“You seem very excited about this,” I replied. My palms were damp and I had nowhere to wipe them.
“I know firsthand that Prillon males are very virile. Possessive. Dominant.”
Yes, that summed up the guys in my dream, and I hadn’t even remembered their faces. Only their cocks.
“Firsthand? You were mated?” I asked.
The excitement diminished on her face. “Yes, but that was a long time ago.”
I knew from the program’s information that a match was for life, at least after the first thirty-day trial period. That meant that something terrible had to have happened to both of her mates for her to be back on Earth.
“Do you accept your match?” she asked next.
Did I want to stay on Earth and find a man? Hell, no. My work hunting sex offenders and traffickers had ruined me for any guy on Earth. What they did to women, and worse, children, had me avoiding all of them. Unfair? Yes. There were good guys out there, but I wasn’t wasting my time trying to find them among all the bad apples. Working for the FBI exposed me to the worst criminals and the underbelly of society. I knew I was jaded, untrusting and cold. I’d had to build a wall of ice around my heart to survive. The women and children I’d helped didn’t need me to be soft or needy. They needed me to be hard, merciless and vicious, just like the criminals I’d spent the last few years hunting.
And I’d played my part. Now I was broken.
No, I needed a fresh start on a planet where I wouldn’t look at every man and assume the worst. Why waste time trying to find a guy who wasn’t an asshole when I could get the perfect man—or two—with one efficient, well-proven matching test?
And it seemed I was to have two mates. God, I’d never even thought of the possibility before now. Why would I? I didn’t even want one Earth man, let alone two.
“I’m matched to one warrior from Prillon, but I get two mates?”
She cocked her head to the side slightly. “Yes, you are matched to one Prillon warrior, but they always claim a mate with a designated second. They warriors of Prillon Prime are well known to battle the Hive in deep space. They have a high rate of casualties and choose a second to protect their mate and care for any children in case the unthinkable happens.”
“In case they are killed in action?”
Her gray eyes were sad. “Yes. They would never leave their family unprotected. All Prillon warriors choose a second, a male they trust and respect. This second warrior will be just as devoted a mate as your first. Legally, according to the laws of Prillon Prime, you will be mated to both.”
“Like the dream.” I remembered the specific wording that he’d said to me and that I’d used to reply. Our claim. Not mine.
“Like the dream. Once you meet your mates, you will have thirty days to accept their claim or tell them you wish to be matched to another.”
Accept their claim? Yes, I knew what the claiming was like and I squirmed.
“For the record, do you accept this match?” she asked, her voice becoming even toned and official. “Once you accept the match, you will become an official citizen of Prillon Prime. You will not return to Earth, Kristin.”
Did I accept the match? If I said yes, I was going to be transported off Earth and to Prillon Prime, several light years away. This wasn’t a trip to Italy.
But wasn’t this exactly what I wanted? I’d volunteered for this. I’d put my own butt in the stupid hospital gown and submitted to the testing. I’d loved every minute of that dream. I wanted more. I wanted to feel like that woman, wild and wanton and free.
“Yes.” There was no going back now. “Yes, I accept the match.”
She nodded once, her fingers swiping busily across her tablet. “To follow protocol, please state your name.”
“Kristin Webster.”
“Have you ever been, or are you now, married?”
“No.”
“Any biological offspring?”
“No.”
“I am required to inform you, even though I mentioned it already, that you will have thirty days to accept or reject the mate chosen for you by the Interstellar Brides Program’s matching protocols.”
I took a deep breath, let it out. No more sex crimes unit. No more bad guys. No more FBI. Hell, no more Earth. Just what I’d wanted.
I took a deep breath, let it out. “I guess I’m going to Prillon Prime. When do I get my men?”
I couldn’t help but grin at the idea. It seemed insane. It was insane.
She looked down at the tablet again, did some more swiping, glanced up. Smiled brilliantly. “How about right now? Your mate resides on a secondary Prillon planet known as The Colony. You’ve been matched to a warrior with ninety-eight percent compatibility.”
