Kira

The Vice Admiral’s door was closed. I could see that it was down the long hallway and walked straight there as her assistant chased me, mumbling bullshit about Niobe being on a very important call.

Whatever. I’d show her a fucking important call. Angh was in the brig? Scheduled for execution?

No. Heads were going to roll and it wasn’t going to be my mate’s. The Vice Admiral’s, if necessary.

When the door wouldn’t open, I cursed a human blue streak, then used my emergency code to override the lock. Rank had its privileges.

“Captain,” the assistant called. “What do you think you are doing? You can’t go in there!”

I turned, my hand on the ion blaster at my hip. I didn’t draw the weapon, but the threat was there. It was real, very fucking real. “Get out of here,” I practically snarled. I definitely had a little beast in me. “This doesn’t concern you.”

The Prillon cadet who had scurried after me took one look into my eyes and backed up with her hands in the air. “All right.” She turned on her heel and stormed back to her desk. “But I’m calling security. Again. I don’t get paid enough for this damn job.”

Now that the lock was disabled, one wave of my palm and the door slid open to reveal…chaos.

The Vice Admiral’s desk was imbedded in the wall, fully one third of it no longer visible as the remaining two legs dangled in the air. The other two had been ripped from the bottom of the desk and scattered in a random pattern on the floor. There were burns from ion blaster fire all over the walls behind the desk and I could just imagine a couple of asshole security guards standing where I stood now, in the doorway, firing at my mate.

Yes. My mate.

He was mine. I was over the bureaucratic bullshit. And seeing the scorch marks proved the powers that be considered the rules more important than anything else. I could only imagine what had set Angh’s beast off to destroy the room—and to require so much fire power to stun him and bring him into control.

And those stupid-ass rules? Angh and I would figure it out for ourselves. If we had to be apart for a few weeks at a time, we’d just have to deal. I wasn’t letting him go. Not unless he didn’t want me anymore. And judging by the sore, still swollen state of my pussy and the whisker burns all over my body, that was not going to be an issue.

My fingers wrapped around the hilt of my blaster as I surveyed the rest of the damage. Overturned chairs. Blood on the floor. God help this bitch if it was Angh’s.

Speaking of…

The Vice Admiral stood in the corner away from the mess, sipping from a small glass, staring out over the grounds through one of her many windows. From the look and smell of it, the liquid in her glass was strong, but clear. Not whiskey, but definitely alcoholic, and I had to wonder if it were her first. Two of the windows were shattered, the web pattern an indication that something rather large, like a Prillon guard, had been thrown into it. The glass—or whatever it was made of—was bulletproof, I knew that much. So whatever had hit them had been big and hard, and held a lot of force.

Good. Hopefully Angh gave as good as he got.

“Is the blood his, Niobe?” I refused to address her in any way other than woman to woman. We’d been on dozens of missions together, saved each other’s lives. I had thought, at the bare minimum, we respected each other. This shit was personal, and she knew it. What she’d done, what had happened here, went far beyond the usual BFF problems.

She took another drink and looked over her shoulder at the bloodstains I had indicated. Her snort of laughter contained no humor. “Gods, no. That Atlan is magnificent, isn’t he? Sent six guards to medical, and that was after they shot him with tranquilizers. Shame to lose him.”

I frowned.

“Lose him? Start talking, Niobe. What the hell happened here? Why is he in the brig? What did you do? He was fine a couple of hours ago.”

“In your bed, you mean.” Her dark brow arched up and I refused to look away from the challenge in her eyes. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know. Angh had ripped the door off my classroom. Obviously, what we meant to each other was more than just…dating.

“Yes. In my bed. He’s mine.” I stepped inside the room and closed the distance between us, until we stood facing one another, the broken window at our side. She was close enough to punch in the face, but I knew just how far I could push her without ending up in the brig myself, so I soothed the beast that seemed to live inside me now by stroking the hilt of my blaster. The slight scent coming from her glass smelled like vodka, a distinctly human drink. How she’d become accustomed to something so remote from Everis was beyond me.

The silence stretched, and she turned away from me to once again stare out over the grounds. Down below, dozens of cadets moved from building to building, talking, laughing, training. This had been my home for years now and I loved it, but I loved Angh more. Home was where he was.

