The Bonding Read online

  Five hundred years. They were still her people. They were squalid and miserable. They were poor and desperate and mean.

  Her father could help them create a better way of life. He could teach them to plant farms, to open markets, to build schools and better housing. They could rebuild the roads and the plazas, the bath houses.

  It might seem ridiculous to someone not of Trian to imagine leading a world abandoned so long ago, but they hadn’t meant to. They’d hoped to find help, return later, maybe a few years later, but not hundreds. They’d hoped they could help the people of Triannon. Whatever had happened in the last five centuries, there were still people there who needed help and her father could help them.

  “What is the happiness of one woman and one man, compared to the future of an entire race? An entire planet?” her mother asked and Nissa had no answer.

  She held the hand that had stroked her back as she drifted to sleep as a baby, that had dried her tears from the earliest age, had bandaged countless scrapes, offered constant support, been an undeniable and steady lifeline.

  For once, the demands of the bond receded to little more than a sullen throb. She watched as her mother took her final breaths, as her body stilled and her eyes froze.

  Some things cannot be unseen.

  The sight of her mother’s dead body assumed residence in a permanent location in her heart, an undeniable pall that would forever serve as a reminder of everything that would never be. Tears offered nothing. A hole filled her heart, the shape and size of the woman who had given her life.

  She stood, ignoring her father’s anguish and walked stiffly from the room in search of Tam.

  Her body numbed as she walked. There was too much to mourn. She didn’t know where to begin.

  Her mother.

  Tam.

  There weren’t enough tears in the universe.

  And now it was all over. She was lost.

  She found him beside the pink flowers in the Fields. He sat in a pool of vibrant yellow sunshine, his elbows resting on bent knees, face hard.

  She stood before him for a long moment, memorizing the dips and planes of his cherished face, the exact shade of his gray eyes, almost violet around the pupils, the hard edge of his jaw stubbled and dark.

  He watched her in turn, with the placid, undemanding, accepting stare of prey in the eyes of a hunter, in the face of sure-fire carnage. As if she held his life in the palm of her hand.

  Maybe she did.

  Pulling the straps of her gown down her arms, peeling it past her hips to pile on the floor at her feet, she dropped to her knees.

  Tycho had been right. Tam had erased her. She was half of a person without him. Less than that. She was a ghost. And what would he be without her?

  She stroked a hand down his cheek, willing him to feel her sorrow and her love. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him in days and surprise coursed through him through their bond.

  “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  There was nothing to say to that. She couldn’t think about it now. She sighed with an entire lifetime of regrets, moving closer to his body. She should have done this days ago.

  He opened his mouth, started to speak, but she hushed him with a finger to his lips. “Forget everything I said. I’m sorry, Tam.”

  His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth. She hushed him again. “No talking. I want to do what I should have done the second you threw the last man off the cliff.” She kissed him and their tongues met amid panting breaths.

  His hands traced over her back, down over her bottom, lifting and pulling her across his lap to straddle his hips.

  She fumbled with his belt buckle and he pushed her hands out of the way. When he was free she took the hard, hot length of him in her hand and guided him between her thighs where he belonged. She sighed with relief at their joining.

  She was never so complete as when he filled her, forcing her flesh, muscle and organs to part, to make way for his body’s invasion.

  They traced the curves and sinews of each other’s forms, memorizing, venerating. Beneath his fingers, her body vivified. She lived an entire lifetime in a few hours, like the Bonding in reverse. She saw all the future events that would never happen. All the moments that could have been, should have been. Laughter and sleeping, lovemaking, growing old together. Never meant to be.

  The Fields around them retreated, Sierra-Six dissipated to dust. There was only Tam and Nissa, alone in a black universe, studded with distant stars.

  But everything ends. She wrapped her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder and moved over him as hot, fat tears ran down her cheeks, dripped from her chin and coated his back.

  If she could have crawled inside him and never left, she would have. If. If. If. She would do so many things if...

  He must have seen it in her eyes. “You don’t have to say it,” he cut her off before she could start.

  “I do. I need to...”

  “I already know.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t.”

  “I do. You want to break the bond.” His voice cracked on the last word. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

  “Please, listen to me. You need to understand.”

  “I knew I wouldn’t get to keep you. You’ve been looking for a reason to do this since that first day.” His silence burned, sharp and hard. If it hadn’t been for the pain thrumming across their bond, she’d almost have imagined he didn’t care.

  She ran seeking hands through his hair. “You don’t have monarchies in the Tribe, so it may be hard for you to understand what this is like but since the day I was born, I was destined to be the queen. Every second of every day growing up I knew that my role in life was to serve my people. Trian was a place of freedom, everyone had the ability to choose every part of their lives, where they would live, what they would do, who they would marry. But not me. I was the only one on the entire planet whose life was all laid out. I would be queen, I would live in the palace and I would marry the man the people chose. I had accepted it. That’s tradition. When I woke up with you, I thought, I hoped that maybe I could change that. Maybe we’d get to Triannon and find people who didn’t need me to lead them. That maybe I could break that tradition. I...”

