Her Mate and Master (Zandian Masters 6)

He reached in, plucking out what looked like a perfectly cut diamond. “A female,” he said softly. “Mother and children.” He plucked more diamonds out and held them out in his palm for her to see.

She shuddered, backing away. “How do you know? That’s her jewelry?”

“Zandians mark their females when they mate. Pierce their skin and gift them Zandian crystal, that they might always be fertile and fed with the power that sustains us all. It’s to show the male will always provide for his female.”

She wrinkled her nose to mask the stir of longing his explanation gave her. This picture of domestic bliss didn’t fit any reality she’d ever known. And, yet, something dreadful happened inside her as she stared at the winking jewels.

Recognition.

And with it came a terrible, horrible sense of loss.

As if a bomb struck that moment, she found herself on her hands and knees in the dirt, a sob of utter horror choking her throat. Icy prickles raced over her skin.

“Talia? Talia, what is it?”

She coughed, heaved, and, at last, the terrible emotion came out in a torrent of tears, blurring the ground in the flood.

The planet lurched and spun. Somehow, she ended up flattened against Tomis’ hard body, her cheek pressed to his rock-hard chest.

“What happened?” He sounded alarmed. “What is it, starshine?”

“I had a mother. Oh, stars, I had a mother,” she wailed against his chest. Tomis must be disgusted by the wet, ugly, sobbing mess he held, but she couldn’t gain control. It was like something had cracked inside her, some inner shell, and beneath it lay a whole different person. A child with a mother. A mother who’d been pierced and adorned with crystals.

Someday you’ll wear crystals like these, Talia. A beautiful female with long, auburn hair had let her touch the glittering gem below her belly button.

Why not now, mum-mum?

Little girls don’t wear them, sweetheart. They are for mated females. Given by a mate.

“You remembered something? What was it?” Tomis’ faraway voice sounded soft and soothing. His lips brushed her hair. His strong arms warmed her.

Yet, she couldn’t find her way back to him. The implications of her memory still rocked through her.

Because having a mother meant losing a mother. And that memory was there, too, jostling just behind this one. The explosion of grief had accompanied it all, the anguish of losing her as acute as if it had happened yesterday. She experienced the terror of a small child, hustled with her sister through a crumbling palace, separated by a wall of rubble from her mother and an infant sibling.

She’d screamed and screamed to go back, tugged on the guard’s arm to free herself, but he wouldn’t let go. Like Tomis, he’d had a duty to protect her, and her desire to stay close to the place she’d last seen her mother didn’t sway him.

“I lost her,” she croaked against Tomis’ bare skin.

He stroked the back of her head, massaged her scalp. “The Zandian star knows I understand.”

Realizing he’d experienced this terrible pain, too, only intensified her suffering. No one should feel this. And, yet, her entire species had.

It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. She’d been loved. She’d known love. And had it all wrenched from her to serve a lifeless existence on Stornig.

Not anymore. She was alive, now. She was back on Zandia with an incredible male, capable of pleasuring, protecting, and comforting her. She was free. Or at least as free as she could be with Tomis around. And if she believed his promise, that meant he’d let her go eventually.

Why did that thought not make her any happier?

~.~

Tomis held Talia’s trembling form, the salty scent of her tears slaying him. He wanted to grab a sword and slice off the head of anyone and everyone who ever hurt her.

And he would, eventually. He’d make the Finn pay for their evil terror. He’d do it for her mother and his own.

“Let’s keep moving,” he urged gently. “I have something to show you, and it’s not far from here.”

“You still know where we are?” She pushed away from him, her beautiful violet eyes red-rimmed. He stroked a lock of red-brown hair back from her tear-streaked face.