Kiel spoke to her, but he was looking at me, his hand wrapped around the back of my neck in a blatant display of ownership I didn’t have the heart to reject at the moment. He was the only pseudo-friendly person in the room. The feel of his hand was reassuring, and very possessive. “She also arrived with full battle armor with life support capabilities.”
The warden whistled. “You’ve got rich friends.”
I shook my head. “They’re not my friends. They just really want this story.”
“What story?” Warden Egara asked.
Well, this was one part of the truth I could tell them. “They think this place is a prison and that our troops are being sent up here to be some kind of alien slaves. They sent me here to sneak around, take video and write an exposé on this prison planet and the horrible war crimes our troops are suffering.”
The governor cleared his throat. “That’s ridiculous. It’s Earth who refuses to accept her own warriors once they’ve been contaminated. They are here because they are denied permission to return home.”
“What?” I spun around to look at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Rachel rubbed her temples with both hands. “Good God. What a joke.” She looked up at the warden. “We’ll find out who sent her here and get the information back to you.”
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting.” The warden nodded once more, scowled at me like I’d just killed her puppy, and the screen want blank.
But Rachel wasn’t done with me. She spun on her heel, her eyes flashing. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Who betrayed us on Earth? Who sent you here?” Maxim demanded.
“I’m a reporter. I’m sorry. I can’t reveal my sources.” It was weak. Lame. If they wanted to torture me, beat the truth out of me, they could try. All I cared about now was getting back to Wyatt. I had enough of a story from what they were saying to know that the Colony had a public relations problem on Earth more than anything sinister going on here. At least, if I believed what was being said around me. Which I did.
“All right. If you want to share the truth about the Colony, then we will give you the truth. Not the blatant lies being spread on Earth.” Maxim looked down on me with a new expression on his face. I didn’t know these aliens, and I couldn’t read his expression well enough to know what he was thinking, but he didn’t seem angry, so that was a bonus. “Kiel, give her recording equipment and take her on a tour of the base. Find the warriors from Earth and allow her to speak to them, learn their stories. Take your video footage. Look around, female. See the truth. Then we will send you home.”
“What?” Rachel screeched as Kiel protested.
“No. She will stay.”
I was already shaking my head slowly, over and over. No. No. No. I couldn’t stay. I held Maxim’s dark gaze, as he seemed to be the only sane person in the room at the moment. “I can’t stay.”
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t let her go home, Maxim. God only knows what kind of lies she’ll feed the press. We’ll never get any mates to come here if she has her way.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
My protest was lost on deaf ears as Kiel’s angry voice filled the room. “She must remain on the Colony.”
Maxim’s eyes narrowed as he considered Kiel’s words, but I was still moving my head from side to side, unrelenting. “I have to go back to Earth. I’m not staying.” I glanced back and saw raw fury and open pain in Kiel’s eyes. The sight nearly broke me, but I had Wyatt. No matter how amazing, wonderful and sexy Kiel was, no matter how smoking hot his kiss, no matter the mind-shattering orgasms he gave me…I had to get back to my son. “I can’t stay here.”
Maxim spoke. “She is not part of the Interstellar Brides Program. She does not belong to the Coalition. She is not contaminated. If she does not wish to remain, we must send her home. Coalition protocol demands her safe return to her home planet.” Maxim’s words were like a death knell in the room and he cleared his throat, clearly unhappy. “Via transport this time. Am I understood?”
Rachel lifted her hand to her neck as if something pained her and her skin paled, as if she were about to faint.
But Maxim was talking to me, so I nodded, relieved that I wasn’t going to be kept a prisoner on this strange planet. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“We will give you the access you traveled so far for. So you may see the truth. Hear it. You will return to the Miami transport station, where I am quite sure Warden Egara will want to have a word with you.”
“Okay.” Whatever. I wasn’t a prisoner here. I wouldn’t be a prisoner once I got home, either. The warden wouldn’t be able to stop me from getting to my son.
It was my turn to clear my throat, fighting back tears at the idea of leaving Kiel behind. “When can I go home?”
Maxim studied me another moment as I ignored everyone and everything else in the room. “How much time do you need to gather information for your report?”
I had no idea, but not long. “A day. Maybe two.”
“One day. You leave this time tomorrow. If you aren’t going to stay, I want you gone as quickly as possible.” His gaze darted to Kiel, who was pacing behind me.
“One day,” I repeated. That should be more than long enough. By tomorrow afternoon, I’d be back in the main command building, in the transport room, on my way home to Wyatt.
And I was going to make sure I had one of those blue healing things when I went.
My hand was a fist at my side as I buried my pain at leaving Kiel. He was so angry at the possibility. No, not possibility. Reality. Fuck the people who sent me here. Fuck Wyatt’s doctors and their high dollar surgeries. I’d seen that blue wand heal worse than the broken growth plates in Wyatt’s leg bones. Surely one of those wands would be able to heal him, make him run and play again. Give him back his laughter. Coming this far, knowing that technology exists and leave it behind? Not happening. I’d find one and sneak it out.
