Page 52 of Orange Tundra
Sim shrugged. "There's always a first time for everything."
His courage stirred my cock.
Xy stepped forward. "We adapt. Either you're with us, or not." I nodded at Xy. He knew we need other males on this mission, and he already saw CG's crew potential. I wouldn't be surprised if he already added them to his master plans.
They continued to argue while I worked on the background. But even as I worked, cataloging the Whit Tribe's ancient knowledge, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were running out of time. Brynn's condition was advancing too rapidly, and the deepest, most critical information remained sealed behind barriers we couldn't yet breach.
We had found hope in these ruins. But hope wasn't enough if we couldn't access it.
As we prepared to leave the inner chambers, I made a silent vow. We would return to this place—all of us, united as a complete family. We would unlock the White Tribe's final secrets.
And we would save the precious life growing inside our mate, no matter what it cost us.
CG sighed. "Can we hold off telling Nif about this?"
Silence. Then we all laugh.
"Good luck with that," Sim snorted.
23
ROQS
The embersof our campfire had long since died to ash, but I couldn't sleep. Neither could Coone, judging by the restless twitching of his tail where he lay across the small clearing. The silence between us stretched taut as a bowstring, filled with all the words we weren't saying.
Three days. Three fucking days since Zirc had vanished, and we were no closer to finding him. Every lead had turned to dust, every contact had come up empty. The Silver Beast's trail had simply... ended. As if he'd been swallowed by the earth itself.
I rolled onto my side, studying Coone's rigid form in the pale moonlight. His ears were flattened against his skull, his shoulders hunched with barely contained tension. We'd been civil—barely—but the undercurrent of hostility was wearing us both raw.
"You blame me," I said quietly, breaking the suffocating silence.
Coone's golden eyes snapped open, fixing on me with laser intensity. "Should I not?"
The question hit like a physical blow. I sat up, running clawed hands through my fur. "You think I wanted this? You think I chose?—"
"Didn't you?" He was up in a fluid motion, moving with that predatory grace that reminded me he was more than just Zirc's pretty little mate. "You had options, Roqs. You could have fought the bond, could have?—"
"Fought fate itself?" I snarled, my beast stirring beneath my skin. "You think it works that way? That I can just decide who calls to my soul?"
"I think you decided Zirc wasn't enough." His voice was deadly quiet, but I could smell the rage rolling off him in waves. Sharp, acidic, cutting through the night air like a blade. "I think you got bored with waiting for him to claim you properly and went looking elsewhere."
The accusation ignited something feral in my chest. I surged to my feet, fangs extending. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" Coone circled me slowly, his own claws emerging. "Poor Roqs, displaced by an off-worlder. Always believing you and Zirc were destined, only to watch him bond with someone from another planet entirely. Must have been such a relief when fate handed you a consolation prize."
Fuck you.I wanted to scream at him.
My beast stirred. It was just me and Coone. This long-time resentment between us had been buried for too long because of our love for Zirc.
And fuck me, Coone's words hit their mark. I could feel my control fraying, the careful restraint I'd maintained for decades starting to crack.
"Careful, Neko," I growled, letting my alpha energy fill the space between us. "You're treading on dangerous ground."
"Am I?" He smiled, but there was nothing warm in it. "What are you going to do, challenge me? Fight me for the right to care about him? Because last I checked, I'm the one fate actually chose for him. I'm his true mate, not you."
He was right—fate had chosen Coone for Zirc, not me. All those years of growing up together, training together, believing we were destined for each other... only to watch Zirc's eyes light up when he scented his true mate from another world entirely.
But Zirc and I had held onto hope that there was a chance that Zirc's beast was just too stubborn to realize that I was his Manasty fated mate.
