The Clone’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Twenty-Nine

Despite a very pleasurable meal, I couldn’t relax as I normally would. I spent the whole time worrying about how Ilyan and Nirgal were getting along without a mediator to keep them from killing each other.

Or keep Evil Ilyan from killing Nirgal, more likely.

This concern left me too distracted to make the most of my intimacy with Subject 34, but to my great relief, he didn’t comment on it. Nor did he make me feel guilty for not giving him my full focus. Subject 34 was my rock when my worry over the other two threatened to sweep me away and possibly drown me.

It was ironic that the most dangerous of my new “mates”—I guess I’d call them, since “boyfriends” wasn’t working for me—was also the most stable and calm of the three.

I’d dropped the L-word now, so my own feelings about them were out there for them to see. I had to trust that they really did feel the way they appeared to feel because if this was all a game for them, then they would know they’d managed to hurt me.

Fortunately, I didn’t think they were playing around when it came to their feelings for me. I also felt the connection when I was near them. The chemistry sparking between us nearly set me on fire and certainly made me hot. Plus, Nirgal seemed as baffled and disconcerted by his body’s reaction to me as I had been when I’d realized I had an attraction to him. I doubted he was that good of an actor. If I’d learned anything during my recent experiences, it was how to read body language. The bodies of both Iriduans said they desired me as much as I desired them.

To go from a discarded ex-wife to a “queen” of three alien males, all of whom were incredibly sexy in their own way, took some mental adjustments. Perhaps it was for the best that they didn’t give me much time to dwell on my own circumstances.

After Subject 34 and I made the most of my cramped cabin, I was unable to rest, despite being satiated and post-orgasm. I needed to check on the other two. Besides, we still had to come up with a plan. By now, I’d decided we should check out the CivilRim world Ilyan had mentioned, but I wanted Nirgal’s input.

I would always want the input of my mates before making decisions that would affect all of us. I found being solely responsible for their health, happiness, and welfare disconcerting. At the same time, I probably cared more about them than anyone else in the galaxy, so perhaps there wasn’t anyone better suited to the task.

We found Nirgal and Ilyan sitting at the sole table in the shuttle’s cramped version of a cafeteria. The tiny closet of a breakroom at my old retail store was bigger than this sorry excuse for a dining chamber. I sighed in relief to see that they both looked alive and unharmed, but then my stomach dipped to see them still glaring at each other. Muscles ticked in both their jaws as they stared each other down.

At least the food wrappers in front of both of them were empty. They must have been ravenous to eat together when the antagonism clearly remained.

“You two still haven’t worked out your issues?” I asked as they broke their staring match to look at me standing in the doorway with Subject 34 at my back.

“It’s not that simple.” Ilyan crumpled up a wrapper in one fist, leaning on his forearm as he glanced at Nirgal again, before returning his gaze to me.

“It’s very simple,” Nirgal snapped, his long fingers moving to snatch up one of his wrappers to fold it neatly into a small, compact square even as his gaze remained on me. “You are my future, and Ilyan has a bad habit of stealing my future from me.”

His blue eyes never looked so warm when they’d fallen on me as they did now. My heart lifted at his words, but I also sighed in exasperation at them.

“I said I love you both,” I reiterated as I walked to the table.

I paused in front of it, standing between the two seated males. Lifting both hands at the same time, I caressed their faces, stroking my fingers down their high cheekbones to trace their phenomenal jawlines.

“No one is stealing me from anyone.” I met Nirgal’s eyes, then turned to look at Ilyan. “Is that clear?”

Ilyan smirked, shooting a glance at Nirgal. “She already sounds like a queen speaking to her harem.”

I felt the blush burn my cheeks even as Nirgal’s stiff shoulders relaxed and a slight smile quirked his lips. “I suppose she does. I haven’t had any contact with females in this capacity, so I’m not sure what to expect.”

He captured my wrist when I made to lower my hand, tugging me closer to his side of the table, his blue gaze intent on me.

“No poaching,” Ilyan growled, capturing my other wrist to pull me away from Nirgal.

Subject 34 chitter-growled angrily as he stepped closer to us, and my two evil space fairies released me.

