Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Logan
On the communicator screen, my sister was sitting in an escape pod just like the one we were in, next to one of her men, Axel, who had an arm around her waist. She looked nervous, but not totally freaked out, so that was good.
Cix was sprawled across Axel’s lap, looking more frightened than the other two, but he was a nervous little guy.
The space station was another story. We could see hundreds of escape pods ejecting from their ports, and in one section, the evidence of an explosion.
“Oh, thank goodness you guys made it to a pod,” she said, smiling. “That was chaos.” Axel pulled her closer and kissed the side of her forehead. In the background, I could hear T’ukka talking to someone else in Aunga’ri.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“Sabotage. There was a message related to the attack. Someone is unhappy with the way the Vul are being allowed to integrate.” She sighed, and I knew what she was feeling, how much she loved Cix, because I had that kind of attachment to Olzi.
“They want to force us down to Earth to let the angry humans deal with the Vul.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. And Olzi’s startled glance made me wish I hadn’t taken the call in front of him. “Olzi and Cix will be welcome in the Aunga’ri compound in Montana?”
“Yes,” Mia said. “And Nora is in talks with the US military now about assuring that the compound is safe for our people. I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, try to stay calm, okay? I know it’ll be a crazy adjustment for you, too.”
“Love you. Stay safe, and keep your guys safe, took, okay?”
“Love you too, little brother, and the same to you,” she said, smiling softly, then disappeared from the screen.
I closed my eyes, looking down at my purple skin.
For so long, I’d just been glad to be alive, not really worried about the changes in my body.
But now, the way my skin looked was going to keep me confined to a small compound in Montana.
I wasn’t sure why that felt worse than the space station, but it did.
At the space station, everyone was confined. It was a part of life.
In Montana, I’d be back home near the mountains I loved, my friends, and everything, but I wouldn’t be able to see any of them without risk.
I wondered if people would be open-minded if they’d see me and think about being able to find cures for people they loved, or if they’d see something they were frightened of.
Olzi shifted the shuttle into autopilot, inputting the coordinates of the Montana compound, and came over to sit in my lap, curling up in that cute way he did.
I met Ra’odah’s eyes as I stroked a hand down his back and over the curve of his ass.
The touch made him purr softly. I could feel his anxiety thrumming through him, echoed in the shakiness of his muscles, and it mirrored my own.
“You okay?” I asked.
He sighed, rubbing his face against my chest. “This kind of situation makes me replay the things I did and wonder if maybe I deserve to be handed over to the mob of angry humans.” He shuddered softly, and I remembered the tough front he’d put on when we’d first met, my heart breaking for the gentle soul that someone had manipulated until he became their soldier.
I closed my eyes, pulling him closer. “I honestly don’t know what the answer is, but you’ve changed so much from when I first met.”
“What if I haven’t?”
Ra’odah cleared her throat. “My medical reports came back, and there was a chemical compound in your brain that must have been used to aid in the brainwashing. So biologically, you have changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were using some kind of medication on you, likely to encourage your compliance. Cix could only rebel because it didn’t affect him in the same way.
Either time or the use of your tail dart and chemical processes associated with binding yourself to Logan seem to have reverted you back to your more natural brain chemistry, with the addition of this compulsion to submit to Logan.
” She made it all seem so clinical, and I could feel some of the tension ease out of Olzi’s shoulder muscles.
“I was drugged?” he whispered, his eyes widening.
“It would appear so. It tracks with the brainwashing strategies that the Vul leadership uses. Anyway, I would not see you as a threat, because you’re so innately bound to Logan now that it would be impossible for you to become what you were again.”
“But I still did those things,” Olzi said. “It was still me. I remember it.”
I tugged him closer against me, wanting every part of his body to be touching mine.
We were wearing too many clothes, and I didn’t know if it would be acceptable to strip him bare and bury myself inside him in front of Ra’odah.
To claim him once and for all, and chase these thoughts out of his mind with an intense orgasm.
“Orgasms won’t cure him,” Ra’odah said. “He likely needs therapy. But it may give him some comfort.”
My eyes swung over to her, widening as I realized the implications of her words. Not the meaning behind them, but that she’d spoken at all. “We have the bond thing, the psychic link?” I whispered. Her eyes widened slightly, and she shook her head. “I didn’t say that out loud.”
She was quiet for a long moment, ducking her head, her cheeks glowing pink. Then she nodded. “For a while now.”
“Why don’t I feel it, then? Mia can hear T’ukka from the other side of Earth.”
“I don’t know. Not much is known about the Bhesai Ker’el, because it was believed to be just a story,” she breathed.
“My guess, though, is that it will take a more intimate connection, or you would need to develop…” She cleared her throat and glanced out the window.
“You would need to develop feelings as strong as the ones I am experiencing.”
“You have feelings for me?” I asked.
“I think I have what humans call being in love,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. She was afraid of my answer to that.
“And Olzi?”
“He seemed like a complication, but now I feel your love for him, and it is very difficult to separate that from loving him myself. That’s why I kissed him, because you wanted to.”
“I’ll always have the first kiss,” Olzi said, his lips curling into a smug smile. I smacked his ass, and he squirmed happily against my hip.
“Ooh, will you spank me, Daddy?” he asked, shifting so his stomach was across my lap, his ass in the air, and it was pretty damn tempting.
Those round muscles, and the hole I wanted so badly to fuck.
I slipped a finger along the underside of his tail, teasing the sensitive ridge there until he shuddered, then gave his ass a hard slap. He yelped, then moaned softly.
“Since when have you started watching human porn?” I rubbed my hand up his ass cheek, massaging the muscle, and gave him another slap, listening to the purring as it escalated. When I met Ra’odah’s eyes, they were wide and dilated.
“Do you penetrate him?” Ra’odah asked.
“Not yet,” I said, and she finally allowed me to make eye contact. It was intense, and I felt her consciousness creeping in right at the edge of my own. “If we’re being honest, I had this plan to wait for you for that. For the three of us to be united.”
She gasped softly, frozen in place for a beat, before she tilted her head up and gave me a tentative peck on the lips.
With one hand on Olzi’s ass, holding him against me, I wrapped the other into her hair, yanking her mouth into mine.
Her kiss was tentative at first, but as I deepened it, she became bold and inquisitive, her tongue slipping against mine and making me groan.
My two soulmates, the only people I needed in this universe, were snuggled against me, and the joy of that knowledge hit me like a tidal wave.
They were precious and beautiful and I was damn well going to keep them.