Page 55 of K'Vella

My sister can hold her own against them. I'm pretty sure she could take on all three without help, but it's good that Jovi's there to break it up. I can hear Alik's footsteps behind me, following, unsure of what he's meant to be doing.

I keep my fingers pressed hard to my nose, my lips locked tight. I roll them between my teeth and bite down hard enough that I'm close to drawing blood.

"If you start passing out, you tell me," Alik says, not realizing that if I'm close enough to passing out to ask for help, then I'm definitely going to suck in a deep breath.

My lungs are burning, and my chest is making weird hiccup movements like it can force me to breathe. The ship's still too far. Way too far.

My footsteps stutter as my body revolts at the lack of air. Alik grabs me around my waist and hoists me over his shoulder. He's doing it to be helpful because he can move faster than me. It would've been better if we'd thought to do it before I was this far gone.

I can't stop myself as my body finally revolts, and my teeth can't bite down any harder on my lips. I gasp a deep, long breath, and all of my senses are heightened.

"How fucked are we?" Alik asks, still jogging back to the ship.

I don't hear him very well. My body is too busy responding to the pheromones in the air. The ones calling to me. The ones making my skin feel too tight, too warm.

I growl low in my throat, thrashing around in Alik's hold until he drops me to the ground. I try to get up to follow the scent deeper into the clan—the scent that has my body singing. Something's wrong. I can feel it in the rational part of my mind, the part that's screaming at me to remember K'Vella.

Alik pins me to the ground. Two of his hands pin my arms down while the other two press on my chest while he straddles my abdomen. There's a look of heartbreak on his face that matches how I feel inside.

"Get K'Vella somewhere that's not the great hall." My words are a deep growl, but my voice is pathetic underneath it.

My K'Vella, my mate, the one thing I wanted for myself for the first time in so many years. She's going to be broken by this. Her worst nightmare, the worst thing that could've ever happened.

I told her nothing bad would happen here. I told her I wouldn't ever care about my scent match. Now I've smelled it. I can't help how my body responds. I might hate every move my body wants to take toward the female who calls to me, but it's not enough to stop the need.

No, I'll fight it. I'll find the female. I'll tell her we can't be with one another, that I'm mated to another who I'm devoted to. My body will respond to her, crave her touch and her warmth, but I can fight those instincts.

I think I can fight those instincts.

"Fuck," Alik says through gritted teeth. He moves his lower hands from my chest and starts typing out on his comm as he keeps me pinned with the rest of his strength.

"Fuck!" Jovi yells as he comes running up to us. "What can we do? Can we get you in the airlock now?"

"I need to go to her," I say, my growl still rumbling. My mind is at war with my body, and everything is conflicting. I don't even know which her I'm talking about as the words leave my lips. "I need her."

"You don't need anyone but that Varon you bit into. She's never going to be accepted by one of her own kind." Alik snaps his teeth at me, his lips pulling back in a snarl.

"I can't stop this," I snap back at him, lunging at him as best as I can with how he has me pinned. "I don't want whoever I'm smelling more than you want me to want her. I can't stop my response, though. I'm going to go into a mating frenzy if I'm kept from her, and then I'll be forced to rut her."

"And your plan right now?" Jovi asks. "Because I'm not about to let you go free right now to rut some female when K'Vella is still thinking she's going to carry your young."

"I won't rut the other female. I'll figure something out. I'll fix this. Helna would've gone to tell K'Vella what happened. She won't be surprised," I say, jerking my body in Alik's grip, tryingand failing to free myself. K'Vella is just as strong as me, which means Jovi and Alik are way stronger than me. They've never had to restrain me, though.

"So what?" Jovi asks, running his hands through his hair and pacing next to where Alik and I are lying on the ground. "You're just done with K'Vella?"

"I don't want to be," I snarl. "I can't stop how my body responds, though. If I could, I would, but it's done now. There's nothing to be done about it."

"So she means nothing now?" Alik asks, his tone disgusted, and I don't blame him.

"She means everything!"

Alik shakes his head, disbelieving what I'm saying. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he releases the breath, he releases my wrists and then pushes himself off of me. I don't give him a chance to rethink letting me go.

I bolt upright and sprint for the great hall. I follow the scent of the female who's calling to me. I'm so caught up in the running for the great hall that I don't notice the way the air seems to shimmer unnaturally until Phial tackles me, and Essa emerges from the dark, looking scarier than ever before.

"Your venom makes them complacent, right?" Phial asks.

He struggles to keep me down since he's not nearly as strong as me. The one thing he has going for him right now is the murder in Essa's eyes. The way her pupils are thin slits that vibrate softly, calling her prey in, making them docile. My spine is frozen, and if it weren't for the desire to be with the female perfect for me, my whole body would shut down in fright.

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