I wonder what it will be like to pilot with my new senses? I’m eager to get behind the controls of one of his Reavers as we make our escape tonight.
But that can wait. For now, I have to play it cool. I crack open the bottle. The aroma of sweetness fills my nostrils.
“Sweetfruit,” Aelon tells me. “It grows on only one desert planet in the backwaters of some distant solar system – but it’s worth the expense to have it shipped.”
The towering Aurelian sits beside me.
“You’re Bonded to me now, Tasha,” Aelon purrs. “Your life won’t be barely scraping a living anymore. You won’t be always looking over your shoulder. We’ll protect you, Tasha. We’ll worship you. You’ll experience things you never even knew you wanted.”
For once, Aelon isn’t making a snarky comment or a ribald joke. In fact, I can’t detect even a hint of arrogance in his words. I wasn’t expecting this. The cocky Captain suddenly sounds sincere.
But it’s too little, too late.
I can still feel his darkness lurking in his mind, ready to surface at any moment. This gentle side of him would disappear in an instant if the Toads entered this system.
I take a sip of the drink, and the sweet nectar explodes on my tastebuds. Aelon drinks it too, but he seems restless. He simply stares at me, as though he’s seeing me for the first time.
“What is it?” I demand.
A sincere smile graces that handsome face.
“It’s just… Well, I never thought I’d experience this. You hope you will – but you never really believe it will happen. I’ve never been drawn to a woman like I’m drawn towards you, Tasha. Women have always been pleasant distractions – but until now, they’ve only been distractions.”
Asshole.
“Distractions?” I snort. “From what? Making money and killing Toads?”
His anger flares through the Bond – but Aelon’s face stays exactly the same. It’s uncanny how he can hide his emotions so fluently.
“Do not reduce me to that.”
“What more is there to you?”
I’m on thin ice. I’ll be gone from his life soon enough, and this is his last chance to convince me that there’s something deeper to him than just violence and anger.
He draws in a deep, harsh breath. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
His darkness is oozing through the Bond, like oil coming to the surface of water.
“Okay, then tell me. Tell me what happened that day.”
Aelon’s lips draw back, showing his teeth. The three of these Aurelians are beasts to the core. I can see it clearly now – and I don’t need the enhanced senses of the Bond to know Aelon can’t change. He won’t change. This man can’t be the father of my children. How could I bring sons into the world of this bloodthirsty, vengeful man?
But then he slowly begins to speak.
“I… I was on that Toad ship, back in my last year of service in the Aurelian Army. I was only supposed to be in diplomatic talks – but I slipped away from my Toad escort for a moment… and I saw something on board that ship I wasn’t supposed to see.”
His aura is growing cold and dark. I can feel his pain building inside of him, spilling over into my own mind. “What did you see, Aelon?”
“The Toad Captain,” he breathes. “He something so vile… so utterly evil…”
Aelon turns to me, and his face is different to how I’ve ever seen it before. The arrogance is gone. There’s just pain, instead.
“I know slavery is legal in the Toad system. I knew there were human women on board, and that there was nothing we could do about it… But this is different.”
Aelon leans closer.
“As disgusting as it is, I might have been able to stomach a Toad keeping concubines – human slaves those disgusting creatures treat like their whores. Their ships are like floating swamps, and those poor women have to live knee-deep in filth and fetid wetness… But this was different.”
He looks up at me.
“The Toad Captain had human women bound on tables and he was… he was… he was hurting them.”
He can’t bear to describe exactly what the Toad was doing. I don’t think I could bear to hear it. I shudder, feeling his disgust flowing through the Bond.
“I was alone on his ship,” Aelon shivers. “There was nothing I could do on my own – but I should have tried.” He shakes his head. “I thought… I thought my General would believe me – but he’s one of the bastards who look down on humans as weaker than us. When I got back to our ship, I reported what I’d seen higher up the chain of command, and I told them we needed to strike, and fast. We were in Toad territory, but that didn’t matter – we needed to help those women...”
Aelon’s arm is twitching from the tension.
“What happened then?”
The bottle shatters in his hand as Aelon crushes it. Blood and juice mixes, dripping to the floor. He snarls: “The General told me we weren’t going to start a war with the Toads for the sake of a few whores. His exact fucking words. So, I went in alone. I piloted my Reaver in, and my General turned the tractor beam on me and stopped me before I could attack – right up until the Toads left the sector. One other triad came with me. The triad I executed.”
Aelon laughs bitterly.
“When they were gone, he summoned me to his ship. The General looked me in the eye and told me I was lucky he didn’t use missiles to blow my Reaver out of space – or execute me for disobeying a direct order.”
Aelon is panting now. He stands and paces the room, his handsome face twisted in a mask of fury and vengeance.
“I… I told those women I’d save them. I told them I’d be back. Sixteen women, Tasha. Sixteen…”
His arms bulge as
