Hitting the Target Read online

  “But I still haven’t gotten to meet her,” his beast pointed out. “It isn’t fair.”

  “You’ll meet her soon,” Trey promised. “We just don’t want to scare her off.”

  The beast insisted that he wasn’t the least bit scary and that Trey was being selfish. He stirred inside Trey restlessly, insisting that he wanted to meet Mia in person soon.

  “Then we’ll always be able to track her, no matter where she goes,” he pointed out. “You know that letting her meet me will form a quasi-bond even before you Claim her. Don’t you want to bond her to us?”

  “Of course I do—I’m just trying to take things slowly. I only met her in person myself yesterday. Be patient,” Trey begged.

  The beast grumbled but finally agreed to wait at least a little longer.

  Trey wondered how long he could hold his other half back. He had never known the beast to be so insistent about meeting anyone, not even the girl he had been Dream Sharing with on his home planet so long ago before she died.

  He hoped he could hold the beast back until it was the right time for him to come out. He didn’t want to scare Mia to death by revealing that he shared his existence—and his very physical body—with a creature with glowing golden eyes and fangs as long as her hand that was capable of tearing a grown male to pieces in a matter of seconds. A revelation like that had to be carefully timed.

  He was operating that day with Lydiah assisting him and after they finished the surgery—a routine laminectomy—she asked if he wanted to have lunch with her and Teela. Her mate was bringing a home-cooked pan of yinza—a type of casserole with sweet and savory layers that Trey had been wanting to try.

  Seeing it as an opportunity to get a little more insight into Mia’s plight and background, he eagerly accepted, and it wasn’t long before the three of them were sitting in the private healers’ lounge—which they happened to have to themselves—enjoying the steaming dish with its red and yellow and purple layers and its gooey melted pink feenah cheese.

  “This is delicious, Teela,” Trey complimented Lydiah’s mate as he cut into a piece and lifted it to his mouth with the pink strings of melted cheese trailing behind. “Thank you both for inviting me to join you.”

  “You’re very welcome, Healer Treygar.” Teela bowed her head. She was what Trey suspected the Republic considered “ideal.” Tall and slender with long, straight, white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes, he knew many males would have considered her devastatingly beautiful. But though he acknowledged her good looks, they didn’t move him as Mia did. He liked his females with a little more to hold on to, he admitted to himself. Plus, he liked the contrast of Mia’s creamy brown skin against his own tan coloring…

  “There he goes—drifting off again. Are you thinking of that little patient you brought in and healed yesterday?” Lydiah asked, breaking his train of thought.

  “Hmm? Oh yes.” Trey cleared his throat guiltily. “I’m afraid I was.”

  “Lydiah told me how you rescued her from getting run over by a transport and brought her to the Care Center for healing,” Teela said in her soft, sweet voice. “She also said that she came from the People’s Republic, like I did?”

  Trey nodded. “She said she came with a group but everyone but her got caught in the Barrier when it flickered back on.”

  “Really?” Teela frowned. “How many were there?”

  Trey shook his head. “I don’t know. It seemed like a sensitive subject, so I didn’t like to ask too many details.”

  “It sounds like she got away from some of the same things you did, sweetheart,” Lydiah said, pressing her hand. “She seems like a sweet, quiet girl. She was a healer’s aide over in the PR so I’m going to let her take the test and see if she qualifies to work with us here at the Care Center.”

  “That’s nice.” Teela smiled politely but Trey thought the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked her. “I’m sorry if talking about Mia troubles you.”

  “It doesn’t trouble me exactly. Just…brings up old memories.” Teela shook her head, her white-blonde hair floating around her head.

  “If you don’t mind, maybe you can give me some advice on the best way to handle things going forward,” Trey said, taking a sip of his berra-berry juice protein smoothie.

  “I can do that,” Teela said softly. “What do you need advice about?”

  “Well…” Trey cleared his throat. “Mia talked about taking some kind of vow of chastity called ‘The Oath’ and I was just wondering how serious that is?”

  “Extremely,” Teela said seriously. “Any female caught breaking it in any way doesn’t last long.”

  “What?” Trey was shocked. “Do you mean they get dragged into court and prosecuted just for meeting their own sexual needs?”

  “No, of course not.” Teela shook her head. “No one in the PR gets ‘dragged to court.’ The EYE prefers to settle things quietly. They just…disappear. Or sometimes they have an ‘accident’ and die. Nothing that can ever be tied to The EYE but everyone knows who’s really to blame.” She shivered and a hunted look crossed over her delicate features for a moment.

  “That’s awful,” Trey said, frowning. He remembered Mia’s story about her parents being taken in the middle of the night and how she had never seen them again.

  “It’s bad,” Teela admitted in a low voice. “But it’s not the worst they can do to you. Do you know if your Mia was called for reproduction?”

  Trey shook his head. “No, she said she wasn’t because she’s not the Republic’s ‘ideal’ apparently.”

  “She should thank the stars she’s not.” Teela looked down at her plate. Though the yinza casserole was delicious, she had barely touched hers. No wonder she was so thin and pale, Trey thought.

  “Sweetheart…” Lydiah put her hand over her mate’s thin white hand. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “No—it’s all right. If Healer Treygar is serious about this girl, he needs to know what she comes from.” Teela looked up at him and Trey saw that her eyes were hard. “When you live in the Republic, they run your entire life,” she told him. “I was chosen for reproduction when I was only fifteen years old. My father tried to protest, of course. He went down to The EYE’s headquarters and told them I was still a child—not even the age of consent. But apparently one of those in power had seen me passing on the street on my way to school and decided he wanted me.”

  “Did your father make any headway?” Trey asked quietly. He could tell by her expression that the answer was probably negative.

  “I don’t know.” Teela looked away. “He never came back. The next day, agents of The EYE dragged me away and gave me to my first reproductive partner—a male from the Ruling Council who was about fifty-five. He used me until I got pregnant. Then they sent me to a birthing center to have the baby and took it away from me and sent me out again. And again. And again.”

  “Teela…” Lydiah’s hand tightened on her mate’s and Trey could see tears in her dark brown eyes. But Teela’s own eyes were still hard and cold, her voice dry and remote as she spoke, as though she was telling someone else’s story.

  Trey had an impulse to stop her—to tell her she didn’t have to share this awful pain if she didn’t want to. But something kept him from it—something told him that she needed to tell. So he listened, though he felt sick inside with rage and sorrow for what she had been through.

  “Finally, I reached the point where I knew I would rather die than live like that anymore,” she said. “I was serving with a highly placed agent of The EYE at the time—the Commandant, was his title. He was such a manipulative bastard—he made his VARs do terrible things.”

  “VARs?” Trey asked, frowning.

  “It stands for Volunteer Agent of the Republic but informant is what it amounts to and there’s nothing voluntary about it,” Teela said dryly. “They pull people in off the street and give them assignments and if they do