His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks

10

Xavier

I woke up and stretched,remembering a moment later that I was in a bed instead of curled up on the cold floor. I picked up my head and looked around. When I spotted Merrit sitting on the far end of the mattress, most of yesterday flashed through my mind, though some parts I still couldn’t remember.

However, I could never forget touching her, kissing her, entering her… It was magical. Beautiful. Overpowering. A lot of words came to mind to describe it, but none of them seemed to be good enough.

Then came the part where I planted my seed inside her. That was no accident and the spike of emotion and desire that came before, during, and after it could mean only one thing. She was my mate—my fated mate.

The bonding was so powerful, leaving me with no doubt that I’d die for her if I had to. My body ached for her, needed her, more than it needed the oxygen in my lungs. This would be a bond that could never be severed.

Perhaps that was why I was so weak last night. After my body had experienced the taste of her, it yearned for her like nothing else. And her laying down beside me, her warmth enveloping my body, soothed that craving.

Now it wasn’t so bad. I was more confident that she was mine. But she didn’t know all this turmoil that was happening to me, both physically and mentally.

Should I tell her? She might not understand what it all meant. She was human, after all. She said herself that she’d never seen a Kavian before. She wouldn’t know what a fated mate was or how it affected me.

The experimenters didn’t say she had any phenomenal spike in neural response or plasma hormone levels. They said her galvanic skin response was elevated. That was all, so her body didn’t share the same response. We had vastly different physiology, after all.

I couldn’t deny the change in myself, though. I felt differently toward her now. I had to get up and protect her. I had to get her out of here if it was the last thing I ever did. I couldn’t let these bastards experiment on her, or our child.

I swung my legs over the side and immediately had to cradle my head in my hands. A wave of exhaustion and nausea flooded me.

“Are you okay?” Merrit rested her hand on my shoulder, and a charge of heat rushed through me. “You should be careful. You were really sick last night.”

“I’m okay. Just tired.” I looked around and noticed she had set my morning food tray by my side of the bed.

I took a bite. My appetite had returned since last night. I remembered falling asleep and nothing after that. She said I was sick. I must have recovered somehow, which was just as well, because we had our work cut out for us.

Pleased to see me eating, Merrit turned her attention back to the corner of our shared cell. “Merrit,” I ventured. “What are you doing over there?”

She scanned one of the opaque walls that came to the corner of the lab. “You said there were microscopic circulating cameras that recorded everything. If they’re microscopic, how do you know they exist? Did the sentinels tell you?”

“They didn’t have to tell me. I can hear them. They make a slight crystal pulse that vibrates the cell walls.”

She glanced over at me. “Really? You can hear that?”

“I can hear more than that. I can hear the field generator in the corner there too.”

“Field generator? What does it generate?”

“The walls. These walls aren’t actually glass. They’re a very dense electromagnetic field that looks and feels solid. How do you think they can manipulate it, seemingly at will?”

Her eyes lit up even brighter. “Are there any gaps in the camera coverage? Are there any blind spots?”

I nodded toward the corner. “There’s a blind spot in the corner. I can never hear the vibrations over there. If you stand pressed up against both walls, you won’t be seen.”

She didn’t move. She didn’t look at the corner. She acted as though I was talking about something mundane. Putting on an act for our observers? “You said the field generator was over there.”

“In the ceiling,” I murmured. “It controls the walls of this cell. Each cell has its own field generator that maintains the strength of that particular cell’s walls.”

“What about the arms that come from the floor and the ceiling?”

“The floor and ceiling are solid. Do you notice how the arms don’t come from the glass themselves? If you destroy the field generator, the transparent walls will dissolve. The corner walls and the floor and ceiling will remain.”

She turned the rest of the way toward me and her eyes lit up. “Assuming we could get out of our cell, do you know a way out of this lab?”

I shrugged and pretended to turn my attention to the food in front of me. “I might.” I never told her just how close I’d come to escaping before. I once made it as close as getting to an escape pod before the sentinels captured me again. I had never wanted to encourage her before, but now I knew we had to try again at all costs. “There are escape pods. I know where they are.”

Merrit frowned. “You never told me that before.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but she interrupted me. “Never mind that. Do you feel strong enough to make another escape attempt?”

I put some more food in my mouth. “I might.”

“As soon as you finish eating, let’s get into the corner. You can lift me up and I’ll smash the field generator. Then we can…”

“Not yet,” I said. “We need to bide our time and make sure the sentinels don’t change their usual patrol pattern. I’m not sure if us sharing a cell will change how they operate. After a few days, we can be sure and make our move.”

She wilted and slunk to my side, but her expression didn’t soften. “I want to escape now.”

“Don’t be foolish. Being hasty is what got me caught the previous times, and I was lucky they didn’t kill me for it. We can’t be so sure they’ll show us any mercy now, so we need to make our attempt count.”

She fell silent. I think reality was setting in. And as much as I wanted to tell her everything would be all right, I couldn’t encourage her to let her guard down.

We had a lot more to think about than just ourselves now. While I couldn’t know for sure, our session downstairs might have resulted in something. Not just a fated bonding, but a child. Her life was already precious to me. Now it was all that mattered.

I couldn’t let anything happen to her.