Sadie's Mate (4 page)

“Depends
on what exactly it is that you wish to discuss. If it’s to lecture me, again,
then I believe I’ll pass on that conversation if you don’t mind.” There was
only so much she could take before her heart would break. “Your sisters are
only on your case as much as they are because your mother and father have
forbade
them from marrying until you have married.
Just saying.”

“Which
is utter crap,” he said. “I don’t lecture, Sadie. I pass out useful pieces of
information that I believe someone could use. But to put your mind at ease,
this isn’t a lecture of any sort.
Truths, and nothing but
truths.
That’s it. I’ll tell you some truths I know, and you try and
come up with excuses and blow me off yet again.” He gave her a tight smile and
spun as the doors opened. Stepping to the side, he waved her out into the
corridor.

He
really didn’t know her at all. That much was far more apparent with each moment
she spent with him. Perhaps her heart and soul were wrong; they had to be.
People who belonged together didn’t act as they did to each other.

Once
more his hand landed on her back to guide her through the ship to do what
needed to be done to keep him and his crew safe. When they reached engineering
he stayed close but didn’t crowd her. Bracken did ensure that none of the crew
came wandering over to see what she was up to, mainly by planting his rather
large frame between her and everyone else.

Settling
into the seat before the console, Sadie pulled open the backdoor she had built
into the systems and began to go through the programming. Finding the key code
she needed, she just smiled. “There you are,” she said and removed the line of
coding that would communicate back to the home world. “There.” She turned and
looked up at Bracken. “Armory next, please.
Then
communications, medical and the science labs.
That should take everything
out so they can no longer eavesdrop upon you or your ship.”

And
so it went with each area that she had told him about. Together they traveled
the ship from end to end, her removing codes as she did so. Once that was
finished they were outside of hydroponics.
“Now what?”

“Now
we talk.” His hand landed on her arm, this time in a firm grip.
Hard enough to hold her but not to bruise.
Apparently he
wasn’t taking any chances in her going anywhere but where he wanted.

It
was the stupidest thing ever, and she chastised herself immensely when his hand
landed upon her arm. The moment that he squeezed she felt her panties get wet.
The touch was firm but not painful. It was the touch she had craved from him
all of her life, oddly enough. She allowed him to lead her. She allowed him to
take her through the ship as he wished.

Chapter Four

They
ended up in his quarters, no question about it given the family photo he had
near the video screen in the main room. She heard him lock the doors, but still
he didn’t let her go. Bracken led Sadie to the sofa where he finally released
her. “Sit, please,” he said.

She
settled onto the sofa and crossed her legs. “All right, what is it that you
would like to discuss, Bracken?” They had known of each other for a great long
time. She just wished they had known each other the way she had wanted. She was
just a shadow, gone before he actually ever spoke to her or got a good look at
her. No, she hadn’t known the man as much as she would like to. Then again with
the way he had disliked her it was little wonder actually.

He
paced around the room for a minute before sitting down on the low table in
front of the sofa. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he stared at some spot next
to her. “You’ve been friends with my sisters for years. Always around but
forever just out of sight. They were always very careful to keep you out of my
path. But you’re from one of the original families that settled
Craegin
, so your family needed to ensure not to let you too
close to someone with tainted blood from multiple generations like me.” Bracken
looked down at his hands, then up at her once more. “We both know I’ve never
been good enough for you or your family.” His words shocked her. She would have
said something but her mind seemed to freeze at the thought that he didn’t see
himself as good enough to be around her. She watched him as he regained his
train of thought and listened as he continued.

Slowly
he began to scrape his thumbnail slowly over the knuckles of his other hand.
“You were basically sold into a marriage at age sixteen. But your fiancé, yet
another pride and joy of the original bloodlines, was a serious piece of work.
He marked you as his with a ceremonial blade. Right down your face. It’s the
reason you wear the facial films.”

Bracken
looked to her then as he sat up, bracing his hands on his knees. “Your mother
insisted the farce of an engagement continue, but smart female that you are you
found a way to negate that death sentence by selling your ideas to the
marshal’s offices. And the new age of the AI’s on all the Armada’s ships was
born. I heard a rumor a few years back that your fiancé met with a really nasty
accident. Shame when he had another original family ready to go to the bank.
She backed out, though. After all, who would want to have to take care of him
in that condition for the rest of her
days.
” He stood
and began to stalk back and forth in front of her. She could see the
frustration in the way that he was stomping around.

