Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
As Samantha stared at her blood-stained hands, her confusion became shock.
Not mine. It’s not mine.
Then whose ?
Samantha looked up at Arcanthus. There was blood spattered on his chest, soaked into his robe, and glistening on his hand. Horror, somehow fiery and icy at once, spread outward from her chest. Her heart quickened.
“Arc? What happened? Are you hurt? Did they attack again?” The words tumbled out of her mouth in rapid succession, sped by her growing panic.
He lifted his hands, displaying his palms, and shook his head. “I’m fine, terran, and we weren’t attacked. Let’s head back to the room and clean you up.”
“If we weren’t, then what happened? Whose blood is this?”
Arcanthus sighed softly. “You remember the groalthuun who broke into your apartment?”
The same groalthuun who was stalking us at the Ventrillian Mall .
“Yes.”
“Well…he won’t be bothering us anymore.”
“What…what happened?”
He extended an arm, gesturing toward the bedroom. “Let’s head to the room and wash up, and I will tell you, all right?”
Samantha didn’t move. This situation felt familiar; how many times had James avoided her questions to hide what he’d done? How many times had he brushed aside her concerns so casually that it made her feel like she was insignificant—or, sometimes, like she was going insane?
Had she been a fool to let her guard down again? Had she misplaced her trust in Arcanthus?
“What happened, Arc?” Samantha asked quietly.
“Samantha…” He moved closer to her.
Sam retreated several steps.
He halted, hands falling to his sides. The hurt on his face almost made her resolve crumble. Almost .
“I had my people pick him up,” he finally said. “He was part of the Inner Reach Syndicate, a powerful crime organization. I needed to know why they came after me.”
A shiver coursed down her spine. “And you…you what? Tortured him?”
Please say no. Please say no. Even if you did it…please say no .
His brows fell low, and his expression hardened. “I’m not a good person, Samantha, but I gave him a chance to talk. He refused. There was no torture involved. His death was quick.”
Samantha clutched the fabric of her loose shirt.
It was so easy for her to forget that Arc was a criminal, so easy to forget that he fought and killed without batting an eye. He’d offered her only sweet, coaxing words, gentle touches, and honeyed promises. Were it not for the attack at her apartment building, she might never have seen the darker side of him. She might never have known what he was truly capable of.
When would his kindness stop? When would he get angry enough to hurt her? To strike her, to beat her?
To kill her?
Arcanthus closed the distance between them before she had a chance to escape. He pressed her back against the wall, looming over her, and she stiffened with another jolt of fear. She felt tiny, helpless, weak, trapped ; there was nowhere to go, and she’d done it.
She’d triggered him.
He raised his hands. She expected his powerful fingers to dig into her skin, expected the crushing force of his grip to fracture her bones, but there was only warmth, gentleness, and care as he cradled her face and tilted it up toward his.
“ Never you, Samantha,” he growled vehemently. “Anyone else, but never you.”
Samantha stared up at him, heart pounding. His eyes burned as intensely as his qal markings.
Arcanthus leaned closer to her. “I will eliminate any threat to you, Samantha. I will do so without hesitation or remorse. But I would sooner plunge a blade into my own heart than do you any harm.”
She swallowed thickly. The little voice inside her head that whispered doubts— he’s lying; words are cheap; don’t fall for the act; he’s just like James —fell silent beneath Arcanthus’s passionate gaze. Whatever lies he’d told, whatever truths he’d masked, whatever concerns she might’ve had couldn’t discount the honesty and desire ablaze in his eyes. He was as silver-tongued as his sinfully demonic appearance suggested, but even one as talented and charismatic as Arcanthus couldn’t fake the genuine emotion he was projecting .
His bared soul gleamed in his eyes, and it would’ve shown her the truth even without the aid of his words.
Samantha’s stomach knotted with shame. She lifted her hands to cup his face but stopped when she noticed the blood on her fingers; she grasped his metal arms instead.
“I’m sorry,” she said, eyes stinging with tears. “I shouldn’t have… I know you’re not him. I saw the blood, and I just—”
“Just acted like a rational person would.” Arcanthus leaned his head down, closed his center eye, and tipped his forehead against hers. “You are new to this world. To my world. It would be foolish for either of us to expect you to have adjusted so quickly.”
“I don’t know if I’ve adjusted at all. I’ve just felt so…lost.”
Through it all, Arc had been her one constant—he’d been the rock jutting from churning waters, and she’d clung to him desperately. Without him…she would’ve been hopelessly adrift.
“Come, my flower. Let’s clean up,” he said gently.
Samantha nodded.
