Claimed (21 page)

He expected her to ask where they were going, but she didn’t, and that, along with everything else, told him clearly something was very wrong with her. He still didn’t know what had caused her to have a panic attack, or why she had accused him of being like her father. She said he’d used what she felt for her against her and as a way to control her, but that didn’t make any sense.

He didn’t want to control her, and the only way he could have that kind of power over her was if she loved him. Sorvar almost stopped dead in the corridor. Was it possible? Could she love him, and realising it had caused her to have a panic attack?

Forcing himself to keep walking, he rolled the idea around in his mind. It would explain a lot, but he wasn’t going to push her to tell him. It was something she had to come to in her own time.

She’d also said he was like his father, wanting to keep her locked up. A prisoner. In a way, she was right. He had kept her in his suite, but he’d done it to protect her, not because his father had ordered her there. He did it to protect her from his father.

When they’d arrived, he’d been unable to protect her, and he never wanted that to happen again, but keeping her locked in wasn’t the answer either. She deserved better. She had the right to sunshine and fresh air, and she had the right to learn to use the wings she’d been given.

Sorvar stalked into Medical, straight through the entryway and into Bavric’s examination room. His friend looked up from the console, a low growl rumbling in his chest that cut off when his gaze landed on them.

“Bavric, something is wrong with Tina. I cannot feel her emotions, and she insists we are drugging her. You told me the medication you gave her wouldn’t harm her,” he said.

He wasn’t really angry with Bavric, but was frustrated with the whole situation, and he had no idea how Tina was going to react when the medication was removed from her system. She might panic again, or be absolutely furious with him. He could deal with the fury, but the panic tore at his heart, and all he wanted to do was make it all go away for her.

“Yes,” Bavric replied. “It was a short term medication to help with anxiety. It should have worn off after about six hours or so.” He walked towards them with his scanner in his hand.

“Is it possible it has reacted differently because Tina is still part human?” Sorvar shifted her in his arms, pulling her tighter against him as Bavric ran the scanner down the length of her body.

She made no attempt to join the conversation, and a spark of alarm shot through Sorvar, tightening his chest. He felt no curiosity, no anger or frustration, nothing came from her, as if she had switched her emotions off or some kind of barrier stood between them.

Bavric made a small sound and rushed across the room to a machine on the long counter that ran down the length of the room.

“What?” Sorvar demanded.

“You are right, My Prince. The medication I gave Tina has reacted in a far more exaggerated way than it does in us. The effects, considering her lower body weight, which I did take into account, are four fold what they would be in one of our species. The medication was intended to mildly dampen her emotional reactions, but it has completely smothered them instead.” Bavric fiddled with the machine, inputting data into the small console as he spoke.

Sorvar leaned down and pressed his lips against the soft skin of Tina’s forehead.
I’m so sorry I didn’t notice sooner, pavri. You have had to suffer through this for three days.

He received no response, and he hadn’t really expected to. Bavric returned with a dermal injector in his hand.

“I am sorry you have had to go through this, Princess. I have synthesised a compound that will negate the effects of the drug I gave you three days ago. It may take a few hours to completely remove all the effects, and if you are not back to normal by this evening, please return and I will investigate further, but I think that will be unnecessary.”

Bavric pressed the small device to Tina’s neck and Sorvar felt her stiffen slightly, then relax completely.

“Thank you, Bavric. We will return if there is no improvement,” Sorvar said, then turned to exit the examination room.

He was halfway past the throne room on his way to the grand entrance doors to the palace when Tina whispered, “Where are we going, Sorvar?”

He still couldn’t feel any emotion from her, but it felt like a victory. “I’m doing something I should have done months ago,
pavri.
I’m going to show you your new home.”

The surge of emotion was so faint, he barely felt it, but Tina wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pressed her forehead into his neck. Those small gestures told him far more than words or emotions could.

He would show her every beautiful thing about his home, then he would introduce her to the people that meant the most to him. When she was ready they would talk about what happened and why she had panicked. He could wait. They had the rest of their lives, and being impatient would get him nowhere.

* * * *

Tina traced her fingers over the warm shell of one of her eggs. A week had passed since Sorvar had taken her to Bavric. A week in which he showed her with actions that she could indeed trust him.

They’d talked at length about how she believed he had lied to her, and he explained why he had let Bavric sedate her. In her panic, she had forgotten he could feel everything she did, and she came to understand without Sorvar actually admitting it that he had been afraid. The depth of her panic had frightened him, especially since he didn’t know what had caused it.

He had felt the only option, considering she was racing around injured, potentially causing herself more harm, was to sedate her and find out why she had panicked in the first place. But neither Bavric or Sedric had known, and Tina still refused to tell him.

Oh, she suspected he had figured it out, but he hadn’t asked or pushed or even hinted at the fact that she might love him. He was giving her space, and that made her love him all the more. The care he had taken with her over the last week, the way he held her at night without pushing her to be intimate, the delight he took in showing her his home, and introducing her to his extended family and friends, it all made her love him more.

But the thing that made her fall head over heels was the gift he gave her. The gift of freedom and the fierce beauty that came with flying. His patience when he taught her, how he watched her constantly to make sure she didn’t hurt herself, and how he didn’t push her to do more than she was capable of all made her fall harder and harder. When she was tired, they stopped. When she strained her muscles, he took her to Bavric so the very contrite medic could heal her.

Tina sighed and stroked the egg she had her hand on. All three of them, Sorvar, Bavric, and Sedric were tip-toeing around her and treating her, not as if she was fragile, but as if she was precious.