“It
truly is a pity when there is a misfire from one of the Armada tramps, isn’t
it?” That was the closest she had ever came to admitting what she had done to
that horrible ex of hers. “How did you know, though?” she asked, touching the
facial film to ensure it was still in place as it should be. “No one knew. My
mother did but she would never tell anyone anything. It would devalue me in the
eyes of the men in line to marry me.” She rolled her eyes. “The doctors did
what they had to in order to save me and were paid obscenely well to keep their
mouths shut, so how? Why do you care anyway? You hate me, Bracken. You always
have.”

He
let out a frustrated growl and told her, “Because I pay attention.” He ran his
hands through his hair, which made it stand up a bit on the ends. “And I
visited you in the hospital four times. You were never awake. I figured you’d
have hated to know I was even there, let alone seeing you in that condition.
But you can check the logs. I had to sign in, after all.” Sighing, he looked
away and shook his head. “The face, the bodysuit to change your shape and size
mean nothing to me, Sadie. I know you better than you think. Not that you’ll
ever admit it or acknowledge it. I get it. You don’t want anything to do with
me. I just wanted to clear the air a little, at least on my end. So you have it
wrong. I didn’t hate you—that was you who hated me.”

She
just sat there looking at him. “You’re right on several things,” she said
quietly.
“And so wrong on others.
I hide in plain
sight. It’s the only way that I can live. The only way I can survive.” He thought
she didn’t want anything to do with him but he couldn’t be more wrong if he
tried. She also couldn’t believe he would think she hated him. It was beyond
her that he would believe such things. She wasn’t going to correct him, though.
He had to come to some realizations on his own.

“You
do know me well, but not as well as you think.”
And not as
well as she would want.
“I’m still me.
Still the
person that I’ve always been.
Just a woman waiting for
the ending.”
Because there would never be a middle for
her.
The middle would have been bonding with her bond mate and living a
full life with the one man she would love forever, something she had previously
thought was unattainable.

“You
never let me know you.” His eyes narrowed. “Or my sisters didn’t. Either way it
was always your choice, wasn’t it, Sadie? You check on me every time I get into
port. Then you ensure you can be anywhere but wherever I am.
Makes
it damn hard to get to know someone when the person you want to know is always
running the other damn direction.”

“And
sometimes running in the other direction is the only way to save my heart. I’ve
been damaged. I’ve been nearly killed but you could do something to me that no
other ever could. You could destroy me,” she told him honestly, her gaze never
leaving his. “You don’t feel it, but I do. I know it. I’ve known it since I was
five and you helped me out of the tree in the back of your family’s property. I
felt it then, and I waited.” She snorted in derision and wiped a stray tear
from her eyes. “I waited for years for the claim to be made, but it never was.”
Their society leaned heavily upon true bond mates. If a male met his bond mate
he could claim her before she even hit puberty. It was about the ties of souls
together, and nothing meant more in their society.

He
let out a low growl. “I know you’re my bond mate, Sadie. I’ve known since that
day. But it’s damn fucking hard to claim anyone when she’s either racing off or
having my fucking sisters hide her away. When the hell was I supposed to claim you?
Maybe the time they were shoving you out the window to run
away from big, bad Bracken when you were eight?
Or how about the time
they smuggled you out of the house under one of their gowns? No, wait, I know!
When your mother tried to fucking shoot me right out front of your house. Yeah,
I had a lot of luck in claiming you as mine, Sadie. You were never around, and
a man eventually gets the hint that his bond mate doesn’t really want what you
do so you get on with your life. Why the hell do you think I haven’t married?
Why the hell do you think I try never to go home anymore? Why the hell do you
think I’m such a miserable fucking bastard? I tried once, but that backstabbing
bitch proved I was better off living my life and dying for my people. Alone.”

She
felt anger bubbling up inside of her. Fisting her hands at her side, she
shouted at him. “You really think that? I didn’t want to be smuggled away from
you. I wanted to be with you. Your sisters are the ones that forced me out. But
I wanted to talk to you. I tried.
Many times.
I tried
sending you letters. I tried sending runners to you. Every single time it was
turned back. I got the hint when the last letter came back from you with
leave me the fuck alone
written across
the top. So that’s why as an adult I stayed away. I got the hint. If you don’t
believe me, check my jewelry box. There’s a hidden compartment with that letter
still there. Each time I would think to contact you I would pull that out and
remind myself why it was bad. I just figured finally it was because of Jeanette
that you didn’t want me near. You were so happy with her. At least I thought
you were.” She suddenly felt drained, all of the pent-up anger and hurt
spilling out in her tirade. She once again brushed back the tears from her face
and looked at him, her soul bare.

