The Bonding Read online

  A few months ago he’d have called anyone a lunatic if they’d tried to tell him that he’d get sick of having his dick sucked. Well, he was sick of having his dick sucked. For two days, every couple of hours, Nissa had reached for his cock and guided it unerringly between her lips. She’d sucked at it as if it was a lifeline, swallowing his serum like it was medicine. Which it was, he supposed.

  A man’s dream, right? The first two times, maybe, but he had quickly realized she did it in order to maintain her distance. Then it had lost its appeal. The frustration burned.

  He was her mate, not just a warm body attached to a hard cock. She sat in a chair near the open hatchway, covered in a blanket, watching but taking no part in the conversation. The crew played a loud and unruly dice game in the control room. The game was about a third luck and a third skill. The remaining third rested on one’s ability to generate inventive insults.

  Nissa watched with a cautious curiosity that made him loath to interrupt her. He brought her a glass of vyanno, a deep blue drink that tasted of dry, sugarless berries and packed a low alcoholic punch. Maybe it would relax her.

  She nodded at him politely, her gaze slipping away. She’d probably never been alone with so many males in her life. Not only that but he’d be willing to bet all the cred he had that she’d never heard anyone make the sort of jokes that Sero had in the last few minutes.

  It had been two hours. Usually she could go a bit longer but he knew from experience his presence made it worse sometimes and he wondered if there wasn’t an emotional component to the needs of their bond as well. Without physical contact she’d become increasingly needy. He let her stew until her thighs scissored.

  When her body was ready, he lifted her into his arms and carried her down the passageway. Once in the privacy of their bunk, he pressed her against the bulkhead.

  He held her gaze for a long minute, willing her not to push him away. “Please.”

  She nodded.

  He didn’t need more than that. He needed her. With a quick grunt, he shoved a hand up her skirt, stroked his fingers along heated flesh. “Gods, you feel good,” he panted against her mouth.

  Closing his mouth over her neck, taking comfort in the fact that she’d permitted him to touch her, he bared her breasts, sucked a nipple into his mouth.

  Her chest heaved with every breath, her pussy pulsing around his fingers. Her clit was rock solid and round beneath his thumb as he stroked it, letting the ridges of his fingerprints provide all the stimulation she needed as he dragged it over slippery- smooth skin. Her head thrashed as she bucked in his arms. She tried to turn her face away but he held her still with a hand at the back of her neck.

  “Look at me.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Look at me. Please,” he begged, hating it. His voice broke on the last word like a teenage boy’s.

  She opened her eyes. They were dilated, heavy-lidded with lust. He shoved himself inside her in a single thrust, hard enough to make them both groan.

  “Nothing has changed,” he said against her cheek when she turned her mouth from him. He dragged her face back to meet his, careful not to touch the sensitive bruises over her cheekbone. He slid his tongue between her lips. Something broke—his tongue in her mouth triggered something. She moaned, long and low, and her body bucked. Fingernails dug into the skin of his back and arms, her hands dragging at him as if she’d been starved.

  She wrapped her legs around him as he thrust inside her, clawing at him with her hands, climbing his body as if he was a tree and wild animals chased after her, as if he was the only thing in the universe that could save her.

  She bit his lip. He tasted blood. She knocked against his busted nose with hers. The pain only made it hurt better. She worked her hands inside his flight-suit and raked his skin with her fingernails. He cursed. He’d have scrapes. He pulled her hair. She pulled his.

  She thrust her hips against his driving cock, as if she wanted to get under his skin, set up a little tent and never leave. He thrust harder. Finally.

  “It’s me, Nissa. Me. Tam. Your mate. Not them. This is the force of our love. Not their hate,” he gritted against her neck, her panting breaths in his ear.

  Capturing one of her clawed fists, he pressed it against his chest and his own against her heart.

  She came hard, screaming, and he kept on thrusting. Their foreheads pressed together, mouths open, an inch apart, too breathless to kiss. Her breath washed over his cheeks and he panted against hers.

  He shoved his hand between their bodies to stroke her clit, forcing another orgasm. She writhed, wide-mouthed and breathless against his lips.

  “Eyana, gods, fuck. I’m coming.” He didn’t actually explode, but it felt like it, from the cock out in a great big burst of heat. His knees shook and he barely managed to keep them both upright as he pulsed inside her.

  She sighed, satisfied and replete. He kissed her, stroking her, willing her to understand what he didn’t know how to say.

  She pulled her face away.

  “Look at me.” He dragged her chin back toward his. “What’s wrong?”

  She swallowed so audibly he could hear it. “I was born to serve those people.”

  He quirked a brow. That made no sense. “You were born to serve people five hundred years ago. They’re all dead.”

  “We abandoned them. These are the ones who are left. They don’t need to die. They need to be rescued,” she said and he shook his head at her, too furious to hide his reaction. “And you just killed them. And you liked it!”

  “You make no sense.” Tam stared at her in disbelief. Replaying her words. Trying to make sense of nonsense. Trying to stay calm.