They returned to his room quietly, and for the fourth time in what felt like a day—though she was fairly certain at least two days had passed since she was brought here—she bathed. Arcanthus joined her in the water, scrubbing the blood from his body and brushing his hands over her skin. His touch was soothing, and he kept their contact chaste. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t ready for intimacy just yet. She needed something more from him; she needed answers.
She needed to know everything.
He didn’t allow her to dress once they had left the water and dried—he said he wanted to feel her as he held her, that he wanted no obstacles between them.
Slipping his arms around Samantha, Arc lifted her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom. He pulled back the covers with his tail, laid her on the bed, and climbed in after her. She was in his arms again within a second. He drew her body against his and covered them with the blanket. His tail curled around her waist securely as he trailed a hand over her hair and down her spine.
Nestling against his chest, Samantha inhaled, taking in his scent. The mellow, spicy notes of sandalwood comforted her. Though she hadn’t known Arcanthus for long, it felt like right here, in his arms, with his scent surrounding her, was where she was meant to be. Like this was… home .
“Why me, Arcanthus?” she asked.
She’d asked the question already, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Why would he choose her when he could have almost any woman he wanted? Why her, when she was damaged, when she was broken, when she was timid and weak? Anyone else would’ve been a better choice. Anyone .
“I already told you, little terran. One look was all I needed to know you are mine. You’re my mate.”
Something about the way he said those last words gave Samantha pause. She leaned back and lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “What do you mean?”
“It means that my body, my instincts, and my…my soul recognize you as something more than anyone else could ever be to me. As my match. As the one person who can complete me, who can fill in what I’m missing.”
Samantha’s lips parted, her heart leapt, and something fluttered in her belly, spreading warmth outward. Joy unlike she’d ever known flooded her.
But on the heels of that joy crept her old friend, doubt.
He was just reacting to an instinctual drive. If not for that, he would never have paid her any attention. She would’ve been beneath his notice, and wasn’t that what she’d hoped to accomplish? To be beneath everyone’s notice, to be invisible, to make sure she never burdened anyone with her inadequacy?
Arcanthus’s eyes narrowed. He swept her hair back and settled his palm on her cheek. “I see you doing it to yourself, Samantha. You let yourself be happy for a moment, and now you’ve crushed it. Speak to me.”
“You…” She closed her eyes briefly and struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, “ You didn’t choose me.”
His brows rose, and the corners of his mouth curved in a ghost of a smile. “I didn’t? No, I suppose I didn’t choose you. I feel I had scant choice in the matter. My body reacted to you immediately, told me I had to have you. But it was when we first spoke, it was during those first minutes we spent together, that I knew it was more than a need to have you. I wanted to have you.
“The pull I feel toward you…it is powerful, yes. But I have considerable willpower at my disposal, if I choose to employ it, and such instincts can be ignored. Things very likely would’ve been far simpler for me if I’d ignored it. I would never have been targeted by the Syndicate. I wouldn’t have had to fight my way out of an apartment building. I wouldn’t have my thoughts consumed by you.”
Arcanthus brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “And I do not for one instant regret following those instincts, Samantha. I’d have gladly blasted my way through a thousand apartment complexes to have you at my side. I cannot imagine how empty I would feel without you here, now that I know what I was missing.”
Samantha stared down at him, her vision blurry from the tears welling in her eyes. Those tears spilled when she blinked. Her lower lip trembled against the power of the emotions roiling inside her; they were too strong to bear, too strong to hold in, but she couldn’t speak past the tightness in her throat. So, she did all she could—she threw herself against Arc, pressed her face against his neck, and clung to him.
Arcanthus might as well have said I love you ; his words carried the same weight as such a declaration, the same passion. And Samantha loved him, too. As outrageous as it sounded, she couldn’t imagine life without him.
Oh, I can imagine…desolate, cold, lonely .
Arcanthus had brought more laughter into her life than anyone or anything else, had given her safety, friendship, and—though she had a long way to go—her first taste of self-confidence.
Arc wrapped his arms around her. “ That is closer to the reaction I’d hoped for when I said you were my mate.”
Samantha laughed; she could hear his arrogant grin in his voice. Her tears dampened his skin, but he didn’t seem to mind. “How though? We’re…two different species.”
“Doesn’t matter, my flower. Especially considering the tretin side of my ancestry.”
“What do you mean?”
Arcanthus shifted back and propped his head on his hand so he could look down at her. “That depends on how in-depth a lesson you desire on biology and history.”
She lifted her hand and brushed her fingers over his face, tracing the qal markings around his left eye and cheek. He closed his eyes as though her touch was bliss.
“I want to know everything, Arcanthus,” she said. “I want to know all about you, your past, your people. The good and the bad. Everything.”
