The Taming: Book 3 in the Tribe Warrior Series by Imogen Keeper (romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

Another of those tight, thin white ones. It did little to hide all those ominous muscles, and quite a bit of the black tattoo still curled up his collarbone and wrapped around his neck, but it was something. He was pressing buttons on the comm portion of the console.

She crossed the room to stand beside him, eager to get a closer look at the complicated operating system of the ship.

“What are the numerics?”

She told him, watching from beneath her lashes, as the holographic communications system came to life. It wasn’t all that different from the Argenti system, though the controls were smaller with only a sleek dial. Vestigi numbers in glowing red gleamed to life under his fingers.

The line buzzed and buzzed, but no one answered. Her heart sank. Where could Agammo be?

Torum pushed a button and terminated the connection. He must have gotten bored.

She chewed her lip. “Could we try my father?” Maybe he would help now that she was genuinely in trouble.

His gaze sharpened. “Sure.”

He entered in the numerics she gave him. She wiped her palms on her dress.

She tried to shake away the image of her father’s irritable face the last time they’d spoken, the way he’d brushed aside her every argument. Maybe this time, he’d listen.

She had to try at least.

Torum lounged against the console, just offscreen from the holo while the comm chattered. He crossed his arms and his ankles, face unreadable.

The holo burst to life in a sweep of pale light, and her father’s head appeared, stony eyed and tight lipped. “Klymeni.”

His voice was always so harsh, as if he spat the words rather than spoke them.

She flinched. “Father, hello.”

In the holo, his eyes narrowed, tight and gray, and he shook his head tersely. “By the gods, daughter. What are you wearing?”

Her cheeks heated instantly, and she bent at the knees to pull her breasts down below the screen and out of his view.

He didn’t give her any time to answer, however. “What happened with Spiro Willo?”

Torum stepped forward with an irritable frown and adjusted the holo, so she was only visible to her father from the neck up.

She rose from her awkward crouch. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll live. What happened?”

The lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. “I left.”

“You did it deliberately?” He made an ugly face, mouth agape, brows low. “The Vestige mongrel didn’t abduct you?”

“Mongrel?” Torum whispered, sounding almost impressed, and she ignored him.

“I told you I wouldn’t marry him. Agammo and I—”

“Agammo? That little shite! His father is opposing the war effort now. I won’t hear any more of this nonsense, Klymeni. Bonding will give your life purpose. Spiro is a good man from a good family. This is important.”

“I know it’s important, Father. It’s my life.”

“Grow up, you little fool.” His lips hardened. “Bonding is life.”

“Not if it’s with a man I don’t want.”

“You don’t know what you want.” Again, the crash of his fist on the desk. “The Bonding will make you happy.”

“Agammo and I—”

“No more talk of Agammo. His father has been babbling about morality and suing Vesta for peace, the coward.”

Torum’s boot scraped the floor behind her, and she glanced his way. His dimples flickered, his eyes tight.

Her father’s face reddened, and she knew the look in his eyes well.

She took a long, slow breath. “Agammo is kind and gentle an—”

Torum made an amused sound in his throat.

“Silence, Klymeni.” Her father leaned forward, so his head nearly doubled in size in the holo, quivering with anger. His right eye bulged. “Where is the Vestige?”

She cast a glance at Torum, leaning against the bulkhead, his boots crossed at the ankles, face unreadable.

“H-he’s here, Father.”

Her father’s brows lowered, and his voice grew even harder. “I will pay to have her brought home.”

Torum made no move toward the holo. “I can’t exactly fly her to Argentus.”

Her father’s nose pinched tighter. “Step into the holo. Show your face.”

Torum sighed and stepped forward, lazy motions, face bored. He moved behind her. His long hands set down beside hers, his broad thumbs barely a millimeter from her pinkie-fingers. He leaned down, so his chest muscles pressed against her shoulders, and his face lowered into the screen of the holo-feed, so close she could feel the magnetic heat of his skin near her cheeks. His chin hovered just above her shoulder.

Her father’s eyes widened, and a look of sheer hatred passed over his face. “Can you get her to a neutral zone?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Comm when you get there. I’ll have cred in an account waiting for her. We can get her on a transit home where she belongs before she destroys my life’s work.”

“All my life, I’ve been told that the Argenti valued nothing more than their women.” Torum’s thumb moved out to stroke the side of her pinkie.

She sucked in a breath, trying to stop her heart from pounding, but every cell came alive at the contact. That one soft touch felt like a gesture of support, it felt like understanding, it felt like sympathy. It touched someplace deep inside her that wanted one person to step up for her care. Worse, she wasn’t even sure he knew he’d done it.

Her father’s brows drew into a tight line over the bridge of his nose, and he made a sound like he was choking. He had loved someone that much. Her mother.

“Clearly that was a myth.” Torum stabbed at a button on the console.

The holograph of her father’s angry red face imploded in a burst of light.

Torum didn’t move for a long moment. Just stayed there, his face so close to hers that when he breathed, warm air drifted over the tops of her lungs. That thumb kept on stroking along her pinkie, and she stared down at it, watching its languid motion.

Then it stopped, and he rose slowly, taking all his warmth with him. “So, your father is the War Chief, and he ended your engagement to continue the war with Vesta?”

She stared dumbly at her hands, still spread on the black