Lorinda turned and examined her carefully. “Are you okay, child?” Mel smiled at her mother-in-law. “I’m fine. Just some flying glass.” Lorinda frowned and glanced up at her son. “Wulf?”
“She’s fine, Mother.” Wulf sat in the chair next to Mel. “If she weren’t, she’d be upstairs, resting, with me standing guard.”
Mel turned her head and glared at her mate. “You and what army?” She pinched his thigh under the table. Turning back to the table at large, she asked, “So, what’s happened since the sniper attack?”
“My sister’s houseman stated that we must be mistaken. No sniper fire had come from Beria’s home,” Ilar stated in a monotone. “If there had been such activity, he would’ve reported the same to the Home Guard.”
“The Home Guard?” Mel asked, looking at Wulf.
“Similar to your policemen on Earth,” he replied. “Each city on Cejuru Prime has a Home Guard to police the local citizenry.”
“Got it.” She looked around the table. “With all the negative energy in the room, I’m guessing that none of you believe Aunt Beria’s servant’s story.” Her Uncle Tor spat out a particularly vile swear word in Prime that cast aspersions on Beria’s origins.
“Tor Maren!” Lorinda said, ice dripping from every syllable. “That kind of language does not belong at the table in my house. I understand your anger; your niece, my son’s precious bond mate, could have been killed. I share this anger, but only low minds resort to profanities.”
“Remind me to clean my language up around your mother.” Wulf’s chuckle trickled through their mind link. “She swears also. She just likes to pull Maren’s chain. They practically grew up together. Their mothers were related by marriage.”
“Lorinda, my apologies,” Tor said, the gracious diplomat side of him coming to the fore. “But I will probably say a lot worse before this damnable mess is complete.”
“Mother, you might as well take a blanket apology from all of us,” Huw said. “This is one of those times when profanity is going to fly.” Wulf’s mother nodded once. “I understand—but there are ladies present, and gentlemen should be aware.”
Huw snorted back a laugh.
“Is something funny, son?” his mother looked down her very aristocratic nose at her youngest son.
“Melina swears like a soldier, mother,” he said. “And she is very much a lady—and present.”
“Watch it, Huw,” Wulf snarled. “Or my lady will kick your butt around the gym later this afternoon.”
“Well, maybe not today,” Ilar broke in with a chuckle that lightened his serious mien, “but I would like to see that—later. Tor and my sons have told me how well you fight, Melina.”
Melina shot him a grin.
“Why not today, father?” Iolyn asked.
Ilar swept the table with a grim look. “After my call to Beria and Luka’s home about this morning’s attempt to kill Melina, I got a call from Beria inviting all of us to a party this afternoon to welcome Wulf’s gemate to the family.”
“How convenient,” muttered Mel. “They are pushing the first meeting on us. Are we going?”
“Father!” Wulf snarled. “It’s too risky. We do not control the environment. I will not expose—”
Mel placed her fingers over Wulf’s lips. “No, I think we interrupted the council of war when we came down to breakfast. Your father and my uncle have a plan—and that is why your mother is so upset.”
“Exactly, daughter.” Ilar smiled at her. “See, Lorinda? She can read the emotional energy in the room. I know that she and Wulf communicate mind-to-mind. The legends weren’t all fable and fantasy, but Beria and Luka won’t know that. This is an advantage for our side.”
“She can still be killed, husband,” snapped Lorinda.
Mel let out a small sigh. She was really getting tired of reminding people that she was a soldier long before she was Wulf’s mate.
“Lorinda … uh, Mother…” Wulf’s mother beamed at her use of the more familiar address “…I’m a soldier. Who better to walk into an obvious trap? This Beria and her husband can’t be aware we suspect them. Why would they? They expect to be believed about the sniper—and in point of fact, anyone could have sneaked onto their property and shot at us.”
“Melina, lubha, you are forgetting one thing,” Wulf interrupted. “Ensign Regin Twitter, one of the men who tried to attack you, is the husband of Beria and Luka’s daughter Mara. They have to know we’ve arrested Regin for treason and attempted murder. I’m not sure the welcome mat is being unrolled in good faith.”
