Claimed (19 page)

She walked around the console, avoiding the small trail of dark blood on the floor.

“You son of a bitch,” she said as she strode towards Sinder. “You knew what testing my eggs would do, and you suggested it anyway.”

Sorvar’s anger was a scorching flame inside her. Any minute now he was going to go ape shit and explode all over the place, and she wasn’t going to do anything to calm him down. Sinder could deal with the beast Sorvar became when he was pissed off. Tina flashed her teeth at Sinder and watched his wings flare behind him before he snapped them back in.

She poked Sinder in the bare scales of his chest with one sharp claw, looking up into his yellow eyes. “I will never authorise testing on my eggs, and I will never let you or your father force Bavric or any of the other medics to perform those tests. Those are my eggs, mine and Sorvar’s children, and so help me god, if you do anything to hurt them, I will gut you while you sleep.”

He stared down at her, and she could almost feel his rage and hatred. It hovered in the air between them, thick like smoke, trying to choke her. Sinder turned towards Sorvar.

“You would allow this abomination to continue on with the creation of inferior young? Have you no shame, Sorvar? The Morgath people are perfect specimens of our genetic heritage—how can you condone introducing offspring who are less than perfect, who might be deformed or impaired?” his voice was a growl, no warmth for his brother, no joy for the happy event they’d just shared with him.

What was it with him and his father calling her an abomination? So she was human. Who cared? She could say the same thing about them, about all the Morgath, but Tina had always firmly believed that every person had a right to life, and that included her growing babies.

“I do not have to explain my actions to you, Sinder, nor do I have to explain them to Father. My mate is not an abomination and neither are my young. The next time you call her that, you will not walk away,” Sorvar growled.

A swell of emotion filled her, so strong it took her breath away. She knew Sorvar loved her. He told her all the time, he showed her every day, and she could feel it. But this wasn’t Sorvar’s emotion. This was hers. Tears stung her eyes as her breath rushed out of her. Oh, god. She’d fallen in love with him.

A sound of disgust from Sinder made her whip back around to look at him. He stared down at her, his yellow eyes so bright with intent it sent a shiver down her spine.

“You have done this to my family. Father should have killed you the day you arrived and suffered the loss of one son. At least without a mate, Sorvar would never be able to perpetuate his inferior DNA. Perhaps I will do the service for Father and end you myself.”

Tina felt it coming, the minute Sorvar’s anger turned to blinding rage and the protector inside him burst forth. She threw herself backward skidding on the blood on the floor and ended up on her ass beside the examination bed.

Sorvar launched himself at Sinder and propelled them through the door, the timber shrieking and cracking under the force of their bodies. Roars and crashes, the sounds of fighting grew dimmer as the fight spilled through the outer door and into the palace’s corridor.

Don’t kill him, Sorvar. He might be an ass, but you will never forgive yourself if you kill your brother.

A growl in her mind was his only response. She huffed out a breath. Well, she’d told him. If he didn’t listen, she couldn’t do anything about it, but if Sorvar killed his brother, things were going to become complicated to say the least.

Sedric reached her first and helped her to her feet. Tina clung to his arm, her legs wobbly as she walked back over to the console. She studied the images of the three embryos. One looked like the perfect developing Morgath young. The other two looked... different. She reached out a hand and touched the screen, stroking the images of the developing embryos.

“Bavric, you’re going to have to trust me that the babies are fine. They look exactly like they’re supposed to look,” Tina murmured.

He stared at the screen for long tense seconds. “Tina, they do not look anything like a Morgath embryo. There is no tail, and the head is far too big. How can they be fine?”

She smirked at him, even as she clung to Sedric. “That’s because they’re not Morgath. They’re human.”

Bavric stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Human? Tina, that is not possible. From what you have said, your species give birth to live young. They should not be able to survive and develop to term this way.”

