It wasn’t ideal, but they’d given me a pill to help me sleep. I was calm—too calm—and I had a feeling that special pill worked a little too well. I’d always been sensitive to medications. They probably didn’t want me to freak out halfway through the journey, and I had to admit, neither did I.
If I thought about where I was going—what I had to do—for long enough, losing my freaking mind would be easy to do. I remained calm, slept, entertained myself with a tablet with movies. The perfect two-day “veg-fest” as long as I didn’t think about the fact that I was hurtling through deep space in a freighter at light speed.
Forty-eight hours I’d been locked inside this cube. Yes, I had a full suit of Coalition camouflage space armor and helmet. The squinty eyed-doctor in the Miami Processing center had promised me I could survive for two weeks on the air and energy processing units built into the suit. Much longer than the two or three day journey should require.
But I wasn’t sure I trusted that bitch. My head still hurt where she’d jabbed a needle into my skull to implant what they called a Neural Processing Unit, a gadget that was supposed to make it possible for me to understand every alien language I might encounter where I was going: The prison planet known only as The Colony.
The Colony was some kind of dirty little secret that no one was supposed to know about. Some of Earth’s troops were reported to be there, tossed away like garbage by our own government. A few months ago, Senator Brooks from Massachusetts had received word that his nephew, a Navy SEAL who had volunteered for the Coalition Fleet, had died on this far off world under mysterious circumstances. Captain Brooks apparently had a brother still out there somewhere, fighting.
The Senator loved his sister, and she loved her sons. The Brooks family was wealthy and powerful with a proud history of military service going all the way back to the Civil War. Mama Brooks had been furious when her sons volunteered for the Coalition Fleet. And now, with one still out there somewhere, and one dead under mysterious circumstances…well, she wanted answers.
And she was willing to pay to get them. Pay. Threaten. Cajole. Demand. She was willing to hurt my son to discover the truth about hers. I understood a mother’s love, the relentless ache of it. I’d agreed to take this assignment, not because I wanted to, but because refusing would cause Wyatt more pain. Success, however, would see his surgery paid for and performed by the very best doctors the Brooks family could afford.
And they could afford a lot.
And all I had to do was bring them the truth about the prison colony. The contaminated flesh of our warriors. The truth about what was happening to our military personnel.
Captain Brooks had served his country well, then volunteered to go into space as a Coalition fighter and battle the mysterious enemy no one had ever seen. The Hive. Rumors and conspiracy theories were everywhere. But these creatures were supposed to be terrifying beings straight out of Star Trek. Monsters so scary that the governments of Earth had agreed to the Coalition demand for brides and warriors to protect us from a Hive invasion.
A lot of people didn’t believe the Hive existed. That the whole thing was a government conspiracy, a cover-up, a way to sacrifice people to some strange alien force without raising alarm. Some thought our volunteers were nothing more than cattle being led to slaughter. The information shared on the news networks was vague. No pictures of these Hive were ever shared. They were just bad guys in space, far away, mythical things that could never hurt us. But that seemed to be just what the governments wanted us to know. People in power argued that if the truth of what was outside of our atmosphere, beyond our moon and the reaches of our space shuttles was shared, there would be pandemonium. Riots. Chaos in the streets.
They wanted to the truth to remain hidden, it seemed, for our own good.
I didn’t care about any of that. I cared about Wyatt and my mom. If someone was willing to pay me money to get the truth, then I’d go. I wasn’t interested in the truth. I didn’t care about conspiracy theories or cover-ups. I was interested in the money this assignment would pay. The surgery Wyatt needed that this money would cover. I cared about healing my son.
And if I failed? Well, there was a price to be paid. They would hurt him. They would kill my mother and torture my boy. Those small details something they’d chosen not to share with me until the very end, of course.
