“Every warrior in the base will want to challenge for you.” Maxim’s sigh was both pleased that we had such a beautiful mate, and resigned to the inevitable. There were very few females on the Colony. And with Rachel’s collar still black, and the formal mating ceremony not yet complete, there might be a warrior or two fool enough to try to lure her away from us, to convince her to change her mind and choose them instead.
“I’ll kill them.” The vow was made before I thought to censor my reaction.
For a heartbeat of time, I thought I might have offended or frightened our mate, but she laughed and the sound was a light in the darkness of my prior existence. There was no laughter without her. No joy. No hope.
I looked to Maxim then. “You’re right. I don’t think we should leave the suite.”
“We’re going. I’m going to meet Jessica. She’s from Earth and I want to talk to her.” Our mate patted her hair, the complex twist of her hair piled on top of her head outlined her face in a soft cascade of color and left her neck bare, and ready for my mouth.
“I tried to tell you, Ryston.” Maxim walked to our mate and lifted his hand to her cheek. Everything in me stilled at the tender interaction as she leaned into his touch and closed her eyes, her body practically purring with bliss. “Now that the Prime is here. It’s too late to cancel.”
Raising her hand to cup Maxim’s cheek, Rachel smiled. “You’re not canceling anything. We’re going. Now.”
Rachel had prepared herself in the bathing room, hiding until she was ready. We had waited for more than an hour, Maxim settled on the sofa, his body unmoving but his emotions racing around and around inside his head like a beast chasing its own tail. I had spent the hour pacing, door to bed, fighting the urge to strip and climb in the hot water with her when we heard the sounds of her soaping and rinsing her naked body. The way Maxim had adjusted himself in his formal pants led me to believe he’d been thinking the same thing.
I’d spent the better part of the last hour imagining her skin turning a pretty shade of pink, her hair curling softly in the steam, her nipples plumping in the warmth as she bathed.
I knew firsthand the effects of the hot bath on her pale flesh since we’d taken her in the bath twice already.
I couldn’t fuck her pussy, not until Maxim’s seed took, and since her ass wasn’t ready yet to take a cock, I’d had to make do with eating her out as she leaned back against the edge of the bathing pool. It had been far from a burden, especially when I stroked my cock to completion, my seed spurting on her damp belly and breasts, forcing me to wash her all over again.
Rachel sucked in a breath and turned to glare at me, her nipples clearly standing at attention beneath the gown. “You, stop that, right now.”
“You’re irresistible, mate. I can’t stop wanting you.”
Rachel arched her brow as she returned to the bathing room to do whatever mysterious things a woman might do to prepare. I noticed her feet were bare, and realized she had most likely gone back for her shoes.
Maxim watched her go and ran his hand through his hair in a rare outward display of the unease I could feel through the collar. “The Prime is a newly mated warrior. He’ll understand our need to fuck Rachel. Hell, we only have thirty days, no twenty-seven, to sway her to accept us.” He ran his hand through his darker hair again. “We should not have scheduled this dinner until after the claiming ceremony.”
I leaned on the edge of the sofa and crossed my arms. Maxim and I were both ready to go. We had nothing to occupy us now but to wait for our mate. I’d never been so happy to do nothing. “Lady Deston wants to help. She’s from Earth and should help Rachel to feel welcome here. She’s even invited an Earth warrior who lives here, on Base 3. If Rachel can find others who are like her, with similar customs, she may adjust more quickly, find happiness here. We will fight for her and protect her, Maxim, but Rachel is intelligent and passionate about life. Unfortunately, fucking won’t be enough to make her happy here.”
By the look Maxim gave me, he didn’t like my answer, but since he didn’t respond, knew I was right.
Rachel came out of the bathing chamber then and I shamelessly inspected every inch of her. The dress I’d brought when she first arrived had been draped over the chair until today. Now the soft flowing gown only made our possession of her more complete. The cut was perfect for her, showing off her delectable curves, a hint of cleavage, the teasing glimpse of her smooth legs as she walked. The color fell to her ankles. The dark copper was a sign of Maxim’s claim as her primary male, the color representative of the Rone family. Everyone who saw her would know she belonged to us. Even though her collar was still black, a sign she was not fully claimed, the dress would protect her. No one dared to approach a female wearing another warrior’s colors.
