Chapter 13
KAZAN
I drove into New Knossos at dawn with a list in my head of every weak point in the regional court.
I’d been inside the building twice before. Once when Remmen made me sign the founding charter. Once to settle a grazing dispute between two of my hands that should never have needed a magistrate.
Both times, I’d studied the walls.
The pits taught a male to do that. Walk into a room, find the exits, find the weapons, find what would break if enough force was put in the right place.
Stone footings. Timber frame. Two main posts holding up the gallery. The east wall was newer than the rest and badly joined. I could bring down half the building if I hit it right.
I could tear the court open and take Maisie out through the wreckage.
It would cost me the land. The peace. Five years of trying to be something other than what I’d been made to be.
I’d sacrifice all of that.
But not if it cost me her.
Instead, I was going to stand still and use the law, and not rip the door off its hinges unless there was no other choice.
Probably.
Lorkin was waiting on the court steps when I pulled in. He wasn’t alone.
Four males stood at the bottom of the stairs, their breath steaming in the chilly morning air.
Lorkin was in front, arms crossed, scarred face set in the same scowl he wore before a fight.
Remmen stood beside him in his mayor’s coat, horns capped in silver.
Behind them were Zarcal and Korfas, two males I hadn’t seen together since the night we took the fleets.
“You called the vanguard,” I said.
Lorkin looked me over, from my hands to my shoulders to my face. He saw too much. He always did. “You were going to come alone.”
Remmen came down one step. “We’re not here to start a war in my courthouse.”
“Good,” I said. “War is the last resort.”
Lorkin snorted.
I ignored him.
He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You’ve got the pit look.”
“I look how I look.”
“That wasn’t an accusation. It was a warning.” His eyes narrowed. “You go in there like that, and they’ll put her on a transport before the sun clears the ridge.”
“I know what I must do.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not going to kill anyone,” I said.
Lorkin studied me for another moment. Then he grunted. “That’s almost convincing.”
Remmen came the rest of the way down and put a hand on my shoulder. “Go to your woman,” he said. “Then we’ll come in behind you.”
I left them on the steps and went inside.
I found Maisie in the corridor outside the courtroom.
She was sitting on a bench built for someone four times her size. Her boots didn’t reach the floor.
She looked too small against the stone wall. Too pale. There were shadows under her eyes, and her hair had come loose from its clip. But her spine was straight, and the violet scarf was looped around her throat.
My gift to her.
She saw me, and the careful set of her face broke.
She was up and moving before I could say her name. I crossed the space between us in three strides and caught her against me.
I lifted her off her feet. I had to.
Her arms went around my neck, and her face pressed into the side of my throat. She was cold. Too cold. I held her tighter and breathed her in, needing the scent of her under the soap and the courthouse air.
“You came,” she whispered.
“Always.”
I set her down only because I needed to see her face. Her eyes were wet, but there was fire under it. My fierce little human. My clever, stubborn, impossible female.
I wanted to take her home.
I wanted to put her on my kitchen counter and get my mouth on every inch of her until she forgot this place existed.
I wanted to lock every door between her and the rest of the galaxy.
Instead, I kissed her.
It was too hard. Too hungry. Too much for a courthouse corridor.
She kissed me back like she’d been waiting all night to get her hands on me, and the sound she made into my mouth went straight through every bit of control I had left.
“Not here.” Nezara’s voice cut through the heat.
Maisie startled, but I didn’t let her go.
Nezara came down the corridor in her formal robe, tablet tucked under one arm. Her horns were decorated with Agency silver, and her mouth was drawn tight with irritation. Or concern.
It was sometimes hard to tell with her.
“You cannot do that in the courthouse,” she said.
Maisie’s fingers curled in my shirt.
Nezara lowered her voice. “There’s an auditor in that room whose entire purpose is to record whether this bond is being coerced, influenced, or improperly witnessed. You kissing her against a wall before the hearing gives him something to write.”
