In Enemy Territory - Shannon West Page 0,66
never was that strong when it came to my husband. He was able to wrap me around his little finger, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
With typical Tygerian bluntness, Kylon asked the question he’d been wanting to know. “Did you really kill your husband?”
He shook his head sadly. “No. My husband was…he was so passionate in his anger. As in everything he did. We were arguing—foolishly. I knew how he was, and I should never have allowed it to continue. He grabbed a knife and tried to strike me, and we struggled, but I would never have knowingly harmed him. Never. I loved him too much. He fell and hit his head, and I was…devastated. Still am, after all these years. I’ll never get over losing him.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. But that’s why it’s so important for you to grab hold of that gorgeous man and not let go. Lovers are rarely ‘suitable’ for us. It’s how you feel here.” He patted his hand against the midline of his chest, where the Nilanium heart was located. “That’s the only thing that matters.”
A loud bang came from the kitchen and Pax turned toward the sound, where the shouts of the servers could be heard coming from the storage room. “We need to get them out of there and shut them up. Their cries are making the guards more agitated.”
“Get some men and go take care of it. Tie them up, if you think it’s best. I’ll make sure all the windows and doors are properly barricaded.”
He walked around the room, checking the exits and the prisoners, who were all trussed up against the walls, watchful and bitter. Perhaps they had good reason to be—who knew what their commandant might do when they were recovered. He would blame them, no doubt, for not being vigilant enough. Perhaps they’d lose their jobs, and if that happened, maybe even their place in their families. From what Rasc and Setin said, even their names denoted what they did for a living. Or something like that, anyway. An odd culture, but then, in his opinion, most other worlds suffered by comparison to Tygeria.
He glanced back over at Rasc and found his eyes on him too. He liked it that he was watching him. It was proper for him to do so.
The thought surprised him, as it was such a Tygerian thing to say about…about their nobyos. He’d heard his father say similar things many times. But Rasc wasn’t his nobyo, nor was he likely to be. Kylon wasn’t like his fathers in that regard, and he’d been careful not to imprint on Rasc. They’d never had anal sex—he’d been careful not to penetrate Rasc. His Lycan father had often told the story of how his people also imprinted on their chosen ones—a strong kind of mating urge that had to be satisfied. Kyle felt it for his other father, Taz. Enough so that Kyle had left his home and family on his beloved Lycanus 3 to live with Taz on the planet of his enemies.
Tygerians too, felt a similar urge. The one thing a young Tygerian male had to be careful about was not penetrating another male before marriage. Once he did, he would irrevocably bond with his lover and it would be difficult in the extreme to be parted from them. This bond was absolutely unbreakable. It was why Tygerians had to be careful with whom they made love, and they never, ever had penetrative sex with anyone except their chosen nobyos.
Perhaps because of a common ancestor far back in their genetic histories, the Lycans and the Tygerians shared at least a bit of DNA, as they had several shared characteristics. Their size for one thing, and their strength and stubborn natures for another. Kylon had always thought that both species’ abilities to fall in love—or lust—so quickly and irrevocably must be similarly genetic too. He considered himself fortunate that he hadn’t felt it yet for anyone. Or had he? Had this thing snuck up on him when he wasn’t paying close enough attention? The idea of something happening to Rasc was abhorrent to him. He hated the idea of him with another man too. He’d allowed himself to get more intimate than he’d ever meant to with the handsome Rasc Centarlo—perhaps too much so.
He was used to having a casually sexual relationship with his fellow soldiers. Ever since his military training, he and the other men in his unit