He didn’t want Semeera to accompany him to the infirmary to fix this. There was no fixing it. His goal was an explanation. How could they, a human and a khartarn, be mates?
Semeera wished there were fewer people in the infirmary to hear the tale of how she had fucked up Kader’s life. He’d been out of control, caught in a mating frenzy, and had had the good sense to chain himself. And then, what had she done? She’d climbed on him and ridden him like a bucking bronco in a bar.
He’d tried to stop her, but his warnings had fallen on ears deafened by curiosity and lust. She couldn’t even blame the musk he’d given off since that hadn’t affected her until after she straddled him. Although she would admit the urgency she’d felt had been similar to what hit her the night they’d visited the observatory.
Her desire for alien loving was no excuse. All she’d had to do was walk away.
Kader grasped and squeezed her hand, but his focus was on the doctors. “You can admonish all you wish. It changes nothing. I seek an explanation, not a reprimand.”
“You should have broken off as soon as you saw the signs,” Doctor Quagid said.
Semeera opened her mouth to take the blame, but Kader put his arm in front of her face, stopping her words.
Doctor Gyan said, “Enough, Doctor Quagid. It is done, as Captain Kader said.” He turned his attention to Kader. “Tell us again your symptoms. You said you felt drunk?”
“Yes. Sssemeera’s arousal scent intoxicated me. It was hard to think. Stringing together enough coherent thought to speak was a struggle. And I have never been so aroused in all my life. It was painful. It takes much to make a warrior feel pain.”
“That it does.” Doctor Gyan looked at her, but jerked back when Kader hissed at him. “Calm yourself, Captain. I know you react this way because you are newly mated. I’m not trying to take her or hurt her.”
Kader jerked his head forward in a nod. “Forgiveness, Doctor. I seem to be very territorial.”
“Further proof this bond is real. May I?” Doctor Gyan gestured to her.
“Yes,” Kader ground out between his clenched teeth, obviously fighting against an instinct that told him to say no.
Semeera whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Doctor Gyan said, “Describe how you felt.”
“Horny. Really horny. But not like Kader. I could think just fine. He told me to leave, and I didn’t. If I had…” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Just horny? No feeling of drunkenness or haziness of thought?”
“No.” She stopped and chewed her lip. “Well, not until later.”
“Define later.”
Heat climbed up her cheeks. “After we… started. That’s when my concentration started to go. By the second time, thinking was really hard. I don’t remember much after that.” She glanced up at Kader. “Do you?”
He shook his head.
Doctor Gyan’s tail swished from side to side. “Hmm. Strange. All I’ve read about true-mate bonding has said the mates experience similar symptoms from beginning to end. Maybe because she is human?”
Kader sucked in a breath. “The inhibitor.” He nodded. “I’d been using the inhibitor all throughout the day to hide my musk while I went about my duties.”
“How much? You should have only needed to apply it once.”
“I used soap and the spray that morning and then reapplied the spray over the course of the day. The bottle was nearly empty when I finished my shift.”
“Your musk was that strong?”
From across the room, a female guard said, “I smelled a hint of it two times yesterday before Captain Kader reapplied the inhibitor.”
A few others voiced the same.
Doctor Gyan said, “The true mating must have strengthened your musk to prepare for the frenzy. That has to be it, then. Her scent was pure while the inhibitor dulled yours.”
Semeera looked between them. “You’re saying I would have been as bad off as him if he hadn’t used that spray?”
“Possibly worse. Your reaction to our medication is more acute. If Captain Kader hadn’t worked to hide his scent, you could have been overwhelmed the moment he entered his suite. Your sense of smell isn’t as strong as ours, but I doubt that would have mattered.”
“Oh.” That didn’t make her feel better about the whole thing, but it was good to know Kader’s paranoia about getting caught had helped head off a disaster. It also explained the night of the observatory visit when she’d smelled a hint of his musk and the events of the previous night. Maybe she really couldn’t have walked away. “So what now? Is the frenzy over? Do we still have to worry about it?”
