Torq's Acceptance (Chaetdorian Mates Book 2)

by E. M Reders

  Hex had been bored and sulky, not wanting to leave the ship at all for the first few centuries they had been stuck on Earth. But since the planet’s technology began to advance he’d been in his element, spending more and more time around the humans, mating with multiple of their females.

  Looking at him now, Torq could see that his eyes had already begun to change back from the green of his human appearance to the silver orbs that matched his markings. He wasn’t sure how long it would be before they appeared, but he didn’t think it would be too much longer. He’d been pulled back to the ship a few months ago, so would have been cutting back on blood for a while now.

  “Oh, here we go. This is when the shit kicks off.”

  Torq looked back at the screen to see two of the females tapping away at the control panel, unsuccessful in their attempt to open the door. Then suddenly his mate darted forwards, dragging them out of the way but putting her in prime location for the deranged Warrior that appeared in the doorway a moment later.

  Alice had been the human female Dekon had gone for. If not for Corr’s mate diving in at the last moment, it would have been her he had dragged from the room. It was a good job the male had already been dealt with, removed from this world to hopefully one day come back anew, because otherwise Torq’s next destination would have been the medibay to kill the bastard.

  When Hex went to switch footage for the view outside the room, Torq stopped him. While the rest of the females had given chase, brandishing the human accessories that all females seemed to carry, Alice stayed behind, her eyes fixed upon the ongoing fight in terror.

  “Now that is one scarred human in need of a hug,” Hex commented.

  “A hug?”

  “You know, a human embrace, a show of affection and comfort where you pull another to you and wrap them in your arms.”

  “I know what a hug is,” he snapped. He just didn’t know how to respond to the sudden urge he had to be the one to give her one.

  Just as Torq made to leave, his mind already in a spin, Teks appeared, his face like thunder. “What’s wrong, brother?” Hex asked, quickly shutting down all the screens with the hit of one button.

  “Bring up file 7751B from my private files,” he ordered.

  “Bruv, they are your private files, you know they can’t be accessed from here.”

  “Give it a rest, Hex. I know you regularly hack into my private system. That footage you were watching just a moment ago was one of my classified files. Now bring up that file.”

  “Fine,” he moaned, tapping away at the console. “You’re going to change all your passwords again after this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Not that it will stop you.”

  That comment brought a smile to the younger Techno’s lips. Torq had no doubt that the moment Teks did change his passwords, Hex would know them.

  With a few more clicks of the keys, Hex was in. When he brought up the file that Teks had asked for, Torq found his stomach tightening at the picture that appeared before them.

  “Mandy,” he sighed. The young human they had watched grow over the years had been missing for almost three days, now it seemed her status had changed to dead. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know. She was found like this back at the warehouse tonight. That building has been checked on multiple occasions since her disappearance with no trace of her found. I ordered one last sweep, just to be sure we hadn’t missed anything and they found this.”

  From what Torq could see from the photo, the young woman had been brutalised, her battered body almost completely covered in blood.

  “Looks like it could have been done in a rage, a frenzy,” Hex commented. “Could it have been done by one of our own? You know, another suffering from madness?”

  “It sure seems that way, but none of our males have been unaccounted for, and none have shown any symptoms of the illness. There is also the fact that according to early results from the medibay, there is no sign of any kind of sexual assault.” A Chaetdorain male suffering from madness would see no problem with taking a woman by force in order to attempt to mate with her.

  “Are there marks?” Torq asked.

  “Yes, there are what appears to be bite marks upon her neck, indicating at a forced mating.”

  “That makes no sense,” Hex said closing the file down. It didn’t matter, the image of Mandy’s broken body would stay with Torq for a long time.

  From the picture alone, he would have said for sure that a Chaetdorian had killed Mandy, but if there was no evidence of an assault of a sexual nature, then it could not have been one of their males. At least, not one in the grips of madness.

  What the Hell was going on?

  “So why did you choose to stay?” Nora asked as they sat down in what Alice could only describe as a sort of canteen. There were large oversized tables spread out around the room, surrounded by very large chairs. Well, they were large to her and Nora, but to a Chaetdorian male she guessed they were just about right. And there were a bunch of strange machines lining one of the walls. Nora had called them food consoles. If that was where the food she and the others had eaten had come from, then she wasn’t interested in anything that they produced. Alice loved to cook – or, at least, she had once, before Frank – she had never been one for processed foods. She would have to see what she could do about that.

  “I'm not really sure,” Alice mumbled. At the time, she had secretly hoped that there was something between her and the male from her dreams. But as time went by, all of it spent alone in that cold, stark room until Nora had arrived to rescue her, she had come to realise that she had been fooling herself.

  It had been a dream, nothing more, nothing less. To think that having a crazed sex dream about a strange alien male she had never met before, then somehow being rescued by her imaginary lover had meant anything had been totally stupid.