“Oh … didn’t Regin say his wife had nothing to do with this?” Mel asked, her forehead wrinkling as she tried to recall everything Regin had said and done.
“Yeah, he did,” Iolyn confirmed. “He was emphatic about it—but that doesn’t mean Aunt Beria isn’t in it up to her fat neck.”
“Ioyln!” Ilar said in a harsh tone. “It has yet to be proved that my sister is guilty of anything other than being mated to that pompous ass Luka. And if I recall, neither Beria nor Luka approved of Mara’s early bonding to Regin.”
Ilar turned to Melina. “Luka was always in trouble as a youth. I think my sister and her husband wished he’d gotten killed before he bonded fully with their daughter. Diew knows she would’ve been better off. Regin is and always has been a loser—and just the sort who would take up a cause such as the purist rebels are espousing.”
“Early bonding?” Mel asked. “Like my bonding with Wulf?”
“No. More traditional—and much later. He got her pregnant when Mara was thirteen standard years,” muttered Wulf under his breath. “We usually like to wait to bond-mark until the female is eighteen standard years.”
“Mara and Regin are gemat-gemate, yes?” Mel asked, puzzled that Mara’s parents could disapprove of the genetic bonding all Prime couples seemed to be subjected to, although she could understand about a teen pregnancy being frowned upon.
“Yes, lubha, ” Wulf said, “but some parents still do not approve of the bond mate.
Just because biology selects out the couple, does not mean the couple will fully bond.
Luka and Beria would rather have their daughter die single and a virgin than be bonded badly. This is another reason why we need to enlarge the bonding pool and seek the most compatible females from the other humanoid races in the galaxy.” Mel glanced around the table. Each and every person there nodded solemnly at what Wulf had just revealed.
“Okay … and we are telling me this now?” She turned and glared at Wulf. “Why are we fully bonded then? I was not a happy camper in the beginning, remember?”
“Because you are an adult as am I, and not a juvenile delinquent such as Regin nor a mere teenager such as Mara when the bond was completed.” Wulf leaned over and whispered against her lips. “And you loved me from the moment you met me, if you would only admit it to yourself. Just as you love me now. Our bond is true and strong.
Regin and Mara’s was not perfect.”
“Okay. Fine. You made your point,” she said.
Wulf’s look of satisfaction at her admission flared through his eyes right before he kissed her lips. As he pulled away to sit back in his seat, she grabbed his face and pulled him back for one more deep kiss. When she pulled away, he winked.
She grinned at him, then turned to others who had silently and happily observed the exchange between the two. “So? We’re going to the party, right, Father?”
“Yes, Daughter,” Ilar said, a huge grin on his face. “We are definitely going to the party, and we will take all precautions.”
“I’m taking my weapons,” she said. “No compromising on that issue.”
“Agreed,” Ilar said. “And Huw and Iolyn as family members may take a date. I suggest some female members of the Gold Squadron might be appropriate. Of course, they will be fully armed also.”
“I concur, Father,” Mel said. She eyed her brothers by marriage and smiled, a wicked little twist of her lips that had the two frowning at her. “I have the perfect female crew members in mind. Nadia Petrovich, the Galanti science officer—” she threw a narrow-eyed glare at Huw’s groan “—and Dr. Lia Morgan, the medical officer on the Leonidas.
They are both strong and well-trained—and are used to my command.”
“Can they get to the surface within the next two hours, Daughter?” Ilar asked.
“Not a problem. How are we to dress for this soiree?”
“It’s a poolside party,” Lorinda said. “Swimsuits with coverups are the usual.”
“We aren’t swimming, Mother,” Wulf said. “No way to hide the weapons. I want the women to have at least a knife and sidearm with them.”
“Then a pants outfit or a long dress would do, wouldn’t you say, Mother?” Mel asked.
“Either would be fine.” Lorinda’s face was still a calm mask, but underneath her anger and fear upset Mel.