The Colony? Never heard of it, but who cared. Alien was alien. “And the second mate is the other two percent?” I wondered.
She stepped back, laughing at my sarcasm. “You could say that.”
With one final swipe of her finger, the wall behind me opened, a blue light coming from beyond. I turned my head, but couldn’t see anything but the colored glow.
“Don’t panic. When you wake, Kristin Webster, your body will have been prepared for their customs and your mates’ requirements. He will be waiting for you.” She spoke as if from a script, and that meant I wasn’t the only woman who panicked right about now.
Two large metallic arms with gigantic needles on the ends appeared to be headed for the sides of my face. “Hang on a second. What they hell are those things?”
I tried to wiggle away, but that wasn’t working since I was still strapped to the damn chair.
“They will insert the Neuroprocessing Units that will integrate with the language centers of your brain, allowing you to speak and understand any language. Be calm and you’ll soon be with your mate.”
I held my breath as the needles came closer, then pierced the sides of my temples, just above my ears. I winced, but it wasn’t really that painful. Once the robot arms retracted, my seat slid backward and I found myself being lowered in a warm, blue-glowing bath. I exhaled and relaxed, for all my fears seemed to melt away.
“Kristin Webster, you are off to your Prillon warrior. I am not biased, since everyone is matched to the planet perfect for them, but I hold a soft spot for those Prillon males. I know you will be happy, as I once was.”
I sighed, closing my eyes. Happy? That was the biggest dream of all.
“Your processing will begin in three…two…one.”
Everything went black.
Chapter Two
Captain Hunt Treval, The Colony, Base 3, New Arrivals Processing Room
Impatience clawed through me, making me twist in my seat. Across the table, our four newest arrivals stared at me with a mixture of rage and despair. They attempted to mask their pain, but the anger? The anger was clear in the tense lines of their bodies, the grim set of their lips, the complete lack of humor in their gazes. They were warriors of the Coalition Fleet, had survived capture and torture at the hands of our enemy, the Hive, and now they were here.
No one ever wanted to be here.
The fury was something warriors were all too familiar with. And those sent to the Colony had more reason to rage than most. I knew. We all knew. We were outcasts. Abandoned. Rejected by the people we’d fought to protect after suffering agonizing torture and experimentation at the hands of our enemies. We survived, some of us barely, but we were no longer wanted. And that was difficult to accept. Arriving at the Colony was proof of that rejection, just as the changes to our bodies were proof that we would never again be whole.
Anger masked a good many other emotions, but especially pain. As warriors, we were the strongest, toughest fuckers in the universe. We didn’t do heartbreak. Most of those who’d come through this room in the last two years—since I’d been put in charge of acclimating new arrivals—would prefer torture to tears. These four, it would seem, were no exception.
“I wish to return to my home planet.” T
he large Atlan Warlord, a giant fighter named Rezz, glared at me from his seat. His dinner-plate-sized hands clenched and unclenched on the arms of his chair and I glanced into the corner of the room where my second, Captain Tyran, stood with both an ion blaster and tranquilizer gun at the ready. I met his dark gaze, just for a moment, a question in my eyes.
Tyran nodded, the movement nearly imperceptible. He was ready to shoot. Not that he would need the weapons, even on a beast. The Hive had enhanced Tyran’s bones and every major muscle group in his body. He was strong, stronger than any living creature I’d seen, including an Atlan in full beast mode. When Tyran and I had been captured together, we’d been friends. After what they’d done to us, I knew there was no other I would trust with a mate, and I’d asked him to be my second.
Needing each other’s trust in battle was over. Sharing a mate would hopefully be our future and even more important than anything else we’d done.
When the first mate had been assigned to someone on the Colony, a woman from Earth named Rachel, I’d been skeptical. But watching as she’d held one of us as he died in her arms had changed my mind about the Interstellar Brides Program. About having a mate. I’d wanted a female’s gentle hands to caress my flesh, to look upon me with something other than fear. Gods, I wanted that badly, but assumed being exiled to the Colony meant that pleasure would never be mine, that I’d never be granted a mate, never share a hot, willing female with Tyran.
