Star Joined Book One

Maul

The sickening plush comforts of my father’s office push me to the point of revulsion. The man is the pillar of our caste and yet he lives like some pampered royal. Where once he commanded the battalion of Red Masks, he now sits before me as Commander of the Red School of Enforcement. Plush in his warm, comfortable office. There isn’t a sharp corner to be seen, even his desk is rounded like the curves of a woman.

“As I was saying, Maul, we need to be careful with your approach. We can’t be seen by the Premier as being overly suspicious of…”

“There is no we, father.”

“Now, Maul, when I spoke with the Minister of Finance…”

“Who has zero authority or influence on my position.”

Standing up from the chaise, my father tries to be imposing with his height and size, but it’s not working. I have long outgrown him in size and bulk. That he has to use the arm of the chair to push off doesn’t aid in his bluster one bit.

“Maul, my son, listen to me now. We are in a tenuous alliance with the Crima. The last hundred years of peace could be ended at any moment if we push too hard on the guidelines from the peace accordance. They are a barbarous race but...”

“Slavers, Father, and on the outer rims of this arm of the galaxy they still continue their trade with no rules.”

“Well, yes, but the political machinations at work…”

“Are of no consequence to me or the Red Masks. We answer to the Tribunal. You are trying to curry favor with—”

In his day my father was once a very dangerous fellow, but he has allowed himself to become weak with power. Where he was once fearsome in battle, now he is as soft and weak as a lamb.

The hand that comes up to strike me across the face is easily caught in my large fist.

Yanking him close to me, I growl, “Do you dare strike a Red Mask?”

“Now see here, Maul, I’m your father and you will—”

“No, you are a fat louse whose political ambitions of rising in caste have put him in peril of losing any chance of rising beyond here,” I say as I push him back into his chair.

His broad shoulders slump as the reality of my words hit him.

“Just consider looking at all of the angles before you go rushing in to arrest anyone. The humans are a smarter race than we give credit. Just because they have, for the moment, been put out of reach through the Slaver Mandates doesn’t mean that one day they won’t be. They are not advanced enough to push out even the weakest of the twenty-three, but one day soon the vote may sway in favor of using their solar system—and by that extension using them as tools or slaves.”

“That day is not today, Father, and by the Twenty-Three Tribunal, I will follow and enforce their mandates to the letter.”

“For the star’s sake Maul, lighten up! Every single Mask out there must ‘follow’ the mandates,” he says as he mimics my words. “But even in my days, we understood sometimes you must look at the bigger picture. Step on a bug here and it angers the whole nest.”

Turning away from him, I resist the cringe I feel as I walk across his star’s-forsaken carpet. It’s an affront to the code of the Mask. We live barren lives so that we may understand nothing but the law.

“Maul,” he calls out to me as I reach the door to his office. “Your mother wants you to come visit. She cannot understand why you insist on punishing her while you stay wrathful with me.”

Turning to him, I snarl, “I will visit my mother when I am able to. I don’t punish her.”

With that I rip his door open and take a much needed step out of the horrid office. Outside his office, the gray stoned hallway is all cool, straight lines. The air is much more to my liking, cold and brisk.

Taking a deep breath, I shut the door behind me.

* * *

Lexi

The floor is hard and unforgiving against my knees. My back aches from holding this same position for over an hour. I stare forward, chin up, hands on my thighs, seeing but not seeing as I focus my eyes on the blank white wall.

The world is a blur but the words I hear are crystal clear.

“She’s not ready,” Jack hisses angrily.

I’ve known him for so long, since we were in preschool, even though I can’t see him I can picture the way he looks perfectly inside my head. He always stands tall, taking advantage of his full six and a half feet to loom over others. He’s probably looming over poor Yarrel right now. When he’s angry, he’s quite impressive. His dark eyes narrow to slits and his face flushes a dark red. There’s a thick vein in his neck that seems to grow and throb the angrier he gets, and no doubt he’s clenching his hands into tight fists.

If the numbness wasn’t weighing me down, my heartbeat would skip a beat. Not ready? I’ve been training for this mission for six months.

If the drugs pumping through my veins weren’t enslaving my nervous and emotional systems, I’d probably be hurt by his lack of faith in me.

But all I feel is calm.

I am nothing.

This is nothing.

The fog thickens around me until Yarrel’s voice pulls me out. “She is ready. She’s been ready for weeks. The council is ready to move forward—”

“I don’t give a fuck what the council is ready to do,” Jack snaps. “This entire operation is a fucking joke. You idiots are going to get her killed!”