“The frenzy only occurs if Captain Kader releases his musk. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is the frenzy itself. It’s rare. The last recorded instance of it occurring is over one hundred eighty years ago. Most doctors believe it to be an extinct function, because several had worked to make it such.” He stopped with a thoughtful expression. “This needs testing.”
“What kind of testing?” Semeera edged closer to Kader, who wrapped his tail around her calves.
“The kind that needs Captain Kader out of the room.” He waved behind her.
Kader let loose a roar and dropped to his knees. The moment he went down, several guards jumped on him and hauled him out of the room. The door to the infirmary swished closed after them, cutting off the sound of Kader’s struggles.
Semeera looked around frantically. “What the hell? What did you do to him?”
“Calm.” Doctor Gyan waved his hands at her. “Merely a sedative to make the captain more compliant. It speaks to the strength of the true-mating bond that it only took him to his knees instead of knocking him out as it would have any other warrior.”
“You can’t do that! He’s the captain!”
“A rank that can be stripped from him if he is deemed unfit for duty by the lead physician aboard his vessel. At this time, that physician is me.”
“You bastard!” Semeera looked around for help, but it didn’t seem as if anyone would supply it. Doctor Gyan was now in charge. She eyed him warily. “Why do you need him sedated, and where did those guards take him?”
“Another room. And his sedation is important. He wouldn’t allow the test.”
“What test?!” Semeera readied to run for it.
“You incited a dormant instinct within one of our own. We need to make sure you won’t do it again.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“We know that and aren’t accusing you. Captain Kader is now tied to you on a physiological level. He will need to be near you and be sated by you. He won’t want any other and will kill anyone who tries to touch you.”
“Okay…”
“Many scientists worked to cure us of this malady because it was a hindrance to our race. True-mated males become highly territorial, as you witnessed. They are also aggressive and unstable. True-mate bonding was a deadly disease that should have been eradicated, and yet here it is again.”
Great. She’d infected Kader with the sex version of smallpox… or whatever disease hadn’t been seen in a really long time and that everyone thought was gone. “So you want to see if I’ll kick it off in anyone else by doing what? And don’t say sex, because that will not happen, ever.”
“No, not sex. We need only your arousal.”
“Arousal?”
Riiight. She was standing in a room surrounded by doctors and security, and Doctor Gyan wanted her to get horny. Not going to happen.
“We can give you an aphrodisiac if you like. I already mentioned our medication is more acute in you. With Captain Kader incapacitated…” He made an offering gesture.
“Fine. Give me a second. I’m not a faucet you can just turn on.” No pun intended. “And after I get… aroused, then what?”
“The males in the room will scent you. Hopefully none will react and we can rule this madness as a singular event limited to Captain Kader.”
“Will he lose hi
s command?”
“If he were on any other ship, a true-mate bond would be a detriment because he wouldn’t do his duty. That would mean leaving you while he engaged in combat. No true mate would do that. Here, where he doesn’t have to fight, in fact, is not allowed to fight, it isn’t an issue.”
That was a load off her mind… sort of. Kader had been saddled with the khartarn equivalent of a desk job. But that desk job meant his new status as a true-mated male wouldn’t lose him his career. She hoped.
She’d really fucked up his life. The least she could do was make sure no one else fell victim.
That was easier said than done. Her engine wasn’t even turning over. Not with this many people in the room, staring at her like they were waiting for her to do a magic trick. She wasn’t an exhibitionist. This type of attention made her want to hide, not start sexy times.
Doctor Gyan seemed to figure out this very simple fact because he waved his hand.
A loud click preceded Kader’s pissed-off roaring filtering into the room. “It won’t work! Release me! Gyan, I’ll rip your fucking head off! Don’t touch her! Release me!”
Semeera flinched at the sound of someone getting punched, but got the feeling that someone wasn’t Kader.
