His Human Vessel (Zandian Masters 5)

He drew in a sharp breath through his nose. Had he? “Whether I have or not doesn’t matter. She’s gone, and my project is at a dead end.”

“None of the eggs were viable. Not even the one you implanted.”

He stopped breathing. He’d measured Lamira’s brainw

aves and seen for himself the extrasensory abilities she had. “Is that true?” he choked.

She nodded. “It would have miscarried by ten weeks. Bayla only hurried the process along.”

He staggered back a step, his gut reeling as if she’d punched him.

Bayla had made a mistake, but the outcome would’ve been the same if she hadn’t. He’d blamed her for the downfall of his project, but it had been doomed from the start.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“I only saw it this morning. I’m sorry.”

He rubbed his forehead, suddenly exhausted.

“One more thing. Your project isn’t lost. There are two Zandian females of breeding age still alive.”

He went still. “What? Where?”

“I don’t know where. Master Seke’s two daughters escaped the genocide of Zandia with Rok. I believe they survived and are out there somewhere. Master Seke and his lieutenant, Tomis, are out searching right now.”

One small piece of his decimated heart rebuilt. Hope remained for their species. An even better chance of survival than his project afforded—if they could locate the missing females. He could extract eggs from them to impregnate multiple humans, even while the females themselves were bred. If the females and Master Seke allowed it, of course. And that hope immediately brought Bayla back to his mind. His perfect vessel.

“You should bring her back.” Lamira must have read his thoughts.

But he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. He shook his head. “No. This information doesn’t change anything. She’s better off where she is. She didn’t wish to be a vessel.”

“She didn’t want to have a child taken from her,” Lamira corrected, shoving a fresh blade of pain into his ribs. “Pregnancy itself could be a pleasure to her, under the right circumstances.”

His fingers curled into fists. He wasn’t going to breed her—though she’d be perfect for the job. The idea of allowing another male to rut in her made him want to commit murder. “You...see that?”

Lamira’s focus had gone soft, the way it did when she reached for information beyond her normal means. “Yes. She will love being pregnant the next time. And it will be soon.”

His nostrils flared. Not his Bayla. Not by another male. He wanted to jump on a spacecraft and follow her to the training pod immediately. Kill any male—Zandian or human—who even thought about breeding with her.

But that wasn’t right. He’d failed to consider her feelings and chosen her fate for her once with disastrous results. This time, she deserved to choose her own path. And she’d chosen to leave him.

As much as it pained him, he must honor her wishes and let her go.

Even though it would probably kill him.

Chapter Eleven

“Is this too tight?” Bayla wrapped a gauze bandage around the wrist of Tal, Cambry’s brother, a young human male who made up part of the human army Prince Zander was training to take back his planet. He’d cut himself sparring with another human in their daily fighting practice.

In the two weeks since she’d arrived on the training pod, she’d tended to at least thirty such surface wounds in the medical unit, which also doubled as her chamber.

“No, it’s perfect.” He flexed his wrist to make sure it still bent with the bandage. Handsome and built of lean muscle, Tal was about the same age as Bayla. From his seated position on the cot, he gazed up at her with seeming attraction.

Funny how she had absolutely zero interest.

For the first time in her life, she was free to choose a mate of her own. On a pod with more a hundred humans, the pickings weren’t all bad, either. But, despite the fertility drugs still in her system, she found no excitement in being near human males. Nor even the larger, purple-skinned Zandians, as stunning as the warriors were.

None of them were Daneth, the capable doctor who had locked a riot of emotion beneath a cool, clinical surface. Whose lust for her was so great, he lost all control.