“Tango?” Anika frowned.
Tara sighed. “You are your brother’s sister. Have you and Urazi been having sex? You know, coupling—in a breeding way, not the Parseon way.”
Heat flooded Anika’s face, and she ducked her head.
“There you go! You’re pregnant.
Encinta
. Got a sweetcake in the oven.”
Anika did not understand what she meant by encinta or what baking sweetcakes had to do with anything, but she understood pregnant. She pressed her palms to her abdomen and stared down at herself. Was that a slight swell? More heat suffused her face. Urazi would be stunned to learn he might have a son. But pleased. Anika peeked at Ramona.
Maybe I’m having a female.
A secret little thrill raced through her.
I will teach her to hunt and fight and shoot crossbows.
A baby! She and Urazi had conceived a baby! She almost felt like she could float away on a cloud of joy and wonder. She lifted her head and stared at Tara. “I think I
am
pregnant.”
Surely Marlix would not send her to Ilian now.
* * * *
A tense portent crackled over the eating chamber, warning of an impending storm. Urazi could feel the squall building, gaining force as they pretended to eat.
Marlix had stalked into his salon like a Commander on a mission, his gait long and purposeful. He’d stopped to kiss Tara and baby Ramona, then greeted Anika with an enveloping embrace. “I am glad you are home,” he said. “You and I will talk after we eat.”
Talk
meant he would deliver his edict.
Then Marlix fastened a hard gaze on Urazi. “Kianiko,” he had greeted him without warmth. Though theirs had never been a sexual relationship, as was the norm between alpha-beta partners, their accord was close as any high ranking alpha and male of lesser status could be. He’d been Marlix’s confidant and friend. Behind closed doors, Marlix had treated him as an equal. As a brother. There was no sign of filial regard or friendship now. Only haughty disdain.
Although Urazi accepted responsibility for the breach in amity, he assumed the trust and history they had shared were strong enough to weather a few hits.
“Kianiko,” Urazi had replied in an equally clipped manner. Perhaps he should have been more respectful toward this Alpha who held his and Anika’s fates in his hands, but Urazi’s simmering resentment had boiled over into anger, making civility a challenge.
“You and I will talk, later too,” Marlix had announced imperiously.
So here they sat. Urazi could feel the emotional undercurrents. Marlix did fair justice to the meal, and Tara ate with gusto, but he and Anika pushed food around on their platters.
Urazi had felt the strangest pang when he’d gazed upon little Ramona. It had made him yearn for his own offspring—with Anika. After the ordeals they’d endured, to know a child of their blood would live on after they were gone brought him a curious peace.
But, their trials had not ended. Perhaps the most difficult one was yet to come. Urazi frowned as Anika picked at her meal. Under the circumstances, jitters were understandable, but Anika had had little appetite for a while, and Urazi had begun to worry about her bouts of sickness. When this pressing matter with Ilian was settled, he would insist she be evaluated by a med tech again.
Anika raised her water glass to her lips and met his gaze over the rim. Her eyes held an earnest glow. She trusted him to make things right because he’d promised her.
I hope I do not fail you, Anika
.
“Commander Ilian shall arrive in the morn,” Marlix broke the silence, his words falling like a hatchet splintering a log.
Anika’s glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. Her wounded cry cut through Urazi and propelled him from his seat. All plans for reasoned argument, cajoling evaporated. “No!”
“No?” The Alpha arched an eyebrow.
Tara glowered at Marlix. “I think you should talk to your sister.”
“Stay out of this, Tara,” Marlix snapped, but locked on Urazi. He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “You dare to contradict your Alpha?” A taunting fire glinted in his amber eyes.
Urazi fisted his hands, rage bunching his muscles.
Across the table’s expanse, they glared at each other. Why did he have the sense the Alpha, his former friend, goaded him?
“I will not allow Commander Ilian to take Anika,” Urazi said.
“
You
will not allow it?” Marlix emitted a bark of humorless laughter. “Have you forgotten who is Alpha? If I say she will go, she will go.”
Like a bolt shot from a crossbow, Urazi hurtled himself across the table. Food went flying. Crockery, Marlix’s chair, and the Alpha himself hit the floor.
Tara and Anika screamed.