She didn’t recognize the male yelling threats. The stoic, reserved male she’d spent so much time with would never sound like that. It hurt her heart to think she’d done this to him.
“Can you fix him?”
Before Doctor Gyan could answer, Kader bellowed, “I don’t need to be fixed!”
Semeera kept her gaze on Doctor Gyan to let him know her question still stood.
The doctor shook his head.
She sighed. “Kader, stop.”
And just like that, he went silent. She was actually amazed that worked. She thought she would have to scream to be heard and then reason with him. All she heard was labored breathing from more than one person.
“Talk to me. Help me.”
Struggling ensued.
“Not like that, Kader. Listen to me. Help me help you. The sooner we prove this is just you, the sooner they’ll let you go. Talk to me.”
He hissed and there was a loud thunk. His tail, no doubt.
She asked, “Why don’t you think it’ll work?”
“It won’t,” he snapped.
“Why?”
He hissed again then said in a grudging tone, “I scented you from the start. Courted you. I didn’t realize I was starting the true-mating cycle, but I knew you were mine.”
“Courted me how?” She’d only realized he was flirting with her recently. What cues had she missed?
“You asked. I gave.”
What the hell did that mean? She looked around for an explanation.
Doctor Gyan nodded. “Provide all the female desires in an effort to win her affection. While the malady raged through us, it was used to spark a female’s arousal so the male could determine if she was his mate. If she was, he employed his musk to ensure her compliance in the binding. Although we cured the malady, the courting ritual remained.”
She gasped. “The tour.”
“Yes,” Kader said.
But that wasn’t all. Nothing she’d ever asked of him had been that out of the ordinary, so she hadn’t realized he was essentially bribing her to get into her pants. Except… “Oh, Lord. You really would have taken me out in your fighter if I’d said yes, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Kader, that…” She shook her head. He’d come so close to truly ruining his career—over her. “Didn’t you think something was off about that? Haven’t you courted females before?”
“Those were dalliances not worthy of remembering, and I won’t have this conversation now. My symptoms aren’t sudden or new. I had them from the first. No other can claim the same. It won’t work.”
Doctor Quagid said, “Then it hurts nothing to be sure.”
A loud hiss carried over the speakers.
Semeera said, “He’s right, Kader. You know he’s right.” She waited for him to agree. When he didn’t, she said, “Talk to me. Let me hear your voice. Not angry or threatening. The way you used to be.” Before she ruined him, she added silently. She should change her name to Typhoid Mary.
“That isn’t what you need to hear. This is.” He growled—loud and rumbling—vibrating the speakers.
The sound went straight from her ears to her clit, making it throb so hard she let out a needy whimper as she pressed her thighs together to soothe the ache. Her nipples tightened, and suddenly the room was several degrees hotter than it had been.
Doctor Quagid flicked his tongue, then said in a dismissive tone, “An interesting aroma. There’s a certain spice to it.” He looked her up and down. “Our females are sweeter. A more pleasant scent, I’m sure the others will agree.”
The other males in the room all nodded while Kader hissed.
“I meant no insult to your mate, Captain. Not finding her to my liking is the preferred outcome, wouldn’t you agree?”
More hissing.
Doctor Gyan said, “Enough with your childish taunting, Doctor Quagid. Captain Kader is returning to this room shortly, or had you forgotten that?”
Quagid gulped visibly and made a kind of choking noise as his eyes went wide.
Semeera almost laughed at how quickly he hustled out the door. Something told her he would be avoiding Kader for the rest of his tenure on this ship, possibly even asking for a transfer.
“As for Artist Sssemeera’s arousal…” Doctor Gyan studied her. “It is fortunate I didn’t scent her before Captain Kader.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or maybe I did, and that was why I always wanted you near.”
She took a step back at the same time the sounds of struggle resumed. Something in Doctor Gyan’s gaze had her flight-or-fight instincts kicking in.