  Nissa’s voice broke and she scrubbed her hands over her face. “Part of me hoped that there wouldn’t be anyone there. Or that, I don’t know, it had gone completely over to the Vestige. Because then I’d have been free. And I could have kept you.”

  Tam was silent. In the darkness she couldn’t read his face. She rested her head on his chest, stroked his warm, bare skin, traced the hard muscles of his abdomen.

  “But those people can’t lead themselves. They have no experience, no frame of reference for living in a land of peace and freedom. Can you imagine if my father went there and said to them I was your king hundreds of years ago but I’m back now and I’m ready to rule?”

  Tam let out a low, breathy laugh. “They’d say fuck you.”

  She’d never hear that word and not think of him. She nodded against his chest. “Yes. But imagine if he went there with me and said five hundred years ago I led the people of Trian. We were prosperous and happy. Choose a leader, the man among you who is most capable of leading. Join with my daughter. Together we will build a new Trian. They need my father for his knowledge and experience. And they need me to create the union and the trust between us all. It’s the only way. The Tribe can get rid of the Vestige but they can’t rule Triannon. Without us they’ll descend into chaos, darkness and brutality, for who knows how long.”

  “I thought you said the Trianni aren’t brutal.” His voice rumbled through every cell in her body. Goddess, she loved him.

  “I was wrong. They need me. It isn’t about my father. Or Criamnon or my mother. It isn’t about you. Or about me. It’s about them. It’s about Triannon and the people there.”

  His arms wrapped around her, one hand sliding down her back to cup her bot
tom, the other taking her jaw in his hand.

  He pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. “It’s going to hurt. You’ll be sick as hell.”

  Nissa nodded. “I know. And I need to ask you to let me.”

  “This is what you want?”

  She bit her lip to stop the trembling. No. I don’t want this at all. “Yes.”

  “Fine.” His voice was bitter as death.

  She felt a slash of pain. His and hers. “I wish this could be different.”

  “Thinking like that is a waste of time,” he said in a rough voice and rolled her onto her back to push inside. “One last time?”

  She gasped at the force of his invasion. How would she survive this? “Please.” Her eyes burned but she refused to cry. Not now. It wouldn’t be fair. Later, she’d cry until she couldn’t cry ever again.

  This was hard enough for him without forcing him to offer her comfort. And he would, she knew. Now that the decision had been made, he’d help her. He’d encourage and comfort and even bully her if necessary to get the results she desired. He deserved so much more from her.

  He’d find someone else, she told herself, ignoring the stab of jealousy. She had to believe that he’d find happiness somewhere else, that he’d find a mate and have children and raise them to be good and strong and honorable like him. The universe couldn’t be so cruel as to force him to spend his life alone.

  “I love you,” she panted after a draining orgasm. It was the first time she’d said the words to him out loud.

  He pulled back to see her face, eyes incredulous. “Fuck you.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers in an angry kiss that tasted of salt.

  25

  No mate of mine.

  TAM EXTENDED AN ARM toward Nissa. “I’ll walk you back to the hospital.”

  “Thank you,” she said, looking uncomfortable. “You don’t have to do that.”

  His guts roiled, demanding action, denying this was possible. Anything would be better than calm acceptance.

  Passivity felt like lying down, spreading his thighs and waiting for a ball-smack with an iron wrench. It was all wrong. It took physical effort to control himself. His ass cheeks were clenched so tight walking was difficult but he didn’t scream or break anything, which was a victory of sorts. If he couldn’t keep his mate, at least he could keep his dignity. Sort of.

  Already they’d drifted into manners, erecting stratums of polite, inane platitudes to mask emotion. Guilt and pain and shame vibrated in his chest, right where the pith of the bond hid, at its most piquant. Fuck if he’d comfort her when she was leaving him. “Yes, I do.”

  She hooked her arm through his. They were silent on the return journey. What was there to say? I’m sorry... I wish... If only... What if we... I wonder...

  All of it was a waste of time. Tam wanted to get back to his chambers, his chambers now, before he did something humiliating, like beg her not to leave him, or attack the train, or scream until he passed out, or worst of all cry like a baby.

  Instead they walked arm in arm as though for an evening stroll, calm as you please.

  At Healing Bay, Ajax took one look at them and met Tam’s eye, questions thick in the planes of his face.

  Tam swallowed. “Could you find a room or something, somewhere safe for Nissa to stay for the next few days?”

  Ajax made a face.

  “We are breaking our bond.”

  Shame burned his cheeks. Acid on a burn. He clenched his teeth and dropped his gaze, unable to stand the pity in his friend’s eyes.

  Ajax’s head snapped a negative. Back and forth, tiny little gestures that conveyed confusion and disapproval. “I don’t think either of you realize what this is going to do.”

  “We do,” Tam said.

  Nissa stared at the floor.

  “This is going to hurt like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”

  “I won’t mind the pain,” Nissa said in a small, determined voice.

  Ajax’s gaze flew to Tam’s, disbelief written there, but he kept his mouth shut. A glance at Nissa and the tightening of the muscles around his jaws confirmed her knew exactly whose idea this was.