I feel the vaguest twinge in my fingers and fight the sudden urge to move.

Every day, it takes more and more serenity to pull me under. If we wait any longer, it won’t affect me at all.

If I have to do what I’m about to do and feel everything as well…

The fog thickens once more and I welcome the loss of my thoughts.

Yarrel sighs. “You know she wants to do this. She’s determined to rescue Isla...”

Everything sharpens, coming back into focus at the sound of my sister’s name. Isla is up there, somewhere, enduring who knows what.

It’s been six months. Six long months.

I might not even find her.

My pulse threatens to quicken but I center myself, bringing it back under control.

The wall is white. My head sits upon my shoulders.

Inside, I’m safe. Inside I can block everything out if I want to.

Jack mutters something I can’t quite make out and then there’s a loud bang as something slams into the wall.

It doesn’t surprise me. I’d be surprised if he was suddenly willing to go along with this. He’s been trying to talk me out of this mission since we first apprehended Yarrel.

But there’s no going back now. I was a goner the moment they took her. I won’t rest until I know Isla is safe.

“It’s out of our hands,” Yarrel says apologetically, and I don’t know why, but I don’t trust him. He sounds sincere but he doesn’t feel sincere. “All the necessary preparations have been made. We board tomorrow.”

“Fuck!” Jack growls and there’s another thud as something connects with the wall. “This is crazy. It’s fucking suicide. I can’t let her go through with this.”

There’s a bit of a scuffle and Yarrel calls out, “Wait, Jack. It’s too late—”

“I don’t give a fuck what the council wants! I’ll show them that this mission is doomed to fail. All they’re going to accomplish is getting her killed!”

Out of the corners of my eyes, there’s movement.

I continue to stare forward.

After all these months, I’ve mastered seeing without looking. Never moving my eyes to get more of the picture. If you focus on what’s floating around the center, you can put the pieces of the puzzle together.

A pair of boots thumps around me. Thick and black. Bureau issued.

Jack comes to stand in front of me, blocking out my white wall.

Lexi, he probes at my mind but I push him out.

I let him in once, when we were first connected by the neural transmitter he had us implanted with, and that brief moment ruined our friendship forever.

If I would have known how he felt, how he’s really felt about me over all these years, I would have never allowed myself to be bound to him.

Now he’s my only hope of making it back. My only connection to Earth.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Jack says with frustration. “You’re determined to go along with this? You’re determined to throw yourself away on this fool’s errand?”

I can’t take the bait. I can’t allow him to visibly affect me at all. If I show even the minutest of reactions, the entire operation could be called off. Everything relies on me appearing to be under the full effect of serenity, an alien drug so powerful it sucks you inside of yourself while turning everything else off.

Over the past six months, under Yarrel’s guidance, we’ve been building up my tolerance to the drug. At first, I was sucked completely in, living in a warm bubble of bliss. Completely oblivious to the outside world. My body continued to function without my mind, and I was essentially turned into a human robot.

Things were done to me. My body was used, tested, maybe even abused, but I was completely unaware. Inside myself, I was in my own personal little heaven.

It took eight weeks before I could fight my way back through the fog.

Yarrel wasn’t even sure it was possible. He waited until I finally surfaced, breaking through the bubble, before informing me that he’d never witnessed a human pull themselves out before.

We’re so weak, so vulnerable, he claimed, that we tend to get lost inside ourselves.

“I know you’re here, Lexi,” Jack says, taking a step toward me. “You may fool them but you can’t fool me. I’ve known you for how long now? Twenty-two years?”

More like twenty-one years. But he knows that. He knows the exact day and the exact time we first met in Miss Amanda’s class. I learned that and much more when the transmitters connected us.

He’s just trying to get me to respond.

He takes another step toward me and I feel that twinge in my fingers. My body wants me to move. Something bad is about to happen, but I have to remain still.

I stare forward, focused on his stomach. Imagining I can stare right through him and see the wall.

But then he takes another step, and another. Growing larger until I’m staring at his groin.

“Do you really think you can do it?” he asks, his voice lowering to an angry whisper. “Do you really think you can block it out when they take you? When they use you?”

He reaches down and grabs me by the back of my head. Tugging on my hair, he forces my eyes up.

His dark eyes are narrowed and his face is red. That angry vein in his neck throbs.

“What will you do, Lexi, when they fuck you with their alien cocks?”

