Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

“I know. Your mother should have shared it with you when you were of an age to understand. You should have known your history, the truth of the mark should have been handed down to you, but you were orphaned and the truth died with your parents. I’ll tell you all about it, but now’s not the time. I need for you to trust me. Let me take you away from here. We must go to my ship where it’s safe. Nowhere else on this planet can I protect you from Neron, until I remove him as a threat.”

“Until you kill him, you mean.”

Maddox glanced back at the house and the image of Mr. Anderson’s dead body returned to me full force. “Does he deserve less?” he wondered.

“No.” If he was responsible for Mr. Anderson’s murder, he deserved worse than death. I wasn’t sure Maddox had some magical ship that would protect me, but I was convinced I would be safer traveling with him than remaining on my own. The rest? Our marks? This mating business? I’d figure the rest out later. I glanced at the house, dread like a cold finger tracing my spine.

“The ship is well hidden while we hunt. It is too far to walk. Do you have horses?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you agree? You’ll come with me?”

“But Mr. Anderson.” I thought of the man who had done his best to raise me, had lived through his wife and son dying. He’d been a good man and had been slaughtered. I was just going to leave him on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

“I’m sorry for the loss, Cassie. He—and the boarder upstairs—shouldn’t have been cut down like that. But you don’t want to be next. I refuse to allow it.”

I looked at him, the earnestness, the deadly intent lurking behind his eyes.

“Yes. But only until Neron is dead. I’m not coming as your mate… as you call me, and I’ll expect you to keep your hands to yourself.”

With an extreme act of will, I twisted my hand free of his, breaking our connection. The feel of his rough palm, the birthmark—no, the mark—made me ache to keep the contact. My thoughts and my feelings did not match. I couldn’t just succumb to the lusty need I had for this man, this stranger. I could not succumb to my newfound baser needs as my mother had. Desire was possible, and so were the complications. I knew nothing of Maddox, especially where he came from. He knew too much about me. I’d let him take liberties, intimacies that even Charles never had.

Maddox could possibly be unstable and he had a very unsavory man wanting to kill him. And me. I needed Maddox to capture Neron so I could get on with my life, return to the boarding house and run it myself. With Mr. Anderson gone, it was all I had, all I knew. My desire for Maddox, once he was gone from my life, would wither away. I just had to abstain in the meantime.

But he’d not been all hands and leering gazes like Mr. Bernot and some of the men in years past. While he’d kissed me—and what kisses they’d been!—he hadn’t been forward. Eager, yes. Pushy, no. I wouldn’t even think about how I’d eagerly accepted his advances. And so I pulled my hand away, breaking the connection, for my mind did agree with my body in that, at least. We did have a connection.

He did not attempt to stop me, but his shoulders relaxed and I wondered if he felt relief that I’d agreed to accompany him, or regret that he’d asked.

Maddox

Cassie was beside me, her spotted mare—she’d explained to me the differences between our animals—sure and steady next to my horse as we rode west toward the mountains, to the safety of my ship. We followed the same coordinates I took to find her, knowing the sooner she was inside the ship, I could use the defenses the technology offered to protect her. Neron couldn’t gain entry and no weapon he had, Earth or Everin, would harm the ship.

The need for Everin technology spurred me to ride faster, keeping one eye on the horizon and my ion blaster close at hand.

She showed me how to ride the animal at a quicker pace, but it was difficult, not easy. As I tried to remain in the saddle, I wondered what she would think of Everis, of our pale purple sky and ancient cities made of stacked stone, much like the pyramids here on Earth. My brother would be happy for me; his beautiful mate would, no doubt, take Cassie in her confidence and teach her everything she might need to know to be a fitting mate in our family, on our planet.

A fitting mate. Acceptable. Proper. As I’d never managed to be.

“So, tell me about your world, Maddox. Convince me you speak the truth.” Cassie stared at the mark on her palm as she spoke. Her demand both shocked and excited me. Perhaps her mind had simply needed some time to accept the truth.

“My planet is very like Earth. It’s called Everis. We have two smaller stars and a pale purple sky that turns a brilliant red when the first star drops below the horizon.”

“Stars? They are so far away.”

“Your sun is a star. So we have two smaller suns in our sky.”

“Two?” She sounded amazed by the concept. Knowing only Earth, perhaps she was.

She sighed and tucked a strand of long, pale hair behind her ear. “What about your family? Do you have a family?”

“My family is powerful, our seat on the country’s highest ruling council, the council of Seven, has been ours by election for hundreds of years. My brother serves now. My father has not been able since my sister’s murder.”

“Maddie?”

“Yes.”

“Did you love her?”

I stiffened in surprise at the odd question and my horse shimmied sideways under me. I calmed the animal, my apology by way of rubbing along his strong neck. “Of course. What kind of question is that?”

She shrugged, as if the matter was of no consequence, but I knew better.

“Cassie?”

She sighed, her gaze tracking a soaring bird as it rode the wind currents high above us. Seeing Cassie now, her hair flying in the wind, her cheeks kissed by the sun, she fit this rugged land with its uncomplicated ways and untamed airs. I tried to imagine her bowing her head to the Sevens or presenting our newborn babe for judgment, and I couldn’t force the images to align.

“Just wondering. Not all children are loved.” The wind seemed to whisper to her. The horse followed her lead as if they were of one mind. There was something wild in her blood, something I knew would be embraced by the elite society on Everis.

“She was my twin and we were inseparable. Neron was… infatuated with her. You see, not everyone has to be marked mates to be joined. Most bonds are by choice, not fate. But Neron’s father was caught breaking the law, offering illegal weapons to another member planet.”

“But that’s his father’s crime. What did he do?”

I had wondered that many times. What had Neron done to deserve what had happened? Nothing, really. His hatred was not that difficult to understand. “He was born in the wrong family. When his father lost his seat on the council of Seven, their family lost everything.”

“That’s not fair. And I thought you said he murdered Maddie. Why?”

“He did. After they lost everything, Maddie broke the betrothal. My father forbid the match, and she had grown to fear Neron and his family, and rightly so.”

Cassie shook her head. “So, she broke his heart and he killed her.”

That summed it up. “Yes.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Do these things not happen on Earth as well?” Were I simply a warrior, a hunter from one of the outer reaches like Jace and Flynn, I would not need concern myself with how she would feel in her new life. Their women were as savage as their men, their freedom complete. Only in the stone cities were the old ways followed.