At least, that was how things had been on Prillon Prime. Here, with so many unmated males and so few women? I had to hope honor and chivalry would hold the others in check until they could be processed for their own mates.
Hope for a matched mate of their own would likely keep many from approaching her. And yet, her very presence was the reason they had any hope at all.
“You’re both staring.” She glanced down at herself. “Is something wrong? The dress was a little confusing to put on, but it’s not like my hem is stuck in my underwear, since I’m not wearing any.”
She glared at Maxim then and he grinned in reply.
“There is no need for you to cover your pussy. Only your mates will know you’re bare.”
“I’d be bare beneath some panties, too,” she countered.
Maxim went over to her, put his hand on the long length of the dress and started to pull it up. I watched as the smooth line of her pale leg appeared.
“Yes, but then I wouldn’t be able to cup you, like this.” Her eyes fell closed as his hand settled over her. “Or slip my finger into your pussy, like this.”
When he leaned in and murmured in her ear, her eyes fell closed. “Anytime I want.”
She moaned when he slipped his fingers free and allowed the dress to slide back to the floor. Keeping her gaze, Maxim slipped his glistening fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.
I had to press my palm against my cock, the damn thing throbbed knowing she was hot and wet for us. “Fuck, we have to go before we never leave.”
Maxim held out his hand and Rachel took it, although the flush of her cheeks and her blurry gaze made me think she’d rather just stay in our suite as well.
Chapter Eight
Ryston
“Thank you, Governor Rone, for inviting us to dine with you and your new mate. We are honored to be here.” Prime Nial’s voice broke through all the various conversations around the large square table. The table seated forty guests, ten on each side. While there were governors chosen by challenge and combat to rule the various bases on the planet, a square table meant everyone seated was an equal, which was how it was to be on the Colony. Equal respect for all who had served, and sacrificed so much, to protect the citizens of the Coalition planets.
As leader of all Prillons, whether they be on Prillon Prime, stationed on one of the many battleships, or here on the Colony, the Prime would have been seated at the head of the table. But he didn’t seem to mind his even placement with everyone else. His mate, Jessica, sat on his right and his second, Ander, on her right, protecting her between them. As it should be.
Jessica, like Rachel, was a human female from Earth, but that was where their similarities ended. Rachel was small and curvy, with rich brown hair and soft brown eyes. Her skin a soft, smooth cream with just a hint of brown.
Jessica, or Queen Deston, as I was honored to address her, was taller than my mate and golden like me. Her hair was a shining gold that fell past her shoulders and her eyes were blue, like glaciers on Earth, startling above full pink lips and skin so pale I could trace the lines of her veins in her wrists. She was a beauty, to be sure, and both of her mates, Prime Nial and the gigantic warrior he’d chosen as his second, Ander,
never left her side. In fact, they rarely took their eyes from their mate, and I understood their obsession.
I could not stop staring at Rachel, at her creamy skin, her soft curves, her expressive eyes. Every emotion I felt from her through the collar turned my head, making me desperate to see her face, to learn the contours of her eyes when she was happy, or angry or aroused.
The last I’d learned well, and couldn’t wait to see on her face once more.
As my cock rose beneath the table, Rachel squirmed in her seat between me and Maxim. With a soft laugh, she hit my thigh under the table. “Stop that. I have to eat.”
Maxim chuckled but didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. I’d started things, my lusty thoughts of Rachel’s mouth stretched wide over my cock had made her pussy grow wet. I could smell it, and the sweet scent of her arousal did nothing to rein in my thoughts. Apparently, Maxim was all too aware of her body’s reaction, for seconds later, his own lust blasted through the collars.
“You two are such a pain. Seriously.” Rachel leaned forward and lifted her cup half full of Atlan wine to her lips. “Knock it off. I can’t think.”