Nothing.

I will do nothing. I will feel nothing.

I will run deep, deep inside myself.

My eyes begin to cloud over and Jack yanks painfully on my hair.

“No, no, don’t run away. Stay right here with me. I’m not done.”

His fingers dig into the back of my head while his other hand moves between us. The metal of his buckle glints in the light as he fumbles with his belt.

The protective fog in my mind thins, weakened by the force of my growing terror.

He’s not… He can’t…

I’m staring up at his face but I see without looking as he yanks his belt out.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Yarrel bellows from behind me.

“This is the final test,” Jack says, his jaw tensing with determination. “If she can’t whore herself for me, her best friend, how will she be able to do it for those alien freaks?”

“You can’t do this,” Yarrel sputters. “Are you nuts? She’s already been through all her testing. She’s already proven, time and time again—”

“I don’t fucking care,” Jack roars, cutting him off.

Jack’s grip tightens, his fingers painfully tearing hair from my scalp. But I don’t complain. I don’t twitch. I don’t groan.

To do so would be failure.

If I fail, I’ll lose Isla forever.

I’ll do anything to find her and rescue her. Anything.

The fog swirls in my corners.

Even this.

“You’re crazy!” Yarrel exclaims. “You’re compromising the entire mission.”

Jack ignores him, looking down to me. In his eyes, behind the anger, I see his pain. Selfishly, he wants me to fail because he wants me all to himself.

If I would have known he was in love with me when we first put together this recon mission, I would have asked to be reassigned to someone else. But how could I know? We’ve been best friends for years. We grew up beside each other, in neighboring houses. To me he’s always been like a brother.

“That’s it!” Yarrel roars. “I’m having you reassigned. You’re off the mission. Get out.”

Jack shakes his head, his eyes never leaving me. “For one, you don’t have the authority. You’re only working for us as long as we need you. And for two, we’re already connected. It’s too late to pair her up with someone else. Go ahead, pull me off. Either way, the mission is a bust…”

“Fuck!” Yarrel curses.

He needs this mission to succeed just as much as I do. Six months ago, I picked Yarrel up while scouring the black markets for information on my sister. He’s an illegal alien, literally, from another planet I can’t even pronounce—Exqucthk. I busted him in Rome, selling off-world psychedelics to horny ravers. He was about to be handed over to the ruling alien government in this part of the galaxy, the Twenty-Three Tribunal, when he struck a deal with my superiors.

It’s no secret that even though Earth is technically a protected planet, we’re struggling with illegal poachers. Ever since we made first contact, men, women, and children have been disappearing by the droves.

A multi-national bureau was formed in response to the growing threat, the International Human Protection Bureau, or just ‘the Bureau’ for short. But given our lack of advanced technology, and our inability to retrieve those that are taken off-planet, we’ve been mostly ineffective.

Unable to do more than record those who have disappeared.

That is until Yarrel started spilling the beans. Exchanging info in return for not being handed over to the Tribunal. Through him, we’ve learned about serenity and the illegal slave rings the alien poachers control.

My superiors contacted the Tribunal, sharing the information we received while claiming it came from an anonymous source. But without any physical evidence, the Tribunal has so far been unwilling to act on our behalf.

They’ll only act if and when we present irrefutable proof.

Jack’s fingers in my hair tug, pulling my head down.

I will provide the irrefutable proof.

With Yarrel’s help, I’ll infiltrate one of the many illegal slave markets, and everything I want the Bureau to see and hear will be transmitted back to Jack through the telepathic connection of our transmitters.

Jack pushes my head down until I’m at eye level with his groin. Now that he’s no longer holding me with his eyes, I run as hard and as fast as I can deep inside myself. But my fog has thinned into a wispy mist. There’s not enough to block everything out. It’s like looking through a frosted window. I can still see and hear.

And feel.

Jack takes a deep, shuddering breath and then the hand holding the back of my head guides me forward.

“Suck me off,” Jack rasps.

“Oh, fuck!” Yarrel cries out in disgust.

My nose bumps into the crotch of Jack’s pants and I reach out to brace myself. I want to hesitate. I want to stall and give him a chance to change his mind. But even a split second will give him all the ammo he needs to call the mission off.

My hands move, sliding up.

Finding the button of his pants, I begin to open them.

My movements are steady, almost robotic.

I feel nothing.

This is nothing.

I gather what little fog I have left and wrap it around myself.

Jack has always been like a brother to me. A friend I could always count on. We’ve been through so much together.

