Chapter 17 #2
I make a mental note to figure out how we can make it so she can have these things regularly.
Once we leave Earth, we don’t tend to stay in one space all that often.
We can land the circus pod on any of the other planets we visit, and we are free to leave and stay in their hotels or wander around and sightsee, as long as we return every evening to perform in the show, but for the times in between, I’m sure I can create an illusion or program one of the holorooms to provide her with what she needs.
First, though, I want to talk to her about what I saw in the memory.
“Lila?”
“Hmm?” She faces me and finally realizes we’re holding hands, but instead of pulling away as I expected, she just gives my hand a squeeze and leaves it there. She finally looks around, noticing where we are.
“Oh, I thought we were going to be teleported closer to the site, but it doesn’t look like the pod could fit in anywhere here.” She strains her neck as she looks behind us without letting go of my hand.
“Oh, no, it’s a couple of blocks that way.” I nod in the direction we’re headed. “I asked Kirk to drop us a little farther away because I wanted to talk to you about my conversation with my parents and what I found in your mind.”
Her steps falter for a moment before she hurries to keep up.
I’m not stopping, and I’m not letting go of her hand—partly for reassurance that she’s not going to run away, and partly because I hope she doesn’t hate me after what I’m about to tell her…
or hate my parents. They are absolutely dying to meet her now that I know the truth.
They weren’t even annoyed to hear about what I did to Elyan and told me they’d tell her father.
I wasn’t going to argue about them assuming that responsibility.
“Okay, so talk,” she demands, and I can’t do anything but obey because I’ve been needing to tell her this.
“When I looked into your brain, I found a hidden memory, but it wasn’t one of yours, it was one of mine that had been removed from my mind and planted in yours.”
“Holy shit, that’s a pretty impressive power. Can all warlocks do that?” she asks quietly. I smile at her because the first sentence out of her mouth wasn’t about why my memory is in her mind or why someone planted it there.
“No, only the more powerful ones, and it was my parents who did it. It turns out you and I have met before.”
I explain what I had seen, and she listens without interrupting. The only outward sign that she is affected is her hand tightening in mine. When I finish that part of the story, she’s quiet, so I don’t hurry to continue. I want her to have a chance to absorb what I just told her.
“Okay, so my parents asked yours to remove my powers and memories if anything ever happened to them. But did your parents tell you why? What were they talking about when they put up the barrier?”
I run my hand through my hair in frustration, since that’s something I still haven’t managed to figure out yet. “No, they wouldn’t tell me. They said it was a matter of security. I tried to argue that I couldn’t protect you properly if I didn’t know why, but they wouldn’t budge.”
She looks disappointed but quickly shakes it off. “And I’m your intimate? Is this like being Saxon’s blood rose?” she inquires softly, and I stop and turn so that I am facing her.
“If you mean that you become the most important person in my world, then yes,” I answer, putting all of my feelings into it.
“And I won’t feel this until your parents return my memories and the powers they took from me?”
“No, probably not, but I’d like to think that you were attracted to me anyway. After all, your Skarrian attraction marks appeared on both of us.”
The frown she had been wearing eases a little, and she smiles. “That is true, but will you still need to feed from your harem until we join? You won’t need your harem after that, will you?”
I am beyond ecstatic that she hasn’t rejected anything outright and she seems to be accepting this, but I’m probably going to jinx it, because I need to make sure before I answer anything else.
“You’re taking this rather well. Are you okay?
” I ask cautiously, skepticism lacing my tone, and she giggles.
“Xavier, do you want me to freak out?”
“No, no,” I assure her quickly. “I guess I just didn’t know how you would react, and part of me was expecting the worst.”
“In the last two weeks, I’ve discovered I’m an alien who is going to inherit an alien circus.
I’m mated to a kraken shifter, dating a cyborg, and the blood rose to a vampire, so hearing that I’m the soulmate to a warlock isn’t any weirder than all of that.
I guess I’ve decided to embrace whatever comes my way.
If I don’t, I think you’ll find me rocking in the corner, chewing on my hair, talking to a ball of lint. ”
I desperately want to push into her mind and check if she’s telling me the truth. If the intimate bond had been activated, then I would be able to feel it, but for now, I’ll respect her and leave her mind alone unless she gives me permission.
“Okay, well, as long as you come talk to me if you need to. As for my harem, I will need to feed off others until the bond is activated, because if I fed exclusively from you, I’d probably kill you, or at least leave you looking like Mithus because you have no power to absorb.”
“Fuck no,” she explodes and starts to wave her hand around.
“It was fine before I knew about this. Well, actually it wasn’t fine, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
” She gestures between us. “But now that I know you’re mine, you will not be partaking of your harem again.
When we get to your home planet to see your parents, they will be asked not so politely to leave the ship. ”
I smother the grin that wants to break out across my face at the possessiveness of my intimate, but I contain it. I don’t want her thinking I’m not taking her seriously.
“You can feed from me, Cas, or Link. Oh, and I guess Saxon is an option once he and I do whatever it is we need to do to blood bond.”
I feel my eyebrows jump. “You’ve decided you’re going to bond with him?” I ask gently, and she growls.
“Of course I will. I can’t let him die just because his stupid genetics took the choice out of both of our hands.”
“You know how I told you back in my room earlier this week that I had another option to feed from apart from my harem?”
She nods but wrinkles her nose like she doesn’t really want to hear what I’m about to tell her.
“Well, Saxon is that option, so once you do your thing, he will be happy to feed me as well as you, if Cas and Link aren’t interested.”
Lila lets out a sigh of relief. “Yes, that will work for me.” She picks up my hand again, and we start walking down the street in the right direction.
“So you and Saxon fuck, do you?” she asks bluntly, not hiding her curiosity, and again, I barely contain my smile.
Lila really is delightful, and I can see that our joining is most certainly not going to be boring, especially because she will have other mates as well.
Play time will most certainly never be boring.