  Her eyes were wide and shining with unshed tears. He struggled to keep his voice calm. “You saw it with your own eyes. Stop lying to yourself. You felt it. Those men were rapists, murderers. They would have killed us. They were Trianni. Every bit as dark and dirty and sordid as me or the Vestige.”

  She tore her chin away from his hand. “Do you feel no remorse?”

  “None. I never fucking pretended to be anything other than me,” he shouted, giving in to all the frustration of her injustice. “I care about nothing but the Tribe and you. You are my only family. I would kill them all for you. I would do it with glee. I’ve broken orders, fucked with my superiors. I’ve done nothing but fight for you and your people. People I’ve never met. For you. Nissa. Not for me. I’ve done that for you.”

  She looked away. “What do you want from me?”

  “You. Just you. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Stop focusing on the hows and the whys. Fucking see me when you look at me. And want me.”

  “The bond makes it too confusing. I don’t know what’s real.”

  Tam couldn’t control the snarl building in his throat. “That’s bullshit, Nissa. You look at me and you can’t see past the haze of shit. Look at me. See me. Without the bullshit. That’s all I want. You. No bullshit.”

  “I don’t want anyone to die. Not for me. Certainly not my people.” Her voice came out in a scream, high-pitched and throaty.

  “They’re not your people anymore. It’s been five hundred years.” He pulled his dick out of her and released his hold under her ass so she could drop her feet back to the floor.

  He turned his back to her, shoulders heaving. “Would you feel better if I had let them kill you?”

  She said nothing. “You stabbed that man in the eye. You knew what I would do to them.”

  “I chose you over my people.” Her voice came so quietly, and with such resolve, he knew there was something he’d missed, something she wanted him to see.

  But fuck if he knew what it was. “I am your mate. Tribe pairs choose each other over all else.”

  “I’m not Tribe, Tam. I’m Trianni. I was born for those people. My life isn’t my own to live. It belongs to them.”

  Fear licked up his spine at the meaning behind her words. She was telling him something. Somethin
g he couldn’t understand. Silence stretched between them, so long and loud that finally he rounded on her. “Your people are dead. I am standing right here, right in-fucking-front of you.”

  “Those people may not know me, but they are still Trianni. Five hundred years doesn’t change that. I abandoned them.”

  He growled at that. “You make no sense.”

  “You aren’t trying to understand.”

  Tam disagreed. He was trying pretty damn hard.

  22

  My dying heart.

  NISSA WOKE in the early hours of the morning from a dream in which she stood alone in a pool of blood as long and wide as the universe. Nothing but her own vacant body and blood and emptiness.

  She slipped from Tam’s embrace to dress and find breakfast. In sleep, alone, she’d been able to find the peace with Tam that both their bodies needed. He’d woken her repeatedly during the night and slipped inside her. Before she remembered who she was, who her people were, her body had betrayed her every single time. Her body knew who it belonged to, craving his touch, eager for contact. Her body opened under Tam like a flower to the sun.

  When she entered the kitchenette, she found Tycho seated at the small counter there, his eyes gazing out over a view of deep space. She muttered an apology and turned to leave.

  “I had sisters,” he said, his back to her, his yellow hair in its bun, shining bright under the overhead lights. “They died. I remember them. You remind me of them.”

  Nissa froze in the hatchway at his words. “You’re hurting,” he said. It wasn’t really a question. They’d lost so many loved ones.

  She nodded though he couldn’t see her.

  “Why?”

  She moved into the room and poured herself a cup of eeffoc. What is your problem? Tam’s words echoed through her mind.

  “I saw my future. I didn’t like it.”

  “Then change it,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  Nissa nodded. “Yes, but sometimes we have little choice in the option we select. I’d hoped we would find something different on Triannon.”

  Tycho sipped his drink but still didn’t turn to look at her. “What did you hope to find?”

  “Peace.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Desperation.” She met her own gaze in the reflection on the windows overlooking space. She looked terrible.

  They were silent for a long moment, busy in their own minds. When Tycho spoke, he did it slowly. “The Vestige killed my sisters and my mother and I hate them for it. But even I can see them for what they are. Nothing more and nothing less than a product of what the universe has given them. Tam lost his family. And now he has you. You’re his family now. If you blame him for killing the men who attacked you, you shouldn’t. It’s in our nature to kill anyone who threatens our mates. He would kill any number of times to save you.”

  She nodded. “He would.” She knew that without a doubt.

  “Would you?” Tycho asked.

  “Yes,” she said and the speed and ease of the answer surprised even her.

  Tycho met her eyes in the window for the first time. He smiled at her. “Then what is your problem?”

  Tam’s words again.

  A tear slid down her cheek. “Killing people won’t solve this.”

  “What would solve it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s like he’s erasing me.”

  “Is that his fault? Or the fault of circumstance?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t know.

  Tycho turned on his stool to face her. “Have you ever asked Tam if you are erasing him too? Maybe you both need to be erased to become something new. A bonded pair. Maybe that is how Bonding works.”

  And that, she mused, was the problem. If she still had a heart, it would have died anew.

  23

  The moon,

  Let’s bomb it.

