The Commanders' Mate

by Grace Goodwin

  “You transported a long way,” the voice by my ear murmured. Oh, this other voice was deep, delicious. “No headaches, nausea…”

  I turned my head and looked up at him. Wow. There were two hotties. This one was a surfer god… all tousled blond hair, golden streaks as if out in the ocean and sun all day. His coloring was similar to the other, but his eyes… like caramel.

  Warden Egara had said I’d been matched to Prillon Prime, which meant these men were Prillons. And like the dream, there were two of them. She’d actually said, “You’re going to a good place.”

  I believed her now. I could see why she said I’d be happy. Why the woman in the testing dream had been in heaven in the middle of a sexy man sandwich.

  He, too, was waiting for me to respond. I shook my head. No pain. No unsettled stomach. I was a little sleepy, but I didn’t want to close my eyes or sleep. I wanted to look at these two all day long. “No, I’m fine.”

  I might have been on another planet, but it only felt like ten minutes since I’d spoken with Warden Egara, her telling me the testing had been successful. The same amount of time since the dream. Since I’d come. Hard. My body was still lethargic and sated from that. My pussy still felt achy and tender, as if the dream had been real. My nipples were pebbled beneath the borrowed shirt because arousal still lingered.

  I wasn’t unwell. I was horny. But I didn’t say that to either of them.

  “We need to get her off this ship. Now.” The one whose lap I was in spoke again, his words clipped, his deep voice vibrating through my entire body and straight to my core. I nearly moaned, but bit back that response and replaced it with a soft sigh, burrowing deeper. This warrior was mine, too. I just knew it. If his hands softly stroking my skin weren’t signal enough, when I turned around to face him, my eyes widened as I saw his bare chest. I was wearing his shirt. It smelled like him.

  And I was naked beneath, the cool air flowing over bare skin under the heavy garment. Obviously, the hospital gown outfit I’d been wearing during testing didn’t make it through transport.

  The tanned coloring of his skin wasn’t a tan at all. It was his natural skin tone. Every single well-defined muscle was visible, rippling as he moved, as he breathed. And the huge, naked chest I leaned against was pure, raw seduction. My mind went weird because all I could think about was trying to bounce a quarter off those abs. I wanted to lick him. Bite him. Taste him. I’d never seen muscles like this. Ever.

  No doubt, the brooding warrior leaning over me like a dark angel would be just as freakishly hot with his shirt off. But he wasn’t touching me. Hell, he stared at me like I was a bug under glass, a puzzle to be figured out.

  A problem to be solved.

  “No. She will remain, for now. The injured must go first.” My dark-haired warrior’s voice sounded angry, not at all pleased to meet me. Which wasn’t how this was supposed to go down. They were supposed to see me, want me, claim me. Hot sex and heat and perfect matches. That’s what I was expecting.

  But as I blinked away my hot sex, orgasm fueled transport haze to look around, I noticed new sounds.

  Groans of pain.

  Cursing—and thanks to the handy NPU Warden Egara had put in my head, I could understand all of it—in every language.

  The smell of burnt flesh and blood wasn’t strong enough to make me sick, but it was there, hovering like the stink of charred weeds from a days-old ditch fire.

  What the hell? I craned my neck to see, but the dark warrior shifted position, blocking my attempts to see what was going on behind him. Big freaking shoulders? Yeah. Too big, at the moment.

  “Injured? What? Who’s hurt?” I asked, tensing. The big hand from my golden mate began to rove over me again, up and down my back, as if to soothe me.

  “Get her out of here, Kaed.” The stroke of his hand was gentle, but the male who touched me sounded far from tender. “Now. She can’t be here.”

  “I just got here. Why do you want to get rid of me?” I asked them both.

  “This ship is not safe. It has been under Hive attack.” Kaed. That was his name. The dark, brooding sex god who looked good enough to eat. Thank you, Warden Egara…

  “But you are here,” I countered. “I am your mate. I go where you go.”

  “No. You do not.”

  “Yes, I do. That’s how this mate thing works.” Duh. I could write it out in big, elementary school sized, block letters for him if he needed me to.

