The fact that Dravon stated that Bella had yet to be officially claimed proved it. Yes, she was our mate, but until we’d claimed her—all three of us fucking and filling her at the same time—the bond could be broken. She could be sent to another. It was a sharp twist of a ruthless blade, pointing out this fact, this weakness and vulnerability to his own brother.
The fucker. I was the damn pacifist among the three of us, but right now, I hated Evon’s brother. He was an asshole that needed to be knocked down a few pegs.
Even Bella, who knew nothing about our ways, picked up on the wording, the interplay between siblings. Her back was ramrod straight and her eyes were narrowed. I put a hand on her thigh, felt it tense, but she quickly relaxed.
It was then I realized she wasn’t wearing that filmy white gown she transported in, instead warm clothing that covered her body modestly. Thank fuck Thalia had helped her. No doubt she would have come to this hearing in just a wrap Evon had draped over her. Would our Bella have arrived with her lush breasts and hard nipples obvious for everyone to see? I might be the calm one of our new family, but I would have had her over my shoulder and out of the room before she put her ass in a chair.
“The charges against me are severe. As I am innocent, I demand to know on what grounds you lay these claims at my feet,” Liam said, returning the conversation back to the situation at hand. His voice was calm, but as his friend I recognized his tenseness, that he was tightly coiled from this, from having Bella in the room. His stance was more Evon than Liam.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the panel member from Sector 1 added. “Your family has caused enough trouble through the years, but even your father has not resorted to murder.”
She was wrong, but the knowledge Liam had shared with me in the past was not pertinent today. Liam’s father was a killer, a cold-blooded, calculating murderer who rationalized every evil act with his fanatical belief in separatist politics.
“Murder?” Liam asked, his voice loud. “I am no murderer. I served long years in the Coalition Fleet, defending this planet. I have sworn an oath to the three kings, am a member of the Royal Guard, and have taken a mate shared by three sectors to unify the planet. I am innocent of your claims.”
Bella took my hand, gripped it tight.
Murder?
“A technician in the transport center was killed by an ion blast to the heart. Doctors estimate his time of death to be five minutes prior to the transport of stolen goods.”
Liam shook his head. “I had nothing to do with this. Why am I here?”
“Your security codes were used to initiate the transport and bypass IQC security protocols.”
Shit. They’d kept the murder quiet, and the use of Liam’s codes was shocking. No one shared codes. They were implanted in special quantum crystals just under the skin of our wrists. There was no sharing, no faking the codes. They were assigned randomly and programmed by the Coalition’s computer system.
The look on Liam’s face was half anger, half stunned. He’d only killed Hive and they were the enemy. And using his security code? Short of cutting off his arm or dragging him to a control station, no one could use it. Hell, no one would even know what it was. Liam didn’t even know what it was, a randomized sequence of over two hundred letters, symbols and forms made up from pieces of all the languages in the Interstellar Coalition. It was impossible to break.
“That’s impossible,” Liam began. “Based on your statement, you have an exact time for this incident. When did this occur?”
“Twenty-two fifty-three,” another member of the panel said, his head down as if reading the fact from his tablet.
That was last night. Fairly late. Bella hadn’t arrived yet. Hell, I hadn’t even been tested yet. Evon’s testing had been first, yesterday morning. Liam’s had been just after dinner, several hours before the incident in question.
I heard Evon swear under his breath. We must both be thinking the same thing. Liam was most likely alone in his own quarters then. We only received access to the Mated Family Quarters this morning after we were matched.
“Do you have an alibi for this time?” Commander Tyrell asked.
I swore I saw Liam blush. “I was alone in my quarters. I’d completed my testing for the Interstellar Brides Program at the medical station and returned to my quarters. Have any of you been tested for a match?” he asked the panel.
I knew Evon’s father was mated, obviously, but hadn’t been matched. All of the others shook their heads. Either they weren’t mated at all, or had found their mate without the assistance of the Brides Program.