Marlix and Urazi rolled. Scrambled to their feet. Urazi drew back his fist and punched Marlix in the face. Pain in his knuckles registered as satisfaction. He could not win. He would pay for this later, but he would leave his mark.
Marlix got in a blow to Urazi’s temple that snapped his head back. The Alpha swung another punch, but Urazi deflected it and laid a hard jab to Marlix’s stomach. The Alpha grunted.
“Stop it!” Tara yelled. “Are you insane?”
She and Anika rushed into the fray, Tara grabbing Marlix’s arm, while Anika clung to his.
They shook off their females.
“Get back! Get out of the way!” Marlix commanded. It was the first comment the Alpha had uttered Urazi agreed with.
“Let me handle this.” Urazi barked.
“Fighting is not the answer!” Anika cried.
“Yes, it is.” Urazi charged at Marlix. He staggered, and slipped in food spilled on the floor, and they both went down. Shards of pottery stabbed at Urazi’s back as they wrestled, pummeling each other. “You will not give her to Ilian!”
Urazi winced when Marlix struck him in the eye. “I do not take orders from you. A mere…beta,” Marlix sneered.
Suppressed resentment coiled and then exploded, adding power to his fist, which he plowed into Marlix’s jaw. The Alpha tried to catch Urazi in a headlock, but a sharp hook to Marlix’s ribs thwarted him. Urazi wrenched out of reach, knocking into a chair. It toppled over. Marlix flung out his arm and sent the heavy chair crashing into the wall.
The Alpha staggered to his feet, and Urazi limped to his. Chests heaving, they glowered at each other, then dropped into a crouch and began circling. The corner of his eye where Marlix had hit him burned, but Urazi ignored it. Raising his arm to block any incoming blows, he threw a punch at his nemesis with the other. Blood spurted from Marlix’s lip.
“The offspring of my sire is of Alpha lineage,” Marlix dashed the back of his hand across his mouth. “She deserves a male of status.”
Something wet and stinging—blood?—sweat?—dripped into Urazi’s eyes, and he tossed his head. “She deserves someone to
care
for her.”
“I deserve for you two to stop fighting!” Anika shouted.
“Stay out of it, Anika!” Urazi and Marlix bellowed.
“She
needs
protection.” Marlix panted, and aimed a fist at Urazi’s nose.
Urazi ducked. “
I
will protect her.”
“You? A
beta
. How?” He sneered like Urazi was dirt under his feet. Like
he
hadn’t been the one to locate Anika when all of Marlix’s guards couldn’t. Like
he
hadn’t fought Qalin and won. Like
he
wouldn’t have sacrificed his life to save Anika’s. Like
he
wasn’t
alpha
in every way that counted.
“Like this!” Urazi swung and knocked Marlix off his feet. He stood over the fallen Commander and clenched his fists. “That is how!”
Sprawled on the floor, Marlix peered up at him. “Then you are worthy of her.”
Urazi blinked. Worthy? Was this a trick?
Marlix bounded to his feet, and Urazi readied to strike another blow. “What are you saying?” he asked warily.
“You are alpha. You have proven your honor and your courage, and I have no qualms about your ability to protect and to care for the female offspring of my sire.” Marlix flexed his shoulders. “I give her to you.”
“Anika is not chattel, like—like—an object you can pass from one person to the next!” Tara sputtered in outrage, her face as pink as her hair.
Anika hovered next to her, her eyes wide, mouth open.
“You will call off Commander Ilian?” Urazi held his breath. Could it be?
Marlix clasped Urazi’s shoulder in the Bridge of Amity. His puffy smile turned shamefaced. “When you defied my orders and left in search of Anika, I called off Ilian then.”
“You could not have sent word of that?” Urazi glowered. He’d been incommunicado, but Marlix could have had Dak relay the information and saved them at least a few weeks of anguish. But as he stared at the Alpha with whom he’d always had a close bond, anger melted under his victory. Again, he had fought and won. Anika was safe.
He was alpha. Parseon, Protocol, New Protocol, might not recognize his status, but Marlix knew. And Anika and Tara. Most of all,
he
knew.
Urazi raised his arm and completed the Bridge of Amity. They maintained the gesture of mutual regard for a long moment then dropped their arms. A chuckle born of relief, satisfaction, and irony erupted from Urazi’s throat, transformed into a full, rich laugh. Marlix joined in, and then they were roaring while their females gaped.