  Behind me, the hot chest I leaned against chuckled. “Earth females. I knew she would be feisty.”

  Feisty? They hadn’t seen anything yet. I’d show them fucking feisty. I did not travel halfway across the flipping universe to my perfect match to be left behind, tossed aside or treated like a child. Whoever this glowering, grumpy, sexy big boss-man was…he would learn that he would not be allowed to boss me.

  “Do not encourage her, Ronan. I will not have my mate in danger,” Kaed replied.

  “You’ll send me off? I don’t even know your names.” That was a lie. I was observant, and I listened well. But I made the soft plea anyway, wanting to hear their names spoken just for me. Ronan and Kaed. Kaed and Ronan. Not too weird, for a couple of aliens.

  I had no idea what information Warden Egara had sent to him… them about me, but I knew nothing about them other than they would be from Prillon Prime, and there would be two of them. That was the sum total of my knowledge.

  “I am Commander Makaed Karter of Battlegroup Karter. I am your mate, your primary male.” He sighed, looked past me, behind my shoulder. “The Prillon warrior whose lap you are upon is your second, Commander Ronan Wothar.”

  I turned my head, like in a tennis match, back and forth, relieved to have them confirm that they really were my mates. Two commanders? Holy shit. I really needed to send Warden Egara a thank you note. They were gorgeous, perhaps a little too intense, but… gorgeous.

  “What do you know of me?” I asked.

  Commander Karter shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Besides the fact you have a birthmark on the right side of your ass and your pussy is bare,” Ronan murmured in my ear. “You will call me Ronan.”

  I squirmed both at the needy way he said the word pussy, and at the small command. I loved to push, it was true. But when a strong male pushed back? Damn. My pussy was coated with wet heat. I was in lust.

  Kaed—I couldn’t think of him as Commander Karter, not when he looked at me like that—took a deep breath and I watched his eyes darken, glancing from where my naked bits were hidden under Ronan’s huge shirt, to my eyes, which were most likely broadcasting my desire to claw my way up his chest and ride him. He shuddered and tore his gaze from mine.

  “Now is not the time to talk about her pussy, Second. She is in danger. We have to get her out of here. Now.” He stood and I had to tilt my head back… and then some more to look at him. He had to be seven feet tall.

  “Perhaps we should at least ask her name,” Ronan countered.

  They both looked to me. “Erica.”

  Ronan repeated it, as if he’d never heard it before but Kaed’s face went from heated to cold. Barren. Ice. There he was…the commander of an alien army.

  “Commander Karter,” I began.

  “I am not your commander,” he replied, the scowl on his face genuine and his angular features were hard to read. Maybe, in time, I would figure out their facial expressions.

  But for now? Trying to figure out what he was thinking was like staring at a brick wall.

  No wonder their females needed the mating collars. A psychic connection would be really handy right about now.

  And my mates were both commanders? I had read enough about the Interstellar Coalition Fleet to know that meant they were both really high up the food chain, in charge of an entire sector of space and thousands of people. Kind of like a general back on Earth.

  Great. Just great. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Two mates were great, but two alien generals? No wonder everything they did se
emed so intense.

  Ronan stood, lifting me as he did so. He took my hand and gently placed me on my feet. Thank god Ronan was so tall. His shirt came down to my knees, so I felt like I was wearing a heavy cloak. His hand went to my waist to ensure I wouldn’t fall. The metal floor of the odd room was cold beneath my bare feet.

  “How long until all the injured have been transported to med units?” he asked, turning to a man who stood behind a long table. Similarly dressed to Karter, the warrior’s hand flew across the flat panel, as if it were a control board. I looked around, having to peek around Karter’s big body to see the rest of them. There were close to two dozen warriors in the room. Some injured. Some obviously medics of some kind.

  They’d all seen me naked.

  That was just freaking great, too. I didn’t flaunt what I had. I was okay with my size. I was big everywhere. Tall. Full ass. Large breasts. Big thighs. A round, soft stomach that was soft as silk to touch. I was not fashionable back home. Too big. Too tall. Too much. I’d worked hard learning to love my body, and my attitude the last couple years had been if you don’t like it, move on. I was past the point in my life where I was willing to try to change myself to fit someone else’s idea of perfection.