“He’s mine, Niobe. My mate. I don’t care if you approve. I’ll still do my job for the I.C., but you can consider this my resignation from the Academy. If you need me, I’ll be on The Colony from now on.”

“With your mate?”

Duh. “Yes. With Angh.”

“I don’t think so, Kira. It’s too late for that.” She turned her back on me and I bit back a snarl of rage that she could be so callous, so calm. So fucking cold. But then I saw where she was headed. A shelf remained intact in the corner. On the top shelf rested an actual glass bottle of vodka from one of the premier distilleries in Russia and three more shot glasses.

When she didn’t say anything, I took the mating cuffs I had clipped to my belt and held them up. All four of them.

Shit.

“He went beast, didn’t he?” My question was asked softly. It was the voice I used right before I killed my enemies. And right now, the Vice Admiral was dangerously close to making that list. That was why her room was destroyed. That was the only reason why he’d have taken off the cuffs. If he’d given up. Shit.

“Don’t look at me like I’ve betrayed you, Kira,” she countered. “I did not force him to remove the cuffs.”

I believed her, but that wasn’t the whole story. The destroyed room said a whole lot more. “But you did do something. What did you say to him?”

She gave a slight shrug, took a sip of her drink. “I merely offered him a position, as you well know I had planned to do after speaking with Commander Phan on the last mission. The rest?” She motioned with her drink at the mess that remained in her office. “The rest was his way of refusing the offer.”

He wouldn’t have destroyed the room just because he didn’t want to join the I.C.

“I call bullshit. You can do better than that.” Something else had to have happened. There was no way the Atlan warrior I knew would lose his mind like this over a stupid job offer. No. Way.

She slammed back the rest of her vodka and refilled the glass. She held the bottle out to me, offering me a drink. “Vodka? It’s from my mother’s home country on Earth. There is nothing else like it.”

The Vice Admiral was half human? And Russian? She’d be able to drink me under the table…if it still had legs.

“I had plenty of that shit when I was on Earth. I don’t want a drink. I want the truth.”

She tilted her head toward the door. “Go ask him yourself, Kira. I did nothing. Merely—” She set the vodka back on the shelf and pointed to the cuffs, then to me. “—helped things along.”

I stacked the cuffs, heard their clink, felt them warm in my palm as I watched her drink her damn vodka. “If anything happens to him, I’m going to kill you.”

Her smile was not friendly. “Are you threatening a superior officer, Captain?”

I shook my head slowly, took the vodka from her hand and slammed back the drink in one motion. The sharp bite of it made me wince and I felt the searing burn work its way down my throat to warm my belly. “No. I’m telling the truth to a woman I thought was my friend.”

I held out the glass and she took it, then I turned on my heel and walked away before I did something really stupid.

The brig wasn’t designed to hold an Atlan in beast mode, and especially not if he was angry.

The best I could hope for was that he wasn’t so out of his mind that he wouldn’t listen. The worst?

No. I couldn’t think about the worst. I just had to hope I got there in time.

* * *

Kira, The Brig, Coalition Academy, Zioria

The sounds of the beast’s rage reached me before I was halfway to his cell. It stopped me in my tracks, then spurred me on. He was angry, hurt, upset. Fierce. Whatever the word, the beast was pissed. And I ached for him, and Angh. The energy fields might hold, but the walls and anchors they were built into were not meant to contain a beast.

If Angh was still in there, it was because he wanted to be. And there was only one reason for that, because he saw no reason to escape. To fight. God, it was as if I’d gotten an ion blast to the heart. That hurt almost as much as seeing what they’d done to him.

He was strapped down to a table, the bands around his body so thick they looked like they were preparing to mummify a corpse, not hold down a living being. Somehow, when they’d stunned him and dragged him down here they’d changed him into the light green material of the medical unit. He looked healthy, considering. Thank god. But that meant he was full strength and dangerous.

I’d never seen him like this. Mindless. Roaring. Totally out of control. The sight made my heart break all over again. Last night had been the most painful conversation I’d ever had. To say I wouldn’t wear the cuffs or be his had been horrible, but when he’d told me he wouldn’t have me, that our love wasn’t worth the lives that would be lost… Last night had broken me into a million pieces. We’d both been wrong, for I wasn’t the only one to fight. It wasn’t up to me to save the world…the universe. I was a mere cog…a good one, but a cog nonetheless. I’d be replaced if I died on a mission. They’ve have another warrior stepping in to fill my shoes in a matter of hours. But I could do my work and be Angh’s mate. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t seen it sooner, and now, seeing him like this in the brig, was my fault.