Three other governors had transported to join the meal, as well as an Earth warrior who lived on Base 3. His name was Captain Brooks. I had run into him a few times since his arrival at the Colony. The warriors from Earth had only recently joined the war with the Hive, and even fewer survived the enemy once captured. Captain Brooks was one of no more than a couple-dozen humans to survive. And despite Earth’s claims of advancement, they had not wanted their Hive-contaminated warriors back any more than Prillon, or Atlan, or any of the other worlds.
We were all lost souls here. Lost, until first Jessica, and now Rachel, had chosen contaminated mates. Accepted us.
Their presence was a beacon for every warrior on the planet.
Rachel had insisted on finding Brooks immediately upon arrival for dinner. She seemed relieved by his presence, as well as by the Queen’s. While I’d left Prillon Prime for battle and never returned because of banishment, I had always been surrounded by my brothers, other Prillon warriors.
Rachel was the only matched mate assigned to the Colony from the brides program. There were a few female warriors banished to the Colony because of their Hive integrations, but they had been claimed quickly, mated and settled. Rachel, though, was different. She was from Earth, knew nothing of our ways, of the ways of any of the other planets’ warriors who lived on the Colony. Nor did she know what it was like to be contaminated. She was the only untainted one among us living on the Colony. She was the alien here.
I tried to imagine the courage it would take for her to leap into her new life, and found myself in awe of our lovely bride once more. She laughed and talked and smiled, no matter the oddity or deformity left by the Hive, from strange silver eyes with no color, to completely artificial limbs made of metal, or bald heads coated with neural wiring, she treated all with generosity and respect.
She made me proud and shocked that I was lucky enough to be one of her chosen warriors. I realized earlier, as I watched her reach out and touch a male’s metallic arm without flinching, saw the shocked wonder in the Atlan warrior’s eyes, that she wasn’t mine.
I was hers.
Three days, and she owned me.
Then there was the Earth warrior. I should rip his head from his shoulders for the interest our mate had in him. But it was not lust, but keen interest in seeing a somewhat familiar face, or at least familiar facial features. He’d brought a smile to her pursed lips and eased the tenseness of her shoulders. Maxim or I could have fucked her to soothe her, but her need to find someone similar, with similar customs and backgrounds, would not have been appeased. We were not from Earth.
And so, albeit grudgingly, we let her near Captain Brooks. They spoke of strange things such as burritos and something called a TV with a familiarity I envied.
Prime Nial rose and we all turned to listen as he lifted his glass in a salute. “We wish to hear about our newest—and only—Colony mate.”
A shiver raced over Rachel’s skin and her anxiety at being the center of attention hit me hard, right in the chest.
Beneath the table, I placed my hand on her thigh, a sign that her mates were here with her. Her gaze lifted to mine, then Maxim’s, and finally to Prime Nial. I followed suit, turning to look at the new Prime of our home world. He was average height for a Prillon warrior, but his left eye was completely silver, as was a good portion of the left side of his face. He was clearly contaminated with Hive technology, and I’d heard rumors that much of the left side of his body was silver as well.
He was frightening to look upon, but by some miracle, by the grace and love of the woman seated next to him, he had challenged for leadership of our world and changed things, for all of us.
Rachel licked her lips and I turned to find her gaze had drifted from Prime Nial to his second, Ander. Ander was not contaminated, not by Prillon standards. He did not have Hive implants. But he was huge, even for a Prillon warrior. His face was scarred, a blade clearly having nearly cut his eye from the socket, the deep, wide scar running from mid-forehead, through his brow, over his eye where the gash continued from cheek to chest.
I wondered how he’d survived. And, perhaps even more miraculously, how such a beauty as Queen Deston could love a silver-eyed contaminate and a scarred monster.
Their combined presence was like a drug to every Colony warrior. The Prime was contaminated far beyond most of the warriors here, myself included. If there was hope for him, and for ugly fucking bastards like Ander, there was hope for all of us.