“I suppose we should take all that one step at a time, shouldn’t we?” he said with a soft smile, opening his eyes. “The tretins are a race of…well, they call themselves intergalactic conquerors , but their real drive seems to be to interbreed with every intelligent species in the universe. They have extremely adaptive reproductive systems that allow them to impregnate more or less anything they choose to mate with. They’re particularly fond of seeding hybrid races, and there are cases of them essentially outbreeding entire species by creating new strains.”
Samantha’s eyes rounded, and she slid her hand down to her belly.
Arc’s smile widened, showing his devilish fangs, as his eyes dipped to follow her hand. “Though I find the thought of you carrying my offspring immensely satisfying, you don’t need to worry. I have measures in place to prevent that situation.” He lowered his hand to cover hers; the metal of his palm was warm and strong. “Wholly reversible measures.”
She never would’ve considered the possibility of interspecies breeding had he not said anything; it had seemed a given that they couldn’t reproduce with one another. But now that the subject was out in the open, she couldn’t help thinking about it.
James hadn’t wanted anything to do with children—something for which she was incredibly thankful—and had forced birth control injections upon her. As soon as she’d left him, she stopped the treatments. Why would she have bothered? She hadn’t expected to be with anyone else—hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else— especially in an intimate manner.
The thought of having children with Arcanthus… It was a sweet one, and it filled her with warmth and joy.
What would their babies look like? Would they have horns, tails, and markings on their skin just like their father’s?
They’d be… adorable .
But what kind of mother would she be? Samantha’s mother had died while she was a baby, and though her grandmother had done the best she could, her age and failing health had limited her severely. Sam’s father had never remarried. She’d never really had a strong maternal role model to learn from.
Still, Sam would do her damnedest to be the best mom she could be… When the time was right.
I would be a good mom … I will be a good mom.
Arcanthus’s husky chuckle pulled her out of her thoughts. “I see the idea appeals to you, my flower.”
Samantha blushed and smiled shyly. “It does… But not yet.”
“No, not yet. We’d be getting a bit ahead of ourselves, wouldn’t we? It may be some time before I’m willing to share you.”
She reached up and brushed his hair out of his face, tucking it behind his long, pointed ear. “I…don’t want to share you, either.”
His qal glowed bright as he tipped his head forward and kissed her with more tenderness and affection than she’d ever experienced. His kisses had always been scalding, hungry, arousing, but this one was different—this was a gesture telling her he was here for her, that he’d always be here for her.
“Tell me more,” Samantha said when their lips separated. “Tell me about your childhood and your life. I want to know you, Arc.”
He shifted his hand as he leaned back on his elbow again, trailing his fingertips across his mouth. “I find myself torn between my desire to know more about you and the open invitation to talk about myself. You’re feeding into an already dangerously large ego, Samantha.”
Laughter bubbled up from within her. “I didn’t think you could pass up a chance to talk about yourself.”
His grin rekindled the light in his eyes. “You already know me so well. But as interesting as I seem, there’s not terribly much to tell. My people are a relatively new race in the eyes of the universe. Our holdings are small, like those of your people, and life on sedhi planets is… stressful might be a good word. By virtue of our history and lineage, we have strained relations with the volturians and outright hatred of the tretins. Both races are far greater in number and power than us.
“It is a strange dichotomy in which we exist. We are terrified of random attacks from the volturians and the tretins, while at the same time our nature instills within us a desire for combat. At any rate, I learned the arts of war from a young age, like most sedhi children. It was normal for us.”
“Is that why you said you used to be a fighter?” she asked, though his skills in combat suggested used to be was incorrect.
“I was a fighter, but not because of my childhood training. We’ll get to the point in my story shortly—and I’ll remind you that you wanted to know everything.” He moved his free hand to her shoulder and twined a strand of her hair around his fingers. “When I came of age, I joined the Sedhi Defense Coalition, as is required of all my people. I joined the Crimson Raiders, knowing it was a branch that actively sought engagement with our enemies. Skirmishes with the tretins were frequent. I saw a great deal of combat in that first year. Part of me reveled in it. It made no difference whether I was fighting for my people, so long as I was fighting.
“But I was captured. As brutal as the tretins can be—and they truly are—they enjoy taking prisoners, and it’s said the slave markets on Caldorius are fueled by tretin slavers. That’s where they brought me. I was sold as a slave, and my owner immediately tossed me into an arena to fight for my life. I suppose it was a test. Survival meant I was worth further investment.”
Samantha’s dawning horror was counteracted only by disbelief—it seemed insane that he could lie there and remain so nonchalant as he talked about these things, idly twirling her hair around his finger as though its color and texture were more important than his story.
