Page 24 of Her Alien Warrior
He knows.
"Did you tell the medic about my results?"
"Why wouldn't I?" he said before he could process what I was saying. "Horve's vine... if he believed me and denied my results then they do not want you to honor your mate."
He didn't know about the project's goal. "General Tensel is in charge of an initiative with someone who has enough power and influence to force Commander Rokva to change assignment to this ship and become commander himself. My sister will have no choice but to accept his decisions or risk showing the ship that she did not agree with the decisions of a future commander."
"You should have given your mate the unne mark," Cenkal said with unease. Even he knew that if I had done so they would have had claim to say my mark was invalid and put me in stasis until a ruling couldbe made on Trillume. "At least then you would prove your mating at trial and not be forced to watch as your mate is matched with others."
"He may be lead of her study, but I'm the highest-ranking researcher on this ship, with the same honorable title as General Tensel. Blocking me completely will cause undue suspicion on his research. I'll have to force my way in and begin the process of challenging her previous mate's claim by our laws."
"It won't take long for him to suspect what you're doing," Cenkal warned.
"My sister is right, traditions are to be respected. If I plan with her help, perhaps we'll all be detouring to Necias Prime for our Rakturan Rites by the end of this."
"May your mate see your honor and bare your mark until the goddess takes us," he wished me well on my Rakturan, and then returned to his training, his knowledge of the obstacles I would face, "Sou-el, you have no way to prove she is your mate without being in contact with her, and humans are unpredictable in their mating practices. There are reports that a human has become a delegate with AsunGor. Though no one has verified the claims, it would suggest some humans need more than one mate."
Cenkal didn't have to finish his thought for me to know what he was leading to. That she had a mate on Earth already, and it's possible she would seek to return to him while also acceptingmy claim.
It wouldn't be enough to keep her with me.
By necia law, she would be forced to return without me, as the air on Earth was toxic to most species. But that wouldn't be what kept me away. I would allow the air to pollute my body and live out what years we had on Earth, but if I returned I would battle her mate. If she sought to keep him, I would not harm her by killing her mate if she was similar to the unGor females, but I could only guarantee that by staying away.
I patted my brother on the back, only females grew epul there, and said with determination. "With necia blood in her, she will live a long life, even on Earth. Her mate will die before she does, and I will take what time she honors me with."
"I have a contact on the next scheduled ship to Earth," he offered to have her mate taken care of.
A mixture of emotions warred for dominance from relief that if he were gone, I would have greater chances with my mate, and annoyance that there was no honor in not facing her mate myself if I were to kill him, and pain, physical pain aching in my hearts that this male was the guardian of a spawnling born from my mate. I would not be responsible for taking this male from her or her spawn.
"I cannot," I said with firm resolve.
He merely nodded and let me know that there was strength and honor in earning a mate without destroying their past. Many warriors would not agree, even my sister would not hesitate in killing a warrior that would stand between her and someoneshe believed to be her Pulsunne when she met them. She held our traditions, even the more violent ones, as honorable. It is her dedication to those ideals that allowed her to rise to commander despite being raised by Elder Edilm.
He was our guardian by fate, not birth. And he was only granted the title of Elder because he chose his tribe over his hearts, but no one forgot why he was able to help the tribe.
He took the side of Commander Direl, King Sylve's second, and killed warriors that tried to go against his order to stand down against the trill. To some, he saved lives and bought our species time to gain power within a new era. To others, he was a dishonorable warrior that should have died with our fallen to prevent those from following a queen that was not our own. He lived only because his reputation of killing warriors was exaggerated to the point of being as great as Horve himself. Were it not for the circumstances, he would probably have his own phrase to rival Horve's vine.
Edilm's wrath, to some.
But for those that he helped save, it was not such an easy thing to think of his past in the color of our brother's blood. He would not take life without reason, and maybe one day, he would tell me how he survived all those warriors without a scar to show for it.
I could still hear his reply to my question that I had asked many times as a spawnling.
"The truth is a road to madness when your mind refuses to honor the acceptance of responsibility for your part in it. One day you will understand."
Many times, I'd thought of his answer and thought he had felt madness from what he had done to those warriors, and perhaps that made him guilty of the dishonor others gave him. But on rotations such as this, I think perhaps the warriors had forced the decision on him, and he still accepted the responsibility of the outcome, and did not wish for me to absolve him of his part in the truth.
Whatever that truth was, the truth I did know was he taught me that I didn't need to use my body as a weapon when my mind was so much stronger. They were frustrating words when I was a spawnling unable to do more than pretend that my epul were more than decoration that caused me constant pain. If I had pursued a warrior's path, I would have been dead long ago as my glands did not heal my wounds as fast as the rest of my tribe, and I needed constant appointments with the healer to help make sure I didn't bleed out internally from my own epul.
"Take this," Cenkal tossed a canister of numbing agent with his own blend of nanobots to help keep my health manageable.
"Will they interfere with my bond?" I was a researcher of behaviors, not the science of biology like he was.
"They produce artificial adrenaline to boost your natural healing. You should be fine, but I'm not sure how a human heart will react to consuming your blood when the nanobotsare active, given they only have one heart, and your mate's scans show no signs of damage to her own adrenal glands. Avoid needing the boost on the day you want to share blood with her, both because of your reaction to her blood and her possible reaction to the nanobots," he paused and shook his head, "Don't avoid using the spray unless you know you'll receive some of her fluids, you can't afford for your levels to drop too low, you'll bleed out of your pores."
I swiped open my communication module, and my implant automatically connected. Another flick and a message was sent to my sister to tell her that her match-making skills were required. I also needed to know how much she knew about what General Tensel was tasked with doing on this ship. His conduct was suspicious, and my sister would not be pleased about keeping a warrior away from his chance to mate unless General Tensel was seeking to challenge me for rights to claim my Renee.
Chapter ten