Wyatt would be healed, but I’d be broken. At least my heart. One day was all I had left with Kiel.
As if he read my mind, he moved into place behind me, his hands on my shoulders. I felt the possession of his weighted touch, the heat of it. “No. She is my marked mate, Maxim. We must petition Prime Nial for an exception.”
Maxim’s entire demeanor changed and his gaze snapped to Kiel’s, his attention over my head. “Are you certain? There is no room for a mistake. Not in this.”
“She’s mine.” Kiel’s voice had dropped to a soft, threatening tone that made my heart race and my pussy wet. “I’m very sure. We’ve been dream sharing since her arrival.”
Dream sharing. So, I wasn’t going crazy? That dream I’d had when I was sleeping in that freight container had been real? It was a thing?
“She’s mine,” he repeated and the governor nodded in acceptance.
God, yes, I was his, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay. “I have to go home,” I repeated. Nothing had changed. Not one damn thing.
“I will contact Prime Nial at once.” The governor ignored me and spoke to Kiel as if my choice no longer mattered. Fine, I was his marked mate, but that didn’t mean I would choose him over Wyatt.
“Thank you, Maxim.”
“What? No! This is bullshit, Maxim—” Rachel’s protest faded as my head spun.
What the hell had just happened? One moment I was all set with a guided tour and a quick transport home. And now? “Who is Prime Nial?” I asked.
Kiel’s hand slid to the small of my back, pushing me out of the door even as I heard Rachel continue her protests. Seemed she was not as inclined to be nice to me as her mate. For some reason, she was like a mother bear and protective of her cubs—alien cubs at that—when someone came after them. She was trying to protect these big, burly men from the likes of me. If it wasn’t so necessary, it would be funny.
While she was in protective mode, the governor was pouring on the politics. He had to get Earth to play nice with the Colony, to mak
e this place seem…positive. He was hoping I’d meet the warriors, interview them, and write something that would make the Colony look good, make the Coalition Fleet look good.
Public relations were a bitch when they were trying to sell a war, especially to an entire planet of people light years away.
At least, that’s how things had been going…until Kiel turned caveman. “Who is Prime Nial?” I asked again with a sharper tone.
Kiel stopped me in the corridor outside the meeting room and pushed my back to the wall. Before I could protest, his mouth was on mine. Hot. Hard. Demanding.
I had no hope of resisting and I opened for him, welcomed the sweep of his tongue in my mouth as he groaned, his hands dropping to my hips as he pressed his hard length to mine. My mind drifted to naked places when he tore his lips from mine and buried his nose in my hair, drawing my scent into his lungs. “Prime Nial is the ruler of Prillon Prime, the leader of the Prillon people, and commander of the entire Coalition Fleet.”
Holy shit. And they were calling this guy? About me? “Why are you contacting him? Why would he care about me? I’m just a woman from Earth.”
Kiel nuzzled my neck, just below my ear, and I melted into him. God, he was so damn irresistible. The mark on my hand was on fire, so hot I rubbed the wicked flesh over my thigh to try to get it to stop burning. “Because you’re mine. Rachel is here from Earth because she was matched through the Interstellar Brides program. Kristin, too. Yet you came through…less legal channels. It matters not to me, only that you are here and that you are mine now.”
I sighed, and I knew the sound was pitiful and sad. “I can’t stay, Kiel.”
He growled softly, his hands wrapping beneath me to cup my ass. “You can, mate. You’re mine and I’m not letting you go. The Prime will petition Earth for an exception.”
“An exception?”
His lips were hot against my neck. “He makes the rules. He can change them. No one can doubt we are matched mates. That stands above any laws, any rules from any planet.”
Oh, shit. He was saying because I had the mark on my hand, because we dream shared, because I wanted him with an obsession that made my heart pound, that rules would be bent and broken so I could remain with him. I couldn’t let this happen. I had to go home. “I’m not your mate.”
“You are.” He lifted me, my back sliding along the wall as he positioned my clit over the hard, thick bulge of his cock through his uniform. My gasp of surprise turned into a moan of need as my pussy flooded with wet heat and my breasts grew heavy. I dropped my forehead to his shoulder, clung to him with a desperation I did not recognize in myself. Why? Why did I have to react to him like this? Why couldn’t I have the hots for an Earth man? Surely there had to be one guy on that planet who would make me feel this way.
“What if I say no? I read that Interstellar Brides have thirty days to decide. Don’t I get thirty days? Won’t this prime guy say I have thirty days, too?”
“Yes, mate. Most likely.” Kiel stilled, his back stiffening as he settled me on my feet and stepped away. His gaze was dark and brooding, hurt. But I couldn’t let that affect me.
