"There you are." Gregor's low booming voice sounded from behind them.
Tal watched his sister give a completely uncharacteristic, girlish squeal of delight and run to launch herself into her mate's arms.
"I missed you, baby," Josie said.
Tal tuned the two lovebirds out and turned back to face the empty fields. While happy he'd done away with the violent, physical judgment competitions, with Blaze's help, of course, he'd grown so bored he wished he had something to look at. Allowing his mind to wander through images of his mate in various states of undress, he pulled himself out of his naughty daydreams when Josie yelled his name. Turning only his head, so he didn't display his current state of arousal, he observed his sister… held in Gregor's arms, cradled against the large man's chest.
"Do you want us to walk you back into the palace, Alpha Queen?" Gregor asked.
Tal grimaced at the title… again. Gods almighty, he had to remember to tell Blaze to change his title to Alpha Mate or even Alpha Consort if they wanted to keep with the whole royalty angle.
"No, Gregor, it's perfectly okay. I think I'll just spend a little more time out here before I head back inside myself," Tal reassured the man with a smile. "And you're mated to my sister, which pretty much makes you my brother-in-law. Don't you think it's time that you call me Tal?"
Tal tried not to laugh when Gregor's eyes widened comically, his mouth dropping open in shock before he gently set Josie down on her feet and dropping to one knee before Tal.
"While I am honored, Your Royal Highness, that you would consider me worthy enough to speak to you in such an informal manner, I am also extremely aware how inappropriate it would be for me, a Gamma guard, to call you anything other than your title," Gregor debated, before adding as an afterthought, "brother-in-law or not."
Tal nodded at the Gamma, very aware of the truth of what Gregor had said. There were very few people outside of Blaze, Buck, and Josie who called him anything other than the dreaded title of 'Alpha Queen'. He'd become sick to death of the blasted title and anything else that reminded the Tumaron people he was supposed to be a woman. Tal nodded slightly at the Gamma as he and Josie turned and walked away. Tal refused to give into the boiling heat of envy and jealousy that bubbled in his veins, swallowed down the large, hard lump of tears that arose in his throat and prayed to the Goddess of the Edificians, a deity he had long since lost all faith and belief in, that his errant mate had not picked up on the tumultuous storm of emotions that currently raged through him.
Long moments passed, or it seemed that way to Tal, but truly no longer than five minutes after his sister and her mate had left to go and do… whatever mated couples who were in love did, and Tal felt the rushing tide of exhaustion sweep over him. A heaviness of spirit settled over his shoulders, causing his eyelids to droop, his shoulders to sag, and his body to sway. Hell, even his hair felt sleepy. Two things were about to happen, the guards assigned to him were on their way, probably running, towards him to be his protection, and he would soon promptly collapse from the sudden force of energy-draining hormones that leapt to life within his body. With a heavy sigh and a long yawn, Tal pushed away from the gate and turned to meet the guards halfway.
The sound of other footsteps, as the guards came from behind him to protect him, were just one second too late, unfortunately. Rough hands pushed him, too quickly for him to do anything other than shout and try to stop his fall with his hands, and too roughly for him to do anything but curl up into a ball when he felt the entire front of his body, including his newly discovered, but still barely noticeable pregnancy belly, collide with the hard ground. Sounds of shouting, of footsteps running both away from and towards him and then he felt the strength of the arms surrounding him and picking him up.
"B-Blaze? I hurt, Blaze…" Tal whimpered, clutching his spasming belly. "Don't let anything happen to our babies, Blaze. Don't l-let them die."
"Don't worry, Alpha Queen." A man's voice… Rico's voice, comforted him. "You're gonna be fine. You and all of those babies. You're going to be fine."
Tal heard nothing else before he finally gave into the warm feeling of oblivion that had threatened to overtake him, and with a soft, almost silent sob, he closed his eyes and faded away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Blaze felt it. Not the moment his mate's life had been threatened, not the moment his mate and their children were hurt, nor the moment his mate had been rescued, but the exact moment his mate stopped fighting, the moment Tal's heart gave out. Blaze felt it like a sharp Prinktakium blade through his heart. With a loud roar, his hands flew up to his chest, his eyes closed and his body shuddered.
