Chapter 20
Isan didn’t look at Emily. His gaze stayed locked on the massive, snarling warrior shielding her.
The pod was cramped, little more than a glass coffin, and the air recyclers buzzed harshly, setting her teeth on edge.
Raaevik’s back was a tense, scarred barrier, claws bared and flashing beneath cycling blue lights.
“You can put them away,” Isan said softly. It wasn’t a command, more an... invitation. “The beast served its purpose, brother. You are safe here.”
Raaevik’s shoulders jerked, and the vicious rumble in his chest caught on a sharp intake of breath. She braced for the lunge. In the short time she'd known him, she’d never seen Raaevik back down... not from guards, not Thyaar, not the Emperor. If he had a death wish, he was in the right place.
But Raaevik didn’t attack.
The claws retracted, but not fully. They stopped at maybe an inch, still curved and dark and very much present.
But the killing edge was gone. He lowered his arms, shoulders shifting.
Not relaxed, never that, but the coiled readiness became more watchful.
..wary. Reaching out, she grabbed the back of his belt, grounding herself in the solid heat of him.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Isan took a slow step forward. “That rage in your blood. The urges you thought were madness.”
Raaevik didn't answer. The quiet stretched.
“You’re not mad, Raaevik, but I know why you might think that.
I thought that when it happened to me. But you’re not.
..you're Izaean." Isan's voice dropped, quiet and certain.
"The black armor. The rage. It’s all part of what you are.
What we are." His mouth twisted. "The Empire calls it a defect.
.. a mutation. They're wrong about a lot of things. "
Holy shit.
She stared at Raaevik’s broad back. So that was it. That was what lay under all that iron-plated self-control. The reason he never relaxed or dropped his guard. He hadn't been holding himself together... he'd been holding something back.
She moved around to his side so she could see his face. His expression was cracked open, raw and unguarded, and something in his eyes kicked the breath right out of her lungs.
“The pathogen,” Raaevik rasped, gesturing at her. “Why didn’t it kill me? I’m K’Saan blood, way back when.”
Isan kept his hands loose at his sides and his stance steady, giving Raaevik nothing to react to.
“Because Izaean physiology is dominant. The K’Saan blood in your veins is too distant, and by the looks of it, the pathogen can’t take hold in an Izaean host. It just doesn’t recognize you as a target.”
She stopped breathing. Her brain stalled, skipping like a scratched record as the words hit home.
He wasn’t going to die.
The tension holding her together snapped. Her knees gave out, and if she hadn’t already been sitting on the floor of the pod, she would have collapsed. He turned to her then. Not to Isan, not to the door. To her.
She pressed both hands flat against his chest. Hot skin. Hard muscle. The wildly hammering pulse thudding against her palms. A living, breathing rhythm.
He was alive. The pathogen hadn’t touched him. Every gasp, every jerk she’d expected hadn’t come. He’d survived. A sharp laugh tore out of her throat, sounding half like a sob.
“You’re alive,” she whispered, her hands fanning out over the broad expanse of his chest. “You absolute fucking idiot, you’re alive.”
Yanking her closer, he buried his face in her hair and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
“I’m here,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m here, kelarris.”
“Isan.” Daaynal’s voice came through the pod comms unit. “Will all Izaean be shielded from this weapon?”
Isan turned to look at the emperor through the glass wall of the pod. Lifting a hand, he gestured at himself.
“My K’Saan genetics are more recent than the sub-commander’s,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “If the pathogen could latch onto an Izaean, I’d be a corpse on the floor.”
Well, damn. She bit back her grin. It was hard to argue with a living, breathing control group. Outside the pod, the warriors had frozen, waiting for their Emperor’s verdict.
Daaynal stepped up to the glass.
He looked like shit. Tired. No, not tired... truly worn down. For a second, as he looked at Raaevik, something crossed his face. In an instant, she recognised what it was... That room on Devan Station. The woman in the stasis pod. He knew what loss looked like.
“Emily Evans. Given the circumstances, I formally withdraw my claim over you,” he said.
His voice was steady. Not resigned. Deliberate.
A man setting something down he'd been carrying because he'd found where it actually belonged.
“As Emperor of the Lathar, I release you from the mate match. You are no longer bound to me.”