  But these warriors made me feel like a tiny Barbie doll.

  Maybe they wouldn’t mind having a bit more to hold onto.

  Two soldiers—the black outfits were now clearly uniforms—carried another warrior up a few steps to a flat area, laid him out and left him. The floor vibrated beneath my feet, and the hairs on my body stood up as if I had the worst case of static electricity. All at once, the body was gone, the vibrations diminished.

  “Wow. Can you say, ‘Beam me up, Scotty’?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes, sir,” the man at the controls replied.

  I looked around, realized there were injured all around the room. Some were thrashing, moaning, but most were unconscious—or at least I hoped they were that way and not dead. They were being tended to, but there were more wounded than there were medics to help them. A door silently slid open and another injured warrior hobbled in, his arms thrown over the shoulders of two additional Prillon warriors who were helping. He was bigger even than my mates, his face oddly misshapen, like he’d been in the middle of a transformation.

  “Fuck. That’s Warlord Braun. How the hell did he get on the Varsten? He was sent to The Colony.” Karter cursed and Ronan’s grip tightened around my hip at the question.

  “He volunteered. He’s got Hive tech embedded in his brain. We knew you wouldn’t be willing to give us Commander Chloe Phan. We were hoping Braun would be able to predict the attack.” Ronan’s explanation seemed to make the commander even more upset.

  “Last I heard, he had mating fever. Fucking I.C. Never know when to quit, do you?”

  Ronan looked away from Karter’s accusing stare, and I returned my attention to the gigantic male leaning on two others for help. His uniform was shredded across his abdomen and thighs, blood oozing from his boots every time one of the soles hit the smooth floor.

  Warlord Braun was nearly two feet taller then the Prillon duo carrying him. Eight and a half feet tall, at least, his face oddly out of proportion, his jaw too wide. I’d seen a few Atlan warriors guarding the perimeter of the Bride Processing Center, but they hadn’t looked like this. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  “He’s in beast mode,” Ronan answered.

  Beast mode?

  “It’s on you if he can’t come back.” Commander Karter swore and walked away from us, back in operational mode. I could see it now. A general. Someone used to being in charge. And whatever Ronan had done, somehow Karter blamed him for this Warlord’s injuries, and his beast mode.

  “What happened here? Do the medics need help?”

  “This ship was attacked by the Hive. About half of those who’d remained on board are dead, but there are survivors. They are being transported to other ships where ReGen pods can save them.”

  “ReGen pods?”

  “Curious, too?” Ronan grinned, but in a flash it was gone. “ReGeneration Podules. They can heal almost any wound, as long as the injured warrior arrives in time.”

  In time? As in, not dead?

  Grins, bare chests, and rippled abs were quickly forgotten. I’d transported into a triage area.

  “We have to help,” I replied, seeing a guy who was bleeding from his arm. It seemed aliens bled red as well, a pool of it forming at his side. I dashed over, dropped to my knees and pressed the hem of the big shirt I wore against the wound. The person who was helping him looked at me, surprised. He was waving some kind of blue wand over the unconscious fighter.

  “Take this, Lady Karter, continue to wave it over his torso.”

  I frowned, not sure what the device was, or why he was calling me Lady anything, but I did as I was told, continuing to hold pressure. With no medical knowledge beyond what I’d seen on TV, I wanted to be of some help. When the injured man opened his eyes, looked to me, I leaned over him. Smiled. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  “Lady Karter?” he murmured, the question gritted out in obvious pain, but even then, he seemed oddly pleased by his words.

  “I’m Erica. You’re going to go on a little trip to a med center to get all healed up in one of those pod things.” I continued to wave the wand over him and squeezed his arm. “I just got here all the way from Earth. You don’t have to be afraid of the transport. If I can do it, you can.”

  The tension left his face, if even just a little bit. Was he smiling at me?

  “Twenty-seven minutes?” Karter asked.

