All any of them could do was stare at her as she crumbled from the reality. But Brawn finally pulled her close, and she instantly rested her head on his chest. He stroked her head and looked at his brothers. They were warriors, fearless and strong, but right now, they looked so damn scared from how she was reacting.
“You’re in shock, Minka,” Brawn said softly, still moving his hand over her hair. He felt at a loss right now, vulnerable even, and it was all because this woman, this little human female, had broken down in front of them.
“I’m sorry. I had it together, or at least I thought I did.” She pulled back slightly, but he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Holding her felt good, really good, and he wanted to let his body heat seep into her, calm the chills that covered her flesh, and wanted her to know that although they may look like demons, and held beasts inside them that were trained on one thing at the moment, they were not animals who held no compassion.
With her, it was different. She was their mate, even if she hadn’t been with them for very long. As soon as he’d held her in his arms, he had known she was theirs, and when his brothers had seen her, he knew they felt the same way too. He looked at Thorque, the brother who was more technical with all these answers and nodded for him to say something.
“Minka,” he said and leaned forward. “The air you breathe here is no different from any other planet a human can sustain life on.” Thorque spoke softly, and it was strange to Brawn that he could hear those kinds of emotions come from his brother. “We have a water reserve stored in a cavern within the mountain. Since our kind doesn’t require a substantial amount of H2O, we have plenty. If we need more, we can easily get it.”
“As for a creature coming into our home,” Lukin began, and there was this hardness to his voice, “we are the predators on this planet, and even if some of the creatures try to challenge us, they find out with their lives that it was a mistake.”
“Lukin,” Brawn growled. “You’re not fucking helping.” His youngest brother seemed to like to let his alphaness out when a threat was even spoken.
Lukin stared at Brawn and then finally breathed out and nodded. “I apologize, Minka. If I frightened you further, that wasn’t my intent. My point is nothing will dare come into our territory.”
She nodded, and Brawn felt movement against his chest.
“Among the three of us, we have lived for a total of three hundred years, so believe me when I say we know how to protect what is ours,” Lukin said with a hard tone to his voice, and then he moved toward her.
“Three hundred years?” She had since pushed away from Brawn and now stared at Lukin, who stood in front of her. She looked among all of them, and although she sounded shocked, surely she wasn’t honestly.
“You do realize that humans are the only beings in this galaxy with a minimal lifespan, right?” Thorque asked.
Brawn looked at her, wanted to push the hair away from her face, but instead curled his hands into balls.
“Of course I know that; I just didn’t realize you were that old.”
The silence stretched between them, and then Brawn started chuckling. That had his brothers doing the same, and soon the tension in the cavern lessened marginally. “I suppose compared to your species, one hundred and twenty-five would be old,” Brawn said.
She nodded. “And how old are you two?” Minka asked, and she said it softly, but her voice was steady and strong.
“Thorque is one hundred and five, and Lukin is only seventy,” Brawn answered.
“Even the youngest one is fifty years older than me,” she said and then started rubbing her hands up and down her thighs.
“Listen, the trip back to Hades was long and you’re still healing mentally, so how about we rest for the remainder of the night, and in the morning, we can talk about what being our mate really means?” Thorque offered.
“I know what it means,” Minka said but stood. “But I think sleeping is probably better right now for me than talking about...” She paused and stared at each of them for a second. “I think talking about you three breeding with me right now would probably make me flip my switch.”
Brawn didn’t know what that human term meant, but he could assume. He stood and led them out of the sitting area and into one of the rooms in the cavern. There were four rooms, one mainly used to clean their weapons and the other three for them to sleep in.