But Rachel’s arrival changed everything. Eager, I’d been tested the next day, Tyran the day after. And now, we simply waited and tried not to hope. Hope was painful, filling my chest with an emptiness no amount of drinking or work could fill. Every time I saw Rachel—Lady Rone—with her mates, Governor Maxim and Captain Ryston, that hope grew worse.
I’d learned hope was a dangerous thing. Some was required to survive, but too much and disappointment would be cruel. It was a precarious balance I’d lived with since my own arrival on this planet.
But it had been weeks since my testing, since Tyran’s. Hundreds of warriors on the Colony had been tested and no new brides had arrived. Those of us trapped here began to give up on being matched once again. Hope waned. Anger was better. And work.
I had three Coalition warriors before me, and one bone-chilling Hunter from Everis, who, even now, sat separated and distant from the others. From the looks in their eyes, they had zero hope and that was why Tyran kept his hand cautiously hovering over his ion pistol as he stood near the door.
The Hunter, Kiel, had been rescued from a separate section of the Hive building, a section reserved for breeding. He looked harmless enough, his dark hair and pale skin more like a warrior from Earth or Trion. But he was far from human, the Hunter’s skills of his people frightening and unexplainable. They were like phantoms who could see into the darkness of space. Nothing and no one could hide from them.
Kiel was our first Hunter, and I wasn’t quite sure yet what we were going to do with him.
None but myself and Governor Rone knew the complete contents of these men’s files, but I shuddered to think what the proud and deadly Hunter had endured. The Everians were the Fleet’s deadliest assassins, spies and trackers. They made up a large portion of the Coalition Fleet’s Intelligence Core, and the Hive, when they captured a Hunter, were absolutely merciless. I was shocked the Hunter had survived.
Kiel of Everis must have a will of iron. Unbreakable. Which was helpful in battle, but not here. I needed these men to work as a team, integrate into our society. Gain some hope that, while their old lives were over, new ones could be forged. It was my job, my duty, to make sure they did.
These men needed work, purpose, a place to live and a new group of brothers-in-arms to help them cope with their new lives.
The Colony wasn’t a home, not for any of us. Even with the governor’s mate here, it wasn’t enough. This place was a prison, our last stop, and we all knew it. Someday, with mates and children, it could become a home for all of us. Until then…
“None of us are going home, Warlord.” I pointed to my right eye, pulled up the sleeve to reveal my left arm and hand and the metallic hue just beneath the surface of the flesh on my exposed arm. I never wore my armor for these meetings, instead opting for a short-sleeved civilian tunic and pants to remind these warriors that I was not fighting them. I was not the enemy. I, too, had battled, been taken prisoner. Tortured. Escaped. Survived. Lived.
Rezz’s eyes darted to my arm then lingered on the hand-sewn decoration lining the seams, noticed the green mating collar I wore around my neck, and his frown deepened. That lingering stare, and the disdainful snarl on his lip at the sight of my collar, didn’t improve my mood. I’d been wearing it for three months, since the day I’d gone through the bride testing protocols. Wearing it to encourage others to be tested, to show them I had hope she would come. That I was already hers, wherever in the universe she was. As my hope waned, the presence of the collar became the source of jokes at mealtimes, the others sneering at my optimism. Some even doubted I’d actually been tested.
I didn’t care what those fuckers thought. I had that damn hope. I was determined to be stronger than they. I refused to believe this lonely life was my destiny. I refused to take it off. She would come. Someday.
“I will not remain here, a prisoner,” Rezz insisted.
