Page 40 of Remmen

“Don’t.” She sounded like she was the one bleeding. “We can’t.”

“I know. I⁠—”

“I was engaged.” She set the cloth down on my knee and left it there, and her hands went still for the first time since she’d hauled me through the door. “His name was Alistair and we started dating in college.”

I turned that over. Someone had been promised the whole of her, all that nerve and mouth and those stubborn clever hands, and had let her climb onto a transport and cross the stars alone. I couldn’t make it fit in my head.

Males killed each other over far less than what he’d thrown away.

Then the rest of it landed, the flatness under her voice she was working so hard to hold, and I understood there was a reason she wasn’t his wife.

“Is he dead?” I asked. Anne tried to stand, but I hauled her into my lap before she could pull away. I needed to feel her nearness.

“He’s married to my ex-best friend.” She bowed her head and it thunked against my chest. “While I worked for two years on Perren trying to build our nest egg and breaking myself a little more with the pain of others every day, he went and—he didn’t even wait three months. And they didn’t tell me. I walked away from Perren because I couldn’t take it anymore and when I got home, I found Janice living in my house. Sleeping in my bed. She was supposed to be my maid of honor!” Anne sounded more indignant than upset. “Two weeks later I was on a transport to the Alien Matchmaking Agency counselor training program. I still have their wedding invite in my bag. Can you believe they freaking invited me?”

The old cold came up in me, patient, and made itself comfortable. I’d never been a stranger to wanting to end a male. I spent six years pretending to be civilized, and mostly I’d learned how to set the past and leave it down. It stood right back up now.

Some soft creature on some green world had looked at my mate, at her loyalty and her years of grinding herself down for a future she thought they were building together, and had rolled it all up and handed it to her maid of honor. “There are many ways I could make it look like an accident.” I wasn’t sure if I was joking.

She smacked my shoulder. “You were a gladiator, not an assassin. And you’re not killing my ex.” It made her laugh. “Honestly, thank god I wasn’t with him when I got here. This agency bullshit between us is bad enough. Breaking up over video call would be the icing on the cake.”

“So you’d choose me over him?” I couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of my voice.

“You’re my mate, you big lug. I thought we established that. The hand of fate is not exactly subtle.” Her lips brushed against my jaw. “You could have died out there.”

“I was never in any danger of that happening.”

“Be serious.”

“I know exactly what kind of danger I can handle. One gorrel couldn’t strike me down. A whole pack might be a problem.”

I swallowed the rest of it. There’d been a night near the end in the pits when they loosed a whole pack of something long and low into the sand with three of us, no weapons worth the name, to see what we’d do for their crowd. I remembered the sound of it better than anything else. Two of us walked out of the ring.

I didn’t tell her that part. She had enough dead men in her nights already, and I didn’t want to be one more.

“I can’t lose you.” Her voice grew serious. “I don’t know how—no, we can’t do this, but I can’t lose you. Even if we never…”

I cupped her cheek and stole a kiss. With her right on my lap, it was as simple as breathing. Anne sank into it, opening her mouth under mine like she belonged there. She tasted of salt and the long day and the fight going out of her, and she made a small sound into my mouth that I felt everywhere at once. I got one hand into her hair and the other flat against her spine and brought her in until there was nothing between us but cloth.

She was so small against me and she never seemed to notice it, never held herself careful. She kissed me with her whole self, no hedging, and stars help us both I thought she’d been wanting to since the middle of the square.

My blood had been running hot since the square, and now it pooled low and heavy. My cock thickened against the seam of my trousers, and she was right there in my lap to feel it, and she pressed down into it instead of pulling away.

“When does your contract end?” I asked as I pulled away. I knew the particulars of the program, but each employee was unique and with Anne all over me, I couldn’t remember specifics.

“Two years,” she said between kisses that were no more than brushes of her lips against mine.

I groaned. “A year I could endure, but two?”

Her lips curved against mine, but I could feel the sadness in it. “If I quit this job in the middle of my contract, I won’t get a reference; no one will hire me.” She placed a hand flat on my chest before I could make some grand declaration. “The only reason I have clients right now is because you’re dragging them to my door. New Knossos really doesn’t need three of us if no one will open up.”

She didn’t see the good she’d done here, that she’d reached the Butchers of all men and had brought them closer into town than I ever thought possible. But every good thing she did was a mark against our future.

“I don’t want you to go,” I confessed.

“I’m not planning on leaving.” She leaned up and kissed me again, and this time she didn’t stop to say anything after it.

We were done talking. There was only so much a male could be expected to withstand, and I’d reached the far end of it a good while back.