It only lasted a moment. A second. A flash in time. Because Tal's heart started back up only seconds after Blaze had felt it stop, but those seconds were all he needed. He'd been fighting what he felt for his mate for days, weeks even, but in that moment, that brief moment of a reality without his mate, Blaze knew he loved Tal.
He jumped up from his chair in his office and took off running towards the infirmary, waving away the servant frantically attempting to tell him about his injured mate. He knew where Tal was and even though he didn't know exactly what had happened, he definitely knew it would never happen again. His growl scared off many of the servants hovering outside the door, doing much more to clear the area of nosy passersby and concerned members of the palace household, than the small contingent of Gamma guards who were trying to get rid of them.
"Your Highness, we were on our way out to the Alpha Queen, were only a few minutes away when—" The Gamma guard's words were abruptly cut off.
Blaze grabbed the front of his shirt and with a jerk turned and pinned the smaller man up against the wall. His lips pulled back in a ruthless snarl, the growl of an infuriated, feral Alpha rising up in a hotly violent rush from his chest and out of his mouth. His face shifted partially, his nose elongating into a snout, his eyes turning lupine, his hands shifting into the deadly claws of a predator. His fangs displayed prominently, his hair thick and shaggy, and growing even more so.
No one in the hallway moved, none dared to breathe. Their Alpha King had gone into the protective mode of a wolf whose mate had been threatened. None of them wanted to cross him. They were all extremely aware one wrong move would cause the almost feral man to turn and attack. Blaze also would not stop until he felt his mate had been vindicated. No matter who ended up hurt or killed in the process. Alpha King or not, Blaze in that moment, had turned into the most dangerous, most unpredictable Tumaron on the planet.
"Blaze?" a soft voice called out from within the infirmary.
The antidote to the virulent poison of rage and revenge pumping through his veins, Blaze quickly returned to his normal state and he dropped the guard from his deadly grip. Without another word to anyone standing in the hallway, he turned and stormed into the infirmary, his eyes searching frantically for Tal. His heart raced in his chest, and his hands clenched, still in their shifted form. His wolf snarled and hissed, pounding against the walls of his body, clamoring for a way to get out. Blaze struggled to keep a tight rein on the beast within him, not wanting to upset his injured mate, but wanting revenge, wanting blood, the broken, battered, and dismembered body parts of the person foolish enough to hurt what belonged to him. His eyes fell on his very pale mate, lying in the same hospital bed he'd been in only a few months before.
Seeing his mate okay, alive and well, his eyes opened and staring, Blaze let the shock of almost losing Tal finally hit his system. His every cell shaking and vibrating within him, still growling low in his throat, he rushed over to Tal's side and buried his face in his mate's neck, sniffing and nuzzling, letting the smell of his man wash over him. Blaze's eyes slid close and he took in a shuddering breath, his hands, still partially shifted, moving gently over the injured man's arms and legs.
After a moment Blaze sat back but his hands continued to rove over the other man. Amusement lurked in Tal's beautiful, golden eyes, his hair in wild disarray around his head, but Blaze smelled the fear still lingering on his mate, although Tal thought he hid it well.
"Who did this?" Blaze asked him, his voice gruff and harsh sounding.
"I don't know," Tal admitted.
Blaze smelled the despair clinging to his man and didn't like it, not one bit.
"How many of the children did we lose?" Blaze asked.
For every child he lost he would make Tal's attacker pay for it. He thought perhaps he would ask around and see if anyone had any of the ancient torture devices rescued from Earth centuries before. The humans may have had a problem with being kind and tolerant towards each other, but they were very good with torture.
"None," Tal whispered.
Blaze's eyes swung down to still shaken Vermithian. "What?" His eyebrow raised in amazement.
