Mastered by the Zandians (Zandian Brides 3)

My chest crowds with stones—blocks moving and jockeying for position. The desire to please my mate—to make her happy, at war with my selfish need to keep her. To want her safe.

I look away. “Mirelle, let’s not do this.”

“When?” she persists.

I stiffen. “When the time is right.” It’s an excrement answer, but I don’t have a better one. Hell, if I knew how to do this for her and still believe she’d come back to us, I’d do it in a heartbeat, orders from my superiors be damned.

“But when will that be?” Frustration clouds her voice. “In a week? A solar cycle? Ten?” She raises her wrists, which still bear the cuffs. “When will you take these off?”

I wince.

“When you prove you’re one of us.” Domm touches her neck. “When we trust you.”

“When will you do that?”

We glance at each other. We still can’t. She cares for us—yes. She likes the sex, and she enjoys her work, but the restless warrior is always underneath.

I know my original vision of the three of us going out on missions together would’ve worked far better than this pathetic attempt at taming her.

I turn it back on her, like the asshole I am. “Can you look into my eyes and tell me you are 100 percent for Zandia?”

“Can you ask me to do that without allowing me to find out what’s happening on my home?” Our little warrior raises her eyebrows. “Trust goes both ways. Do you understand I have a home, far away, and people I care about? I haven’t been able to even find out if they’re alive. You can’t ask me to completely cut off my part of my soul and then immediately dedicate my heart to another place. It doesn’t work like that.”

The boulder on my chest grows heavier, but I attempt to reason with her. “First of all, we have no regular communications with Jesel. They don’t have a station set up or any protocols. And you know well how far and difficult it is to get there. It’s not like we can just jet over once a planet rotation and chat.”

“Not once a planet rotation. How about just once.” She crosses her arms and stares at me. “You say you care about me. If you really do, as a mate, why can’t you help me? It's the one thing I’ve asked for.”

I look away. “We’re forbidden to interact in that area due to piracy issues.”

“There are ways around that.”

“We stay loyal to our king,” Domm snaps, his voice stern. “You are not to lecture us about what is appropriate or not.”

“I’m not saying…” She blows out a breath. “Look. You love this place. Imagine if you were ripped away from it, without knowing what happened to…him.” She points to me. “To your king. To…I don’t know, maybe…to me. Whatever. I’m not that important. but the point is, you’d be curious.”

“Mirelle. You can’t go back there.” His voice is low. “You’re mated now, to Zandians. This is your home.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t understand.” She punches one fist into the other hand. “You ask me incessantly about my past. Does that make sense? I’m supposed to tell you all of my life stories to satisfy your curiosity? But then promptly forget everything I said, or stop caring about it?”

“That’s not it.” I stand up and pace. “We want to know about you because you matter to us. And Dr. Daneth told us that if you talk about your past, it will help you process what’s happening now.”

“Dr. Daneth knows nothing about humans,” she snaps.

It’s true. How can any Zandian really understand what it’s like to be something else?

Domm steps up, his voice soft. “Mirelle. Life isn’t perfect, or easy. It involves sacrifice. Building, or rebuilding a planet, requires single-minded dedication. When you agreed to settle here, you committed to making Zandia your number one priority.” He raises a brow. “Isn’t that so?”

She looks away and we all know the truth—she never agreed. Never committed. She only said what we told her to say to avoid imprisonment.

I try for the truth—the only thing I can offer. “Mirelle, we don’t want to lose you. If you go to Jesel, you could die.”

She sits and looks up at the sky, where the stars shimmer and flash.

Veck.

I reach out and put my hand on her thigh.

“Where do beings go?” She flops back on the hoverbench.