The rejection, our agreement, it had broken him, too. And that, too, was my fault. I wasn’t the only one who could run the missions and save the world. Save the galaxy.

Hell, I couldn’t even save him. My mate. The only man I’d ever loved.

All the things I’d said to him, the reasons I’d thought we couldn’t be together were all bullshit. And ego. And me being a fucking coward. I’d done this to him. Not the Vice Admiral. Not the Hive. He’d survived all of them. But he hadn’t survived me.

God, I was a bitch.

I might have broken him, brought Angh so low that he lay strapped to a table in the brig, but I could save him. Now. Now that I’d gotten my head out of my ass.

“Open it and get out,” I hissed, pointing at the barrier.

“He’s lost to the fever, Captain. The Atlans are sending an envoy for him in a matter of hours to decide his fate. From what I’ve heard, there’s a Prillon who came here with him who will complete the execution.” The Atlan cadet swallowed and there was pain in his eyes, pain for a fallen hero. It seemed he wouldn’t become a guard once he was done with the Academy. “I can’t let you in there. He’s too dangerous.”

He stared down at me, way down, shook his head, but there was condemnation in his eyes when he saw the cuffs in my hand. Judgment. He’d grown up with this, of executing those who’d gone into Mating Fever, who couldn’t be saved. He knew the drill better than me and yet he was the one who looked upset while I had my inner beast fucking raging.

The four Prillon warriors standing guard with him looked at me like I had lost my mind. Perhaps I had, but it was about damned time. I outranked all of them, plus the young Atlan, and the young Prillon standing at the control panel that would bring down the barrier. I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit.

“Open it and get out. That’s an order. He’s mine. My mate. And I’m not going to ask again.”

The Prillons looked to the Atlan for a decision, not because the Atlan outranked them—they were all third-year cadets based on the stripes on their uniforms—but because the Atlan understood what was happening here in a way the others could not.

“He might kill you, Captain,” he warned. “He might kill you and not know what he’s doing.” The Atlan’s deep rumbling voice reminded me of Angh’s, but it sounded so young and innocent. Naïve. He hadn’t seen battle yet. Hadn’t survived what my Angh had survived. He was young and fragile. Weak.

Angh was not. He was so strong. Too strong.

“He won’t hurt me,” I told him. “He’s the strongest warrior I’ve ever known.” I took the first small cuff and locked it around my wrist as the guards watched. Their eyes widened at what I was doing. They knew what the cuffs meant, the seriousness of it. Perhaps they’d now take my words just as seriously. “He’s mine and I’m here to claim him. Get out of my way.”

When the lock on my cuff clicked into place Angh roared, the sound something I’d never heard before. It was raw and filled with both power and rage. Startled, the Atlan put his hand on my arm to pull me away from the cell. I tried to shrug out of his hold, feeling and savoring the weight and feel of the cuff about my wrist.

I turned to find Angh had turned his head and his beast’s eyes were narrowed, focused on the other warrior’s huge hand on my arm.

“Get out of here,” I commanded. “All of you. He won’t hurt me, but he’ll kill you without blinking. And get your hand off me. I’m wearing one of his cuffs and you’re touching me. Not smart.” I stepped forward, closer to the barrier and out of the guard’s reach.

The Atlan guard’s eyes widened and his hand fell back to his side as if I’d burned him. He just nodded his head to the Prillon at the controls when the first strap holding Angh down snapped. The sound was loud, like the sudden breaking of a large tree limb, and I realized the bindings truly weren’t going to contain him. Not now that he’d seen me, seen another male touch me. I had hoped to get up there and put his cuffs back on his wrists, give him a few minutes to calm down, to soothe his beast, and then let him get up slowly.

Unfortunately, it looked like that wasn’t going to be an option. I would be dealing with Angh in full beast mode. I just had to hope he was still in there somewhere. The beast knew me…hopefully.

I waved at all of the guards behind my back, unwilling to turn away or break eye contact with the beast who was determined to come for me. Slowly, deliberately, I lifted the second small cuff to my wrist and snapped it in place as Angh watched. There. Done. I was his. I knew the cuffs could come off, but I wouldn’t remove mine. Ever. I’d made my decision. They were staying on.