"We didn't lose any of the children. When Doctor Polarnsky checked me out, he checked on the children as well. They're all still there, all still alive. I was completely amazed, Blaze, but Doctor Polarnsky said that while a Vermithian can be killed, it's hard to make them stay that way. Our bodies naturally heal the injured area, and since our babies are half Vermithian and half Tumaron, they're almost indestructible. All five of them are fine."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Blaze dropped to his knees beside Tal's bed, letting his head drop forward to land on the bed close to Tal's fingertips. They were okay. His kids, his mate, they were all okay, no thanks to the bastard who had tried to kill them. Shaking off the rage threatening to consume him again, Blaze turned his mind to more important matters.
Lifting his head, he stared at Tal, his jaw clenched. "You will have four guards assigned to you. They will be with you whenever you're not in our suite. Every single time," Blaze said, effortlessly cutting off Tal's protests.
He slipped his hands up and cradled Tal's face in his hands. "I lost you today, Talon," he pointed out, his heart losing its rhythm when he remembered the sensation of Tal's heart stopping and then beating again moments later. "I lost our children. Don't ask me to give in on this. I won't do it. I won't agree to anything that puts you in danger. So you will have four guards with you at all times. Whether I'm with you or not, you will have four guards. I will find out who did this to you and I will make them pay," he promised.
"Yes, Blaze," Tal nodded and then exhaled as Blaze climbed into the bed with him.
Blaze pulled his mate, and his still living but yet unborn children Tal carried, into his arms tightly and with a final sigh that echoed Tal's earlier one, joined his mate in sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tal braced a hand on the wall and struggled to catch his breath. His chest tightened and he inhaled deeply, his lungs expanding when they thirstily drank in the sweet nectar of oxygen. Being pregnant sucked. It sucked big, hairy monkey balls. No one had told him how much it sucked to be pregnant. Or about the weird cravings. Who actually ate Boulantiq cheese with Edifician beef? The combination was already weird but then when Vermithian chocolate got added on top of that strange concoction, it made it disgusting to everyone around him. However, Tal couldn't get enough of it. Which made him feel like a fat cow Vermithian, instead of a beautiful slender one. He couldn't even hurry down the hallway without needing to stop, rest, and catch his breath every few feet, not to mention all of the little 'accidents' he'd been having lately.
Of course, Blaze invented the term, always with a small patronizing smile on his face. Tal hated that smile, with a fiery passion, deep within his soul. Between almost falling down the stairs, to almost being run down by a city shuttlecraft because he had to walk too slowly, he'd begun to agree with Blaze. Maybe he did need to go on bed rest until the babies were born. The only thing of concern? It couldn't just be clumsiness on his part or even his massively huge belly that caused him to feel off center. It had to be something else.
Someone wanted to kill him. He felt certain of that.
He hadn't wound back up into the clinic—a good thing for all involved. Not just for him or Blaze, or the babies, but for every guard and every Tumaron that lived or worked in the palace. Blaze already acted fierce and slightly murderous when it came to Tal anyway, but throw in his five unborn children and the fact he'd already had to deal with the overwhelming blow of having lost them once before, even if briefly, and the levelheaded Alpha King definitely became more Alpha than King.
Either Anglania or Freud had to be behind his numerous 'accidents'. Maybe even both. Josie felt sure Elder Bryce was in on it also, but they couldn't prove anything, even though they'd tried. Repeatedly. Every time he'd almost fallen to his death or almost been run down while out and about in the kingdom, he'd felt as if someone were there, watching him, closely and with anticipation. Like someone had shoved him from behind, but whenever he turned around, no one was there and neither Anglania nor Freud were ever in the vicinity.
So, while his gut said they were guilty, and he had a very good gut, regardless of who currently resided in it, it didn't seem as though he would ever be able to prove it, unless he caught them in the act. Which of course he had no plans of entertaining such an idea… much. Inhaling deeply, his nostrils flared slightly before he stood upright and began walking again. His steps were slower this time, though he continued towards his earlier destination.