  AT LEAST, when his mother had died, when his sister had died, there had been nothing he could do to save them. Absolutely nothing. They’d died of a disease for which he’d had no possible cure. He’d grieved without guilt. The aftermath of their deaths had been the worst days of his life.

  Until now. Guilt, doubt, shame and confusion muddied the waters and a new day moved forward to take preeminence as the worst.

  The day started out badly and it only got worse.

  He held open the hatch to WarCom for her. She’d donned her red dress that morning, and whatever that meant, it couldn’t be a good thing.

  She’d reclaimed something, marked something with that dress. Her individuality, maybe, or her role as Trianni royalty? She’d pulled her hair into a high knot on the top of her head, out of her face, and all of her dripped in gold jewelry. She looked like a princess, like the queen-designate she kept insisting she was, like he’d never get to keep her in a million years, like she didn’t really belong with him.

  His lungs constricted.

  He rested his hand on the bare skin of her lower back as they walked, her flesh warm and smooth under the pads of his fingertips.

  The admiral had scheduled a debriefing for first thing in the morning, a scant six hours after they’d docked in deep bay the night before. He’d have preferred she stayed in their chambers to rest after their trip but the look she’d given him had curbed any attempts he might have had to press the issue.

  Sero sat beside Tycho at the massive black table. His knife swirled a lazy arc through the air, silver reflecting back from the shining surface. Both warriors nodded at them. Tycho stood and held the chair beside him out for Nissa and they took their seats. It was several minutes before the admiral entered the room with some of the chiefs, Slynnyar among them.

  “We received your transmission,” the admiral announced. “Please describe for us your experience on Triannon.”

  Tam closed his hand around Nissa’s. “We believe the Vestige have turned it into a mining colony. Quartz. Trian sits on a massive bed of quartz.”

  No one reacted with any kind of surprise to that news.

  “The city appears to be inhabited by a civilian population of Vestige operators and Trianni workers. We saw no evidence of any military presence on Triannon. That seems to have been reserved for the larger of the two gray moons, which Nissa’s people call Teemo.”

  The chiefs all nodded.

  Tycho spoke softly. “While they were on the ground on Triannon, we did several flyovers of Teemo. There are about five thousand live bodies living and working at the base there. They have minimal weaponry. It seems to be nothing more than a satellite base designed to control the population on Triannon if necessary rather than a full-on installation.”

  They spent some time showing digi-screen maps and charts, detailing numbers, and weaponry, evaluating the various readings and scans.

  After about an hour, the admiral removed his small glasses and looked directly at Tam. “You have the most vested interest in this. How do you see this playing out?”

  Tycho placed a hand on Tam’s arm. “Sir, if I may interject, I’ve spent quite a long time considering this and I have an idea.”

  Tam looked at Tycho. What the hell did he think he was doing?

  “Drop crews on the ground, get them in position to take the planet as quietly as possible. Then bomb the base on Teemo, sir. There will be only token resistance after that.”

  Sero whistled, imitating the sound of a falling bomb. “Blast the shit out of it.” His knife swirled. “Sirs.”

  A smattering of amused laughter sounded around the room.

  That explained it. Tycho hadn’t wanted the recommendation to come from him, at least not in front of Nissa. Sero was just being himself. Tam nodded dry thanks.

  Nissa sat frozen, shoulders rigid, palms flat on the table’s smooth black surface. Little fog halos spread around her fingers, as though her hands were clammy. “You want to bomb Teemo? Will it damage it?” Her voice rose at the
end, almost to a squeak.

  It went downhill from there, ending with a white-faced Nissa clutching at his hand, shaking her head in disbelief.

  They left the meeting and moved down the passageway in silence toward Healing Bay.

  Apprehension coursed through him like a tidal wave, swirling in thick eddies, stirring his guts to jelly.

  He knew what they’d find in the bay. He’d made a hasty decision before they’d departed Sierra-Six, and he hadn’t told Nissa her parents had been found. Instinct and fear had rumbled through his belly like a freight-ship and he hadn’t paused to think.

  She hadn’t quite asked if her father or mother had been found but she’d implied the question. He’d deliberately misled her, intending to tell her on their way home as a surprise. But then...there had never seemed to be a good time.

  It was a shitty excuse. She glanced at him, her face still bearing the tight, pinched expression it’d worn since they’d been interrupted mid-coitus by a pack of skinny little shits with grasping hands.

  He never should have let her go to Triannon. The passageway funneled into the main entrance to Healing Bay, lit like a gleaming beacon. Beyond the glass hatches, people moved about. Trianni women, dressed in robes similar to Nissa’s, though none as long, and full-skirted and regal. Their hair a variety of shades, from orange to burgundy. All of them small and birdlike and animated.

  Nissa inhaled sharply beside him, back straightening.

  A man stood amid the women, gray-haired and so clearly their king that a fresh wave of fear hit Tam like a blast to the chest.

  Ajax had commed him that her father had awakened, without the blue-tinge. One of the lucky few. What were the odds?

  For a brief, shiny moment, Nissa turned to him, with a wide expectant grin, like she wanted him to share her joy. Her hand, stretched halfway toward his arm, froze and pulled back.