  Well, two crazed sex dreams. Before Nora had called, she’d had the most wonderful dream. His hand fisted in her hair, his cock thrusting deep into her throat. It had felt so real. She swore that when she woke up she could taste him, taste a hint of his warm seed that he had been about to release down her throat before she’d woken up suddenly to find Nora at the door.

  But she needed to get out of her head and face the facts… he wasn’t for her. Nora may have found her happy ever after, but that didn’t mean she would be so lucky.

  “Well, I think you’ll have to come up with something better than that. The girls will be arriving any minute and they’re still pissed.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Well, Jessie and Katie are. Hannah seems to have perked up a little bit over the past few hours. Probably due to the males that keep sniffing around them.” Nora laughed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently, a lot of the males on the ship are hoping that one of them will be their mate. Like I am Corr’s. They’ve spent centuries stuck on Earth and none of them had ever found their mate until he found me… and then there is you and Torq.”

  Her and who?

  “You lost me.”

  “Torq… The male that brought us here,” Nora said, gazing deep into Alice’s eyes as if searching for something. “Corr thinks you might be his mate.”

  Wait, what? No, that wasn’t possible. She had seen how Nora’s male treated her, looked at her. That was far from how he… Torq, had been around her. Hell, since his strange appearance in the holding bay when she had uttered the words that had condoned her in her friends’ eyes, she hadn’t seen him.

  But then again, there had been that moment in the alley when he had leant really close and whispered those pleasure-inducing words.

  ‘You are mine.’

  Shaking her head in denial, Alice glanced around the room again hoping for a distraction. She didn’t want to talk about it. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in so long, not since the early days with Frank. She was still a little unnerved that Torq seemed to have such an effect on her.

  “Well
, if he is, just be careful.,” Nora warned, placing her hand on top of Alice’s. “Torq is a Slayer.”

  “A Slayer?”

  “It’s one of the tribes they are separated in,” Nora explained, going on to fill Alice in on all that she had learnt from Corr.

  “So why do I need to be careful?”

  “Because he’s dangerous. A trained killer. You have been through so much already. I just don’t want to see you hurt again.”

  Did Nora really think that he would hurt her? Gazing at the deeply concerned look upon the woman’s face… yes, she did. And normally, due to what Nora had just told her, so would Alice.

  The Slayer tribe of the Chaetdorian race were natural born fighters. Killers. Assassins. They were essentially the Chaetdorian army. There was also a tribe that were known as Warriors, but Nora had explained that they were more guards and protectors than anything. It was the Slayers that were the truly deadly ones. And Torq was their leader.

  But there was one problem. Alice just couldn’t believe that Torq would ever hurt her. She didn’t know him, had never spoken to him or been alone in his presence, but strangely, she trusted him. She knew that she would be safe.

  When the other three women came through the door, being led into the room by two large, identical males – Slayers if what Nora had said about the different coloured markings were true – Alice felt herself sinking down further into her chair. She was not looking forward to this.

  When all were seated, Alice expected the two males that had escorted her friends to leave, but they just stood there, their gazes zeroed in on Hannah.

  “You can go now,” Jessie snapped. “It’s not like we needed your assistance in the first place.”

  With a quick glance at each other, they turned and left the room, but Alice didn’t think they had gone far. There was something about the way they had looked at Hannah that gave her the feeling her friend would be seeing them again.

  “So, now that the stalker twins have left, care to explain yourself?” Jessie asked. Her words were harsh, but when she forced her eyes up to meet those her friend’s, Alice could see that she was already forgiven.

  “Oh leave her alone, Jess. It’s not her fault she’s a soft touch for a tall, well-muscled, scary-looking alien.”

  “I’m not…”

  “Oh yes, you are. I saw your face when that hunk came into the room, and I saw your reaction to him back in that alley. Can’t say I blame you either,” Katie giggled, “these aliens are ridiculously hot.”

  That they were, but still, Alice felt terrible for keeping her friends here.

  “Corr thinks that Torq might be Alice’s mate,” Nora piped in. “Says he’s been acting all strange since the mission that ended with us being brought here.”

  Katie and Hannah shrieked in delight. Jessie, on the other hand, changed the direction of the conversation, much to Alice’s delight. She didn’t want to discuss Torq and her strange attraction to him. If what Corr through was true, then why had he ditched her in that cell? And why had she not seen him since she’d made the decision for all of them to stay?

  “What mission?”

  “Well, have you noticed that some of the males look a little more human than others?” Nora asked, a sparkle in her eye. The woman loved knowing things the rest of them didn’t. “It’s because they have been drinking human blood.”

  “What?” they all shrieked.

  “They can make themselves appear human by consuming human blood. But, apparently, because they have been doing it for so long, they can’t just give it up without suffering serious withdrawal, so Torq and the other Slayers were sent out to retrieve a group of human volunteers.”

  “So there are others here, other humans?” she asked.

  “Yes. Fourteen apparently, though I believe their numbers just went up. The girls joined them last night. They have a whole deck of the ship to themselves.”