He snarled and broke three more straps. Ping. Ping. Ping. He’d be free in seconds and the walls wouldn’t hold him. “Lower the barrier and get out of here. Now.”

Finally, the guards listened. The buzzing, electrical force field energy that had been in place disappeared and there was nothing but empty air and a few short steps separating me from my mate. But I waited, stood in place until the clomping of the guards’ boots was gone and I knew we were alone.

I knew this place was monitored on vid feeds, but I didn’t care at the moment. Angh needed me and it didn’t matter who watched as long as they were somewhere else, somewhere a raging beast couldn’t literally tear them in half.

“Angh. I’m so sorry.” My voice was gentle, but loud, hopefully both beast and Atlan could hear me. He was in full beast mode. Huge. While he wasn’t standing, I knew him to be eight feet tall. Muscles on top of muscles. Clenched fists. Ragged breathing. Intense gaze.

“Mine.”

The beast uttered one word, his eyes focused on me like lasers, and I knew the question of whether or not he still wanted me had been answered. But how far gone was he? Was he going to hurt me? I’d acted bravely, assured the guards that he would never do so. And I had to believe that. I had to, or this wasn’t going to work.

“You’re mine, Angh,” I told him, lifting my arms up in front of me like Wonder Woman and her bulletproof bracelets. “Do you see these cuffs on my wrists? I claim you, Warlord Anghar of Atlan. You better get yourself under control, Warlord, because you’ve got a mate who needs you.”

“Mine.”

The remaining straps broke over his chest and he sat, ripping the rest to shreds in a matter of seconds. Then he was up, stalking toward me like a conqueror, his bare chest magnificent. The green medical pants were soft and did absolutely nothing to hide the huge cock already straining to reach me. Thick and long, I knew what it felt like inside me. Filling me, stretching me. But that had been just sex. I hadn’t had on the cuffs. Now, I had the obvious proof that I wanted him. That while he kept saying I was his, he was also mine

I knew what this beast wanted. And my entire body responded, my pussy flooding with wet welcome and my blood heating with anticipation. Yes, I wanted it, too. God, I needed it. To know he was right there with me in this. That we were both wild, frantic and desperate to mate. To claim. I wanted his mark, to belong to him and no one else.

This was a beast coming to claim me, not a male. He was huge, nothing remotely civilized in his eyes or his stance. There would be no gentle wooing or soft words like the night before. He was raw. Untamed. Completely wild. This was different. I’d pushed him to the brink, and I would take what he needed for me to be claimed.

And I was so damn hot for him my knees almost buckled on the spot. I wanted him to lift me up against the wall and bury himself balls deep. I wanted him pumping into me like a madman, savage and so hot he burned us both. To groan and grunt, to be fucked by his inner beast until I forgot any male’s name but his. To feel the claim in my pussy for days. Forever.

I took a deep breath and held out my hand to stop him when he was just two steps away.

Thank God he stopped, his chest heaving, but I knew then that he was still in there. My Angh. He wasn’t a mindless beast. Wild, yes, but he was still mine.

“You’re not touching me again until you’re mine, Angh. Until these cuffs are back where they belong.” I dangled them between us, the ones he’d shed to set me free. But neither of us would be free until he out them back on.

Instead of taking them from me, as I expected, he simply held out both arms and waited for me to place them on his wrists. I hadn’t thought about it too much when I locked the smaller cuffs around my own wrists, but now I realized the weight of the moment. This was more than a wedding ring. More than a simple marriage would have been back on Earth. This was truly forever. Live together. Fight together. Die together. These cuffs were never coming off my wrists. I didn’t care if we couldn’t be more than fifty feet apart or we’d be zapped with pain. I had seen what would happen to him now, the risk he took, and I was never going to risk him like that again.

He was giving himself to me, just as he’d had that first night we’d met. I hadn’t understood then, but I did now. If I died first, he’d follow me, his beast unable to survive without a mate to soothe him. Where I went, he would follow. He would fight for me, kill for me, die for me.

I realized, as I locked the first cuff around his wrist, that I was more than willing to do the same for him.

“I love you, Angh.” I reached for the second wrist, the cuff the final step in claiming this magnificent male for myself. I didn’t care about consequences. Not anymore. I only cared about him. “I should have told you before. I should have put your cuffs on last night. I’m so sorry.”