“This is my mate.” The words came out before I could stop them.
Maisie froze.
Nezara closed her eyes for one second, like I’d given her a headache.
I would not take the words back.
Maisie was my mate. My body had known it from the first breath. My blood had known. Every instinct I had had been dragging me toward her since the day she stepped onto my land with fear in her eyes and my death sentence in her scent.
But she wasn’t a prize.
This wasn’t a thing I got to declare and claim and be done with.
I looked down at her. “If she wants me.”
Her lips parted. The corridor went silent.
“I want you,” she said.
My control almost broke right there.
Then her brow furrowed. “Wait. Mate? Kazan, what does that mean? Is that a real thing? Like a real, biological—”
“Later,” Nezara said quickly.
Maisie’s fingers tightened in my shirt. “You’re going to explain everything.”
“Yes.” I would deny her nothing.
Nezara exhaled. “Good. Now please come inside before someone gives me a reason to retire.”
Maisie reached for my hand. I took it. Her fingers were small inside mine, but the second they locked there, the killing quieted. Not gone. It never went away. But quieter.
It was quiet enough that I could walk into the courtroom without counting how many steps it would take to reach the panel. I could look at the gallery and not think about bringing it down. When I saw the holo-projector at the front of the room, I didn’t immediately rip it out of the floor.
The vanguard followed us in.
They filled the back of the room, all horn and shoulder and silent threat. Remmen took a seat at the front because he was the mayor and knew how to pretend this was civilized. Lorkin remained standing with Zarcal and Korfas.
Nezara took her place with two other Agency officers and Pell.
Then the projector lit, and James appeared on the dais.
He was smaller than I had expected. Pale. Carefully dressed. His suit looked expensive and uncomfortable, and his hair was combed too neatly. He wore calm like armor, hands folded in front of him, expression patient and wounded.
I hated him on sight.
Not because he was handsome. He was, in a soft, polished sort of way. I hated him because Maisie went still beside me.
Not afraid exactly. Worse.
Remembering.
I tightened my hand around hers once. Not to hold her back. Just to remind her that I was there. She squeezed back.
One of the panel officers looked down at the record. “Mr. Pell, you filed the suspension?”
“Yes.”
“And Mr. James Varrick is recognized as the original claimant.” The officer turned toward the projection. “State your interest.”
James inclined his head. “Thank you. I want to begin by saying I bear Maisie no ill will.”
My vision narrowed. Maisie’s thumb pressed against my hand.
“She left during a period of emotional distress,” James continued.
His voice was warm. Reasonable. Carefully sad.
“We had an understanding. A commitment. Financial obligations that were never properly dissolved. I have no wish to cause her pain, but she isn’t free to enter into a binding alien union while our prior arrangement remains unresolved. ”
He looked toward Maisie. I wanted to step between them even though he wasn’t truly there.
“I’m only asking that the proper order be followed,” James said. “That she not be allowed to bind herself to another male until matters between us are closed.”
The words were smooth.
That made them worse. A rough lie could be broken. A smooth one slid into people’s ears before they noticed the blade.
One of the panel officers nodded as if any of that made sense.
A growl started low in my chest.
Maisie released my hand. Every instinct in me rebelled. Then she stood.
“No,” she said.
The room turned toward her.
She looked small standing there, one human woman in front of a panel, with a projection of the male who’d tried to own her glowing at the dais.
But she didn’t sound small.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she wasn’t. “This is ridiculous.”
James’s expression didn’t change. Maybe the projection couldn’t carry it. Maybe he’d practiced too long.
Maisie faced him fully. “There’s nothing to close. I gave the ring back. I put it on the counter in the apartment, and I walked out. You know that because you’ve spent every day since trying to drag me back.”
The room was silent. My female’s hands curled on the rail in front of her.
“You didn’t file this nuisance because of finances.
You didn’t hire people to lie because of a misunderstanding.