But I believed the threat. Something in Mrs. Brooks’ fanatical gaze sent a shiver down my spine. She’d lost both of her sons and, apparently, her mind and sense of human decency. Too late to turn back now. The only thing I could focus on was getting back home to Wyatt, who was probably asleep under his Power Rangers comforter with a stuffed tiger named Roar snuggled under his sweet, innocent little chin at this very moment.
Space aliens weren’t my biggest fear. Wyatt not being able to walk normally, not grow, be forced to watch from the sidelines as the other boys run and play? That would break his little heart, and my baby hurting was not acceptable. Not to me.
And the threats made against him? I couldn’t bare to think about that. I simply would not fail.
I startled as the crate shifted under me and I realized it was moving, swinging a bit as if being lifted and carried through the air on the end of a crane.
Everything was happening exactly as they’d told me it would.
Two days on board the freighter, arrival at the Colony. We’d landed a few hours ago, the rumble of the ship’s engines nearly rattling my teeth out of my head as we’d landed. A slight jolt when it made contact with the planet’s surface. And now, a few hours later, I was being off-loaded, stacked in their new storage facilities. I was packed in with a shipment of seeds from the Salvard Global Seed Vault. I’d been staring at their logo for so long, I could draw it in my sleep.
Apparently, the Colony was working to terraform their new planet to make it more appealing. They were bringing in plants native to every Coalition home world. I’d been sleeping next to thirty-foot tall maple, elm and locust trees. Also in the hold were spruce and drought resistant shrubs of every variety. Huge trees, too big to send via their precious transport technology.
We were headed to Base 3, where the Governor had, according to my sources, recently been mated through the Interstellar Brides Program to a woman from Earth. All of this was for her, his devotion—or obsession, depending on who told the story—was so complete that he was creating an Earth garden just for her. I would be able to sneak onto the planet because of some woman named Rachel that I’d never met.
The ways onto the planet were limited. No one from Earth was allowed unless he or she was a Coalition fighter or a bride. I wasn’t the military type. I’d never even held a gun before. The other option was to volunteer for the Interstellar Brides Program, but I didn’t meet their requirements. I had Wyatt. I was a mother. Besides, I had zero interest in being a mate of a space alien, or in leaving Earth.
No. I just wanted to get the damn story and get home. And so I was being drop shipped with a bunch of Earth trees as if by FedEx.
How this was possible on a prison planet, I wasn’t sure. But then, that was the reason for my assignment. To discover the truth about The Colony. To expose it. To get word back to Earth about what was really going on here. The shipment really was of trees and shrubs, flowers and bulbs. There weren’t military-grade arms hidden away. I’d had two long travel days to have proof of that. So was the shipment really because a governor on the planet loved his Earth mate? If that was the case, why had I been dressed in armor and warned to avoid detection at all costs? This damn suit of armor recorded everything, every heartbeat and blink of my eye, every second of activity, everything I heard or saw. If it so dangerous on the prison planet, why the trees?
Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter. Get in, get the info. Get home to Wyatt.
Shit. The armor. Stupid people back on Earth would probably download the data from it and wonder why the hell I’d just had an orgasm. I hoped not. Please, no. There were some details better left alone.
Dreaming about hunky Greek gods shoving me up against a wall and making me scream? Yep. That was one of those private kinds of things.
The crate settled with a soft bang and I checked the timer. I was to wait exactly twenty minutes, use the tools they’d given me to remove the bolts, remove the side panel, replace it, and find somewhere to hide and observe. I was supposed to remain hidden and gather information. That’s it. I had to be back here, back inside the crate in three days for the trip home. I checked my wrist unit and sighed with relief when I saw the counter was functional. Seventy hours and five minutes until I got to go home.
I had a map of the base, but they’d warned me not to trust it. The information was at least five months old and things move. They change. Empty rooms might not be empty.
But I was sneaky, and small, and quick. I’d been a gymnast in high school. I could scale walls and hang from rafters if I needed to.