Prime Nial tilted his head at my mate and raised his brow in an obvious command for her to respond. I squeezed her thigh again and Maxim settled his hand at the base of her neck. We surrounded her with strength and she took a deep breath to answer her new leader, for she was one of us now. I wasn’t going to let her go.
“I am…well, I was…a biochemist. I got my PhD last year and was in charge of research and development at a drug company on Earth called GloboPharma.”
Queen Deston, Jessica, leaned forward, her expression pleased. “You’re a doctor? That’s so cool. What were you working on?”
“Not a medical doctor, but a doctor of science,” Rachel clarified. “I worked in a research lab on a cure for cancer.” Rachel shook her head, her smile sad. “But we killed more people than we helped. The CEO falsified my reports with the FDA to get the drug approved. When it hit the market things went bad, people died, and they hung the whole thing on my head and walked away with a slap on the wrist and some fines.”
I didn’t know what the abbreviations meant but I knew she’d been falsely accused and found guilty.
“That stinks. But why were you in jail? They don’t usually put people away for stuff like that, do they?” Queen Deston took a sip of her dark purple wine and looked at my mate over the rim of the glass. “Or did you volunteer for the brides program?”
Rachel looked down at the food on her plate, took a deep breath. “I was convicted of fraud, conspiracy, forgery, lying under oath, and facing so many civil lawsuits I’d never get out from under them.”
Prime Nial’s dark brows winged up. “How many innocents died?”
“At least four hundred.” Shame, dark and ugly wormed its way into Rachel’s heart at the confession and I longed to take her into my arms almost as much as I wanted to punch Prime Nial in the face for upsetting her.
“Four hundred dead. That is, indeed, a serious accusation.”
Queen Deston jumped to Rachel’s defense. “But she didn’t do it.” The woman lifted her glass to my mate in a gesture of solidarity and respect. “I totally believe you.”
Rachel’s cheeks turned an interesting shade of pink. “Thank you.”
“And it’s not all bad. You ended up here, the sweet cream filling between two hard Prillon Oreos.”
Rachel nearly choked on her wine. Captain Brooks coughed, loudly, and I suspected he hid his own laug
hter behind the gesture when Rachel’s cheeks went from pink to bright red. I didn’t know what an Oreo was, but it was blatant Earth innuendo, I was sure. Queen Deston’s laughter rang out around the room as her second, her monster of a warrior, Ander, scowled at her. “Behave yourself, mate.”
But Queen Deston simply laughed harder and lifted her hand to his cheek, placing a quick kiss on his lips that effectively silenced his protests.
I understood his dazed but resigned look well.
When Rachel touched me with such tenderness, I could deny her nothing. That did not mean I would not discover what an Oreo was once we were alone in our suite.
Maxim cleared his throat and the laughter faded. “I do not care about her past. She is my matched mate. I have chosen Captain Ryston Rayall as my second. And we are here to celebrate the arrival of a new era on the Colony.”
Prime Nial nodded. “How many of your warriors have submitted to the brides program testing?”
“Doctor Surnen?” Maxim turned to the Base 3 doctor and Rachel’s anxiety at being on display, at being watched by so many strangers, morphed to a quiet, simmering hatred.
So, my mate had not yet forgiven us the mistake of taking her to the examination room upon her arrival. I rubbed her leg gently, renewing my determination to fuck that anger out of her later.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Prior to Lady Rone’s arrival, less than ten percent of Base 3’s warriors had submitted to the testing. But since then, the testing rates have tripled. Every warrior on Base 3 will be processed in the next six weeks.”
Prime Nial nodded and addressed Governor Bryck of Base 2. “And your warriors, Bryck?”
The large man nodded with a grin. “I confess, I myself have not yet been tested. However,” he paused, glancing from Queen Deston to Rachel with a look close to hunger in his eyes, “I will correct that immediately once I return.”
“Excellent news.” Prime Nial congratulated us as cheers went up around the table. “The gods blessed you, Governor Rone. Ryston.”
Surrender To The Cyborgs (Interstellar Brides: The Colony Book 1) Page 9