I know you did it because I left, and you couldn’t stand that I got through a door you thought you controlled.
And you pay me such little regard that you’re here by hologram instead of in person.
I would still tell you no directly to your face, but right now you’re proving just how small you are. ”
She turned to the panel. “I want this on the record. If you rule against me, if you put me on a transport to Earth today, I still won’t marry him. There is nothing in this galaxy that will make me belong to him.”
My chest went tight.
Nezara set her tablet down.
“The panel notes the claimant has appeared by projection rather than in person,” she said.
Her voice had changed.
“The panel also notes the petitioner’s clear testimony that any prior promise was ended by her own action and communicated to the claimant.” Nezara looked toward Pell. “And it notes that the witness statement used to support this suspension has been withdrawn. Mr. Pell?”
Pell cleared his throat. “The witness recanted this morning. In the mayor’s office. Under warning of perjury charges.”
Nezara’s eyes stayed on Pell. “And you were going to mention that when?”
“I was getting there,” he said.
Nezara turned back to Maisie.
“There is one matter left.” Her voice gentled, but the formality remained. “Maisie Declan of Earth, do you accept the bond with Kazan of Ceres-9 freely and of your own choosing?”
Maisie didn’t look at me. She looked at Nezara. At the panel. At James’s flickering image.
Then she said, “I do.”
Only then did she turn to me. My heart beat hard enough that I felt it in my horns.
James vanished, and the dais went dark. For one second, the place where he’d been glowed with leftover static. Then, even that faded.
Coward.
He couldn’t even stay to watch her choose someone else.
Nezara looked at the dead projector with open disgust. “The suspension is lifted, and the complaint is dismissed with prejudice. The Agency recognizes the bond between Kazan of Ceres-9 and Maisie of Earth as freely entered, witnessed, and complete.”
She picked up her tablet.
Then she glanced at us over it. “Go home before someone makes me file more paperwork.”
Noise broke out behind us.
Zarcal slapped Korfas on the back hard enough to move him half a step. Remmen stood and smiled. Lorkin looked annoyed, which meant he was pleased.
I didn’t care about any of them. I crossed the floor to Maisie. She barely had time to inhale before I had my hands on her waist and lifted her off her feet.
“Kazan,” she said, but she was laughing.
I brought her level with my face and kissed her. This one wasn’t careful either. There was no auditor to fear now. No question hanging over us. No legal trick between my mouth and hers. She was warm and alive in my hands, and she’d chosen me in front of everyone.
Freely.
My mate.
The word burned through me.
She kissed me like she knew exactly what it did to me. Her hands framed my jaw, and her nails pressed lightly into my skin. Not enough to hurt. Enough to make me think of taking her home. Of her legs around my waist. Of that scarf still on her throat and nothing else between us.
A throat cleared.
Nezara.
Again.
Maisie broke the kiss with a breathless laugh and leaned her forehead against mine. “You won’t be able to maul me in every government building we enter.”
“I can try.”
Her smile went soft. Then her fingers slid over my jaw, and she looked at me in a way that made every male in the room disappear.
I set her down because if she kept touching my mouth; I was going to forget we weren’t home.
Behind us, the panel was already gathering their things. The room had become ordinary again. Benches. Papers. Stone. Morning light.
Only one thing still bothered me.
The empty dais.
James had gotten away untouched. No broken bones or shed blood. No hands around his throat while he learned the exact cost of putting fear in my mate’s eyes.
I stared at the place where his projection had been and felt the loss of it.
Small.
Mean.
That was the price of doing it Maisie’s way.
I could pay it.
I bent close enough that only she could hear. “If we don’t leave now, I’m going to kiss you again.”
Her breath caught. Then her smile turned wicked. “Threat or promise?”
My hands flexed. Lorkin groaned somewhere behind me. “For the love of every dead god, take her home.”
Maisie laughed again, brighter this time, and I led my mate out of the courthouse into the gold morning.