When the time showed twenty minutes and two seconds, I took two deep breaths and put on my helmet before lifting the small drill to the corners of the crate and getting to work. To say I was eager to get out of the crate was an understatement. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but I was ready for some fresh air, some windows even.
Five minutes later I was free, the side replaced. I took deep breaths to calm my racing heart. God, I was really doing this. I looked around. The main lights were off in the storage room, only a few emergency beacons gave the space a soft white glow. Every crate and tree were giant shadows looming above me.
I was alone on an alien world, but I felt hunted. Watched.
Even the trees seemed to be keeping an eye on me.
Shrugging off the feeling, I scurried like a mouse to the edge of the storage room and started looking for the vents. The map I had memorized detailed a large air control system, the vents big enough for me to walk upright. The system of air tunnels formed a maze beneath the base. I tried not to think about going from one small space to another. I took a deep breath and thought about my son.
He didn’t need a weak, frightened mother. He needed me, he needed me to be strong.
And like the proverbial rat, I entered the maze. I had no choice but to try to survive it.
Chapter Two
Kiel, Everian Hunter, The Colony
The tight, wet walls of her pussy clenched down on my cock. I tried to be gentle, to hold back, but it hadn’t worked. Not when her soft voice all but begged me to fuck her. She wanted my cock, wanted it to fill her up. I wasn’t going to deny her, or myself, that pleasure.
I wasn’t one to let a female tell me what to do. I was the one in control. I was the powerful one. I was the protector, guardian, dominant. But when her pussy dripped all over my cock head, she had all the power and I all but bowed down to her. And when I was buried balls deep and my orgasm was building at the base of my spine, I’d given up. I took her. Hard. Deep. With masterful strokes, I brought her to the brink and then over. It was the sharp bite of her fingernails digging into my shoulders that pushed me over the edge. The feel of her heels pressing against my ass, pulling me into her impossibly deeper. The sound of her voice as she screamed her pleasure.
But it was the roar of my own release that woke me to my empty room. There was no woman pressed against a wall. No woman I held in place, her body settled onto my hard length, taking all of me, milking me deep. I was alone in my bed and I’d just come all over myself. My fist was wrapped around my throbbing member, seed still pulsing from the tip. There was so much. Too much. I had no memory of coming this hard before, and there was no willing female begging me to fuck her. No scent of her. Nothing. Nothing but a lingering dream and a body spun so tightly I felt like I was about to burst out of my skin.
My breathing was ragged, my skin heated. The simple sheet over me was too much. I pushed it down, felt the hot smear of my cum on my thighs. I closed my eyes, savored the last remnants of the mind-blowing orgasm. I exhaled deeply, gave over to the post-coital lethargy, but there’d been no fucking. No, I had a wet dream like a horny teenager. I hadn’t been able to control my impulses, my needs. It had been out of my control.
I stroked myself, working the last drops of seed from the tip. My belly was coated in the white essence and it began to cool.
“Fuck.” What the fuck had just happened? Had the Hive managed to get inside my head? Had they fucked with my mind the same way they’d fucked with my body?
All the hours they’d spent trying to force me to breed for them, to give them my seed, to fuck their disturbing female drones, I’d endured.
And now? One look at her, Lindsey, and I’d faltered. Lost my will to resist. To fight.
It had to be a trap, a trick of the mind. There were no women on the Colony who looked like her. No unclaimed females wandering the halls at night, passing so close that I might recognize the call of a marked mate and dream share with her.
This was the cruelest trick yet, not because the dream wasn’t pleasant, but because it had broken me. Bent me to their will—no—to her will.
Grabbing the sheet, I wiped my hand, then the rest of me. My skin was damp not only from my spilled emission, but from sweat. The dream had been hot. Heavy. My cock hadn’t diminished. It was still hard, still primed to fuck again.
To fuck her.
Her.
My mate.
I sat up then, drew my knees in, my eager cock pressing against my belly. It was the sure sign that what my mind was telling me was true. My cock knew.