So much.

Jack’s breathing quickens as I pull his zipper down.

When I first learned he was in love with me, I tried to reciprocate his feelings. I tried to make myself feel more… but I just can’t. There’s literally a lifetime of platonic feelings to overcome.

Maybe now he’ll stop me, I hope as I pull his pants down.

I know he doesn’t really want to do this. He’s not excited at all. He’s just trying to psyche me out.

His pants pool at his feet.

I reach up.

This is nothing. This is nothing, I repeat as I pull down his boxers.

He’s soft, his flesh limp against the dark nest of hair covering his groin.

This is only a means to an end. When it’s all over, I’ll find a way to forget.

I reach for him and he shoves me away, cursing out, “Fucking hell!”

I tumble backwards and then Yarrel is there, catching me. “It’s okay, Lexi, it’s okay,” he murmurs, and I feel a sharp prick in the side of my neck.

My chest swells. My veins flood with warmth and my eyes cloud over.

Bliss washes over me. Warm, bubbling bliss.

Angry voices float above my head. Bursting into golden, glittering sparkles.

“Are you happy now?” Yarrel snarls. “Did she pass your fucking test?”

The waves lap at my toes, pulling me closer.

“Yes,” Jack answers angrily. “She passed with flying colors.”

I’m sinking.

Sinking.

“Good,” Yarrel mutters. “Then the mission is a go?”

“Yes, it’s a go,” Jack reluctantly confirms.

I won, I realize just before I slip under.

He tried to psych me out but I psyched him out.

* * *

Maul

“Maul, are you sure you want to anger your father like that?” Marketh’s voice annoyingly floats through my mind.

“I care very little how angry he is. He holds no power over me, Marketh.”

“You say that, but I’m the one monitoring your body’s vital signs.”

Shaking my head, I continue down the dim corridor. He’s right that my vitals have risen. I may be able to control my outer emotional appearance, but my anger on the inside is not so easily hidden.

Not from Marketh.

The moment he was implanted on my brain, the symbiote has been a part of my life. From the start of my training, the rise through the common ranks, and now as a head investigator of the Tribunal.

“I could have you removed you know,” I growl quietly.

“There is a one in three hundred and forty-one chance it would lobotomize you. If you were stupid enough to take that risk, I would have never chosen to be placed in you.”

“You didn’t choose that, Marketh. You were assigned to me just like I was with you.”

A gravelly laughter fills my head. “That’s what you think. While you are on the narrow path of righteousness, I myself wasn’t the least bit afraid to intercede on my own destiny.”

Marketh could be joking, then again I know him. He might play innocent to the Tribunal when he is scanned, but I can read him like he does me.

“Now that you’re blocking me out, would you mind telling me what you have planned?” he asks as we come to a row of elevators.

“I need to finish packing then we need to make sure our cover is solid. Have you connected to the Central Net yet for any updates?”

“I will as soon as we get out of this building. They had no forethought when it came to connecting to anything that wasn’t hardwired.”

The Citadel is the largest structure and perhaps grandest on Rathturia. It is the showcase of our ascent to the Tribunal. We, the Rathturia, are a proud race, as we should be. We sit in the highest chair of the Tribunal.

But as Marketh has so succinctly put it, the ability to transmit data through the thick walls is less than optimal.

The elevator opens silently as I watch one of the two occupants get out and head in the opposite direction of my father’s office. The woman remaining in the elevator is one of the guards.

Nodding my head, I step into the enclosed box.

“What level, sir?”

“The hangar.”

I shift to the back of the elevator as I feel the almost weightlessness sensation of us traveling down three hundred floors. The hangar isn’t on the lowest floor, but with how wide and long the building is, it’s placed on a floor where there is enough space to house the vast amount of vehicles of those who work or live here.

The falling sensation ends as suddenly as it began. The doors open and I step out into the controlled chaos. Walking up to one of the parking attendants, I give him my space number and climb into an open-air shuttle car. We speed out to the outer confines of the hangar, reaching my slate gray bullet.

All around me are the large and small personal craft used by my race, though the large sized ones are in far more use than the small ones like my own. My two-person bullet is shaped to almost the same dimensions of a spear tip. The front view station slides up, away from the cockpit.

Climbing up into the front seat, I pull the straps of my harness over my chest.

“Marketh, get us out of this congestion.”

“Doing so. Maul, you still haven’t shared with me what you’ve been planning since we went to see your father.”