When he sobered, Urazi held out his arm and beckoned to Anika. She ran to him, and he hugged her in a solid, unshakeable embrace.
Tara hugged Marlix. “You can be such an
asshole
,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Anika entered Urazi’s chamber to find him sitting on the platform waiting for her. He’d cleaned up, but hadn’t dressed, wore only a drying cloth wrapped around his lean waist. The beginnings of bruises tinted his ribs, but his face had taken the real pummeling, the left side red and puffy, including his eye, which had nearly swollen shut. Anika hid a smile of pride. Marlix looked worse. Much worse, in her opinion. “I brought unguent for your injuries,” she said.
He shifted on the bed and winced. “I do not need it.”
“Of course not,” she agreed, uncapped the tube Tara had given her, approached the platform, and proceeded to dab the ointment onto a cut lancing his swollen cheek.
Urazi sucked in a hiss of air.
“Does that sting?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
She found calm from the chaos in doctoring his wounds. A whirl of emotion spun in her head. A giddy, happy, joyous eddy, but still disconcerting. The knowledge of her pregnancy, freedom from Ilian, the end of the war, her regard for Urazi—pride in the way he’d
fought
for her. In defiance of the repercussions—he’d attacked an Alpha! And he could have won, too! Though Tara would contest it, Anika was quite certain Urazi had held the upper hand in the skirmish. Lucky for Marlix, the Alpha had announced his decision when he had.
Fortunately for Urazi, Marlix had forgiven the felonious breech in Protocol or New Protocol or whatever governed them now.
Though they might not agree on who had won, she and Tara both had been horrified to see their two males scuffling about on the floor like two children fighting over who got the last sweetcake. That type of behavior could not continue.
Urazi fought for me!
“You were very foolish.”
Brave
. She swiped unguent over a nasty scrape.
Urazi flinched and glared at her. “You did that on purpose.”
“Did what?” she asked innocently.
He narrowed his eyes with distrust. She stifled a chuckle. He resembled a petulant child. She might have two children to tend. She grinned.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I am not laughing, I am smiling because I am happy.”
His eyes—or least the good one—creased, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “I am happy, too.” He nuzzled her neck. His lips were warm, his jaw prickling when it brushed against her skin. He lifted his head. “Are you feeling better?” Though she often tried to mimize her discomfort, Urazi always noticed when she wasn’t feeling well.
“Much better,” she answered. “And I need to tell you—”
He flopped backwards onto the platform and pulled her on top of him. The unguent tube flew out of her hand. Anika squealed, and looked back to see where it landed.
“Leave it,” he ordered. “I do not need it anyway.” In a fluid motion, he rolled her onto her back and himself on top of her. His eyes glinted, and he fastened his mouth onto hers. Anika sighed and hugged his neck. He kissed her with a thoroughness belying his injuries. But he broke off. “You were going to tell me…?”
“Later.” She pulled his head down and kissed every one of his cuts and bruises, before seeking his mouth and doing a little exploring of her own. Urazi groaned, a rumble that shot right to her core. Desire pulsed.
He rolled off her long enough to dispense with her winter breeder shift, then he cupped her breasts in his large palms. Swollen, and achy, they overflowed his hands. When he captured one hard, pointed tip in his mouth, Anika gasped at the strength of the hot, sweet sensation. He teased both sensitive nipples until she writhed beneath him. She grabbed for his manhood, fisted his stiffened shaft in her hand to bring him the same searing pleasure he wrought within her.
Urazi shuddered under her touch. Just when she thought he would either spill his seed—or mount her—he wrenched away and scooted down her body. Grinning like a young alpha with mischief on his mind, he lifted her legs to his shoulders, then bent his head.
She arched, as he licked her sex, his tongue working slow then fast, fluttering over the hypersensitive nub, dipping into her channel, sliding between her folds. “Mmm….” The vibration of his moan of enjoyment sent a sharp wave of ecstasy rippling through her. He brought her to the brink, and then scrambled to his knees. Taking his manhood in hand, Urazi guided it to her sex and then rocked it inside her.
“Mmm….” he groaned again. “You are mine.”