Their Zandian Mate (Zandian Masters 9)

“He’s six sun cycles. Ren is five, and Teena is three.”

“Do we have an agreement, Alyx?” Damon opened the door between her chamber and the children’s.

Her son nodded. Teena snuffled in her shoulder, already half asleep, but Laake hadn’t succeeded in consoling the baby, who only grew more agitated having her within sight and not being in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again as Damon swept them all into the other chamber where her young shared a giant hover disk.

“Eslyn.” Damon’s voice held the timbre of command and she swung around, holding her breath. “Don’t apologize. The young will get to know us soon enough. And we’ll learn how to better help you with them.”

Her heart stuttered. Help her? Was he serious? And he’d made it sound like they planned to keep her. And the young.

It was too good to be true.

“Who are you?” Ren asked the males as she climbed onto the hover disk and snuggled against Eslyn’s side.

Laake handed her the fussing baby and she put him to her breast, while soothing Teena to sleep on her lap.

“They’re Mama’s guards,” Alyx answered sagely. “They’re responsible for protecting her.”

“That’s right,” Damon said, meeting her eye over the children’s heads. “We’re here to keep you and your mama safe.”

Her eyes smarted with tears at the kindness he showed in not telling the boy the truth—that she was their prisoner, sentenced to their reconditioning.

For now, for this moment, she’d believe, along with Alyx, that they were her warriors, keeping her safe from the males she wanted out of her life forever.

Chapter 3

“Excuse me, my lord.” Damon stood outside Zander’s meeting room two planet rotations later and cleared his throat. He’d left

Granit and Laake in a scene of domestic bliss with their female and her young—the children climbing all over Granit as Eslyn lounged beside Laake on the settee.

He and the other two males had each had her twice during the night and that morning, leaving all four relaxed and content. But now he had to ensure their bliss went beyond the next few planet rotations. He needed to eliminate the threats to their future.

“You may enter.”

He walked in and bowed.

“Report.”

He hadn’t been summoned to report, but he wasn’t surprised to have one demanded. Zander had been reluctant to take the role of sovereign to their species at a young age, but he’d done it well.

“The female has been punished. We find her agreeable.”

Zander’s lips twitched, but he was too refined to make a lewd comment. “And now you’re wondering if you can keep her?”

“That’s not why I’m here, but yes, my lord. We want very much to keep her.”

“What do you know about her previous mates?”

He hesitated as the sharp spike that had been prodding his solar plexus from the beginning drove in. “My lord, I know little. I’d hoped to learn more from you on that subject.”

The prince gave him one of his inscrutable looks. “I see.”

When Zander didn’t go on, Damon cast his gaze about the room, as if the right words might be projected there, hidden behind one of Princess Lamira’s many potted Earth plants or on the wall above the row of windows. “Have you set a date for their sentencing?”

“I will question them tomorrow.”

“And are you inclined—”