Tina huffed out a breath at his stubbornness. Her legs started to shake and she dug her claws into the tough scales of Sedric’s arm to hold herself steady.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Bavric. All I know is they look just like a developing human foetus. I have never heard of this happening either, but I’m not prepared to let you test them and risk losing them just to find out what they are. They are the first of their kind in existence, and we need to protect them.”

He stared at her, his golden yellow eyes intense. His head whipped around as he studied the screen again. “Do you think they could be... females?” he asked, the word female said so hesitantly and with so much emotion that Tina’s heart squeezed.

Sedric gasped beside her, his wings flaring out. “Is that even possible?” he asked in a rush, his voice filled with hope.

Tina looked at the screen again. Was it possible? Could they be little girls? Could she and Sorvar have created the very first ever females of the Morgath people?

“I... don’t know.” She had no experience with this. It wasn’t her specialty, and she didn’t want to give them hope only to rip it away later when her young hatched and they were all males. “It’s possible, I suppose. You would have to test Sorvar to find out if the change has allowed him to produce sperm capable of creating both female and male young. But if it turns out he isn’t, you will have given him hope only to rip it away again.”

Bavric nodded, his gaze still glued to the screen. He didn’t seem to want to look away. “Yes, you are right, Princess. There are some scans we can perform that will not harm the young that will be able to give us more information on them. With your permission, of course. I think at this stage it would be best if we kept the knowledge that the young are different between us.” He turned to look at her. “There will be those who will insist on testing the eggs to find out for certain what they are, Tina, if the knowledge is allowed out. You are right. If there is even a fraction of a chance these young are females we need to protect them. They are priceless and irreplaceable.”

He was talking about Sorvar’s father. The king would definitely want to know if his son’s first children were female. It would change everything. Tina’s breath caught for a moment. He would have to accept her if she was capable of bearing female young. Her belly fluttered uncontrollably.

A wave of dizziness washed over her and caused her to stumble into Sedric, who scooped her up in his arms before Tina had a chance to protest.

“Don’t argue, Tina. You are barely capable of staying on your feet,” Sedric growled at her.

He was right. She’d been clinging to him so hard the only thing that had stopped her from tearing into his arm was his tough scales. If it had been Sorvar, she would have shredded his arm. She relaxed in his hold as Bavric fussed with the eggs, moving them to a trolley for transport to the room next door.

Sedric laid her on the examination bed with a surprising amount of gentleness, being extra careful of her wings, then stepped back so Bavric could activate the scanner.

She and Sorvar were going to be parents. Good god. They were going to have three babies. Tina had never even looked after one baby. How was she going to cope with three? She turned to look at the three white eggs sitting side by side in their little support cradles on the trolley.

Her heart squeezed. How could she not give it everything she had? Three little people were relying on her to make sure they were safe and protected and allowed to continue growing. And Sorvar. Should she tell him there was a chance two of the babies were female? Or should she keep it to herself and only tell him when she was one hundred percent sure?

She would hate for him to be disappointed. He would be more than disappointed—he would be devastated. They’d talked into the wee hours of the morning about his people’s attempts to be accepted into the Coalition. The main thing standing in their way was their species’ inability to produce their own females and subsequent need to steal females from other species—of course, now they were at war, as well.

Every attempt the Morgath had made to negotiate with other species to acquire females had failed. They had tried trading for females, but of course the Coalition frowned on buying people, since it was a form of slavery. They had asked for volunteers, and had been rejected in every society they approached. Claiming and stealing was the only way they could get females, and even then, many of the females they claimed committed suicide rather than go through the change and become the mate of a Morgath male.

Tina still couldn’t really understand why these females would choose to end their lives. Being mated to Sorvar wasn’t a life sentence. He treated her with the utmost respect... most of the time, and he loved her with every breath in his body.

And now she loved him, too.

She stared up at the scanner as it descended over her, not really seeing the frame or the small box that housed the machine, and bit her lip to stop the slight tremble that started. But it didn’t stop the tremble that started in her body or the fast acceleration of her heart beat.