She moved to the next egg sitting in its little cradle and stroked the smooth leathery surface. The incubation room was uncomfortably warm—warmer even that outside, which was like a hot humid day on Earth. Sorvar’s planet was mostly jungle with a tropical climate. Afternoon storms came with alarming regularity, and he’d explained about what Tina likened to a monsoon season, the five months of their very long year where it rained almost constantly.

It explained why their buildings were so big, why they had so much indoor space, and why their city was a network of covered walkways between buildings. Even the open public spaces with gardens had adjustable roofs that could be closed during the rainy season.

In the incubation room, completely cut off from the outside world, her eggs sat in their little cradles on a raised counter in the middle of the room. To get in you had to pass through two doors that created an airlock to keep the temperature even. Tina had come to visit her eggs every day since the drug in her system had worn off.

She found the time she spent with her young, even if it was only a few sparse minutes, to be the time she could think through what had happened and her reaction to discovering she loved Sorvar. As a medic, she could easily recognise that she had been completely irrational. Her fear had driven her to believe things about Sorvar that just weren’t true.

He didn’t want to control her, and he had never tried to. He didn’t lock her away to punish her or torture her. He’d kept her in his suite to protect her and keep her safe, which he explained during one of their talks he’d realised had been the wrong thing to do.

Sorvar had been struggling with the guilt he felt for not fighting for her rights as a mate. In his attempt to protect her, he’d wrapped her in padding and closeted her away out of reach of his father and brother, but that wasn’t the kind of life he wanted for her. It wasn’t the kind of life he believed she deserved. He was doing everything he could to fight his father so she could have the same rights as every other mate on the planet, and he’d started by introducing her to as many people as he could.

The males around her were starting to accept her when they saw her. They didn’t stop and stare anymore when she walked past. They didn’t hold whispered conversations behind her back. Now, when they saw her, they bowed in respect or nodded their heads in greeting, and a few had even introduced themselves and politely inquired who she was mated to and where she came from. Every male she met, barring the king and Sinder, treated her with respect and as if she was something to be treasured, not abused and controlled.

Days had passed before she’d been able to think of loving Sorvar without her heart racing and a fine tremble starting, but slowly as she’d analysed what she was afraid of and come to see that her fears were ungrounded, she could admit that the male she had fallen for wasn’t anything like her father.

She could finally admit that not all males were like her father and used what you felt for them to hurt you. She’d spent so much time running from her past, from the screwed up childhood she’d had, and refusing to talk about it, that she’d never analysed her deep seated belief that all men wanted to hurt you.

Now she could see that Sorvar didn’t want to hurt her, he didn’t want to control her and lock her away. All he wanted was to love her and their children and build a life with her. A life filled with love and laughter. A life filled with friends and family, and most of all, a life with her in it every day.

The conversation they’d had that morning was at the forefront of her mind as she stepped up to the third and last egg. Tina gently stroked her egg, the home of one of her babies until the little one was mature enough to hatch.

Even though she had been coming to accept that Sorvar was different to her father, that not all males were like the man who had raised her for the first twelve years of her life, she hadn’t told him yet that she believed him. Their relationship hadn’t been the same since her meltdown and accidental drugging.

She loved him. She couldn’t deny it, but she hadn’t told him yet, and she didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to get past the barrier that had sprung up between them. It was there every time they were together, a distance that felt unnatural. It put a strain on their relationship, and she was sure it was what had led to Sorvar’s request that morning.

Pavri, I want you to be happy here with me, with our children. I would give you anything you want to help you be happy here. If you still want to study with Bavric, then I will make it so you can. If you want human female friends, then I will find some females and bring them here for you. If you want a home of your own and to live out of the palace, then I will have a home built for you. Anything you ask, if it is in my power to give it to you, I will. Think about what makes you happy and tell me so I can work on getting it for you.

Tina looked down at the egg under her hands, its warmth flowing up into her palm. She didn’t have to think about what would make her happy. She already knew, but Sorvar didn’t understand. It wasn’t a thing or a person or a new home to live in that would make her happy.

What she wanted more than anything was for them to go back to the way they’d been. She wanted the distance gone. She wanted the easy close bond they’d had before, where they teased each other and laughed together. She wanted him to look at her with heat in his eyes and his lust filling her making her insides clench. She wanted her mate, not this overly cautious male who was always worried about sending her into a panic.

She just didn’t know how to achieve what she desired. Would telling him she loved him be enough? Would explaining to him she didn’t believe he was the kind of male who would hurt and abuse her give him the relief he needed to relax around her and let his guard down enough to laugh again? If words weren’t enough, what else could she do?

Pavri, would you come to the throne room please.

Sorvar’s voice in her head made her gasp. She jerked her hand back from the egg to keep her claws dug from digging into the smooth leathery shell and puncturing holes in it.

They hadn’t spoken to each other that way since Bavric had given her the drug to negate the one that had turned her into a zombie. Sorvar had been giving her space, and she in return had given him privacy as well.

Yes. I’m on my way,
she replied. It felt a little strange after so long to talk this way, but... she’d missed it. She really had. She’d missed Sorvar’s warm teasing that was for her ears alone. She’d missed his whispered naughty suggestions that never failed to warm her insides and bring heat to her face. And she’d missed his murmured words of love in her mind that felt far more intimate and private than the ones he said out loud.

Quick steps took her through the doors and out into the corridor where she almost ran smack into Sedric. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms to steady her.

“Where are you rushing off to, little sister?”

Tina looked up at him. He’d taken to calling her that, ever since Sorvar took her to meet his family. Sedric had come with them in case their family felt the same as their father, but their cousins had all welcomed her with open arms. Their uncles? Not so much.