Chapter 8
Maya
Maya could not believe the words she’d just heard. A mate? He already had a mate? What the hell? The stab of disappointment turned into righteous anger.
“You have a mate? Then why the fuck were you touching me? Kissing me?” Ugh! She felt so dirty now for touching him. She was no homewrecker. And she’d thought it wasn’t possible for someone to cheat on their mate.
“No! You misunderstand,” Ranek said, putting his hands up in defense. “I do not have a mate.”
“You literally just said you did, you lying liar!” she shouted. Her face heated up, and she felt the anger bubble up from the pressure in her chest.
“I said I’ve already found my mate. And I did. She rejected me!” he yelled the last words almost at a roar.
There was nothing but the echo of his voice as the meaning finally reached her. She stood there in shock, mouth agape. A rejected matebond was like a death sentence. Was this why he was running from a life in the inner planets? Was this why he avoided talking about it?
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“It was many years ago,” he said, softer. “She’s no longer among the living. I don’t even remember her face. Sometimes I wonder if she really was my mate, or if she ever even existed.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But Channa has haunted me for long enough, and I’m ready to restart my life.
” He looked down at her, and his face was nothing but earnest. “I cannot test for compatibility with you because the most I can offer is a partnership of convenience. It would be wrong for me to lead you on. I understand that many females will not settle for anything less than a mate bond.”
Then he turned and walked out of the medical bay before she could respond, leaving Maya alone and still too shocked for meaningful words.
Damn it! That wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
She cursed herself for reacting before getting all the information. Poor Ranek! A rejected mate bond was bad. According to what she’d heard, most didn’t survive, and the rest went crazy.
Ranek didn’t seem crazy, but then again, she barely knew him.
Maybe he was and just hid it well. But Maya liked to think that she was a decent judge of character.
Ranek hadn’t displayed any red flags. If anything, he’d been green-flagging it the whole time, from his rescuing her without an expectation of payment, all the way until the moment he told her the truth of his marital… or was that mate… status.
He'd been more than patient with Commander Chaos, even when the pup was gnawing on his ankle. Sure, the dragus pup didn’t have his adult teeth yet, but Maya had been nipped a few times, and those cute little baby teeth still did damage.
And he’d even given the pup one of his ration bars.
Maya had a really soft spot, like marshmallow-center soft, for guys who treated animals well, and Ranek was a prime example.
And he’d also offered to bring her back to Reka 5. That would take days out of his routine. Days out of his mission to make something of his new life in the outer planets.
Her mind still racing, Maya looked around the infirmary for Commander Chaos. He’d been sleeping under one of the beds, but wasn’t there anymore.
Was she still interested in Ranek now that she knew the truth?
One of the appeals of dating a Tallean was the mate bond itself.
A mated Tallean had only his mate in his mind.
She was everything to him, the sun, the moons, the stars.
He was unable to cheat on her or hurt her, unless there was something very wrong with him.
Among their kind, harming a mate was one of the highest crimes, proof of a sick and broken mind, not worthy of rehabilitation.
A mate was everything. They were the center of one’s existence. Finding a mate was like finding the other half of your soul. Nothing mattered more.
If Ranek had already found and lost his, then Maya could never be his one and only.
The thought had her suddenly laughing out loud at herself.
What the hell was she doing? Was she going to reject the guy outright just because he couldn’t have a mate?
She couldn’t form a mate bond either, and neither could any of the millions of eligible humans in the dating pool.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t have a good time, or even find love.
Would she prefer to have a hot, sexy Tallean male claim her as his mate and devote his entire life to her? Sure! Who the hell wouldn’t? But that shouldn’t mean she should avoid anyone who wasn’t the ideal candidate. Imagine all the fun in life she’d miss if she lived like that!
And even after all he went through, Ranek wasn’t giving up! And the way he had said that his lost mate had haunted him enough? That wasn’t someone still pining for the past but the desperate plea of someone craving a future.
He hadn’t given up on himself. She couldn’t do any less!
Maya also couldn’t find Commander Chaos.
The infirmary wasn’t particularly big either: just a few partitions for makeshift rooms, a large area with a half dozen beds, the office where they’d eaten, and the facilities with a few stalls and the cleansing unit.
Maybe Commander Chaos was in there since that was where he’d played with the water.
She went to check, but there was no sign of the pup. The little dragus was usually loud and rambunctious, but he could also be surprisingly sneaky when he wanted to be, like that time he stole a whole-ass tepin leg from Grant’s plate without making a single peep.
Shit. He was causing trouble, wasn’t he?
“Commander Chaos!” she called, hoping the pup would yip or do something to give himself away.
Deciding to work smarter and not harder, she got down on her hands and knees to dragus pup eye level to see the world through his eyes.
From this new vantage point, she noticed a lot more.
