I felt like an alien in my own skin, a stranger with thoughts and desires I did not recognize and could not control.
Brooding in the dark was not something I enjoyed, so I rose and quietly cleansed my body in the MG unit. As I settled a fresh uniform on my shoulders, I felt the weight of command, the responsibility settling me in a way nothing else ever had, in a way completely different than I found with my mate. This was familiar, normal. Comfortable.
I was on the command deck five minutes later, my mind blissfully empty of longing, need, desire and confusion as I poured over scouting reports, talked to my best flight captains about imminent battles. They noticed the collar about my neck, but were wise not to mention it. Not when we knew there were more pressing matters than my taking a mate.
The Hive would come. The Hive hunger for more bodies to convert, for more raw material for their Integration Centers, was insatiable. They consumed all life, it was their means of existence. And my battle group was on the front lines, so close to the Hive central command that we often fought two or three times as many battles per week as other sectors.
Always before, that thought filled me with self-importance. We were in one of the oldest and deadliest sectors of the war. My father had seen to that, his expectations for his son the only thing bigger than his pride in the Zakar clan’s warriors. Battle Group Zakar would never relocate, never back down. Our clan had fought here for hundreds of years.
“Commander, the comm.” My communications officer spoke from her position at the comm panel.
“My father?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Great. Just what I didn’t fucking need right now. “Patch it through to the Core.” The Core was my personal nickname for the standard-size meeting room found on every ship. The private space was designed for meeting with top officers to discuss strategy or ship’s business. It was where I met with my captains, disciplined my warriors and made battle plans.
I left the command deck and walked to the meeting room. Seconds after the door slid closed behind me, my father’s dark orange face filled the screen near the far wall. I had inherited his eyes, but the rest of me, the golden shade of my skin, was due to my mother. His coloring was passed down from the ancient lines, and he’d always believed me less for not carrying his much darker hue.
“Commander.” He never called me by my name, only my rank, as if I weren’t his son. Only a soldier. “I read the most recent report.”
“Yes, Father. The Hive has been eliminated from that solar system.”
“And you nearly killed.”
And, here we went again… “I’m fine.”
“Damn it, boy. You were weak today. An embarrassment. I’d advise you to spend some time in a basic flight simulator before you fly with another battle wing. You can do better than that. You are a Zakar. I won’t have women giggling and twittering on about how you got shot out of your ship and floated in space like so much garbage.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” His father’s rant continued for several minutes as he described, in great detail, the sympathetic looks and concerned questioning he’d been forced to endure at the Prime’s palace this evening. I rubbed the back of my neck, doing my best to ignore the tight ball of rage that spun and whirred in my gut every time I was forced to look at the man who had sired me.
“Don’t let it happen again. You are a Zakar.”
He didn’t bother saying goodbye, or asking how I felt. He didn’t care. He expected me to survive, to do better, to live up to the family name.
For years I’d listened to his tirades. They hadn’t made my pulse race or my heart ache for a very long time. Not since I was still in the academy had I allowed my father to upset my emotional equilibrium. But tonight I sank into the nearest empty chair at the conference table and placed my head in my hands.
Hate. Rage. Anger. Shame. Love. They twisted and churned in my chest until I couldn’t breathe.
* * *
Conrav
Amanda lay in my arms, her breath a caress of heat across my chest. Her head was tucked under my chin, her naked body pressed to mine as I held her.
My mate.
I’d waited for her for years, prayed to the gods that Grigg would one day be ready to summon her, to claim her.
I was a senior officer. I was eligible for a bride of my own, but every time I considered the option all I could see was Grigg lost and truly alone. He was not my brother by blood, but he was a brother by choice and I could not abandon him in this any more than he was able to walk away from a wounded warrior on the field of battle.
The agony racing through my body was his, the new connection with our mate, the emotional ties of our collars, broadcast Grigg’s pain as clearly as if he stood next to me, breaking into pieces.
In seconds our mate stirred as well, her quick intake of breath and the hand that fluttered to cover her heart proof that she felt his pain as well. Our bond was strong, stronger than I would have believed possible after just one claiming.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was a whisper and she tensed, but did not pull free of my embrace. “Grigg.”
“Yes, Grigg.” I sighed, kissing our mate on the forehead and reluctantly releasing her to roll out of bed. “If I had one guess, I’d say he just spoke to his father.”
She sat up in bed, gloriously naked and so beautiful I couldn’t tear my gaze from her flesh even as I stumbled to pull on my discarded uniform.
“His father?” Amanda pulled the blanket up to cover her breasts, her dark hair a wild tumble falling past her shoulders. Even Grigg’s pain was not enough to prevent my cock from rising to attention at the sight.
“General Zakar. He’s on the Prime council.”
“But—” She rubbed at her chest, as if she were truly in pain. “I don’t understand.”
Dressed now, I walked back to the bed and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her soft, pink lips. Gods, she was so exquisite, and mine. Mine and Grigg’s, and right now that asshole needed me. “Go back to sleep, mate. I’ll take care of it.”
