“I want to see one,” she says, and then she sighs. “I guess I’ll never see anything ever again, though. Trapped in this crazy place.”
“We are safe here,” I assure her. I point to the lake and the mountains being ravaged by the geostorm. “It’s not safe out there.” I don’t voice that no matter how safe it is in the facility with my faction of morts, I crave to be free. To be out in the harrowing wilderness where I am not contained.
“I like how quiet it is up here,” she mutters, her voice barely audible through our comms. “Down there…with them…I couldn’t take it.”
I frown at her words. “The morts are too noisy for your alien ears?” And here I thought I was the only one who grows agitated over the constant chatter of the other morts.
“Not the guys…” she whispers. “The baby.”
Her body is stiff, and she’s looking down over the railing. A red, hazy fog hides the rocky bottom below The Tower. The way she stands with her gloved hands gripping the side, it puts me on edge. Like she might suddenly hoist herself over the side. Out of instinct to protect my mate, I gently rest my hand on her lower back.
She snaps her head up to look at me, and her brown eyes are filled with tears. Her bottom lip—the plump, juicy looking one—wobbles wildly. Fire burns inside my chest as the maddening curiosity of what that lip feels like ravages my soul. She captures the moving wonder with her white, blunt teeth and saves me from having to do the job for her.
“What is it that upsets you?” I ask, my voice low and husky.
“Nothing.” Her whispered lie has me tensing up. Why does she not speak the truth?
I think back to her remaining in the hallway when I viewed the half-breed born from Aria and Breccan. Did the creature frighten her? It spooked me, but I thought I was the only one.
“The mortling is unusual,” I say slowly. “But it is harmless. I viewed it myself.” Aside from the claws and fangs, but she doesn’t need to know that part.
“It’s not harmless.” She sniffles and turns toward me. Her heat through her suit nearly scorches me. The urge to push away from her and stalk to the other side of The Tower is strong.
And yet…
I cannot move away from her warmth.
It’s always so cold up here. Normally, I don’t care. This solar, I don’t want to be cold. I want to be warm with my mate.
She moves closer until our fronts are nearly touching. My hand remains at her lower back just above where her rump swells out and stretches the material of her gear. I wonder if she is squishy there like her bottom lip appears to be.
“It is harmless,” I assure her.
A tear races down her cheek as she tilts her nog up to look at me. “Draven…”
“Yes, my sweet mate?”
“I did horrible things before ending up here.”
“Horrible things?”
“I did what I had to do to protect the one I love.”
The one she loves?
Possessiveness surges through my veins, hot and angry. “You have a true mate elsewhere?” I want to spit out the words.
Why do I care?
I’m simply keeping her as a mate to look after her. If she has a true mate on her home planet, I cannot be jealous of such things.
Yet, I am.
“Not a mate,” she says, her voice nearly choking on a sob. “A daughter. Willow.”
“You have a mortling?”
She nods as more tears stream out. “I…I fought a lot with my baby daddy.”
Baby daddy doesn’t compute. I don’t know what this means.
“Her father,” she clarifies, reading the confusion on my face.
“You were the victor?” It must be because she remains standing before me. I knew my mate was strong, unlike Aria and Emery. Pride bursts up inside me.
“He would always hit her…shove her down…kick her…” Her shoulders quake as she sobs. “Willow’s just three, Draven. So little. So precious. And Randy was shaking her so bad one day.”
My own fears are chased away by the need to comfort my mate. I slide my hand to her rump to grip her and pull her closer. Her rump, through her suit, is every bit as fleshy and full as I’d imagined. I don’t want to let her go. I pull her until her front is pressed to mine. Her warmth bleeds into my suit and soothes a cold ache in my bones.
“Did you destroy this Randy?” I growl.
Hadrian was punished often when he was a young mort, but Breccan never hurt him. Simply swatted his bottom as a reminder. Never out of anger. Not like this monster named Randy.
“I did,” she chokes. “I was so afraid of Randy. He would hit me, too, even after we divorced, but I’m stronger. I could take it.”