I mouth them back to him again.
You’ve set me free.
We don’t need words anymore – as if we’re Bonded together, just like in the Aurelian lore.
It’s as if we can talk to each other with thoughts, not words – just like Brennan can with the rest of his triad.
As we stand in silent connection, the sorrowful, alien warrior steps forward. There’s none of the rage in him that he had before. The mating energy is there – his desire for me burns hotter than the sun - but it’s as if he’s wound it into a tightly controlled ball.
All that explosive power beneath his statue-like exterior, but on the outside Brennan stands as still as the surface of a lake at moon rise.
Brennan is a body of undisturbed water – and I am a pebble, skipping on the surface. Despite the ripples I cause, I don’t know if I could ever sink underneath the alien warrior’s still surface.
Brennan takes a deep breath, and then shakes he head slowly as he approaches me.
“We can protect you from anything – we could hide you from anyone…” He fills his lungs again. “Anyone except them. We can’t hide you from the Aurelian Law Enforcement – it wouldn’t be right.” He snorts softly. “Your father outplayed us. Touché.”
“What happens now?”
“Now, Natali? They’ll hunt us down. We broke one of the covenants of Aurelian law, and so we will face the consequences, or be branded Rogue. They’ll take us, and they’ll put us behind bars for a thousand years.”
Otho slams his fist against the wall. I wince at his ferocity, knowing that if a human had used that degree of force, every bone in his hand would have been instantly shattered.
But it’s the wall that’s left spiderwebbed with cracks now, and there’s no trace of physical pain in Otho’s slate-grey eyes. Only the pain of anger.
“We cannot give up!”
He roars the words out like a challenge – but I wonder what he means by them.
What are they giving up? The promise of forcing my father to surrender his Orb-Deposits?
Or me?
This was no longer just about gathering Orb-Material for the Empire.
Brennan closes the distance between us with two, long strides. The distance between us seems so small, now – but once they surrender it, it’ll become a gulf so wide we’ll never be able to cross it again.
Once Aurelian Law Enforcement catch up with us, it’s over. Only one man has ever escaped their prisons in the last thousand years, and he nearly brought the universe crashing into the heat of a devastating new war. Since then, security has only grown stronger. The walls of my father’s towering estate are as secure as tissue paper compared to the granite, steel and high-tech security of an Aurelian Penal Camp.
Brennan keeps shaking his head, and each movement seems to make him more certain in his decision.
“We can’t keep you with us, Natali – not now. It is one thing to hide you from your father’s forces. It’s another to keep you from the Aurelian Law Enforcement. We broke their laws – and we’ll have to face the consequences.”
“But…”
Brennan holds up one finger.
“No! I will not put you in that danger. The young bloods on the force are hot for an arrest – and hotter on their triggers. If a stray Orb-Beam were to hit you – if anything would happen to you – I’d take death over imprisonment; because life without you would be worse than death.”
I blink fast. This feels like a dream.
It feels as if I was never kidnapped – like I’m still in my bedroom, fast asleep, and that these last few days have all been conjured up in my imagination. I half-expect to wake up in my bed – momentarily uncertain as to what is real and what is fiction.
But if what Brennan tells me is true, it might as well all have been a dream.
Brennan is talking about giving up and turning himself in – submitting to Aurelian Law Enforcement for their supposedly ‘heinous crimes.’ Crimes to which I was the victim – and yet I’d not trade the memory of them for anything.
These three are not Rogue Aurelians – the cold-hearted warriors who’ve knowingly and deliberately cast aside the morality and decency of their Empire.
Otho, Brennan, and Lazar are men who made a bad decision, driven by inexperience and skewed by passion. I know that none of them have been able to think clearly since they first encountered me – by the Gods, I haven’t been able to, either – and that kidnapping me was most definitely not just about securing those Orb-Deposits.
But despite their innocence, Brennan and his battle-brothers are going to submit to the consequences of their supposed crimes – sacrificing themselves rather than risk putting me in danger.
Their sense of duty and honor is admirable – but some part of me just wishes Brennan would be bold – that he’d snatch me up and take me in his Reaver – fleeing with his battle-brothers, and facing pursuit forever, but declaring his devotion to me – and pulling me from my old life forever.
I always wished for a handsome rogue to set me free. I never expected three of them.
“I can’t.”
Brennan blinks. He hadn’t asked me anything.
“I can’t,” I repeat. “I can’t go back to how things were before I met you. You’ve set me free. Don’t return me to the cage.”
My own words stun me.
I’d nearly died while trying to escape these three. I’d thought they were amateurs back then, who wouldn’t be able to keep me safe.
Now I finally trust them – understand them - they’re threatening to put me right back where I was in the first place, and give up their freedom to avoid putting me in harm’s way.
And what harm? The potential for over-zealous Aurelian
