Renall said, “I still think it too harsh. I agree we had to do something, but I am not sure that that was the right thing to do.’

The four brothers had gathered at the small building they used to meet about things that involved the planet that they had worked for centuries to buy and were now trying to build.

Jeval sighed. “I agree it is harsh but these humans, my God, it is as if they are determined to ruin the world and themselves right along with it!”

He winced as soon as he said the words. Every one of the men facing him, his siblings, had taken human mates. Marik had mated with Jenny, who was a natural healer as Marik was and who had somehow managed to help Marik and Talon and Jessica—who was the fiercest warrior that many had ever seen—stave off the Gorlites again and again. Renall’s mate, Clara, was a gambling woman who had brought plenty of credits to their pockets and who used her skills to continue to bring in credits. She took frequent trips off-planet along with her family and Renall to sweep large pots that brought not just credits to the planet, but much-needed supplies.

His mood went sour as he stared at the expressions on his sibling’s faces. “I spoke hastily. But all of you know I am right. Maybe your mates are not that way, but the others, sometimes I wonder why we even bother.”

Talon said, “Oh no. I get it. They can be a cantankerous lot, to say the least.”

Marik sighed. “I wish there was some way to heal the rift between them. It seems as if many of them have found a way to move past the class lines they once knew, but so many have not, and like most of you, I worry that they never shall either.”

“If they don’t, we will have a war here,” Talon put in. “I hate to say it, but perhaps I made a mistake in bringing the refugees here. We brought so few, a mere three thousand, and left so many behind. People that I see every night in my dreams. I know they suffer there but given the mood of so many that we brought, I wonder… I do… if it was the right decision to bring them.”

“It was,” Marik said. “I was there, and I saw what was happening there. We could not have left them. I only wish we had brought more.”

Of course, he did. Marik always felt sorry for the broken and lost. Jeval sighed. “We have bigger problems than just that, and that’s why we’re all here, so let’s discuss that instead.”

Renall said, “As you know, Clara doesn’t just go out because she is an accomplished carder. She goes to listen for us and the news she has brought back this time is grim.”

Jeval’s nerves balled and tightened under his skin. His lips went flat. That was hardly a shock. The universe had never been a particularly good place since The Federation had been formed, and as of late things had been really unstable.

Jeval asked, “What is the news?’

Renall said, “The Federation has declared that all planets are under Fed rule. Even the ones who are not under their rule. They are using the wars raging through Old Earth and other systems as just cause.”

Talon swore violently. Marik shook his head. His hands scratched his head. “All right, what does that mean for us? We are so far away from it, from every other planet and system that it seems like they would hardly even notice us.”

Renall said, “We need to cloak the planets in our system. The Feds know there are private planets out here but one of the reasons we chose this system is that it is not on the maps that they have.”

Jeval sighed again. “Cloaking will do no good if they decide to sail an armada through here. They’d just run right over us.”

Marik said, “That’s a good point.”

Talon said, “I agree with both. We should cloak until we see ships.”

“What if we don’t see them? The Federation has some of the most sophisticated cloaking devices in the universe. If they don’t want to be seen, they won’t be.” Jeval’s fingers pressed into the skin above the bridge of his nose in an effort to force back a massive headache.

His eyes closed. Margie’s face swam up in his mind’s eye, and he groaned inwardly in real frustration. That woman, she was the most maddening, irritating…beautiful…woman he had ever seen.

Dammit! The last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about her, but he was. He had seriously considered snatching her up and turning her over his knee, and giving her one good spanking.

Naturally, his dick stiffened at the thought, just as it had out there while that uproar was happening and that thought had hit him.

He could almost feel her firm and springy ass cheeks below his hand, feel the yield of her flesh, and see the jiggle of it too. He wanted to run his hands across that flesh, hold it as he drove his staff deep into her body…

“Jeval?”

Marik’s query snatched him out of that sexy little daydream. He found himself grateful for the table that he sat at and which hid his lower body.

Jeval cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else and didn’t hear you.”

Renall said, “We need a plan. “

No shit. He needed a plan that would keep him as far from that infuriatingly sexy Margie to start with. He said, “We need to send scouts out again, but Clara’s time to have your child is coming soon. She can’t keep risking the travel she’s been undertaking.”

Renall said, “I was just about to say that. There is no way I will allow her to go again. Her family is equally skilled at carding and spying, and they can bring back news, but we all know humans are looked on with a lot of suspicion, even the ones out here in the universe, and with good reason, so we need someone less…less likely to gather suspicion.”

Talon said, “It can’t be me. I’m wanted by The Federation, and so is Jessica. Even though they gave us what they call amnesty risking this is too much to ask from us. If we get caught gathering intel, we will be killed. I won’t have her risk it, and what is more, I won’t have any of you talk to her about it. You all know if there is a fight, she is the first one out the door and with a weapon in her hand.”

There was a round of laughter. Marik chortled out, “I do not envy you that one. She is a warrior, and I know she could probably kill me with a pan I told her to cook me a meal in.”

“She’d kill you with a fork,” Talon replied, his eyes dancing.

Jeval knew that it was Jessica’s warrior spirit and skills that attracted Talon. He loved her to distraction, and they’d grow old together, if they didn’t end up dead from some battle first.

Besides, Talon was right. After all that he had done and been through, he deserved some peace now, and so did Jessica. Talon was as much as a warrior as his mate, but even the greatest warriors had their limits, and those two had seen far too much war lately.

Marik was also out. He was too needed there on the planet, he and Jenny both. They were always healing something, and they had begun a project to test medications made from natural things, and that too was a needed thing because eventually, they would have to start sending the citizens away from the small city they had begun to build and outward, to settle other parts of the planets.

Jeval said, “It seems I am the only and best option then.”

Renall nodded, but his eyes held a wary expression. Jeval knew why. He was the bloodiest of them all, and he rarely cared about things like peace or safety. He had been known to kill for the sheer pleasure of it, or at least they thought it was for the pleasure. They just did not understand why he did what he did, and he knew he could have explained it, but he didn’t choose to.

Sometimes it was better to see someone as a rogue killer rather than as what they really were.

That damned and cursed gift of his. How had he been given it and why could he not get rid of it?

Renall said, “I have a plan, but you won’t like it.”

Jeval listened as Renall outlined that plan and found that Renall was right.

He didn’t like it at all.