I snapped the final cuff in place and still Angh didn’t move, it was like he was a stone wall, that if he moved a single inch, he would crumble.

I held my breath.

This was so not going like I thought it would. He was supposed to be kissing me now. Passionate and wild and totally out of control, not staring me down like I’d just killed his favorite puppy.

He was strong, disciplined, at least enough to hold himself back, and he was hurt. Hurting. I’d broken his heart and I hated myself for it. He’d been prepared to die because of me.

And so I would continue to lead this, to lead us to through the claiming. The cuffs were on, but there was still more to go. Reaching for the edge of my armored shirt, I lifted it over my head and dropped it to the ground. The undershirt followed, and the unusual sports bra I wore beneath that.

Angh’s breathing increased in speed, but his gaze still didn’t leave mine as I finished undressing, kicking off my boots and stepping out of my pants until I stood naked before him, wearing nothing but the cuffs. His cuffs. Without them, I could be fully clothed and yet I would be bare. They were all I needed now.

When he still just stared, I walked toward him and wrapped my arms around him. Chest to chest. His flimsy hospital pants the only thing separating us. I felt every hard inch of him, the thickness of his cock, the heat from his skin, the beast’s bulging muscles. I didn’t know what else to say. What else to do.

“Please. Please forgive me for being so damn stupid.”

With a growl, he spun me around, my back pressed to his chest, and carried me to the wall where a large metal bracket I hadn’t noticed before was imbedded. I gasped at the speed with which he moved, but didn’t fight him. He lifted my wrists and placed them over the metal, somehow activating them so I was stuck, on my tip-toes, arms over my head. Strung up and totally at his mercy.

“Mine.” The beast growled in my ear and I turned my head to watch as he ripped the flimsy hospital pants off his body and dropped them to the floor. He was naked, his cock huge and hard and dripping with pre-cum. My pussy flooded with heat, the wetness coating my thighs. I wanted him. Hard and hot and up against the wall. Right now.

“Yes,” I breathed. “You’re mine, Angh. My mate. Fuck me. Do it. I need you. Claim me.” I twisted and turned, trying to free my hands so I could turn around and touch him. Kiss him.

But he was in control now, and he had no intention of letting me have my way. This was how it was supposed to happen. Perhaps not in a brig, but rough and wild, the female at the male’s mercy. The beast’s mercy. This was the one time the beast was allowed to take complete control over the man, claiming me so that it could be soothed, so the Mating Fever could be gone.

“Ready?” The beast stepped behind me, his cock pressed to the small of my back, his huge hands cupping my breasts, not with tenderness, but massaging them like he wanted to devour me. All of me.

Seconds later, one hand dropped to my clit, slid past it and slipped deep, testing my wetness, my readiness for him.

“Angh!” My head fell back, onto his chest, and I squirmed, tried to press my clit against his rough palm, tried to fuck his finger. But I had no leverage, no way to move, no way to do anything but take what he gave me. It felt so good, a searing heat so powerful I would come if he just touched me…more.

When he lifted my hips and filled me from behind in one strong thrust, I nearly came. So big. So thick. I rippled and clenched around him trying to adjust. He was almost too much, but I would take him. All of him. Every hard, thick inch. I wanted him so much, so damn much. This was the first time we were really together, as mates. This was everything that had been missing before and I realized I had always been holding back, just a little. Just enough. I needed it wild. I needed it rough. I needed it out of my control.

“Mine.” His growl made my pussy clamp down on him like a fist and his beast groaned the exact moment I did.

He used his hands to reach around to the front of my thighs and spread me open, my wetness there catching on his palms, coating them. I slipped down a bit farther, took more of him, the thick head of his cock bumping the top of my pussy with a relentless, teasing pressure that built and built inside me until I thought I would explode if he didn’t move. This was it. My everything. He was in me, claiming me. I was his and he would never let me forget it.

* * *

Angh

I came to myself slowly, the beast none too willing to share control when we were exactly where we wanted to be, balls deep in our mate, the mating cuffs on her wrists, her hot, wet core wrapped around us like a fist. Clenching, squeezing, milking the seed from my balls.

I’d heard every word she said, the beast all too eager to ignore the threat the Vice Admiral had made and just take what it wanted. Kira.

