Her Mate and Master (Zandian Masters 6)

He let out a huff of exasperation and dropped her to her feet. “Stop.” He turned her around and slapped her ass. “I can’t, starshine.”

The crystals must heighten her emotions, as well as her physical reactions, because an irrational flood of rejection nearly split her open. Well, veck him. He could go veck himself for all she cared. She crossed her arms and clamped her teeth together, waiting for him to lead the way.

He studied her, uncertainty flitting over his expression. “Talia—”

She flicked her hand dismissively. “Go on. Keep walking. I’ll follow my Master.” She said the last word with scorn, satisfied to see pain crease his brow. Good. He should be sorry.

And, yes, she was acting like a child, not that she remembered childhood.

Had she really been the daughter of the prince’s master of arms?

A vague memory—shadowy and just out of her reach—had haunted her mind ever since Tomis had made his solemn gesture with his elbow bent, fist in the air. Something about it seemed familiar. It had jogged something. Not a memory so much as a feeling. Comfort. Safety. And, yes, the honor Tomis so often referred to.

Tomis frowned. “You can’t possibly imagine that was a rejection, Talia.” He gripped the giant bulge of his cock through his pants. “I’ve been in vecking agony for you since the moment I first saw you back in the prison. You know I want you.”

“But you don’t want to desire me. You’re saving me for your prince.”

His expression became an unreadable mask. He’d turned into the stoic soldier, an iron body ready to protect and serve. “Come,” he ordered and reached for her hand. His grasp was gentle, though.

She attempted to remain sullen but soon forgot her grievance when the landscape opened to another mound of rubble—broken buildings, fallen walls, vines and determined trees growing over it all.

Tomis’ watchful eyes took in everything. A frown creased his chin, but he said nothing.

She stopped, forcing him to stop, too. “So, they really killed every being?”

He tucked her against his side, as if to protect her from the past. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

“Sickening.”

Tomis lifted his chin to a stubborn angle. “But they didn’t kill every being. Not you. Not me. Not Prince Zander.”

“Do you really think your prince can win against them?”

“Yes.” His answer was so confident and swift she had no choice but to accept he believed. But how could it be possible? A young male who’d lived his life in hiding for the past fifteen solar cycles? How could he have raised enough force and might to bring down the species that toppled the entire structure of his father’s kingdom? It didn’t make sense.

“I want to see up close.” She pulled away from Tomis and headed down the slope toward the rubble of the settlement. Of course, Tomis followed. “I hope Zander’s plan to beat the Finn is better than yours to get me out of here.”

He shrugged. “It’s not my position to know Prince Zander’s plan. Only to execute my orders. But I know he has prepared every day since his exile. And your father has trained him and molded him into as lethal a warrior as any of us.”

Your father.

She shoved those words back. Hated that he assigned some stranger to her this way. “I don’t have a father, Tomis. I told you that before.” She tripped over a stone, and Tomis caught her elbow, steadying her.

“You do. And he hasn’t stopped looking for you since the moment he heard you might still be alive.”

She shook her head. She didn’t need this pressure. To be someone’s long lost daughter? Hell, no. She’d just won her freedom from Thurn. She sure as sun didn’t need to be “owned” by some new male father-figure. If she even was his daughter, as Tomis believed.

“Just meet him,” Tomis coaxed. “Meet him and Prince Zander. Keep an open mind.”

“You promised you wouldn’t take me against my will.”

Tomis’ extraordinary chest expanded, apparently with his overgrown honor. “And I won’t. A Zandian never breaks his word.”

They arrived at the site of destruction. The heaviness in the pit of her stomach felt like she’d swallowed an airship. The more she looked, the more her brain put together what each thing had been—pieces of a hovercraft, the walls of a house. Oh stars. “Tomis.” She pointed inside the crushed hull of the hovercraft, where an adult and child-sized bones remained.

Tomis said nothing, his expression blank and soldier-like again. She thought he might try to pull her away or hold her. She was almost mad he didn?

??t, although it had been her idea to see things up close. Maybe he wanted her to really understand what had happened to their species. So she’d join his fight against the Finn.