Chapter 10
Gavin
The sweetest scent stirred me from the deepest slumber I had ever experienced. My limbs weighed a ton. I felt a little groggy and my mind foggy. But that alluring perfume and the pleasant warmth pressing against me forced me awake.
My eyes fluttered, the brightness of the natural light flooding my room blinding me for a moment. And then I saw her. So beautiful, delicate, and innocent in her sleep. A powerful emotion swelled in my heart as I gazed at my mate.
I raised a hand to caress her cheek and prove to myself that she was real.
The absence of pain surprised me. I was still messed up, as indicated by the bandages covering quite a few parts of my body.
And yet, aside from some stiffness and heaviness, I couldn’t detect any real injury or source of major discomfort.
I knew she would fix me.
Not once did I doubt she would. However, never in a million years would I have expected to suffer this much when Venya foretold that there would be a great deal of pain. Still, I would do it all over again for her. No sacrifice would ever be too great to protect my mate.
I gently brushed my fingertips on the soft curve of her cheek and marveled at the silkiness of her light-gray skin. Zhara’s eyes instantly snapped open. For a split second, she seemed a bit confused as to where she was, then the most radiant smile blossomed on her face.
“Gavin!” she whispered.
To my shock, she grabbed my face with both hands and crushed my lips with a brutal kiss. My arm instantly wrapped around her, and I melted from the inside out. Ancestors, she was so perfect! A sense of destiny and incommensurable joy swept through me.
Zhara broke the kiss and locked eyes with me. Time stood still as I drowned in the endless depths of her magnificent yellow eyes with green specks. I could have stayed like this forever.
“How are you feeling?” she asked at last, worry seeping into her voice. “Are you hurting anywhere?”
I shook my head and gently smiled. “No, I’m fine. I knew you would heal me.”
To my dismay, instead of the smug grin I expected, tears welled in her eyes.
“You died, Gavin,” Zhara said with a quivering voice. “We teleported out of that nightmarish place only to see that you had died.”
My jaw dropped. A series of terrible images flashed before my eyes. Halfway through the climb, I started feeling myself dying. But it was the moment that the metal rubble slipped from my hands that I realized I was floating away from my body.
I refocused on my mate, and she looked surprised by the awe visible on my face.
“Yes, I died. And you brought me back. No one else but you could have done that,” I said, my heart filling to bursting.
“Just like no one else but you could have gotten me out of that pit. You saved me!” Zhara exclaimed.
“We saved each other, my love. I knew you would take care of me just like I will always take care of you,” I said while caressing her hair before taking on a mischievous expression. “But if you don’t mind, let’s try to have a less eventful second date.”
She snorted then nodded with a sheepish expression.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind something a bit more traditional for next time,” she said before giving me another hug.
We remained in each other’s embrace for a few moments, my arms tightening possessively as she pressed her slender body against mine. With much reluctance, I loosened my hold, and we exchanged a tender kiss.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I whispered more to myself than for her as I gazed at my mate’s features. “I thought this day would never come.”
The way she looked at me with something verging on adoration messed with my head. I had dreamt of this for so long while constantly fearing that she would be disappointed once she met me in person.
“You’re also stunning,” she said with a sincerity laced with timidity that messed me up.
I always struggled with compliments about my appearance.
While I didn’t consider myself ugly by any means, I also wouldn’t call myself handsome, if only for my more brutish Braxian traits—subtle though they were.
On Venus Hive, countless women had thrown themselves at me.
Although some of them had genuinely been interested in me as an individual, the majority had merely sought to get their claws into my family’s substantial wealth and status.
It still boggled my mind that someone as gorgeous as my Zhara could find me attractive.
So as always, I resorted to humor to hide my embarrassment.
“Stunning isn’t exactly the term I would use to describe myself. I’m burnt to a crisp,” I said teasingly.
She firmly shook her head before giving me a mischievous grin. “That might have been true before, but not anymore. Now, I would say that you’re rather just on this side of well-done.”
I burst out laughing, which made her chuckle. But that amusement was short-lived as my laughter shifted into a bout of coughing and wheezing.
Zhara instantly pressed her palm to my chest, and the most wondrous heat spread throughout my torso. The coughing stopped, and my breathing returned to normal.
