“You reek of mortal female,” Bleu said, his bass voice suiting his slightly larger build and the darkness in his expression. “What business had you bringing her here?”
Loren exhaled slowly. What business indeed? Bleu suspected that Loren had brought the female here to make love with her and that was enough to have him ready to lecture him on his safety, the safety of their kingdom, and a myriad of other things. If his friend didn’t like entertaining the idea of him risking his neck and those of his people to get a taste of a pretty human female, then he was going to hate the truth.
“It is not what you think,” Loren said and waited until Bleu’s expression began to soften before he added, “It is worse.”
“Worse?” Bleu shoved away from the door and came to stand in front of him. They were equal in height but that didn’t stop Loren from feeling as though Bleu was towering over him, attempting to show him how angry that one word and the involvement of the human female made him.
Loren moved past Bleu and headed along the long stone corridor. Coloured crystals lit it at intervals, casting shadows in the intricate carvings across the barrel-vaulted ceiling.
“The female doctor... is my ki’ara.” Loren kept one step ahead of Bleu, not wanting to see the thunderous look he could feel directed at the back of his head.
“What do you mean... she is your ki’ara?”
Loren sighed. “Exactly that. Vail left me outside the Archangel facility on purpose. He knew that the female was my fated one and conspired to throw us together.”
“He ensured you would need blood the moment you awoke... believing you would be in the presence of this female.” Bleu stopped dead and Loren halted too, and slowly looked over his shoulder at him. Bleu stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and eyebrows lodged high on his pale forehead. He remained motionless for almost a full minute and then his purple eyes slid to Loren and he frowned. “You bit her and unwittingly bound yourself to her.”
Loren nodded. “Unfortunately. In doing so, I have made her a target for my brother and have weakened myself. I have no doubt that Vail will seek her out and torture her, inflicting her pain upon me, having his revenge for what I did to Kordula.”
Bleu swore an oath under his breath and started walking again, his footsteps silent in the hall. Loren waited until he was in line with him and then began walking, keeping pace beside him this time.
“What will you do?” Bleu said in a low, cautious voice.
His second in command wasn’t sure what to make of this or what Loren would do. Loren could sense it in him. His emotions were all over the place and fear laced all of them. Not fear for Loren or the female. Bleu feared saying the wrong thing, inciting the wrath of a bonded male.
That sagacity was the reason Loren had made him his second in command four thousand two hundred years ago when Bleu had been one of the few to make it back from the first attack by Vail. The male had been born for the role of commander of Loren’s legions, a first rate soldier and strategist, and a man who would speak his mind without fear if he felt the kingdom was making the wrong move.
“I will not be completing the bond if I can help it,” Loren said and felt his friend’s emotions immediately settle, the fear drifting away. “I go to speak to the researchers about it now. They will find a way to undo it.”
Bleu cast him an unconvinced look. “What if there is no way?”
“I will complete the bond to restore my strength.” He didn’t let the emotions that swirled inside him whenever he thought about laying claim to his ki’ara colour his voice. If Bleu detected that part of him wanted to complete his bond with Olivia and finally have his eternal mate, he would speak out against her and remind him of his position and his duty, and his war with his brother. All good reasons to let Olivia go, but it wouldn’t stop him from turning on Bleu. Loren wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself.
He felt irritable just talking about her with Bleu, half of him expecting his friend to turn against her, the other half expecting Bleu to attempt to steal her from him. Would he feel like this around all males until the bond with her was broken? He was on the edge and close to losing his cool, scenarios running amuck in his mind, most of them involving beating any male who dared look at her into a bloody pulp.
If this was how he felt now, he didn’t want to think about how he might feel if he completed the bond with Olivia.
No wonder Vail had gone insane.
“I will kill the female.”
Those five words turned Loren’s blood to fire.
He fought to contain the explosive rage that ignited within him and calmly said, “She must not be harmed.”