“You aren’t a prisoner, Warlord.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair, prepared for the worst. Twice in the last ten years a beast had arrived and lost control. A fact not lost on myself or any other Colony officer watching the exchange. Tyran was not the only security in the room. Three warriors per new arrival was my preference. Today, we fell well short. Counting Tyran, there were only seven guards—and none of them were Atlan. If Warlord Rezzer lost his temper and went into Beast mode, even with Tyran’s strength, we’d most likely have to kill the Atlan. An action I would prefer to avoid.
Once, the thought of executing the beast would have sent me into a spiral of anguish and self-hatred. Regret. Frustration and a sense of betrayal. But he wasn’t just dealing with being on the Colony, his beast was, too. It was an internal battle of wills and I had yet to know who would win with Warlord Rezzer.
I knew how he felt. Trapped. Escape one prison to arrive at another. I’d been on the other side of this table with Tyran beside me three years ago. And just before that, we’d spent three agonizing days in the hands of the Hive Integration Units before the Coalition ReCon team got us out of there. We’d been lucky. Salvageable. Although it hadn’t felt like luck at the time.
Now, the only emotion flowing through me, as I watched Rezz fight for control, was resignation. He would either control himself, or he would not. There was no half-measure.
And he wasn’t wrong. Although technically, this wasn’t a prison, none of us would go home. Ever. And although the common perception on the Coalition Worlds was that the warriors of the Colony were contaminated with Hive technology and not fit to re-enter society in their home planets, the truth was worse—but easier to accept.
The Coalition Fleet couldn’t stop Hive command communications on a broad scale. Every warrior here had imbedded Hive tech that couldn’t be removed, not if we wanted to stay alive. We were only safe on the Colony because we were so deep inside Coalition space that the Hive couldn’t reach us to fuck with our minds or control us like puppets. There were a few with experimental implants being tested. We were testing a new scanning and interference frequency generator. And Lady Rone, an expert scientist in brain and body chemistry, was helping us test new ways to strengthen our bodies against Hive attack.
But I knew it might not be enough.
The highest levels of command didn’t want to alert the civilians on our planets to the fact that we were having trouble stopping the Hive. It was frightening, and could potentially cause panic. We were proof of that failure and we couldn’t uncover that political nightmare with our presence on the home worlds.
The Coalition Fleet was barely holding its own, struggling
to hinder the Hive expansion into Coalition-controlled space. We were on the brink of losing this damn war.
When Prince Nial became Prime of our planet, he’d inherited the mantle of command over the entire Coalition Fleet. Prillon Prime was the first world to stand up to the Hive and to recruit others, and the Coalition had grown around us. We’d been fighting a long, long time. Centuries. When Prime Nial took power, he’d lifted the ban on Hive-contaminated warriors going home, especially since he was one of them. One of us. That had led to more revelations…had forced the I.C., the Intelligence Core, to come forward with some hard truths.
We couldn’t go home. Ever. Not all of us.
Prime Nial was infected with Hive tech himself. But after his ascension to the throne, he’d met with the I.C., and they’d explained things to him, things those of us on the Colony already knew—that there was no way to ensure he could control himself in the face of a Hive command. The technology imbedded in his body still obeyed its master, and would answer when called.
The Prime had been given a special implant by the I.C., a permanent signal inhibitor designed to keep him free of Hive control. But it was experimental. And even with the inhibitors available, most Coalition planets refused to lift their ban on contaminated warriors rejoining their civilian populations.
Contaminated warriors were too big a risk. I didn’t disagree. I had to deal with them on a daily basis. Hell, I was one of them. Hoping that those on Prillon Prime would accept me and Tyran as normal was too much, even for me.
Prime Nial did his best, but in the end, most of the Prillon warriors on the Colony, myself and Tryan included, decided to stay. We’d all fought to protect our people. Going home like this, even with the experimental tech the I.C. offered, would place our families in danger and make our sacrifices, and the deaths of so many friends and fellow warriors, worthless. None of us wanted to lead the Hive to them, to turn on them and lose control.
So we stayed in a prison of our own design.
Mated To The Cyborgs (Interstellar Brides: The Colony Book 2) Page 2