“Earth myth of a creature that feeds on blood,” I supplied.
He considered. “Manticores have been frequent visitors to your home world. Perhaps that started the myths.”
“So, is she going to drain him of blood?” The bite marks had been all over Senaik—but they’d been concentrated in a certain area.
“Females prefer—other fluids,” he divulged.
His mouth straightened as he confirmed what I’d feared. I shivered and closed my eyes.
“It will be alright, little Draka,” Rhodes whispered as he folded his arms around me. “I will get him out.”
I now could sense when he was just trying to reassure me, so as I held on tight to him, my chin lifted.
“Wewill get him out,” I corrected.
24
Zyair
Heat pulsed through me.
At first, I thought it was merely the latest chemical effects from the aphrodisiac.
But it was not due to Brentoq.
Because this was not lust. This waseuphoria.
Even as the manticore venom scorched a path through my veins, my mind had been filled with the writhing of bodies.
Mybrother. And mymate.
I closed my eyes and let them transport me beyond this metal room and the ship captained by a gaseous manticore. Jaz’s presence filled my senses, and I imagined her sweet scent, the feel of her soft, yet strong body. The arms wrapped around her possessed lean muscles I knew almost as well as my own.
Rhodes.
The missing component arrived a heartbeat later. Xandros, fainter, but part of it all.
Part offour. It could only mean one thing—they had both bondedwith her.
Ourmate.
I had to work to stifle the pulse of hope that shot through me. It did nothing to alleviate my situation, but it meant that my brothers would fulfill a bond that I had craved with everything I was, or had been. That they might become fathers, and do their part to save both our clan, and our people, meant the cosmos to me.
Jaz…
The memory of her touch did more to fire my blood than the three doses of aphrodisiac that Brentoq had shot me full of.
“Finally. I was beginning to think you were immune.”
A sour stench swept away Jaz’s sweetness. My eyes snapped open to see the distinctive, slit-nostriled face of the revolting manticore.
I pushed my mate and my brothers out of my mind. I glanced to where Senaik still hung. Part of me wished they would deposit him out the nearest airlock. I was getting tired of sending him mental hate messages. Talking was hopeless, he never responded. He only moaned softly, hanging there with his cock semi-hard.
He was nearly done, appetizer or no.
Brentoq’s stench effectively doused my arousal. She noticed, and her eyes narrowed as her venom-tipped tail wove closer to me. “Seems a fourth dose is in order.”
I snorted derisively. “I will never respond to you.”
