babies next to her, cuddled up against their mother. Our babies – fathered by myself, or one of my battle-brothers. It doesn’t matter; they’ll all be our children.
The thought of spawning sons – healthy, vibrant Aurelian
