“Ryen.” Drekk disengaged from Rafe. “Why don’t you give your sister a hug? She won’t bite,” he said with humour and pushed Ryen forward. At his touch, Ryen seemed to shake free from his tension.
Erin and Ryen shared a hug and Erin led him to the chairs at the back of the room. She forced him to sit and began blathering about Anin and the latest news about Eyran science.
Drekk sat across from Rafe’s desk without being asked and graciously took the drink Rafe handed him. “So how goes the Ebrellion kidnapping?” Rafe sat, wondering about the strange feelings in the air. By no means empathic, his kind, the Xema, possessed psychic gifts that enabled them to better size up and deal with potential opponents. Drekk continued to release pulses of energy in odd bursts—typical for the large male—while Ryen emitted bursts of stress that cautioned Rafe to be wary.
“We haven’t found a single Ebrellion since your encounter a few days ago. They must have passed back through the void. The gangs have quieted, though Dog made a play for Olla that didn’t turn out well. Luckily, in the confusion with all the women and girls returning, I convinced Dog to forget he ever saw her.”
“Good move. New mates don’t take kindly to interference.” Drekk looked over his shoulder and Ryen glanced up. Ryen’s lip curled before he gave his attention back to his sister.
“You’re shitting me.” Rafe didn’t believe what his senses, and his eyes, told him to be true.
“I’m sorry?” The warning in Drekk’s gaze forced him to guard his words.
“Ah, right. I was just agreeing with you. Erin and I don’t like being apart much. I can’t stand another male around her, and she hates whenever I have to deal with females.” Drekk’s eyes crinkled. “Well, my offer to help you two conceive is always on the table,” he murmured. “It would no doubt be a huge sacrifice.”
Instinctive possession ruled Rafe before he could tamp it down. In that instant, Ryen stood behind Drekk, his fingers curled over the back of the chair.
Erin raced behind him with a stunned look on her face. “I didn’t even see him move.”
“Problem?” Ryen asked in a low voice.
Drekk shrugged. “Nothing. Just fucking with Rafe’s mind.”
“So long as that’s all you’re fucking with,” Ryen grumbled in a low tone. He turned and dragged Erin back to their seats with a final glare at Rafe.
Drekk coughed to cover his laughter.
Rafe wanted answers, but didn’t think he could get them with Ryen so near. “Erin, honey, why don’t you show Ryen around? I don’t think he ever saw more of the house than that spare room in the back he used to live in. If he’s going to work for Cheltam, he’ll need to know where everything is.”
“Great idea.” Erin beamed, no doubt at the idea her brother would eventually work with them. Rafe just hoped he wasn’t jumping the gun. Ryen still seemed anxious, but he was treating Erin with brotherly affection.
“The only other person here is the cook, Ryen,” Rafe reassured.
“I’m not worried about the cook. I smelled him the moment we entered.” Ryen shared a look with Drekk then left.
“Now how about you tell me how you bonded with Ryen. Just a few days ago he wanted to rip your head off. Now he’s your mate?” Rafe asked, incredulous.
Drekk sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“With you it always is.”
“All I know is that Ryen’s rages are gone. Test him, without me present, and you’ll see. He’s only aggravated with you because he can sense your hostility.”
“Yeah, hostility to you fucking my wife.”
“I was kidding, Rafe. You know that. I only offered to help heal her reproductive organs.”
“I know.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. Erin had mentioned babies again last night.
Damned if he didn’t want to please her every whim, but the thought of what she’d have to do to get there... “I’m just not ready to see you coming down her throat.”
Drekk let out a breath. “You’ll never be ready for that. If it’s any consolation, I healed Ryen the same way. He’s mine now, Rafe. I won’t ever want another. I’m part Xema too, remember?”
“So how did he take the news?” Drekk glanced away and shifted in his chair, and Rafe knew. “You drun. Remember when we had this same conversation? When I mated Erin and didn’t tell her?” Rafe laughed long and hard. “At least I never worried about Erin ripping me a new one when I told her.”
“Ryen won’t either,” Drekk said testily. “He’s just now adjusting to a new way of life. I don’t want to throw everything at him at once.”
“Bullshit. You’re scared, same as I was.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same.”
Drekk stood and paced from one length of the study to the other. “You don’t understand.”
“So make me. Because this isn’t like you, Drekk. You make everyone around you march to your tune. You have since I’ve known you.”
“It’s all about control.”
“So what? Everyone has control issues. You think it’s easy being mated to a woman who can crush my larynx with her little finger? She’s carried me to safety and put me on my ass a number of times.” Rafe glared. “Embarrassing. But I love her. That’s my reality. So why can’t you tell Ryen you mated him? Maybe if he knew you loved him he’d settle in more easily.”
“I didn’t say I loved him.”
The defensiveness of his tone said otherwise. Funny, but Rafe wouldn’t have pegged Drekk as afraid of anything. He’d lived for a thousand years and destroyed bad Creations as easily as breathing. By Flor’s Dagger, the male had even demolished Ebrellions.
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.”
“Dammit.” Drekk clenched his fists. “I can’t afford to feel this.”
“You feel emotions, Drekk. Come on. You love me, you love Erin.”
“That’s different and you know it. Ryen is...special.” A Creation. “Like Erin, like me. Except I’m not like anyone else, Rafe. It’s taken me years to control myself. Yes, Ryen seems stable, but he has so much passion under that surface. I’m afraid if I let him in too far, I’ll lose what hold I have on myself.”
“What?”
“I’m not normal.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Rafe tried for humour, but the sombre look on Drekk’s face took him aback. “Come on, Drekk. It’s honest emotion. What’s bad about love?”
“I’m really not normal. I can do things that I shouldn’t be able to do, even for someone like me. Like a Creation,” he added in a quiet voice.
“What kinds of things?” Rafe rounded the desk and perched on its edge. “Things like teleporting? Like healing? I already know that.”
Drekk shoved his fingers through his hair, obviously not liking this discussion. “Things like blacking out. Like coming to surrounded by bodies, by hundreds of bodies,” he whispered, as if remembering. “Like tasting meat that you haven’t eaten but crave. Like moulding your bones and muscles into something else. With no control over any of it when the hunger hits you. That sweet hunger that’s so tempting to indulge.” Okay. Drekk was starting to scare the shit out of him, especially when his eyes darkened, then turned completely black. Rafe could feel static in the air. His sense that Drekk was not a threat evaporated as someone he didn’t know took form in front of him.
“I can’t let this out again,” Drekk said, speaking in a choir of voices. “I worked too hard to bury it deep. It’s all in there, inside of me.” Rafe watched in stunned amazement as Drekk struggled against himself. His skin rippled. His fingers lengthened and turned into claws. His eyes shifted from black to grey to a thin pupil surrounded by alien green and gold.