He
looked like she’d slapped him and gutted him completely. “I never,
ever
wrote that,” he whispered. “I never would have, Sadie. If I’d gotten even one
of your letters there would never have been any force in the universe that
could have stopped me from getting to you. I swear it.”

She
realized in that moment that it wasn’t Bracken who had initiated the chasm that
loomed before them but his sisters and mother. It had been his family that had
driven the wedge between them but she still felt more than a little hurt that
he wouldn’t ask her instead of assuming things about her by her actions alone.
He should have talked to her about it. Then again, she had believed it as well.
Sadie was utterly shocked that his family had been able to deceive her as well
as they had. She had always prided herself on being able to read people;
obviously she was very wrong when it came to his family. Her mind was in
turmoil. She was absolutely stunned that they had done everything that they had
in order to keep her and Bracken apart. She was utterly stunned that they had
gone to such lengths to cause both of them hurt. “Then it seems as if we have
both been kept from each other. I was never allowed to do what I wanted. You
were kept from me. So now what?” she wanted to know as she watched him. “And I
do have the letter. You can look and see.” She didn’t know why she was leaving
herself open for hurt. She had been hurt before and didn’t think she would
survive a second time.

Sadie
was stymied that not only his mother, but also his sisters and her mother as
well had come up with this elaborate scheme to keep her and Bracken apart. The
fact that they had so easily betrayed her trust, and his, was something that
had her second-guessing everything they had ever told her, that they had ever
done for her or with her. She found herself questioning if they were ever her
friends or if they were only there to keep them apart. She saw the way Bracken
was clenching his fists and knew he was feeling the same betrayal.

At
the same time, she felt the pull…the bond that was between her and Bracken. She
could feel his emotions reaching out toward her and it made her ache all the
more. There was only one thing she could do. She wanted to be happy, and she
knew that happiness would come from forgiving the past. Not him, but the
situations. She had to walk away from that pain and needed to walk toward what
she was feeling now with Bracken. The more time she spent in his company the
larger the bond between them started to get.

“Sadie,
I believe you, truly I do.” He reached out slowly and took her hand in his.
Gently he held it, using his other hand to stroke her fingers. “I don’t have to
look at anything to know you speak the truth. You always have, part of the
reason I’ve always liked you. You don’t see the value in lies any more than I
do. As to what we do now.” Bracken shrugged slightly. “That’s up to us, isn’t
it? There’s no one here to get in our way any longer. There’s nothing to
prevent us from doing what we want, how we want. But first, there’s one thing I
absolutely have to do.” Setting her hand back on her leg, he lifted his hands
to her face, the tips of his fingers brushing along the edge of the facial
mask, and he waited.

She
was hesitant about allowing him to remove her shield, the film that kept her
safe from scrutiny. She nodded and took a deep breath. “Go ahead,” she
whispered, giving him her trust, fully. He couldn’t possibly know just how much
she was giving him by allowing him to remove that film, allowing him to remove
the shield she kept between her and the world.

His
fingers feathered lightly around the edge, and he pulled it slowly from her
face. Carefully he passed it to her. “I know you’re not ready to be who I know
you to be with everyone. If you aren’t comfortable showing everything to
everyone I won’t be the one to stop you from protecting yourself,” he told her.
Then he leaned in to brush his lips over the scarring on her cheek. “No more
hiding from me, please.”

She
didn’t know if she could continue to keep herself bare. She closed her eyes at
the softest of touches of his lips to her scars. “No more hiding from you,” she
promised, leaning into his touch. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be fully
comfortable allowing anyone but you seeing the real me, though. You…I trust.”
He was the other part of her soul, so why would she hide now that it was all
out in the open. “I don’t see your mother or your sisters here keeping you from
doing anything. No windows to push me out of, so what happens now?”

Moving
so he was sitting next to her, Bracken picked her up to settle her in his lap.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close. “Now we get to know one
another in all ways. As much as I want to rush into everything, I don’t think
it would be good for us in the long run. You are mine, and I am yours. I want
to take this slow, Sadie. You need to be completely comfortable with me and
comfortable around me without the film on your face.” Lightly he pressed a kiss
to the corner of her mouth.

She
nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. “I want you to see the real me, no
matter what. Not sure about everyone else, not yet at least,” she admitted.

She
felt him relax, his arms tightening around her before loosening to fall around
her waist. He nuzzled her neck, rubbing his nose to her skin. “I want to know
everything, absolutely everything there is to know about the lovely Sadie
Monterey. I know some, but I definitely do not know enough and I’m man enough
to admit to that fact.” There was a moment of pause and he added, “All of this
time, I thought Dr. Monterey was a relative of yours. If only I had known.”