The weight disappeared from her shoulders. The invisible chain that had choked her since she first saw the Imperial crest on her comm vanished. The title of Empress, the suffocating dresses, the sneering aristocracy... Gone. All of it, just like that.
She sucked in a massive gulp of the sterile air, blinking back the sudden, hot sting of tears. She belonged to herself again. Or she did, until she looked up at the huge male crushing her against his chest as if he’d wage war on anyone who tried to take her.
She didn’t want to belong just to herself. Not anymore.
Daaynal’s voice didn’t give them a single second to process it. “Isan. Bond them. Now.”
Her head snapped up. Raaevik stiffened, his head lifting as he glared at the camera.
“The Council will use this. They will spin this somehow... as a weapon launched against the throne by humanity, and they will demand her execution for treason,” Daaynal continued, his voice hard.
“So we deal with that now. She is a bio-weapon, yes, but if she is bonded to an Izaean, she falls under different jurisdictional laws. They touch her, they declare war on Izaea.”
A grin cracked Daaynal's face, sharp and wolfish. Nothing at all like the polished diplomatic smiles she'd seen him deploy in court. "And if they want to wage war on Izaea, they have my personal blessing to try."
Isan blinked. Then the corner of his mouth pulled up in a grin that transformed his entire face, and her stomach dropped.
She'd seen that grin. The angle of it. The way it sharpened the eyes.
The absolute confidence that the person wearing it could back up whatever threat came next. But not on Isan.... on Daaynal.
Oh. Oh, shit.
"It would be the last thing they ever did." Isan's grin didn't fade. "And my father has been getting a little bored."
Daaynal nodded once, something like satisfaction settling in his expression. He stepped back from the glass. "Bond them. Now."
Turning away from the camera, Isan reached for a medical dispenser built into the wall of the bio-pod.
With a sharp yank, he pulled a length of sterile gauze free, the metallic rip echoing loudly in the small space.
He held the white strip of fabric in his scarred hands, testing the tensile strength.
This wasn't exactly the wedding she'd imagined as a little girl. No church, no flowers, no white dress.
She didn't care.
But Raaevik hadn't been asked. Daaynal had ordered it, and Isan was already reaching for something to use as a bonding sash, and nobody had thought to check with the seven-foot warrior who'd just torn apart a room to reach her if he actually wanted this.
She turned to Raaevik. "Hey." She waited until his eyes found hers. "Do you want this? Because if you don't—"
He hauled her against him so hard the breath left her lungs.
"Abso-draanthing-lutely."
“Raaevik,” Isan prompted softly.
Stepping back, Raaevik dropped to his knees. He looked like hell... hair wild around his shoulders, bare-chested, with a thick black scar over his heart. She bit back a wince. She could see he was done; pushed past every limit and running on stubbornness alone.
He held out his hand, waiting for hers. With defenses stripped away, his eyes met hers in a clear offering.
He hadn’t said the words, but he didn’t need to. It was written right there on his face.
She dropped to her knees as well. The hard floor bit into her knees, but she didn’t care... didn’t hesitate.
Reaching out, she put her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers. Warm and rough and shaking, just a little.
Isan stepped in tight beside them. He looped the sterile white medical gauze around their joined wrists, pulling the fabric taut.
"Blood calls to blood and soul to soul," Isan said, his voice dropping into something formal and heavy that made the words sound older than the man speaking them. "Soul calls to skin, woman to man, binding the halves of a whole together for all eternity."
He looked at her. "Emily Evans, do you take this warrior to bond-mate? To support and honour him for the rest of your life?"
She didn't blink. Didn't hesitate.
"I do."
Isan turned to Raaevik. "Raaevik K'Vass. Do you take this woman to bond-mate? To protect her and honour her for the rest of your life?"
"I do." Low and certain. His gaze locked with hers.
Isan's voice became more formal. "Then, as Prince of the Lathar, I bless your bonding. May it bring much solace and be fruitful."
She smiled up at Raaevik. "You're stuck with me now, asshole."
Raaevik’s lips quirked, and then a smile broke across his face, a real one. Leaning forward, he buried his face in the crook of her neck, his arms wrapping around her like she was the only anchor keeping him tethered to the ground.
“Isan, get them out of here.” Daaynal’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “Get them to Parac’Norr.”