Taken (Calliston Series - Book 1) (15 page)

"Only if you do the same for your mate."

S'rea snorted. "That is different," she said.

"I do not see how," Ne'a said. "He is not Karo either."

S'rea could not argue with that point. Viktor was nothing like Karo. Viktor was unlike any male she had ever known. He had treated her like an equal.

"He believes he was tricked into mating with me," S'rea admitted to her niece.

Ne'a's eyes widened. "Was he?"
 

S'rea considered that for a moment. "Due to the situation, he was never given a proper choice," she said, and frowned. What had happened to Viktor had in essence been similar to what Karo had attempted to do to her.

"That does not sound fair," said Ne'a. "I had a choice."

S'rea watched as understanding dawned on her niece. Ne'a and Sern had chosen each other for their own reasons, and that was reason enough to give him the opportunity to prove himself. In reality, he did not need to prove himself—he was not Karo and never would be.

"Maybe you should give your mate a proper choice," Ne'a said.

"Maybe," S'rea said, "but I would not know how to do that."

"I am sure you will think of something. You always do." Ne'a shrugged and got to her feet. "Thank you, S'rea. I hope you sort things out with your mate. Grandfather said he made you smile, and I want you to be happy."

After Ne'a left, S'rea stared at her belongings. Ne'a was right: Viktor should have been able to choose to mate with her without being forced to. The only question was: how could she give him the chance to make the choice again? Maybe Martha could help her.

* * *

Viktor opened the door to his quarters and found Roger there with bottle in hand.

"What do you want?" Viktor asked his friend warily.

"I brought scotch," Roger said brightly. He studied Viktor in the dim light. "But it looks like you've already started without me."

"I just woke up," Viktor said. He pushed some laundry from a chair and gestured for Roger to sit down. "What do you really want?"
 

Roger paused in his pouring. "That obvious, huh?" he asked, and sighed. "We're worried about you, Vik. No one sees you unless you have to go planetside."

"I'm busy," Viktor said. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Roger said, and nudged the drink across the coffee table. "Something happened while you were away. What was it?"

Viktor reached for the glass and sipped from it. He shrugged and said, "I helped bring peace and end a war."

Roger shook his head. "That's not why you're locked away moping. What else happened down there?"
 

"People died," he said. "If I hadn't interfered…"

"So you killed them?"
 

"No," said Viktor. "S'rea said if I hadn't interfered then it would never have happened."

"If you'd not done anything things could have been worse," Roger said. He exhaled slowly and said, "I don't like her."

Viktor looked up at his friend, startled by the admission.

"She's arrogant," said Roger. "I don't like people like that. They think they know it all. They interfere even more than you do. If you're moping because of her, then you should stop it. She's not worth it."

"She manipulated me," Viktor said.

"Don't all women?" Roger asked.

"It was like Cynthia all over again," he said. "She used me to get what she wanted. How could I let that happen again?"

Roger shrugged and refilled Viktor's glass. "Cynthia used me too."
 

"You knew she was married," Viktor said, and snatched his drink back.

"I thought you'd forgiven me for that."

"Forgiven, not forgotten," Viktor muttered.

"Fair enough," Roger said, and raised his own glass. "To cheating women—may they get all that's coming to them."

Viktor didn't drink to that. He couldn't. "S'rea didn't cheat."

"I thought you said she was just like Cynthia," said Roger. "She didn't want to improve her lot in life by sleeping her way to the top?"

"No," Viktor admitted. "S'rea didn't want to sleep with anyone."

"But she slept with you?"
 

Viktor nodded.

"I'm confused," Roger said. He poured another few splashes of scotch into his glass. "How is she like Cynthia?"

"She used me."

"I got that much," said Roger. "Used you how?"

"She slept with me so I wouldn't die," Viktor said quietly.

Roger closed one eye and tilted his head as he considered that. "That sounds more like you were using her," he finally said.

Viktor couldn't argue with that, so he listed the other reasons: "It was also good publicity for the negotiations and it meant she wouldn't have to take a husband."

