"She speaks the truth," he replied as he strode into the house.
"You are not mated?"
"I am," he said.
"She doesn't know."
"No." He heard the troubled note in D'Ryn's voice but ignored it. Instead he strode through the bright hallways into the women's wing and into the first room. His sisters followed, D'Ryn relaying the information to her sisters. He set his lifemate on the bed and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Gage, water," he ordered.
"She's so little," Talal murmured.
"Brother, she is your intended? You felt the signs, as father said?" D'Ryn asked again. There was anxiety in her quiet voice.
"Yes," he said. D'Ryn sighed, and Talal whispered to the eldest sister. It was news they-- and the rest of his people!-- had been awaiting for many sun-cycles. He was relieved to give it at last.
"Where does she come from?" Talal asked. His youngest sister paused beside him, leaning against his thigh while she studied his lifemate with brown eyes a shade lighter than his.
"Far away, outside the Five Galaxies," he said.
"What is she called?" D'Ryn asked.
"Kiera," Talal responded. "Like one of Anshan's moons. It was a sign, brother."
Kiera. He hadn't asked or cared. He knew what she was, and he was content to call her nishani, the title given to a warrior's lifemate. Her eyelids began to flutter.
"Leave us," he directed his sisters.
They obeyed. His woman awoke but was instantly stricken with a look of bewilderment. She sat up. They gazed at each other, and he felt a familiar tremor. At last, she reached for his arm. He let her take it and saw her attention shift to the bracelet.
"You can take it back," she said, at once frustrated when the bracelet gave no sign of loosening. She held out her arm instead. "I didn't understand what it meant."
"You agreed," he reminded her.
"I did no such thing!"
"We made an agreement based on three conditions," he said.
"The first was this, which I didn't understand, the second … you remember the second, and the third …" She trailed off, pensive. "You didn't name a third."
"The third was for you to agree to be my lifemate."
"I don't remember that!" she exclaimed.
"You never asked for the third condition."
Realization crossed her features and with it another flash of anger.