When two female guards wearing muzzles grabbed her arms, she realized why. She hadn’t even seen Doctor Gyan signal them, and she’d been staring right at him the entire time, waiting for him to pounce on her.
He closed the distance between them with a fatherly smile. “One reason males became so territorial after true mating and guarded their mates so closely was because females could be poached.”
“GYAN!” Kader’s roar made glass in the infirmary vibrate. Some cracked.
Doctor Gyan didn’t even seem to notice. His entire attention was on Semeera. “It led to many senseless deaths. But some were clever. They used tricks and traps, luring away the male to make poaching easier. All it took was the musk of a rival male who had scented the female as well for her to be claimed by another.”
“Don’t you dare!” Semeera held her breath, hoping to delay the inevitable.
One guard covered her mouth, leaving her nose free.
The seconds ticked by. Kader remained in the other room, struggling and roaring threats of death and dismemberment. Doctor Gyan waited patiently with an expectant expression, undoubtedly knowing she had to breathe some time and that it would be soon because he’d studied her lung capacity.
She tried to hold her breath. Her self-preservation instinct warred against her will. Self-preservation won out, forcing her to suck air into her burning lungs along with Doctor Gyan’s musk—minty dirt. It was heavy in the room and it filled her every breath.
Mentally apologizing to Kader for this entire mess, she waited to become a writhing pile of lust. And waited. And waited. And… She frowned. Nothing was happening.
She didn’t feel horny. She didn’t even feel excited. Just really pissed off that Doctor Gyan would do this to her. And it wasn’t even because he wanted her, maybe not completely, but because of science.
Doctor Gyan waved.
The guard holding Semeera’s mouth let go.
“Fuck you! I don’t feel shit!” Semeera just barely stopped herself from spitting on him.
“Nothing?” Doctor Gyan stepped closer, as if proximity was the deciding factor, when she could smell him fine.
Sh
e gave him a superior smirk as she drew in a long loud breath and blew it in his face. “Not a damn thing. You’re not my type, Doc.”
“Interesting.” He pulled out the examination rod and waved it over her. “You are correct. Your body shows no signs of arousal. If you’d been a khartarn female, you would have reacted with instant lust, begging me to sate you.”
“In your dreams.” She pulled out of the hold of the guards, who let her go. “Are you done?”
“It would seem I am.” Doctor Gyan shrugged and backed off. “Release the captain.”
She snorted. “Aren’t you going to go hide like Quagid?” She dropped the male’s title on purpose, having no respect left for him. She would drop Doctor Gyan’s title, but he would probably see it as intimacy rather than a slight.
Doctor Gyan said, “Hardly.”
Thundering footsteps drew their attention to the infirmary doorway. Kader grabbed the doorframe, digging his claws into the metal as he hauled himself into the room. His uniform was torn, one sleeve missing, and the other was hanging by thin threads. The look in his eyes was crazed, and his tail whipped from side to side as he settled his attention on Doctor Gyan. “You!”
Kader stalked into the room headed straight for Doctor Gyan, death in his gaze as he flexed his hands at his side.
Doctor Gyan didn’t even flinch. He was either frozen in fear or an idiot. He said in a calm tone, “I don’t run because I rendered Captain Kader a favor. He now knows you cannot be poached.”
Kader jolted to a stop.
“Scent the air, Captain. It is heavy with my musk, and your mate stands unaffected.”
Semeera nodded when Kader looked at her.
“And to prove this point beyond a shadow of a doubt… if you will, Captain.” Doctor Gyan made an offering gesture.
“Will what?” Semeera looked from one male to the other and then it hit her. Wood mixed with peppery spice—Kader’s musk. Heavy. Bearing down on her. It reignited her earlier arousal so quickly and painfully she dropped to her knees, keening her need.
Kader was there in an instant, lifting her against his chest and pushing his nose against her stomach.
Alien Mate Experiment Page 15