"The publicity helped you, so you can't use that one either," Roger said. "As for the husband thing, doesn't that make you her husband?"

"Yes, but she didn't want me to stick around," Viktor grumbled. He got to his feet and took his drink with him as he paced the living area.

"So she gave you an out," said Roger. "That seems nice of her. What about her? She stays behind and does what?"

Viktor stopped at the viewport and looked out at the planet below. "I don't know. She runs a department in a research center."

"So she has her career still. That's good. What if she decides one day that she wants children?" Roger asked. When he got no response, he prodded further. "What happens then, Vik?"

"She can't," Viktor finally said. He sighed and finished his drink in one gulp. "Lyrissians mate for life. Other unmated males may still try, but she's obligated to reject them all."

Roger let the silence draw out before he mused out loud. "Sounds like she's the one who got screwed. Cynthia might have ruined your life, Vik, but that doesn't give you the right to be a heartless bastard."

Viktor took the insult without comment. He knew he deserved it and more.

"I'm taking this with me," said Roger. He grabbed the bottle of scotch and got to his feet. At the door he paused, and before he left, he said, "If anyone has been acting like Cynthia, it's you. I don't know why S'rea bothered to save your ass."

Viktor continued to stare at Lyrissia long after Roger had left him alone with his thoughts. Roger had been right. He had been a heartless bastard.

* * *

"Bastard," Martha muttered under her breath as she passed Viktor the next morning.

Viktor watched Roger's second-in-command as she took her place in front of the secure shuttlebay doors. He suddenly envied Roger. His friend had a woman he could confide in and share the load with. Viktor knew he could have had that with S'rea. It had been like that before they had mated. He had been open and honest with her.

While Viktor was musing about what he might have lost, Roger and Martha greeted the Lyrissian king and her small entourage. A familiar voice wove between the conversation, offering translation in both Lyrissian and Common.

Another familiar voice, however, insisted on his attention. "Peacetalker," S'ana greeted him. "Thank you for organizing this for me. I have never been allowed in space before."

Viktor thought it strange that the king of Lyrissia had not been allowed to do something. He wondered if it was because she was female or the fear of what might happen to her. "You're welcome, but it was the colonel's doing, not mine."

"I thought you might like to know that there was no Orka delegation. Karo forged an alliance with a rogue faction and passed the three male Orka off as the sons of their ruler," she said.

Before Viktor could respond, Roger joined them and said, "I still can't believe a little girl is the king of the Lyrissians."

"Is he saying something about my being a young female?" S'ana asked, changing the subject.

Viktor laughed.

"What did she say?" Roger demanded.

"She said she finds you mildly attractive," Viktor told him, "for an old man."

"Thank you," Roger said, and glanced around to see if Martha had heard. "I think."

"She's talking with S'rea," Viktor said, as if reading his mind.

Upon hearing the Lyrissian's name, S'ana said, "I hope you do not mind, peacetalker. I needed a translator, and since Tarn has gone…"

"I understand," Viktor said. "How is she?"

S'ana cast a contemplative look in S'rea's direction before she pulled Viktor aside. "You left her alone, peacetalker. Without her father's protection, without you, she has nothing."

"Her work-" Viktor started to say, but when S'ana shook her head, he knew S'rea no longer had that. "Nothing at all?"

"Just her belongings," S'ana said. "She has been living in my apartments until she can find somewhere to live. My mate died, peacetalker—even if I were not king I would still be welcome in society. Her mate abandoned her. So will everyone else."

"I didn't know," said Viktor. "I asked her to come with me but she…"

"She what?" S'ana asked.

Viktor wasn't sure. He remembered they had argued, and when she had accused him of ruining her life and called him U-man again, he had snapped. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't want to leave with him either.

"Fix this, peacetalker," S'ana said. "Before it is too late."

"I will try," he said.

"Do more than try," she said before returning to the group for a tour of the Callisto.