She swallowed down those emotions and flicked her gaze to his right prosthetic. “Is that how…you…?”
Arcanthus glanced at his shoulder. “No. That’s a different story, for another time. I don’t think it will spoil anything if I tell you I survived that first bout. Over my years in those arenas, I became one of the most popular and skilled fighters. A champion. Though the planet isn’t known for placing much value on the law, there is a rule on Caldorius that is always honored—any gladiatorial slave who survives a certain number of bouts earns his freedom. It’s used as motivation, mainly, a means of giving fighters a goal to strive toward. Something to keep them motivated.
“And I did it. One hundred and fifty matches, one hundred and fifty victories. I earned my freedom—freedom that should’ve been mine from the start. But what they don’t tell you is that when you hit that milestone, your owner tosses you out without a credit to your name. The massive amount of money an enslaved gladiator earns for owners and promoters doesn’t go to that fighter—not one bit of it. So, most of them have no choice but to sign on with a promoter, all of whom are connected to one crime organization or another, and continue fighting. Just as much a slave as before, but if you’re winning for them, they might treat you nice. I refused to do that. I refused to be beholden to anyone. So I started doing it on my own. My skills, my winnings.”
“And what happened?” Samantha asked.
“I realized that the whole apparatus they had in place—the promoters, venues, trainers, all of it—was unnecessary and deceptive. It was designed to make free fighters think there was no choice but to take a contract with a crime organization, and even though each of those organizations operated its own arenas in its own territory, they were all working together as the Inner Reach Syndicate. So I formed my own organization. There were a few other fighters I knew who’d earned their freedom and were in situations similar to my own—Drakkal was one of them. We’d encountered one another frequently on the arena circuit. Only fought each other once, though.”
His face became suddenly serious, his smile fading and brows angling down. “And no matter what he tells you, the truth is that I won. Fairly.”
Despite how horrible Arc’s story was, Samantha couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was unexpected, and yet so like Arcanthus to preemptively shield his own ego.
Arcanthus’s center eye met her gaze while the others remained on his fingers. He hummed softly, lips quirking, as his tail stroked up and down the side of her leg.
She prompted him to continue by asking, “And then?”
“Some of them accepted my offer. Many didn’t. But as we demonstrated how successful we could be, how much money we could bring in for ourselves, more and more wanted to join. Unfortunately, the Syndicate wasn’t particularly fond of our enterprise. Things became bad enough that I had to go into hiding. When they tried to kill me outright, Drakkal and myself fled the planet. We came here and started all this.”
“Are you…still hiding?”
The corners of his mouth drew back, and his brow furrowed, but his features relaxed after a few moments. “I have to tell you that my natural instinct is to… diminish the truth on this one. I want you to feel safe here, Samantha. We are safe. But yes, I am hiding. As far as the Syndicate knows, I died on Caldorius ten years ago. I want to keep it that way. But with what’s happened lately…there’s a chance they know who I am, th at I survived. There’s a chance that’s why the Syndicate is after me now.”
“That’s why Drakkal was so irritable with you when you took me to the mall,” she said with a frown. Her eyes widened, and she clutched his arm. “It’s because of me, isn’t it? You exposed yourself because of me.”
He smiled his disarming, roguish, utterly confident smile. “No, Samantha. It was because of me. You have no blame in the decisions I make. You have no guilt in this situation. I knew better, and I ignored my good sense. But whatever happens, I won’t regret those risks—they’re the reason I have you here with me now.”
“But if—”
Arcanthus’s head swooped down, and his mouth captured hers, silencing her words and thoughts. The caress of his lips, the stroke of his tongue, and his delectable taste eased her into a malleable, dreamlike state.
When he broke the kiss and pulled back, he wore a small but satisfied smile.
“Enough questions for now. Let’s get back to what we were doing before Drakkal so inconsiderately woke me.” He shifted his arm from beneath his head and slipped it under hers as he lay down fully. His other arm settled over her hip, and his tail coiled around one of her legs.
Samantha settled her hands on his chest; his heart beat strong and steady beneath her palms. The room was dim but for the faint blue light from the walls and the soft yellow glow of his qal. The golden marks were beautiful against his dark gray skin.
With a sigh, Samantha snuggled closer, letting his heat and scent envelop her. Though she felt like she’d been sleeping for days, she could still feel the heaviness of exhaustion lurking at the edges of her mind .
“You’ll tell me more soon?” she asked.
“Soon, yes.” He nuzzled his face into her hair. “Have to keep some mystery about myself in the meantime, or you’ll lose interest.”
She smiled and kissed the base of his throat before laying her head down. “I don’t think that’s possible, Arcanthus.”