“The plan is still the same. We fly out to the Archlean System and use our cover to buy our way into the private auction. Once there, we gather the evidence we need. Then we come back to the Tribunal with said evidence in hand. Then we go on to the next case.”

“You sound so sure of yourself, Maul, I almost believe you. Your heart rate is telling me that’s not all.”

“Marketh… I’m warning you. Do not pull this shit on me.”

We enter a short silence as we slowly gain traction in the long line of vehicles exiting the hangar. Even with all the modern advancements my society has made, traffic jams still plague our existence.

“One in three hundred and forty,” my symbiote says after we shoot up into the crystal clear pink sky.

“You said forty-one earlier. Are you forgetting your own load of bullshit, bud?”

“I’ve connected to Central Net. It seems someone was in the middle of trying the procedure...”

Shaking my head, I say, “Let’s go home.”

I use to reside in the barracks at the Red Masks’ headquarters. That ended the day I gained the first black stripe on my Mask. It would be, as I was told, unheard of to live such a spartan lifestyle now that I had risen from the rank and file. Buying my home brought me little pleasure, though. It now meant I had to travel to work instead of simply opening my door and walking to my office.

Pulling the hardened metal away from my face, I turn it towards me. The blood red color of the metal is stricken with four black stripes. Each one was a badge of honor and a rise through the ranks. Being on the last tier of officers, I’m finally in a position to choose my path, to do the things I most want. To work directly for the Tribunal.

To be their arm of order.

One more damnable stripe, though, and I’ll lose it all. I’ll reach past the top of my castes’ rung. I will be of the ruling class, a bloody fucking royal.

Sliding the mask back into position on my face, I fasten the retainers. Looking out the window, I see my silver skin reflected back at me. Only my eyes show on my face, my nose and mouth are covered completely by the blood red mask.

I reach up and rub my eyes. My day only seems to lengthen as I look out across the city. The sun is slowly rising from the east but I’m certain I will be working long past the close of the business day.

“Marketh, what’s the ETA on the information requested for the cover identity?”

“I have two ready for you, Maul.”

“Two? Why in the stars do I need two?”

“One is from the Commission, the other I have… designed.”

The Commission is our branch of the Tribunal. While the Tribunal is the overhead figure, there are different branches of the castes. The Red Masks are the intelligence and military branch. Above us are the Royal Politicians and beside us are the Merchants. Down below us are the lower castes, the laborers and such.

“What do you mean ‘designed’?”

“The Commission has one built for you. Would it pass a standard check through our systems? No. Through another branch of the Tribunal? Probably.”

I roll my eyes and just know the little symbiotic bastard is waiting for me to ask him, “And your cover?”

“Unless someone has met you before, you would be a completely new person. I even have the identification chip ready to be changed to your new identity…”

“That’s illegal, Marketh,” I loudly hiss out as my claws pop out of my hands. Taking deep breaths, I force them to retract.

“Technically it’s not, Maul. As per article four, subsection fifteen point sixteen, paragraph twenty-five states that during an undercover investigation, if an officer feels that there is a clear and mortal danger to his person, they may change the identity of oneself in order to save himself and his current investigation.”

“I’m willing to bet that there’s a large amount of words you didn’t just include, Mar.”

“That may be true, but in essence, and more importantly our safety, what I’ve said will keep us in the clear.”

“Why do you think we need that deep of a cover?”

“For the same reason I think your father could be right on not needing to kick the whole nest of rabid howlers. I like my continued existence. If you die, it’s quite possible I will not be able to be implanted into another person.”

Fucking self-aware symbiotes. “That’s not explaining the deep cover…”

“Look at it like this, Maul, if we go in with the very thin cover they’ve currently provided you, who’s to say it isn’t accidentally too thin… Or even accidentally leaked?”

I nod my head and say, “And the cover you have for us will get us off-planet? Get us past the Tribunal’s galactic defense systems?”

“Yes, and I’ll tag your commission-based cover on some other traveling Rathturian. He goes out towards the eastern annex, while we head west.”

“Marketh, mind popping out of my head? Do this the easy way.”

“Easy for you,” Marketh says as a small floating orb of ever-moving silver liquid detaches from the personal computer attached to my wrist. The voice has the same sound as in my head, but this way I don’t feel like I’m arguing with myself.

The orb circles around my head before settling itself two feet in front of me.

Conversations with symbiotes are a complicated mess of very theoretical science that even I don’t fully understand. The gist of it is that we can block each other off or be a completely open book.