“How bad is it?” I asked carefully when she stopped what she was doing.
“Much better than where it all started,” she replied in an apologetic tone. “You need to rest for at least a week and eat lots of food so that we can perform frequent healing sessions in stages. After that, you will be as good as new.”
“And you will be the one healing me, right?” I asked, relieved.
She looked at me as if I had said something absurd. “No one else will put their hands on you again but me! Far too many pretty ladies groped you over the last three days.”
“Three days!” I exclaimed, flabbergasted to have been out this long, even though it shouldn’t have surprised me. “And I slept through all that fun time?”
“Hey!” she exclaimed with false outrage.
I burst out laughing but immediately clamped down on it to avoid another round of coughing.
“I’m only teasing, my love. But I won’t lie that I enjoy you being possessive of me,” I admitted sheepishly.
She wrapped her arm around my waist and pressed herself against me. “I am extremely possessive of you. I didn’t wait all this time just to have some other female swoop in. You’re all mine, and I do not share.”
“Good, because I don’t share either, and I don’t want to be shared. I waited for you my whole life, Zhara. Everything that I am is yours, now and always.”
She beamed at me then lifted her face to receive my kiss. Ancestors, I was crazy for her.
A firm knock on the door startled us. We broke the kiss and glanced at the door. Zhara leaned on her elbow but didn’t get off the bed.
“Come in!” I called out.
To my shock, the General, Lhor, and Uncle Ghan walked into the room.
This time, Zhara fully straightened into a sitting position at the edge of the bed.
It wasn’t guilt at being caught in bed with me that had prompted that reaction.
Instead, a defiant and protective glimmer shone in her eyes as she warily observed her fathers and uncle approaching.
“Zhara, would you give us a moment with him?” Uncle Ghan asked, although it was more of a command.
My mate instantly stiffened and placed her hand on my chest as if to shield me from them.
“He’s still healing,” she said, her voice thick with tension.
“We won’t harm him,” Lhor said with a slightly amused tone. “We just want to talk.”
“You can talk with me here,” she countered.
I caressed her arm in a soothing fashion. “It’s okay, Zhara. If they start roughing me up, I’ll scream for help,” I said in an effort to lighten the atmosphere.
She opened her mouth to argue but her dad interrupted her.
“It’s okay,” Khel said. “She can stay as he will tell her the content of our conversation as soon as it’s over. But not a word from you, young lady.”
Her face reflected the shock and surprise I felt. While she clearly did not appreciate being told to remain quiet, she wisely took the win and gave him a stiff nod. The General then turned his attention towards me. I braced for what would follow.
“So what would you like to hear first? The good or the bad news?” Khel asked.
“The bad news,” I replied without hesitation.
Khel and Lhor snorted. For a reason I couldn’t explain, that struck me as being somewhat positive.
“You disobeyed direct orders. You incited others to insubordination. You recklessly went into danger with no clear plan or exit strategy. Because of that, you sustained grievous injuries and even died, which caused others to also get harmed in order to save you,” Ghan said in a stern voice.
“Each of these infractions should get you court martialed.”
When listed that way, it certainly didn’t look good. Under different circumstances, I would have flinched at each of those factual accusations. Instead, I lifted my chin with a hint of defiance.
Zhara tensed next to me. She was visibly battling the urge to interject. I grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze though my gaze never strayed from Ghan’s.
“Technically, this is all true. But I resigned,” I countered.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Khel said dismissively.
“But I was right,” I argued in an obvious tone.
“It doesn’t matter. You could have been wrong,” the General replied. “The other Braxians followed you to what could have been their deaths. As a leader, you have a responsibility to protect the lives of those under your command.”
“They needed to be there!” I exclaimed. “Without them, this rescue never would have succeeded.”
“But did you know that it would succeed with them?” Lhor challenged.
I pinched my lips then reluctantly shook my head. “No.”
“So you gambled with their lives for what you needed… what you wanted,” Khel said sternly, which had my mate clenching her teeth.
I gently caressed the back of her hand with my thumb in the hopes of appeasing her a little.
“This had nothing to do with what I wanted, and everything to do with what I knew,” I retorted firmly. “Without our intervention, I knew beyond any doubt that they would have all died.”