With a supreme effort, I’d held him back. I knew taking her would be wrong. Bad. But the beast wouldn’t listen. I prevented him from ruling us both until she’d taken off her clothes and the smell of her wet heat filled my head with a lust so powerful there was no stopping the Mating Fever, or my beast, from taking what was his. Ours.

Her. Our mate.

Appeased, the beast finally allowed me to share some space in our head. Now, we teased her. Pumped in and out of her body slowly. She was helpless, submissive, trusting me and the beast not to hurt her.

The feeling was powerful, heady, and I knew Kira was everything to me. Everything.

I would fuck her. Fill her with my seed. Claim her.

And I’d do what I had to do to keep her safe. If that meant eliminating the Vice Admiral, so be it. No one was going to use us against one another. No one. And with the cuffs about our wrists, no one would doubt.

I’d kill the fucking king on Prillon Prime or the leader of my home world, if I had to.

I wanted this to last forever, our connection, the sweet, blissful feel of being deep inside her, but the smell of her skin, the softness of her pressing against my chest, the softness of her ass as it bounced against my hips was too much. Her wet core pulsing. Coaxing. The orgasm built, drawing up into my balls in a blissfully painful twist, and I knew I wouldn’t last, needed to take her with me.

I dropped one hand to her clit, found her swollen and slick and stroked her, increasing my speed, pumping into her like the primitive animal she turned me into.

Her scream was my cue to let go, and her pussy milked me as my roar filled the entire lower level of the Academy building where they’d held me.

I coated her pussy with my seed until it overflowed, slipping down her thighs, over my balls. I’d marked her. There was no going back. The claiming was complete.

The Mating Fever was instantly gone. My beast was soothed.

Hot, sweaty, barely breathing, I held her there, pressed to the wall as my beast settled, completely content for the first time in years. Hell, I never recalled being this sated, this much at peace.

Lowering my head to her shoulder, I kissed her there, gently. Finally, gently. I knew my voice would be hoarse, but I had to say it. “I love you, Kira. You’re mine.”

I saw her smile as I brushed her damp hair back from her face. “I love you, too. You’re my beast now, Angh. No more of this dying bullshit, okay? You scared the hell out of me.”

The bliss I’d felt dimmed. She’d only come here because she thought I was going to die. She hadn’t chosen me, she’d chosen not to let me die.

Before I could process that, someone cleared their throat.

Instantly, I moved my body to block the other’s view. But that was all I could do. The cuffs were still activated, holding her wrists locked to the wall above her head. And my cock was still buried deep. I didn’t want to pull out. Not yet.

If I was honest, I wanted to stay there forever.

With Kira sheltered from the stranger’s eyes, I turned my head to find the Vice Admiral standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a victorious grin on her face.

“Now that you’ve got that sorted out, finish up and be in Transport 2 in an hour.”

I growled, the beast coming from deep within me, taking control. It was no longer raging out of control, but fierce and focused.

“Kill you.”

This was the person who had threatened our mate and the beast was angry.

The Vice Admiral didn’t bat an eye at the threat. “Yes, well, can you do it after you get back from Sector 54? You’re mated now. You will go together. Fight together. I’m counting on the two of you to be my strongest team and we’ve got an I.C. asset that needs immediate extraction. So, one hour.”

With that, she turned on her heel and took three steps. Stopped. Faced me again. “Oh, and in case you were wondering, I relieved the guards monitoring the prison cell vid feeds, and a certain period of time will be mysteriously missing from Academy data.” With that, she left me alone with my mate. Both beast and man at a complete and total loss for words.

Was that the same woman who’d had me sent to the brig, strapped to the table and being readied for execution? Had this been her master plan all along? Was Kira here because she truly loved me, or because this manipulative female had forced Kira’s hand?

I couldn’t think on it now, for my cock was still hard, the vids were down and we were still alone. We might have to head to Sector 54, but I’d fuck my mate once more before we did so. This time, I would be in control, not my beast. But Kira would come again. Her pussy would pulse and spasm as I watched. I wanted to see her face this time. She was mine to pleasure. Mine to tame. And even if she had only come here to save my life, the beast didn’t care about the rules. He didn’t care about the Vice Admiral’s schemes. He’d taken what was offered and it was too late to change anything.

Kira was mine now, whether she truly wanted to be or not.

And I wasn’t strong enough to let her go.