I sat down at the table between them, propping my elbows on the top and steepling my fingers. “Okay, I think we need to have a discussion about a lot of things, since it’s clear the two of you have been wasting your time glaring at each other.”

I turned to Nirgal and took his hand, tracing my finger over the black stripe that wrapped around his wrist. “Nirgal, Ilyan came with us to save you. Clearly, he still cares about you.”

“He probably intended to kill me,” Nirgal said with a narrow-eyed glare at Ilyan.

“Probably,” Ilyan replied with a superior tone that made me roll my eyes.

“Would you two just put your dicks away for a minute and let me talk!”

They stared at me with wide eyes, their jaws gaping with twin expressions of shock. Then Nirgal glanced down at his lap, his free hand lowering as if to check that his jumpsuit was sealed at his groin.

I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter. They watched me with incomprehension, shooting glances at Subject 34 as if he could explain what was going on with me.

I finally got control of my laughter, though a few giggles continued to escape. Honestly, I was a little bit on the edge of hysteria at this point as I realized the stress I’d face trying to reconcile these two. They were both stubborn, arrogant, and adamantly convinced that they were in the right.

“I wasn’t speaking literally.” I grinned at Nirgal, releasing his hand to stroke his thigh. “The two of you are so busy competing with each other that you won’t listen to me when I say you don’t have to compete! If you truly want me as your ‘queen’,” that was still such a strange term for me, “then you already have me. You don’t have to measure yourself against each other to win me over.”

I lowered my other hand to Ilyan’s knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze before stroking my palm higher on his leg. He responded by shifting closer to me, his eyelids falling to half-mast as a pleased smile touched his lips.

“Please stop fighting with each other.” I shared my glance between them. “We all have to let go of the past—and believe me when I say I have a lot of my own baggage to dump out the airlock!”

I turned my full gaze on Ilyan. “Like the baggage that had me ruining the moment after we made love for the first time. I was afraid of what you were going to say to me because I’ve been hurt by cruel remarks in the past.”

Ilyan had the grace to look guilty as he lifted a hand to stroke my hair away from my face. “You have to know I didn’t mean what I said.” His eyes darkened as his pupils dilated. “You are the first and only woman I’ve ever mated with, and the experience was far from disappointing.”

“I wouldn’t know what that’s like,” Nirgal said stiffly, clearly feeling left out, even though my hand still caressed his thigh.

I melted at Ilyan’s words, and his confirmation that he hadn’t been with any woman before me. Granted, there had been the woman he’d imprinted on, and that was a story I’d still love to hear, even if I might feel a bit jealous. But in the end, I was the one he bonded to even after he was cured. I was the one he shared his first experience with.

Even as I felt like a pool of mush, Ilyan’s gaze hardened as he shot an irritated glare at Nirgal. “You weren’t exactly in any condition to mate your queen at the time so stop buzzing like a juvenile’s wings. The sound of your complaining is annoying.”

“I can’t recall why I ever befriended you in the first place, Ilyan Tironus!” Nirgal’s tension resonated in the leg muscle beneath my palm. “Your creche might be noble, but you are an off-breed.”

Ilyan smirked. “Your petty insults don’t please our queen, Nirgal of commoner creche Mashda. Maybe someday you will learn to read her—hopefully not after you make her despise you as much as I do.”

“Stop. It!” I slapped both my palms on the tabletop, shooting an infuriated glare at them. “Seriously! What do I have to do to make the two of you get along so we can pick a fucking planet to settle on before we run out of food and Subject 34 decides to eat you both?”

My beloved monster punctuated my point by extending his upper arms and spreading his pincers wide. “34 feeling hungry,” he said in his deep, growling voice.

Inwardly, I smiled, but I kept my expression deadly serious as I waved a hand towards him. “These little rations you two are eating won’t be enough for 34. We need to find a place with a reliable and plentiful source of food.” I regarded them both in turn, softening when I saw the hurt beneath their stubbornly stiff expressions. “Can we just try to put our pasts aside and focus on the future?”

They both nodded in unison, the movement just as stiff and reluctant as their tight expressions. They continued to glare at each other as Nirgal crossed his arms over his chest and Ilyan leaned insouciantly back in his seat.

