The door smashes open.
Lilac clings to me as Daccia stands looming in the doorway. He’s drenched in blood. The rest of my triad stand behind him – wearing their battle-armor, and they fiercely look down at me.
“Allie! You’re safe!” Kitos looks at me with nothing but concern – as if I’d never betrayed him. He grabs me in his huge arms, and then looks down at Lilac, realizing it’s my sister.
When he holds me tight, I finally realize the truth.
I do need these men.
I’d told myself I didn’t – I’d convinced myself to run from them and betray them. I’d even come close to seeing them imprisoned or executed.
But I need them.
It isn’t just about safety. It’s because I’d never felt so alone as when their auras had winked out of my mind, because of this infernal device I have strapped to my head.
While I’m wearing it, I don’t sense their auras, and I can’t feel the Bond…
But it isn’t the pain of losing that connect which makes me realize how I much I need them…
It’s the fact that right now – totally free and independent of the Bond – I still feel the same way about them. I still care for them and crave them. I still want them and yearn for their protection.
I still love them.
And I feel that way independent of the Bond. It never made me feel what I did for them. I’d always felt this way. Even if we weren’t Bonded – even if I didn’t have this incredible connection to them – I’d still belong to these three, towering, gorgeous warriors.
I finally realize, deep in my heart, that the only way I’ll ever truly be free is if I surrender to this. If I allow myself to love them without fear.
I thought I was running from them – when, in fact, I should have been running from my own self-doubts, insecurities, and pain.
Kitos gently runs his fingers through my hair, testing the helmet. “We’ll get this off soon enough, I promise – but it needs a med-bay or a doctor.”
Without the Bond clouding my judgement, I suddenly know how badly I want these three men in my life. I wish I’d been clear-headed enough to see that earlier, but after all I’d been through, it had felt like I could never trust another man again – let alone three of them!
But while Kitos holds me tenderly, Lilac is screaming – practically dragging herself away from them, as far she can.
“She’s traumatized,” I explain quickly. “Right now, we need to get her somewhere where she can’t see you, okay?”
Daccia nods. “Come with us.”
25
Daccia
I let Allie trail behind us. She's dragging her sister, who’s still kicking and screaming as if she’s being led to an execution chamber.
The poor girl is terrified. When Kitos tried to pick her up, she screamed so loudly it hurt my ears. Allie had shot him a dark glare, and shaken her head. The young woman is obviously so traumatized, she can’t even barely to be near my kind.
We stalk through the halls of this transport vessel – the one that had taken off carrying our Fated Mate and her sister. When we’d intercepted it, the crew of men tried to stop us. That was a poor decision on their part – and they all died for it.
The vessel is an illicit cargo ship, which blasted off from Torelli's lair in The Rhino right after Allie disappeared.
At the time, she’d muted our presence in her mind – and then something had blocked out all trace of her. Her aura had disappeared – and for a terrifying second we’d all been worried that she’d been killed…
Then the AI of our Reaver spotted this cargo ship blasting off, and we all knew it was too much of a coincidence. We’d been proven right.
Allie – stubborn, foolish, but fearless Allie – had snuck back into The Rhino, apparently unconvinced that Torelli had no knowledge of her sister’s fate.
As it turned out, she’d been right.
Well, that bastard Torelli is still down on Salcus, in The Rhino, but not for long. We'll come back for him soon enough – and he’ll pay horribly for his wrongdoings.
As we stalk the corridors of the ship, we come across a man lying sprawled on the ground. His hand still twitches, though it's severed from the bloody stump of his wrist.
Our Orb-Blades don't cauterize wounds. The searing blue-black blade just cuts through flesh and bone like the sharpest knife imaginable.
After all – why would you want a weapon that does the work of the surgeon and the nurse?
We pass by other bodies of slaughtered crewmen – until we finally get to the breach in the hull through which we’d boarded this vessel. We’d literally carved a hole into the vessel – shearing through the hull with our Orb-Beams, and then sealing shut the vacuum by ramming our vessel through the hole like a heavily-armored cork. It’s a standard attack plan for Aurelian Reavers; and remains an effective one.
I scan the controls for further signs of danger – but, according to the readings, we’ve killed every hostile crewmember on the ship.
That means we’ve saved Allie. We saved our Fated Mate.
Gods! When she’d first disappeared from my mind, it was like the sunlight disappearing from the sky above us. The moment it had happened, I’d realized she was either dead…
…or, someone with an intimate knowledge of the Bond, had temporarily severed the connection between us.
In addition to the cargo ship blasting off from The Rhino, that was our other clue as to who had taken Allie. As the only other Aurelian on the planet, only Torreli would have known how to sever our Bond – and possess a helmet which could block her aura from ours.
We all board our Reaver, Allie forcibly pulling Lilac behind her.
“Daccia,” Allie warns, as we seal the
