The Clone’s Mate by Susan Trombley
Twenty-Eight
“She gets under your skin, doesn’t she, old friend?” a voice said from behind us. “Burrows into your brain until there’s no hope of getting the thought of her out of it.”
I spun around, bumping into Subject 34 as he stepped out into the corridor, revealing Ilyan standing behind us. The green male leaned against the corridor wall, regarding me with a slight smile. That smirk didn’t reach his intense eyes, the pupils slightly dilated.
Nirgal gasped, then stepped closer to me so he could look out into the corridor. I inhaled his scent, picking up something delicious and male beneath the antiseptic that coated his skin.
“Ilyan?” Nirgal’s tone suggested he wasn’t entirely sure who would respond.
I could totally understand his hesitation.
Ilyan nodded slightly, his gaze meeting Nirgal’s. “Accept that she’s our queen now, my friend.” Ilyan’s smirk widened. “There’s no escaping it. I tried to hide from the way she makes me feel, but she dragged me out into the light, refusing to let my fracture remain in control.”
“That is probably for the best,” Nirgal said warily, his gaze searching as he studied Ilyan. “He has not served you well since your sundering.”
Ilyan shrugged one shoulder as he straightened from the wall. “And what excuse do you have, Nirgal? After all, you destroyed your own life by turning against the empire, even without the presence of a fracture. When I discovered you’d tried to betray your mission at her urging,” he grinned at Nirgal, “I realized that she’d already gotten to you too. Nothing else could possibly convince you to alter your plans.”
Nirgal stiffened, standing so close to me that I felt his body heat radiating off him. If I leaned just slightly backwards, I’d bump into him.
“I don’t understand.” His voice sounded tight, and just as stiff as his body behind me. “I didn’t imprint on her. I was careful not to risk exposure.”
Ilyan shrugged again. “And yet your body responds to her now that you’re cured. Perhaps if you’d imprinted on another female and weren’t cured, you would have been able to get her out of your system.” He chuckled as his gaze shifted to meet mine. “Although I doubt it, even then. She’s special.” The caressing way he said those words made my body flush with heat and my heart thunder in my chest.
Every woman wants to hear she’s special to the man she loves. I’d just never thought there would be three of them at the same time. It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest. The fantasy of a reverse harem seemed to go a lot smoother in my head than it was going in reality.
Nirgal still seemed hesitant, despite his body’s response to me. Ilyan still seemed offended, even though he was clearly in seduction mode. Only Subject 34 was unfazed by any of this. I already knew that little fazed him—unless it posed a threat to me.
“You do realize that your fracture still poses a danger to us all,” Nirgal said to Ilyan.
I jumped a little in surprise when his hands came to rest on my shoulders. It seemed almost natural to sway backwards to lean into his body. Although a part of me still felt strange about the whole “three lovers” thing, I enjoyed the feeling of his warmth against my back and shivered in pleasure as his hands slid down my arms, then slipped to my waist. He might be distracted by his concern over Evil Ilyan making a reappearance, but that didn’t soften the hard ridge at his groin that pressed into my lower back as he pulled me closer against him.
To say this entire situation left me conflicted would be an understatement.
My feelings for Subject 34 were visceral—primal in a way I’ve never felt before. It was like terror turned to fascination the moment Subject 34 first captured me, and that grew into something deeper in that lizard part of my brain that didn’t recognize the civilized concept of love. Instead of such a meek and mild idea, I felt something deeper—a need in my bones to be with Subject 34.
My feelings for Ilyan had grown during our shared captivity, where he’d become an odd sort of confidante, both of us communicating only through gestures. His presence and attention had kept me sane, and my gratitude for both had blossomed into something stronger, until I realized that someone I’d never even spoken to meant more to me than Michael ever had.
Nirgal was a different story altogether from the other two. I’d hated him at first, with good reason. I’d also feared him, with good reason. Yet even in the beginning—even when he’d had me strapped down on a table for his experiments—I’d felt a bizarre and unwarranted attraction to him. My defensive response had been to needle him in the hopes of pushing him to pass some point of no return in his treatment of me where I would no longer feel anything but hatred for him. Yet no matter what I’d said to him, he’d never gone too far for me to forgive him. Instead of ending up hating him, I’d been left feeling panic at the thought of losing him.