I sighed, rubbing the throbbing muscle at my temple. “So where to, boys?”

They shifted their gazes to me, their eyes softening from the stone-cold stares they’d given each other.

“You want our input?” Nirgal sounded surprised that I would ask for it.

“Of course,” I returned my hand to his thigh. “I want us all to agree on our next course of action, because it will affect us all.”

His hand rested on mine over his leg as if he wanted to make certain that, this time, I kept it there. “Ilyan mentioned the suggestions he made.” An expression crossed his face that told me he was fighting back an insult towards my green guy.

I knew where some of his antagonism came from. I could recognize that it was defensive. Nirgal’s guilt at letting Ilyan get into his current condition of being fractured made him push the other male away with insults and anger at past wrongs he believed Ilyan had committed against him. My evil space tiger fairy didn’t like acknowledging his own guilt and asking for forgiveness, even as it ate him up inside.

I knew he would come around eventually, and it had taken a while for me to convince him to listen to me before, but when he finally did accept his guilt and seek to make amends, he went all in, regardless of the consequences. He was worth redeeming.

“There is another option Ilyan failed to suggest that would be safer than a primitive world, or the CivilRim.”

Ilyan looked startled at this, then his green eyes narrowed on Nirgal. “You had better not say what I think you’re about to say.”

Nirgal’s jaw ticked even as he returned his gaze to Ilyan. “The empire will know we survived. They will have footage of our escape. There is only one option that offers the best chance of evading their hunters.” He gestured to Subject 34. “We must disappear the same way the first athraxius experiment disappeared.”

“That first experiment believes I am dead!” Ilyan pointed his finger at his temple like it was a gun. “I’d rather not risk the chance that he discovers otherwise.” He lifted his chin as his hand lowered back to the table for his fingers to drum on the top of it. “Besides, what you’re suggesting means treason.”

Nirgal ran a hand over his bald head, his palm rasping over the stubble that had already begun to shadow his scalp. “We’re well beyond worrying about that label, Ilyan. If the empire finds us, we’ll be lucky to be immediately executed. A likelier fate would be years in an oubliette before we’re granted the mercy of death.”

Ilyan closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair. “They didn’t kill me after my first failure, nor after the actions of my fracture.” He bowed his head, his eyes opening to reveal that his pupils were now mere pinpoints as he stared at the table.

“You know that’s only because they had a use for you.” Nirgal’s tone was almost gentle this time.

Where I really saw his sympathy for Ilyan was in his expression, which Ilyan missed because he was staring at his fingers tapping the tabletop, clearly a sign of nervous energy.

“We have no guarantee that the Akrellians won’t blow us to space dust if we transmit our location to them.”

Ilyan’s tone told me he was wavering, even as I stared back and forth between them in confusion. I wanted a full explanation of what we were talking about here, but at the same time, they were finally communicating without open antagonism. I was reluctant to interrupt. I could get answers afterwards, before we made our final decision.

“They might be our enemies, but they aren’t fools.” Nirgal shot a glance at Subject 34. “They welcomed the first athraxius, no doubt realizing his potential value to their people. I doubt they would destroy another one who reaches out to them for sanctuary.”

“That first athraxius is my primary concern,” Ilyan insisted, straightening in his chair and leaning forward as he rested his forearms on the table.

Even though I felt a little like they’d forgotten my presence, despite Nirgal still holding his hand over mine on his thigh, I kept my silence, curious about what they were discussing. I still had so much to learn about my new mates that it felt almost overwhelming.

Nirgal rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his free hand. “Perhaps we can request that Thrax is not informed of our existence.”

Ilyan huffed in skepticism. “If the Akrellians discover another one like him, they are likely to inform him. Besides, where exactly do you think they’d resettle us?” He gestured again to Subject 34, who suddenly looked extremely interested in the conversation. “They would put us where they put the other athraxius. That likely means we would encounter Thrax—and Claire.” He ground out the last name like he could barely stand speaking it.

“Who Thrax?” Subject 34 asked, shifting closer to stand behind Ilyan, looking very intimidating. “One like 34? Want meet. Maybe kill. Prove 34 stronger.”