  “Will they expect us to… you know… give up our blood?” Katie asked nervously. Hannah and Jessie looked just as nervous about the answer.

  “I don’t think so. They may ask, but if you say no, I doubt they will try and force it.”

  They stayed in there for a while, chatting about everything they had seen and learnt since they had woken up in that room. Eventually though, Corr came looking for Nora. It seemed he thought that they had been apart for long enough.

  “Do you want us to walk you back?” Nora asked after the others had been escorted out of the room by the same set of males as before. Alice suspected that they had been waiting just around the corner of the door as it had only taken seconds for them to appear when Corr called them through his wrist unit.

  “No, it’s okay, I can find my own way back.” Even though the last place she wanted to go was back to that lonely room.

  “Well, if you’re sure?”

  She was, and she could also tell by the look on Corr’s face that he wanted nothing more than to get Nora alone for some private time. “I am.”

  As they made to leave the room, Corr turned back. “You should take a look at that first room I was going to place you in, might find it suits you better.”

  Maybe she would, it’s not like she had much else to do.

  Chapter 8

  His feet were moving on autopilot. Even if he really wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to stop them from taking one step in front of the other in the direction that they were. She was on his mind constantly. A never ending image of beauty and love. She was his… and he could no longer deny the urge to have her.

  After he’d left the engine bay, he’d hit the workout room then left the ship to check in with the night time patrol. As he’d walked down tunnel five, he’d overheard some of the males talking. They were speaking about Corr and his newly found mate, saying how they hoped that they would be next. As he’d stood there listening to their wishes and hopes, of how they would take care of their mates once they found them, hold them tight and never let them go, images of holding Alice in his arms, of capturing her luscious lips with his own had flooded his mind.

  ‘Now that is one scared human in need of a hug’.

  Hex was right, she did. And Torq was going to be the one and only male to touch her.

  Was he worthy? No. Was he the right type of male for her? Hell no. But she was his mate and that had to stand for something. Why else would fate choose him for her?

  Alice had been given a room on the north side of the cabin deck. As Torq made his way down the deck, he checked which one she was in using his com-link. Arriving outside her cabin, he steeled himself for what was ahead. He didn’t have a plan of what would happen when he got in there, had no idea what he was going to say or do, but one way or another, he would claim his mate, soon.

  Deciding that it was best to let her know of his presence instead of just storming in and scaring her shitless like was his normal behaviour, he knocked lightly on the door and waited for her to admit him entry.

  And he waited some more.

  And a little more.

  Where was she?

  As he stood there waiting, getting more and more worried by the second as multiple reasons as to why she was not answering flooded his mind, he forced himself to give her more time, to not bypass the door codes and allow himself in.

  Finally, after waiting for what seemed like forever, he’d had enough. Entering a code into the panel beside the door – a special code that only the Chaer of each tribe knew – he bypassed the lock, causing the door to dematerialize.

  Entering the room, he was relieved not to find her unconscious upon the floor, dead upon the bed, or any of the other numerous horrible things he had imagined when she failed to answer. He found none of those. What he did find though… was no Alice.

  Where the Hell was she?

  Alice had thought all the rooms were the same, but it turned out not. The room she had just entered, the one that Corr had almost taken her to before, was the complete opposite to the one she had been given and all the othe
rs she had spied since. It was the same size, the same layout as all the others, but that was as far as the similarities went.

  The room was bright, warm, and colourful even. It was also filled with amazing things that she instantly wanted to explore, but was too scared to touch in case she broke them. She had always been a tad clumsy. If something was expensive, you could guarantee that she would break it. Hell, it didn’t even have to be expensive.

  Stepping away from the doorway, the door reappearing behind her, she took a better look at the things on display and knew exactly whose room this was… Torq's.

  How she knew that she had no idea, but deep down, seeing the strange array of weapons within the collection, she knew that this space belonged to him.

  Taking a seat upon the bed she gazed at the many treasures Torq had showcased on the shelves inside the walls. In the other rooms, all the compartments were hidden, but it seemed that Torq had removed the coverings to allow him to see the items he stored within. She recognised a few bits and bobs from Earth, but it was obvious that the majority of it was from places she had never dreamed existed.

  How long she sat there gazing at it all she had no idea, but when the door suddenly vanished and she came face to face with the male of her dreams, literally, she realised that however long it had been, it had been too long.

  "Where have you been?" he demanded, entering the room with a snarl.

  Okay, that had not been the question she had thought would be first from his lips. She had expected something more along the lines of ‘what are you doing in here?’

  “I... I... I'm sorry,” she stuttered, not from fear but from nervousness. Having had now two exotic dreams about him, she was kind of nervous. Hell, she really hoped her face wasn’t red.

  “Corr was going to give me this room and I just thought I would check it out,” she explained. “I didn't know it was taken when I headed here.”

  “What’s wrong with the room you have?” he asked.

  “I never said there was a problem.” It was as if he could read her mind. She hated the room she had been given. It was cold and lonely, not like this one. This room felt almost welcoming.