* * *

He had no idea how he would fix things between him and S'rea. Roger was right, though—he was not as innocent in this as he would like to believe. To think he had thought he was doing the right thing by leaving. All that had achieved was to ruin S'rea's life and make himself unhappy. He missed her. Their arguments, being near her, even her correcting his pronunciation of Lyrissian words. Her cool body pressed against his, moving together, the sound of her release. He was attracted to her; there was no question about that. The evidence was right there in his pants. He cared for her, but what he needed to know was if she felt the same.

"Vik," Roger said, interrupting his thoughts. "You need to shave."

Viktor rubbed his hand over his stubbled face. It was almost a beard. "I'll do it before the dinner."

"Good. Make sure you shower too," said Roger.

"Sure," said Viktor, wondering why his friend was taking a sudden interest in his personal hygiene. He had hoped to get S'rea alone, but she had already disappeared along with the king and her people.

* * *

"I do not need you at the moment," the king said to S'rea. "Go, talk to him."

S'rea nodded. "Thank you," she said to S'ana, "for everything."

"I like him," said S'ana. "He does not treat me like I am a king or a young female."

"He treats you like an equal," S'rea said.

S'ana nodded. "I would have liked him as a mate."

"He is already taken," S'rea said.

The king laughed. "I like you too."

"And I you," S'rea said, and took her leave from her king.

* * *

S'rea waited outside the door to Viktor's quarters—the same ones he had lived in while she and her father had traveled on Callisto back to their home world. She pressed the chime and nervously waited.

"S'rea," Viktor said, surprised. After getting over his initial shock, he stepped aside. "Come in," he said.

She stared at his chest hair just as she had the last time he had opened the door wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist.

Viktor cleared his throat, attracting her attention to his face. "I wanted to apologize," he said. "When I left, I was upset."

"So was I," she said quietly.

"Your father had just died. I shouldn't have left like that."

"No."

Viktor raised an eyebrow at that but forged on. "What I said-"

"Was what you honestly felt at the time," she interrupted. "I cannot blame you for your feelings. The fault is mine. I thought I was doing you a favor by mating with you. Instead I removed your freedom to choose. That makes me no better than Karo. For that I am sorry."

"You don't need to apologize."

"I do," she said. "I also intend to give you your choice back."

Viktor frowned. "How?" he asked. "I thought it was already a done deal."

"The U-man way," she said. At his confused look, she explained: "U-man pre-mating rituals. What Martha calls
spending time together
, otherwise known as dating."

* * *

Viktor chuckled. She had obviously gone to a lot of trouble and obtained a lot of help to orchestrate this. "You want to date me?"
 

"Yes," she said stiffly. "Then, after a suitable amount of time, you can decide whether we should marry and propose. In the U-man fashion."

He wanted to ask her how long a suitable amount of time was, or what she believed a U-man marriage proposal to be. Instead, he asked, "Why?"

* * *

"Why?" she repeated uncertainly. Her well-thought-out plan was not going as it should. The only unknown variable in it was Viktor, and he was the one thing she could not—and would not—want to control.

"Yeah, why would I want to do that?" he asked.

S'rea turned away from his intense gaze to consider her answer. "Because you respect me and enjoy spending time with me. I am the first thing you think of when you wake and the last thing before you fall asleep. Because you would die inside without me."

Viktor stood silently in front of her. S'rea had repeated his definition of love, with some additions of her own. He licked his lips and asked, "Because I loved you?"

"Yes," she said, and met his gaze once more. "As I love you, Viktor."

There—she had said it, and now it hung between them. S'rea waited what seemed like an eternity for him to say something, anything.

"No," he finally said.

"No?" she breathed, dejected.

"No, I will not date you," Viktor said.

S'rea felt as if the oxygen were being removed from the room. When he moved closer, she backed away from him until she was up against the wall.

"I can't be bothered waiting a suitable amount of time," he said, and took her hand.

"What?"
 

Viktor got down on one knee and asked, "Will you marry me?"