Since Ilyan had already been killed by Subject 34 once, it wasn’t surprising he felt intimidated as he leaned his body away from the hulking male behind him.

I had to interject, even though I wasn’t entirely certain who these people were, though I could guess at what Claire meant to Ilyan. I shoved away the sting of jealousy, reminding myself that he was mine now. “No killing, 34. Not even another male like yourself!”

Ilyan regarded 34 with narrowed, suspicious eyes before returning his attention to Nirgal and I, his gaze pointedly meeting mine. “Do you see how this option would be a disaster, my queen?”

I did, honestly. I had to admit I was still leaning towards the CivilRim idea as I turned my gaze to Nirgal. I flipped my hand beneath his, so I could lace our fingers together. “Do you really think this would be a wise choice, Nirgie?”

His sigh might have been at my nickname for him, but he didn’t pull his hand away, his gaze intent on mine. “The CivilRim is a dangerous place even without imperial hunters and enforcers always grasping for our wings. I don’t want to put you in that kind of danger.” He shot another glance at Subject 34. “Even my finest creation can’t keep you safe every moment of your life, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

That kind of sentiment went a long way towards convincing me to consider Nirgal’s side. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect him of saying it just to manipulate me. After all, Nirgal had spent a lot of time learning my weaknesses along with my entire life story during my time in 34’s enclosure. He knew I was a sucker for romance, especially grand romantic declarations.

On the other hand, I believed he meant what he said. His tone was too fervent to be false, and he’d never struck me as particularly skilled at acting.

“What about a primitive world where the imperials won’t think to look for us?” I didn’t feel a whole lot of hope on this option, since I wasn’t exactly a survivalist.

Nirgal captured my other hand, linking his fingers with mine, ignoring Ilyan’s growl of annoyance. “The kinds of worlds we could find outside the influence of Syndicate species would be just as dangerous in their own way as the CivilRim. I also wouldn’t be able to provide the life my queen deserves in such a primitive place. I fear you would be unhappy there.” His wry smile didn’t hold much amusement. “There wouldn’t be any paints or canvas for you there, Rhonda. No expensive art supplies. No soft mattress or pile of pillows. No comfortable clothing.”

Okay, he definitely knew my weaknesses. Given the fact that he’d supplied all those things for me while I was his captive, it wasn’t surprising he could guess that I preferred those luxuries I could only get on a civilized world.

I could live on a primitive planet, if there was no other option, and I know that if these three were with me, I could find happiness there, despite the dearth of amenities I’d grown up enjoying. Still, Nirgal had some excellent points. A glance at Ilyan showed that he realized it too.

“Maybe the Akrellians will have mercy on us,” I said uncertainly, shrugging one shoulder.

“34 want meet Thrax.”

Well, the Akrellians already had Subject 34’s vote, though I would prefer that they keep our existence a secret from this “Thrax” and “Claire.” Especially Claire. I feared that once Ilyan saw her, his cure would revert, and he’d suddenly be madly in love with her or something along those lines. I mean, I didn’t really know how it all worked, and from what Nirgal had said, the cure itself was unprecedented and experimental.

What if it failed and he ended up obsessed with another woman, forgetting all about me?

Or worse, what if Thrax killed my Ilyan, because that seemed to be what concerned Ilyan. Obviously, his former test subject didn’t hold kind feelings towards him. Though Subject 34 had proven that the right motivation could convince him to forgive his creator. If this Thrax was born from the same genes, maybe he could also be reasoned with to forgive his.

Nirgal’s eyes remained on me, ignoring the other two. “This decision rests on you, my queen. I believe we can convince the Akrellians to give us sanctuary if we offer them knowledge in return, but Ilyan’s reservations aren’t without warrant. It’s possible that our pasts will condemn us in their eyes—or the eyes of the other athraxius.”

I hated that this ultimately came down to me. Seeking sanctuary with the Akrellians had two votes. The CivilRim one. But I knew that they considered their desires irrelevant. They would go wherever I voted. I could already tell.

Thus, the burden was on me to make the right choice.