  Tam pulled her against him in a fast, hard hug, willing his body to memorize the feel of her. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go without at least having told her once. He should have told her before.

  She stiffened in his arms.

  “Go on to your father,” Tam said, though he nearly choked on the words.

  She clutched at his arm. “Wait, I—”

  “There’s nothing left to say.” He studied her wide, vibrantly green eyes, her smooth, milky skin, willing the memory of her face to imprint itself on his heart. “Don’t drag this out.”

  She wilted. And walked away. And the universe turned gray.

  “What the hell, Tam?” Ajax hissed, when she was beyond hearing range.

  “It’s the only way.”

  “This is bullshit.” Ajax shoved him staunchly in the chest. “She has no idea what she’s asking of you.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Tell her it’s not right. Tell her you could die.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” Tam turned to walk away.

  Ajax grabbed him by the upper arm. “I’m not. Do you know how many males die when they lose their mates?”

  Tam shook him off. He did. He knew exactly how many. A lot. His father for one. Ajax cursed and looked away, realizing what he’d said.

  “This is different. The bond is still new. We’ll be fine,” Tam said.

  “You don’t know that.” Ajax’s eyes blazed.

  “It doesn’t matter, Ajax. I wanted to make sure she got here safely and ask you to check in on her. Keep her safe.”

  Ajax’s face stayed hard.

  “She’s still my mate.”

  “Apparently not, as of fifteen seconds ago.”

  That was true. It hit Tam like a poleaxe and nearly felled him. “I’ll be fine.” He wanted to reassure Ajax, but it seemed like too much work. He shook his head. “Treat her as you would my mate.”

  Ajax looked as if he wanted to keep fighting but mercifully shut his mouth. It was bad enough having to go through with this, let alone convince someone else that it made sense when it didn’t.

  “Want me to sedate you?”

  “Fuck no. Keep your drugs to yourself. Last time you sedated me, I threw up for a week.”

  “You’re going to throw up for a week, now. Longer, probably, if you live.”

  “I know, but...” He broke off. He couldn’t imagine waking up a week later, hooked up to machines, free of Nissa, as if she’d never been. He needed the suffering. He needed the pain.

  Ajax sighed, understanding. “Want me to set you up in a bay?”

  “I don’t think I can trust myself to be that close.”

  “I’ll come by twice a day, check on you.”

  “Thanks,” Tam muttered.

  “This is insane.”

  Tam nodded. What could he say? It was. He looked over at Nissa, met her eyes one last time.

  He tapped his fist against his chest and watched a tear spill over her perfect cheek.

  She smiled, tremulously, and rubbed her own fist over her heart.

  26

  I puked,

  And my whole life came out.

  HE WAS DEFINITELY DYING.

  Tam threw up for the fifth time in as many minutes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything. Nothing left to vomit but his body didn’t care. His stomach cramped like a vise and his throat worked dry heaves that left him weak as a babe-in-arms.

  His shoulders shook as he braced himself over the bowl that Ajax had brought to him. Nothing but frothy bile. He collapsed on the ground next to it, dizzy, shaky and weary down to the bones. Goose bumps covered his skin, slick with sweat. He groaned as another wave of nausea built. He’d given up on the bed a few days ago, staying on the floor so the spasm
s didn’t send him sprawling to the carpet.

  The digi showed a foggy day on Argentus, the blue leaves veiled in gray. The shitty weather there made him feel better, or at least a little bit less bad. A sunny day would feel like mockery from some sick, sadistic god.

  His dick throbbed. It was really weird. Feeling like shit and being horny at the same time. His cock either didn’t know or didn’t care that the rest of him wasted with sickness. It throbbed and pulsed, demanding almost constant attention, keeping him busy whenever he wasn’t puking.

  He needed Nissa. The thought brought on another round of heaves through an already raw and burning throat.

  She couldn’t survive this. A stab of pain ricocheted across their bond and he knew with shattering menace that the effects were so much worse for her. He tried to get up and go to her, not for the first time, but lifting his weight onto his forearms brought a fresh wave of dizziness. After another round of racking heaves, he collapsed in a heap, unconscious.

  He dreamed of her, as he always did. Pale, dry lips in a deathly face, she looked terrible, at least in dreams. They didn’t talk. They always fell together, their dream- selves dragging at limbs, until finally they reached the solace of joined bodies. The sex was frantic, compulsive, draining but wholly unsatisfying. Neither of them ever came in their dreams. It sucked.

  When he opened his eyes again, he felt sapped, of body, of mind, of soul. Ajax stared down at him with hard eyes. “This is stupid.” Tam grunted. Talking would be too much work. Ajax just shook his head and stuck a needle in his arm, hooking up the IV bag. It brought a modicum of relief. He suspected Ajax had put a painkiller in the meds, but he didn’t ask.

  “I feel like shit,” he said instead.

  “You look worse.” Ajax fiddled with one of his machines, checking vitals, whatever healers did.

  Tam let his eyelids droop. “How is she?”