Could this unfamiliar relationship really work for the four of us?
I didn’t realize I’d asked that aloud until Ilyan and Nirgal fell silent. I’d been so deep in my thoughts that I’d missed what they said to each other. No doubt Ilyan was reassuring Nirgal that Evil Ilyan wouldn’t kill us all in our sleep. I was mostly confident he was right by this point, though Ilyan’s fracture was a wild card. Fortunately, my green guy appeared to have control over it.
Nirgal’s arms encircled my waist, embracing me from behind. “You aren’t the only one who finds this unfamiliar.” His voice sounded strained, and I guessed that part of the reason for that was what pressed into my lower back. “Neither Ilyan nor I were trained to be mated. We are scientists, not lovers.”
“Most people don’t have to be trained to be in love,” I said with a weak chuckle, lifting my hands to run my palms over Nirgal’s forearms.
The fabric of his jumpsuit was loose on him, his wrists narrower than I remembered from when I first met him. Like Ilyan, he’d been deprived of proper nutrition during his captivity.
“Trained males know how to please their queens.” Ilyan’s bottle green gaze rarely softened, even when he studied me like he was now, but his expression was stark with a desire I didn’t waste any more time denying.
I couldn’t wholly understand what miracle had taken place to bind not one, but three, alien males to me, but I also couldn’t complain. Well, I certainly wouldn’t complain!
“I’m already pleased with all three of you.” I stroked my fingers over one of Nirgal’s long, lean hands, enjoying the smooth feel of his skin beneath them. “I want this to work. It’s just not what I’m accustomed to.”
Nirgal’s embrace tightened at my caressing touch, grinding his erection into my lower back and the top of my ass. He groaned softly, the hand I wasn’t touching sliding down my waist to grip my hip.
Ilyan eyed Nirgal’s hands on me, his lips tightening as his eyes narrowed.
“I’m worried,” I licked my lips nervously at Ilyan’s expression, “that one of you might become jealous.”
“At least two of us,” Nirgal growled and a glance up at his face showed that he regarded Ilyan like a snake facing down a mongoose.
Subject 34 shifted his curious gaze from Ilyan to Nirgal and back, crossing his upper arms over his chest and his lower arms over his stomach plates as he regarded the scene. He seemed relaxed, so I doubted there would be any physical violence anytime soon, but the tension was definitely growing, and the very thing that had worried me the most about this unconventional—for me—relationship appeared to be happening.
“I thought your people normally mated this way,” I said uncertainly, attempting to step forward to put a little distance between me and Nirgal because Ilyan’s expression grew more forbidding.
What would I do if they couldn’t reconcile their antagonism over this arrangement? Would I have to choose one of them over the other? I couldn’t even imagine making that choice at this point. I already loved them both.
The big L-word when applied to them shook me to the core, even acknowledging it in my head rather than aloud. I didn’t have time to process my own admission because Nirgal wasn’t keen on releasing me, even to put a slight gap between us, and Ilyan looked like he was about to turn the show over to the more dangerous side of himself.
“Hello?” I waved my hands in front of Ilyan’s face as a muscle ticked in his jaw. “You said yourself that your people mated this way, Ilyan. So what’s with the angry expression now?”
“Nirgal and I have been rivals since we left our cocoons,” Ilyan finally said after a long, silent glare at Nirgal. “I had not intended to share a queen with him.” He shrugged one lean shoulder. “Of course, I had not intended to have a queen either.” His gaze shifted to Nirgal’s arms possessively wrapped around my waist again. “I didn’t anticipate how much I would dislike seeing him touching what belongs to me.”
Okay, I was going to let that slide, because I felt like they all belonged to me in return so I could sort of understand where the sentiment came from, even if the phrasing of it raised some red flags. Ilyan was technically one big red flag anyway.
Come to think of it, so were Nirgal and Subject 34. They were each a field-sized, bright crimson flag snapping openly in the breeze. I shouldn’t be under any illusions that my life juggling the three of them would ever be peaceful.
“You have some nerve, Ilyan!” Nirgal growled. “Don’t act like you have never taken something that belonged to me before. You stole the original athraxius project from me.”