How had this happened? No, no, that was a stupid question. She knew the answer. Sorvar had made her fall in love with him. He was wonderful, caring, funny, intelligent. He knew exactly how to please her in bed and didn’t shy from letting her know that he loved it when she pleasured him in return. He was gorgeous, not that that really meant anything. She’d been with good looking men before who had turned out to be assholes.

It was all the little things, and it had crept up on her over the last few months and now... well now she couldn’t deny it.

She loved him against all her better intentions. It should make her happy to know she felt so deeply for the male who was the father of her children, the male she intended to spend the rest of her life with, but it didn’t.

It made her whole body lock up and prepare to flee. She wanted to lash out and hurt him so he would hurt her in return and prove everything she had thought about males for so long was true. He would hurt her. She knew he would. He wouldn’t be able to help it.

He was a male, and that was what they did when someone loved them. They used that love, the deep binding emotion a person felt for them, and they twisted it, making one bleed. They turned love into a chain and lock and bound the person to them so they could never get away, then they were free to treat them whatever way they liked.

Tina gasped in a ragged breath. The ridicule would be first. Name calling, and snide comments about the clothes she wore. Little digs about her body and how she was too fat. Her hair would be the wrong colour or too long, or not long enough. Or maybe he’d tell her how useless she was because she couldn’t do anything fancy with it. He’d tell her she was ugly and made ugly children.

A chill shot down her spine, making her shake harder. He’d complain about food and how she couldn’t cook. Little biting comments meant to strip her of her pride and self-worth until she was nothing without him, couldn’t do anything without his directions or commands. She would become focused on him and satisfying his needs, trying to win his approval and even the tiniest bit of praise, and eventually she wouldn’t be good enough for even the roughest tumble, and he’d go looking somewhere else.

“Tina, is everything all right? Your heart rate is exceptionally high.” Bavric’s voice cut through Tina’s thoughts and made her jerk.

Her breath rushed out of her only to catch and freeze in her chest until her lungs hurt and she was gasping. Tina’s heart thundered, pounding so hard that she could feel it thumping against her ribs. Sweat broke out on her forehead as she stared back at Bavric, her eyes wide and unfocused.

A hand landed on her shoulder and Tina shrieked, jerking up and hitting her head on the still descending scanner frame as she forced her body off the examination bed.

“Tina,” a rough masculine growl came from behind her, making her spin around.

Sedric stared down at her, a question in his eyes, and Bavric closed in on her from the other side. Males. There were males everywhere. She could hear more of them through the broken door.

Oh, god. She had to get away from them. They wanted to hurt her. They wanted to lock her in the dark. Laughing at her when she whimpered in fear and begged to be let out. They would ridicule her when she wet herself because she hadn’t been allowed out to use the bathroom, and they’d refuse to give her anything to eat leaving her for hours without food and water.

“No,” Tina whispered. She wasn’t that frightened little girl anymore. She was grown. She could outrun these males who wanted to hurt her. “No!” Louder, she yelled before taking off for the door and the freedom it presented.

No man would ever lock her in again. No man would ever have control over her, forcing her to be what they wanted, to act like they wanted and taking all the pain they dished out.

She was at the door when the males behind her broke into motion, the sound of clawed feet on the stone floor spurring her to push her aching and sore body harder. The males in the entry to the Medical suites stared at her as she rushed past and out into the corridor.

Dark blood lay in splatters across the white stone, in drops and sprays and swipes on the walls. Memories assailed her, the white stones turning into aged and yellowing walls, but the blood was the same. Dark, dried blood in splatters and swipes in the rough shapes of hands across the walls. Drips on the floor and drag marks down the hall.

The screams came next, filling her mind. The screams of a woman she couldn’t help, a woman who had loved her once. A woman who had held her in the dark of the night when she had nightmares. A woman who let her eat as much as she wanted to make up for all the meals she missed.