My mate was near. Near enough to dream share.
I looked down at the palm of my hand, expecting to see nothing. Instead, I barely dared to breathe as I studied the hot, red mark that had been dormant my entire life. The birthmark of the Everian bloodlines burned. Tingled. Awake.
But that was impossible.
Even as I thought the word, my body disagreed. Mate.
Lindsey. My mate was Lindsey and she had gorgeous pale hair. So soft between my fingers. Her body was perfect, her hips wide and lush, my hands sank into her soft flesh as I held her up, held her in place as I fucked her deep. Her nipples were hard points, firm and hot against the roof of my mouth. Her cries of pleasure still echoed in my head.
Lindsey.
It had to be wrong. There was no mate for me here. No mate would be on The Colony. Those of us doomed to live here were banished, exiled. Left to a life alone. No mate, no family. Nothing but the memories of fighting and torture by the Hive. Nothing but barren, rugged landscape and a heart that matched.
But now? The pleasure lingered. My cock pulsed ready to fuck again. I had fucked her. I felt her, heard her. Shared with her.
I grabbed my hand, rubbed my thumb over the mark that was now hot, pulsing. Awakened for the first time.
But how?
Everian mates dream shared when their marked mate was near. I was old, too old to have hope left of finding my marked mate. It was hard when on Everis; not all marked mates found each other. But here, on The Colony? Impossible. There were no females here except the few who had been matched through the Brides Program. The few who had been Coalition fighters and escaped the atrocities of the Hive. They were settled on Base 6, on the other side of the planet. They’d been here long enough that if we were fated, then my mark would have awakened long before now. No, they were not for me.
But Lindsey was.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, let the air dry my damp skin. I ran my hand through my hair, took deep breaths to still my heart, but nothing would still my racing thoughts.
My mate was here. On The Colony. She had to be to be within the area of proximity for my mark to awaken, for us to dream share. She was nearby. Somewhere. Close enough to meet her in my dreams, to know she was perfect. I wanted her. So did my cock.
I gripped the base, stroked it, my thumb sliding over the underside of the head. I had to come again. The need for her was too great. I didn’t know anything about her, except I knew what she looked like, what she felt like when I was buried de
ep inside her, what she sounded like when she came.
Fuck, I was going to come, and only after a few strokes. If I didn’t remember the dream, I’d think something was wrong with me. Did other Everian males behave this way when they found their mate? Did they come all over themselves? Not once, but twice?
Fuck. I spurted hotly all over my hand, the sharp pleasure made me grit my teeth. I caught my breath. Again. I wiped my cum away. Again.
I stood, looked down at my cock.
Still hard. Still fucking needy for her pussy. The vein pulsed along the side, the head almost purple, angry that it could not be sated.
A beep came from the comm unit. I ran a hand over my face, felt the rasp of my whiskers. I walked to the table, picked up my wrist unit.
“Hunter Kiel,” I said, my voice harsh. Shit. Was this what the dream was doing to me?
“Kiel. We have a security breach.”
It was Governor Rone. Fortunately, if he noticed my gruff tone, he hadn’t mentioned it. He wasn’t one for many words when only a few would suffice. We were similar in that and perhaps that was why I respected the Prillon warrior so much. He also wouldn’t have called me for a petty task so this had to be serious.
The usual sharp awareness that filled me the moment I heard a message like this, one specifically tied to my hunting skills, pushed against the aftereffects of my dream, but could not take control. No, the mark was too powerful. I stood naked, cock hard, my need still thrumming through my veins and tried to think through the fog of lust clouding my mind, the fog of her.
The governor of our base called upon me to be the Hunter I was. That was my value to this planet. But my need? The intense pull the mark now had on me? It was for a different hunt entirely. I had to find her, to find my marked mate, wherever the hell she was, on this planet or another.
Cyborg Seduction (Interstellar Brides: The Colony Book 3) Page 2