Nirgal shifted his body so he moved me further into the med bay, while nudging his own way out of it. I realized he was placing himself between me and Ilyan.
“You think I don’t know that you tricked me so you could get close to the Knowledge Director to ingratiate yourself so you would be selected over me?” Nirgal said in an angry tone. “I labored for years as a mere assistant researcher after you betrayed our friendship!”
Ilyan’s gaze had hardened, and I would bet Nirgal’s eyes looked like icebergs at this point as they glared at each other. Ilyan glanced at Subject 34, then returned his glare to Nirgal. “It seems you made up for lost time, didn’t you? You promised me you would help me to avoid deprivation, and instead kept me out of cryo until I suffered so much that I fractured, just so you could use my knowledge for your own success.”
I held up both hands hoping to silence them as Nirgal shifted me further behind him, his arms now leaving my waist as he faced off Ilyan.
“Hold up, both of you!”
A pair of cold blue eyes and another of hard green eyes fell upon me, and I sighed in dismay at the tension and angry scowls on both their faces. “Clearly your antagonism towards each other isn’t about me.”
I actually felt relieved about that. If we could clear up their issues with each other, we might manage to have a harmonious relationship.
“Of course it’s about you,” Nirgal said in his irritating condescending tone.
I missed his tablet, because if he held it right now, I would snatch it out of his hands and smack him upside the head with it.
“34 not like either of you. Would kill both. Ronda say no.” My monster mate shrugged his shoulders as if this was all no big deal. “34 put up with you. Both put up with each other.”
I shoved past Nirgal to make my way to 34’s side and wrapped my arm around his waist. His lower arm fell over my shoulder, holding me close against him.
I regarded both males, who stared at me and 34 with equal scowls. “Listen, I already have my doubts about all of this. I’m sure I’ve made that clear.” I met Nirgal’s eyes, then Ilyan’s. “But I love you both as much as I love 34. I want to make this work, but we can’t do that if the two of you are always at each other’s throats.”
I gestured to each of them. “Obviously, you were friends once. You have some bad history. I get it.” Then I waved towards the cockpit. “But we’re all in a pretty big mess right now, and we need to be a cohesive team to get through it and find a safe place to rest, so I’d say let’s put the past behind us.”
I fluttered my lashes at Nirgal, who didn’t look like he was softening to my argument. “After all, Nirgal, I’m forgiving you for what you’ve done to me. I think you need to forgive Ilyan.”
I then turned my gaze on Ilyan. “You’ve also done some pretty unforgivable things, Ilyan, but I won’t hold that against you, because I love you. I love Nirgal too, so I think it’s time you forgive him. If you won’t do it for his sake, do it for mine.”
Ilyan was the first to relax, his shoulders rounding as he leaned against the corridor wall again, barely shooting a glance at Nirgal before returning his gaze to my face. “Rhonda, we still haven’t discussed what happened between us.”
“What happened between you?” Nirgal demanded, and I could hear the tinge of jealousy in his tone as he stiffened even further, his fists clenching at his sides.
I sighed and rubbed my forehead where a headache had begun to throb. I slipped my other hand into Subject 34’s upper hand. “These two wear me out, honey. You want to return to my cabin?”
“34 feed Rhonda?” he asked hopefully.
I chuckled and nodded my head, feeling my core tighten in anticipation. “Definitely.”
Ilyan and Nirgal both protested as I walked away arm-in-arm with Subject 34. I waved a hand over my head.
“You two discuss your problems and get your shit together, and then we’ll talk about the future.” I paused, 34 immediately stopping beside me so he didn’t drag me down the corridor. I turned halfway around to look at them both, then pointed at Ilyan. “If you bring out Evil Ilyan to harm Nirgal, I will never forgive either of you. Are we clear?”
Ilyan huffed in outrage. “Evil Ilyan? By the Spinner, is that what he calls himself? How uninspired.”
“I suspect that’s what our queen calls him,” Nirgal said in a dry tone. “Expect many nicknames from now on. Most of them will be insulting, if she holds true to form.”
I smiled sweetly at them, then blew them a kiss. “See you two later. Love you.”
For once, both their hard gazes softened at those words.