Most are like Marketh and I. We are blocked to certain degree so that we can have some semblance of privacy.

While he can stay in my head with me, I normally speak out loud instead. Internally feels very different than out loud. For some reason, our brains are wired in a way that internal communication is much more personal and open. From what I can understand, it allows our more hidden feelings to be exposed. It’s also a bit harder to keep secrets.

That’s the Rathturian race though. Marketh is an S.I., aka Symbiotic Intelligence. He has his own secrets and desires, I guess.

When we say S.I., it isn’t in the computer sense. They’re not computers, they’re organic intelligence that lack a body to house themselves in. S.I.s are a symbiotic race of beings we encountered several thousand years ago. At first, we hunted them for the abilities they gave if we ingested them.

Then some intelligent guy decided to see what would happen if they were to touch our brains.

That was when we first discovered these little bastards were sentient. We went from hunting the little jellyfish-like creatures to shoving them inside ourselves. We gave them a place to live and the ability to travel past their star, and in return they gave us powers beyond anything we had ever known.

These little gel buggers are inserted into a hole that has been drilled into the base of our skull. It slithers in and then it enmeshes itself to our very brains.

I watched a video about what was about to happen when I first entered the Academy. It turned my stomach pretty quick. It didn’t look natural or even remotely like something I wanted. That didn’t matter though, it was part of the process, and like in life, we all do things we don’t want to so that we can be what we want.

S.I.s gave us the powers that allowed us to take our position at the top of the Tribunal. The Crima may think they are close to being our equals, but they aren’t. Being the second tier only means they are the first of those who are not first tier.

“While we travel, Maul, I believe we should continue with your exercises. You have put them off long enough. Just because you are investigating…”

“Leave it alone for now, Mar.”

The silver orb vibrates for a moment before I hear a flat tone say, “As you wish, Investigator Asshat.”

Growling at the orb, I raise my left hand. Concentrating with my mind, I push hard at the little orb. Watching it shoot away from me and slam into the front window gives me a tiny bit of pleasure.

Marketh’s silvery orb comes shooting back at me and attempts to slam into my eye.

Only the force of my will stops the little ball from blinding me.

“Well done, Investigator Maul,” Marketh says happily.

“Remember, if you take my eye out, it’s you who will be punished with me.”

“I do, Maul, but if you would practice more I wouldn’t have to push you.”

He has me there. I’ve been slow to learn the full functions of the powers Marketh has given me. His race are incredible beings, really. They formed their own way of fighting long before we gave them large bodies to use. Anything from telekinesis, to ESP, to body altering. They can even affect small areas with different atmospheres. Such as making it rain inside of a room.

The more difficult powers such as ESP and atmosphere changing, however, are very rare. The S.I.s who can do that will rarely, if ever, bond to someone. The telekinesis that Marketh possesses is also rare but not quite as rare. Most S.I.s possess powers that give their hosts the ability to alter their own body in a way that’s beneficial, like increasing one’s metabolism or hardening one’s skin.

The gray bullet slows quickly as it shuttles to a landing port outside my home. I live further from the city than most. It allows me to continue the lifestyle I need.

Climbing out of the transport, I head into my house. The decoration here is kept to a bare minimum. The dining room is a single table big enough for two chairs. The bedroom is a bed large enough for two, maybe. No pictures hang from my walls; no carpets warm my floors. Here the walls are a slate gray and the windows stay closed.

Marketh floats before me as he says, “When should I tell your mother to expect you? She has called three times in the last day to speak with you. I don’t feel like blowing her off anymore, Maul.”

“Then don’t answer the call.”

“You can’t hide from her forever, she wants to see you.”

“Why? So she can sob over the misfortune of having a son who is unmated? So she can tell me how, if I just tried harder on finding my bondmate, that I would be so much happier?”

The orb chuckles. “You speak as if being mated would be the end of the universe, Maul.”

“I speak of being a pariah as it is. I don’t need a mother’s sadness weighing on my shoulders because I will not be providing her grandchildren.”

“So I should not answer the current incoming call from her?”

“No.”

Marching past Marketh’s orb, I roughly shove my bedroom door open. I don’t need shit like this today when I’m trying to leave on a job.

I grab the bag off the closet floor and pull the only clothing I have that isn’t uniforms out. Two sets of pants and three shirts. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ll need for the trip.

Shoving them into the bag, I growl at myself. If the woman would just accept I am her failure she would be much happier.

I’ve accepted it.

* * *