For example, it was dusty underneath the beds, and she could see much of it had been stirred up and moved around by his little paws.
There was also a pile of old food wrappers in the corner under a table.
But it was the random shoe under the desk that caught her attention.
Commander Chaos loved shoes; that was yet another thing dragus had in common with Earth dogs. Staying low, she crawled over to the shoe. Sure enough, it bore some very familiar tooth marks.
Maya looked up from the chewed-up leather and gasped. There, under the desk, behind the sheet of fabric that covered some old boxes, was a vent plenty big enough for the little dragus to fit through. And the grate covering it was wide open!
Ranek
“Ranek!”
Ranek snapped to attention at the sound of Maya’s voice.
There was a note of panic, and his heart lurched in response.
Tucking the old music player he’d been looking at into his pocket, something he’d missed the first time he’d rummaged through this old mining station for valuables, he stepped out of the barracks.
The sound of his boots echoed through the empty mining station, and the dust that clung to every surface stirred, drifting up to fill the musty air. A sense of foreboding had him moving faster down the corridor toward the infirmary.
Maya met him in the hallway, eyes wide, and looking like she’d just evaded more of those flying creatures that hunted this part of the planet at night.
Her hands trembled as she reached for him, and the protective instincts had him hauling her into his chest to keep her close, even as he scanned the surroundings for danger or anything that could have caused her panic.
“What’s wrong?”
“Commander Chaos is gone,” she said, the words pouring out in a rush. “There was a vent under the desk that we didn’t notice. The grate’s open. He’s gone!”
Ranek followed Maya as she broke out into a hurried jog back to the infirmary. Maya was already moving to the large desk in the corner and getting down onto her hands and knees.
“It’s behind this box.” She shoved at the box, but it barely moved. “I can’t believe I didn’t check under the desk for a vent.”
“You couldn’t have known. Don’t blame yourself. I was the one who told you the room was secure,” he said, pushing the heavy box to the side before dropping down to his knees with her.
The vent gaped open at him, the edges smooth enough, but rimmed with dust and grime.
All except for one spot at the center of the bottom lip, where the pup had recently climbed over.
That and the dusty paw prints just inside the opening were proof enough that Commander Chaos had indeed gone this way.
Beyond it, the vents were dark and filled with the smell of metal and oil.
Ranek’s first reaction was to climb in there, track the pup down, and bring him back to Maya.
Anything to receive Maya’s gratefulness.
But the vents were much too narrow for his body.
That didn’t stop him from sticking his head in as far as he could to see what he could see.
The answer was nothing. He could see nothing but endless narrow vents and dust. So much dust. He was surprised he couldn’t hear the tiny pup sneezing through the walls.
“You can’t fit in there,” Maya said, urging him out. “But I can.”
Every part of Ranek cringed at the thought of Maya climbing into the dirty vent. He didn’t want her anywhere near it. Especially since he didn’t know where it connected to and what lay beyond. Something in his gut, an instinct, rose, demanding that he keep her safe.
Every protective urge in his body screamed to pull her back, to wrap her in his arms and shield her from whatever dangers awaited her.
“You aren’t going in there. It’s too dark, and…”
But Maya was already clamoring into the narrow opening.
Fuck! He acted on instinct, grabbing her legs and pulling her back. Not expecting it, she let out a squeal, even as he wrapped his arms around her and held her to him.
“No! I need to go after him. He’s going to get hurt!”
“We’ll get him back. But you can’t climb in there. It’s dark. You can’t see anything, and we don’t know where it goes.”
“But Commander Chaos is all alone!” she wailed, pounding on his chest. “Let me go! I need to go after him.”
The words sounded so desperate; it broke the heart he didn’t even know he still had.
“We will. I promise.” He turned her in his arms. “But you are useless to Commander Chaos if you’re dead or hurt. So let’s think this through. There has to be a schematic of the station somewhere. The vents must be connected, and we know he’s not at this opening.”
“Yes,” she said, taking a few breaths. “There are other vent openings. He’s somewhere else in the station.”
Maybe. But Ranek knew something Maya didn’t. According to his friend Ckzarr, the vents were also connected to the mines. He just hoped the grates leading out to the tunnels were closed. There was more than just dust and sharp metal in the mines.
After the Dominion had left the mining planet, nature had taken over not just the buildings but the mines themselves.
An entire ecosystem had settled in its cave-like interiors.
This included at least two large predators that he knew of.
His friend Ckzarr had battled one and made friends with the other.
But Ranek wasn’t going to tell Maya that yet. Not when there was a chance that Commander Chaos was still right here in the station and safe and sound. There was no point in worrying her even more. He wanted to protect her from everything, even the stress of worry.
Now that she was calmer, Ranek pressed his forehead against hers and cupped her cheeks. “We will find Commander Chaos. I promise.”