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  The vibration and electrical sizzle happened again. I recognized it now as part of transport. Good, another injured warrior was off to get help.

  “That’s her?”

  I turned my head when I heard the new voice. I was the only her I could see and knew they were talking about me.

  Another huge, caramel colored Prillon stood and stared at me. He, too, had on the black uniform, and he stood next to Commander Karter as if he owned the place.

  Must be Karter’s mini-me.

  Ronan he ignored completely, as if my second were invisible.

  Why that bothered me, I couldn’t say, but something was going on between my mates, something they had yet to tell me. Unless all Prillon warriors just liked to argue with one another about what to do with a female. But that didn’t seem right, either. Not according to that amazing, sexy, perfect matching dream I’d had at the testing center. Those two males had seemed in perfect accord.

  “You’ve been in touch with the Karter?”

  “Yes, the shield upgrades have been activated, but we won’t know whether or not they’ll hold unless the Hive attack.”

  Commander Karter was staring at me. So was this new Prillon. And Ronan. I seemed to be the center of attention.

  “Bard, I don’t want my mate blown to bits within ten minutes of transport,” Karter snapped.

  “Perhaps we will acquire more information from the probe.”

  “Gods be damned if we don’t. We’ll lose this fucking war.”

  “No, we won’t.” That was Ronan, and he walked around Bard like the new warrior was beneath his notice.

  Men.

  Ronan continued. “We survived their transport upgrades. Integration Units activating on the battlefield. We’ve survived worse. We will figure it out. We always do.”

  “Fight. War. We win.” The huge Atlan’s voice startled everyone as Warlord Braun was escorted up to the transport pad. His gaze was intense, and he was staring at me. “Fight for mates. Fight. Destroy. Win.”

  The buzzing sound of the transport pad took the Atlan from us, breaking the spell his relentless stare had cast on me. God, Atlans were intense. Huge. Scary. I would bet this Warlord Braun could rip someone in half with his bare hands. Literally.

  The Prillon standing next to Karter—Bard—grinned. When our eyes met, he winked, but remained st
ern. “Braun is right. So is the I.C. We fight, Commander. We’ve survived worse.”

  “My mate has not. She should not be here, on this ship. This is why all non-essential personnel from the Varsten are safely behind the nearest star. We have no idea if they’ll strike again without getting the data from that probe. Would you want your mate here?”

  The other Prillon’s shoulders went back as if he’d been insulted. “Of course not.”

  “The situation is impossible. My mate is in danger, but I am not a simple warrior, Bard. The injured must come first,” Karter said, looking to me. “My female suffers, coated in blood, while I am forced to give priority to the wounded.” He looked grim. It was obvious he didn’t want me here, but did he not want me at all?

  “Once they are gone, you will transport with your mate,” the other told Karter. “It is only a few minutes. Go back to the Karter. Claim your mate. I will take command here.”

  Karter narrowed his eyes. “Bard, the Hive will come to Sector 437 next. I do not have the luxury of claiming a mate. Not now.”

  I was confused. His name was Karter, but wondered why he was talking about himself in the third person. As to the rest? That wasn’t confusing at all. He didn’t have time for me, didn’t want me.

  So much for a ninety-nine percent perfect match. But then, that was compatibility, and I could not deny that everything about him made me hot.

  “I’ve sent three of our best warriors out with an I.C. operative to retrieve the probe,” the man Karter called Bard replied. “It will take at least twelve hours for them to retrieve it and return. If they have any trouble establishing a visual, it could take longer.”

  Probe? While I had an NPU, they were speaking in words I didn’t understand. What probe? And why a visual? That didn’t make sense. Didn’t aliens have radar? Or sonar? Something?

  When the injured guy before me sucked in a breath, I turned back to him, smiled down. Reassured him the best way I knew how.

  Another set of vibrations and static electricity. One more wounded warrior off to receive needed help.

  The doors to the transport room slid open again and several additional injured were brought in. Something happened here—although I didn’t exactly know where here was—some kind of Hive attack. Something bad. Warden Egara told me the Prillon always took mates as a duo in case one of them was killed.