of the universe to love him. He deserved it.
I lifted my head to watch the last of the crowd shuffle out the doors and saw Governor Maxim slap Braun on the back.
“Don't worry, Warlord. I have big plans for you.”
Braun turned his head. “What plans?”
The governor smiled. “You are going to be The Colony’s next representative on the Bachelor Beast television program on Earth.”
Rachel squealed and clapped her hands as the doors slid closed behind them, leaving me alone with my mates.
“Lucy?” Nik’s voice was strong, but the fear coming through his collar was going to keep me on my knees.
Rising to a kneeling position, I wrapped one arm around each of my mates and tackled them to the ground. “I love you. I love you both so much.”
I gave up trying to hide my emotions and allowed them to flood me—and them. Love. Relief. Gratitude that they were alive. Longing. Need. Pain. I gave them everything. Everything.
“Lucy.” Sam clutched at my back, ran his hand through my hair, stroked my hip, kissed every part of me he could reach. “Mate, I love you. I need you. Thank the gods.”
Nik clung. There was no other word for the fierceness of his hold or the rock-solid grip of his hands. He did not move, did not speak, simply held me like he’d never, ever let me go again. And love? God. His absolute devotion poured through the collars like pure heat, pure need.
“You are mine, mate. You are my heart and my soul and my life. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” I held on to them both and cried until I didn’t have any tears left. Then I cursed. “You let me cry but didn’t tell me what happened to you!”
They eyed me, jaws clenched. “It matters not. We are here, and we are not leaving you. Someday we will share what happened. Not now.”
It must have been awful, whatever they’d endured. They were right, and I felt their need to not relive it and share it with me but to move on. They were here. I was theirs. “This fucking collar needs to be blue, not black. Blue. You two are mine, understand? Mine. And I want you both to know it.”
They didn’t argue. Nik stood first. Sam followed and they lifted me to walk between them.
“Once again, mate, are you asking us to accompany you to your private quarters and see to your pleasure?” Nik asked.
I laughed with pure joy. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“I do not have a problem with giving you pleasure,” Nik said. “Do you, Sambor?”
“Absolutely not.”
I realized they were repeating the exact same words they’d said to me at the palace, and my heart melted. These two were mine, and it was time to make it permanent.
14
Niklas
“You make us proud, mate,” I said, holding Lucy’s hand as Sambor followed, one step behind. She could sense our satisfaction in her through the collars.
A near-death experience filtered out the things that weren’t important and added value to those that were. Like Lucy. She was the most crucial thing in the universe.
We’d been given a second chance. Our feelings, the depth of them, couldn’t be hidden. Not now. Not when we were all prepared to focus on what really mattered.
All the time stuck on that asteroid, I’d wondered of Lucy’s true feelings. She’d made it clear we were just a fling, as humans called it. We were disposable.
No longer. We didn’t need the collars to know her heart. The look on her face when she’d first seen us in the canteen told us everything we needed to know.
I saw her love, felt it through the collars, but hearing the true depths of need when she’d said the words aloud filled my heart completely. I’d thought it full before, but there had been something missing.
No longer.
Perhaps our time apart had solidified her intentions, and voicing them aloud and in such an intense, forceful manner couldn’t allow her brain or any Earth ideals to stand in the way.
She was ours now. She knew.
We knew it.
We’d been showing her all along. Even through separation, we were still one.
Now we would claim her. Make it official.
She led us to her quarters, a small set of rooms that held no personality. The space was plain and stark. I thought of my residence on Prillon Prime. It was the same way. A place to go between missions. To sleep. Eat. It wasn’t a home.
“We will need larger quarters,” I said, seeing the bed in the