She watched me leave with a bite of anger in her eyes, fire that I welcomed. She was going to need it if she were to survive this mating between us. Grigg had become volatile, his need to control both excited and terrified me. I had no qualms fucking our mate to Grigg’s exact specifications. The fact that he’d ordered me to fuck her, to fill her with my seed—and first—had been a shock, an honor so great that I’d never once ever even imagined a scenario where our firstborn child would truly belong to both of us. We would have no way to know, now or ever, who truly fathered any of our children. The honor and generosity of that act humbled me, even as Grigg’s dominant behavior toward me caused a jumbled mixture of acceptance and confusion in my mind.
He’d always been brash, impulsive, arrogant and a bit wild. I’d loved that about him, been on many adventures, fought beside him in many battles. But I’d never shared his bed, never shared a woman and felt his absolute need for control. He’d never extended his iron control to me, and I was shocked to discover that I found it—stimulating. Fuck, our mate certainly enjoyed it as well.
I found Grigg exactly where I expected him to be, in the Core, his one true sanctuary. Alone.
Motherfucker was always alone.
He didn’t look in my direction as I entered. A work pad lay flat and untouched on the table before him, filled, I was sure, with a hundred reports, requests and items that required his approval. He sat at the round table and looked at none of it, his gaze cold and empty as he stared at a monitor filled with the deep emptiness of space just outside our ship. If I couldn’t still feel the pain and anger coming through my collar, I might have believed his façade. He’d become very good at hiding his true self.
“I’m guessing your father was his usual charming self?” I took the seat to Grigg’s right and waited. “How is he today?”
The silence stretched for long minutes, but I didn’t push, just put my feet up on the table, my hands behind my he
ad and waited for the explosion.
“Get your fucking feet off my table.”
“That good, huh?”
“Rav.”
“Let me guess? He broke down into tears, so worried about your wellbeing that he couldn’t speak over his sobs.”
Grigg snorted. “You’re an asshole.”
I stretched, feeling both exhausted and exhilarated by our time spent with Amanda. After what we’d done with her, I was surprised at how quickly he’d returned to his tense old self. Maybe if I could get Grigg to calm the fuck down, we could go back to our room and pull the blanket from her soft, warm body and—
“Stop thinking about our mate. You’re fucking up my rage.”
“So, your father. Let me guess? Your near-death experience was a blight on the Zakar name and the women at the palace are fawning all over him with their concern for the infamous Commander Zakar.”
“That about sums it up.”
“You tell him about our mate?”
“No.”
“What? He didn’t notice the collar?”
Grigg shook his head. “He only sees what he wants. The rest…”
“So you didn’t tell him. Why not? Maybe the women would leave him alone if they knew they had no chance of claiming you.”
“They never had a chance.”
“They didn’t know that. I’m sure you’re number one on so many mothers’ potential mating lists for their daughters that you are practically a household name back on Prime.”
His silence stretched and I let it ride, giving him time to come to grips with what I’d just told him. He was a brilliant warrior, but when it came to politics or women, he had about as much finesse as his father. A fact to which I would never enlighten him.
“I’m not going to tell him about her.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
He finally looked at me, and I was relieved to feel the tension coiling through our link calm as well. “I like the idea of him suffering their attentions. I might never tell him.”
“Fine. I don’t care about your asshole father. I care about Amanda. What are we going to do about her?”
That narrowed his attention. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you feel it when we were finished with her?”
“Feel what?”
“Her guilt.”
Grigg shook his head and returned his gaze to the view of the solar cluster on his monitor. “No. I’m sorry. I was—”
“Feeling fucked up and weird about your feelings toward me?”
Chapter Nine
Conrav
“Fuck, Rav. Why do you do that?” Grigg’s mouth thinned into a fine line and he refused to look at me. I’d never seen Grigg look embarrassed, not in all the years I’d known him.
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, hard. I squeezed when he tried to shrug me off. This was something we had to talk about. If our mating with Amanda was going to work, we needed to work this out. “Look, I don’t mind. I don’t want to fuck you, Grigg, but if allowing you to be a bossy asshole in bed gets Amanda that hot and bothered every time we’re together, I am yours to command. She was so fucking wet, so desperate for us, I couldn’t think. She loved it.”
“I know.”
“And the rest of it?”
He looked at me now, and I knew he’d already buried the rest of his emotions so deep I’d have to force them back to the surface. “Look, I felt it all, Grigg. These fucking collars don’t let us hide anything. You were feeling territorial, and it wasn’t just about Amanda.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where it came from.” Grigg looked so lost, so out of his element that I believed him. Which was just fucking sad, and further testament to how badly his unfeeling asshole of a father had fucked him up.
“It’s normal, Grigg. It’s called love. Concern. Affection. You’re my cousin, and I love you. I’d die for you, kill to protect you. It’s perfectly normal that you’d feel the same. That just makes us a family. And all those feelings now extend to our mate. I feel it, too.”
“I’ve never felt any of that before.”
“The fucking collars,” I muttered. “I know. But now you know.”
“Know what?”
“What family is supposed to feel like.”
Grigg rubbed his chest and I felt the pang of emotion that was ripping him to shreds. He had no idea what to do with all of the sentiment, so I helped him out with a bit of distraction. “So, back to our mate. I think we might have a problem.”
“The guilt?”
“Yes. She’s hiding something. Those collars sense everything, even that.”
Grigg frowned, his mind now focused on solving a real problem, something he could deal with so much more efficiently than his unfamiliar emotions. “What do you suspect?”
I hated to say it, but when I’d found out our mate was coming from a new member of the Interstellar Coalition, I’d done some research. “I looked up her planet, read every report about Earth.”
“And?”
“Her people are primitive, still fighting wars over resources and land. In many parts of her world, women are still denied basic rights and education. They are treated as slaves without honor or power in their own right. They allow their poor to starve and die in the streets. They kill over skin color and religious beliefs. They’re barbaric.”
“She’s no longer an Earthling. She’s a citizen of Prillon Prime. She belongs to us now.”
“Yes, officially.”
“But?”
“She had two men with her at the processing center. She said they were her family, lied to the Warden, but they were not related to her. Suspicious, the Warden reviewed the recording of their conversation.”
“And who were they?”
“Spies. Apparently, Amanda is a spy for her government.”
Grigg’s eyes widened. “Amanda, a spy?”
I nodded.
“Yes. She’s the first Bride. It makes sense to use the program to their advantage. I assume they sent her here to send information to Earth, to steal advanced technologies that the Coalition has denied them.”
“I see.” I could literally feel his mind working, calculating odds, formulating a plan. “And how do you know this? Is the information about our mate reliable?”
“Absolutely. I asked the primary Warden on Earth, Lady Egara, to dig into her past.”
Grigg leaned forward. “I thought Earth just found out about the Coalition. And I know Commander Egara. What is his mate, a Prillon Lady, doing on Earth?”
The answer to that question was sad, indeed. “Both of Lady Egara’s mates were lost in a Hive ambush a few years ago.”
“Gods have mercy.” Grigg frowned at that and I felt his sadness over the news. “No children?”
“No. And she refused another match. She was taken from Earth years before official contact was made with the planet. I don’t know the details, but after her mates’ deaths, she offered to serve on Earth as the leader of the Bride Processing program there. In any event, her loyalty is to the Coalition. I trust her information.”
Grigg rose to pace and I watched, inclined to let him decide a course of action. I was trained to heal, not deal with subterfuge and battle. And I knew for a fact that the war for our bride’s heart and loyalty had barely begun.
Arms across his chest, Grigg turned to me. “Do you wish to give her up? Ask for another mate?”
“No. She was matched to us. The testing was done. It was ninety-fine percent accurate. There is no question from Warden Egara, or me, that she is the one for us. She’s ours now, whether she realizes it or not. Whether her loyalties lie with her government or with us, her mates.”
“Agreed.” Grigg resumed pacing the small space. “This would explain Earth’s eagerness to send their first group of warriors into Hive combat.”
That was a surprise. “They are eager to send their soldiers?”
“Yes. Too eager. They didn’t even want to allow their sold
iers to complete the training protocols.” He shook his head. “Which is stupid, and suicidal. Their general’s report claims these men are something they call Special Forces, and will not require extensive training. They are Earth’s elite warriors.”
I smiled at Grigg’s expression. Game on. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Let them come, and use our beautiful little mate to lead us to the traitors among them. Surely they would not just send one spy.”
“And after?” The idea made me nervous. I knew Grigg would never harm a hair on our mate’s head, but I wasn’t so sure about the soldiers who would be coming from Earth.
“Kill the traitors and spank her ass a fiery red. She has been matched to us. Like you said, there is no question as to that, that she’s ours. We’re going to fuck her and fill her until she knows exactly who she belongs to, and it’s not the tribal rulers on Earth. They can’t fuck her and love her like we can.”
“No. She might be their spy, but she belongs to us.”
* * *
Amanda
I stirred at the sound of an odd beep. It happened only once, so I ignored it, rolling over. Being used to sleeping in new places all the time because of work, I woke knowing exactly where I was. Space. It also helped that my pussy and ass were both quite sore and I could never forget what Grigg and Rav had done to me. The plug had been removed directly after Grigg fucked me, while I’d been wilted and sated, then I’d fallen asleep between them.
The beep came again. Lifting my head, I looked about the bedroom. I was alone, the bed cold on either side of me. I didn’t stir when the men left, so they were either stealthily quiet or I’d been dead to the world.
Beep!
Grabbing the sheet and wrapping it around me, I went out into the living room, noting for the first time the small table with three chairs, the oversized couch bolted to the floor, the stark walls and utilitarian emptiness of the plain brownish walls. The whole thing screamed bachelor pad, and I wondered what kind of decorations I might find to make it feel more like a home and less like a hospital room.
Mastered by Her Mates (Interstellar Bride Book 0) Page 9