With Wyatt’s future on the line, I didn’t dare do anything but exactly what I’d promised. I’d return to Earth with the truth. I’d give the people who hired me raw data, interviews and video. How they decided to spin it was up to them. If they wanted photos of frightening aliens on a prison planet, that’s what I’ve give them.
No one was going to hurt my baby. No one.
“Shall we begin the tour?” I asked.
Kiel scowled at me, but silently led the way.
Chapter Six
Kiel
My mate decided that the best way to discover the truth was to do interviews with the warriors living on the Colony. To get information from those that lived here. It seemed reasonable, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care that a planet halfway across the galaxy learned the truth about us. I had no opinion, as the only thing I cared about was keeping her with me. It was my job as her mate to keep her safe and happy. Nothing more. Maxim and Prime Nial could deal with Earth.
Maxim had agreed to petition the Prime to allow an exception to be made for Lindsey. Thank the gods, because I could not give her up. Every instinct, every cell in my body was utterly and completely hers. Just the thought of being separated from her in less than a day made me angry.
“Let’s set up the camera and mic over there.” Lindsey pointed to the end of a dining hall table in the main meal room. While each person’s quarters had a food unit, it was recommended—and observed—that everyone ate together. Since we all came from being held captive by the Hive, it was important for everyone to bond, to create a new bond, a new family of sorts.
The space was bright with light from the two suns shining through the wall of windows. It was a welcoming spot, intended to pull people together, to see their new world in all its rugged beauty through the glass.
I didn’t have as difficult a time as some did, trying to assimilate. But then, I understood the promise, how family and community worked. Hunters from Everis weren’t the best trackers because we didn’t understand how people worked, how they thought and felt, what they wanted.
No, we were the best because we did understand, and used the very emotional need for connection or recognition to good use. Even now, a handful of warriors lingered in the large room, clearly off duty at the moment, playing a game of chance with cards and numbered stones. Two were Prillon warriors I recognized, Captains Marz and Trax. An Atlan sat opposite them, Warlord Rezzer, whom I would owe a lifelong debt for protecting my mate in the fighting pits until I could arrive. Holding her own amongst the warriors, and the final player, was another human female. Kristin. She was small, but opposite my mate in every other way.
Lindsey had long golden hair, Kristin’s was of a similar color, but short, shorter even than Rezzer’s. Kristin was voluptuous with large breasts and full lips. Lindsey was lean, with small breasts, a muscular abdomen and a curved ass so perfect I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Like Lindsey, Kristin was from Earth. Unlike Lindsey, she’d volunteered to be a bride and eagerly mated to Tyran and Hunt upon her arrival. She wasn’t going home. This was her home now.
The group seated here, waiting for us, were my friends. My investigation team. The group I worked with on a daily basis to find Krael. My fellow Hunters, or as close as I was going to find on a planet where I was the only one of my kind.
I was the only one from Everis. The only one with a strange mark on my palm that had pulsed and come to life, that was pushing me to claim Lindsey and fighting with every atom of my being to keep her with me.
Isolation. Loneliness. I was no stranger to the darkness of true separation. I’d been so alone for a very long time. From the time I joined the Elite Hunters unit, to my confinement and torture with the Hive. And finally, here. The Colony. A prison without bars. A lifelong death sentence, especially if Lindsey returned to Earth.
Not happening.
I had refused the Interstellar Brides testing protocols, not wanting to hope. Not daring to hope.
But fate had dropped my marked mate right into my lap. I knew she wanted to leave me, she’d made that blatantly clear. Why, I had yet to discover. But it wasn’t because her body was cold to my touch. I saw need in her eyes when she looked at me, felt her pleasure when she came all over my cock. But with the need was also regret. Not for our connection, but for something else. Something I would discover.
My mate had secrets, but if she thought to walk away and keep those truths from me, she was sorely mistaken.
I was an Elite Hunter. There was nowhere in this universe she could go that I could not find her. Her scent was part of my cells, now. The sound of her voice the reason my heart beat. I could not lose her.
I wanted to toss her over my shoulder again and carry her off to my quarters, lock her in with me and never let her go. But that would not give me the answers I needed. She would not say, so I had to use my Hunter
senses and discover the truth other ways.
I set down the recording equipment on the edge of a table and walked to the nearby table where my friends played their game.
Clearly, they were bored out of their minds, waiting for me as I neglected my duties to our people so I could play escort to a woman who couldn’t wait to leave me.
“Kiel?” Lindsey’s voice made me turn.
“Yes, mate?”
“Stop calling me that.” Her hands were on her hips, her head tilted to the side as she scolded me. It was adorable. Perfect. So very Lindsey that I couldn’t help but smile. Yes, the need to carry her off was strong.
“Never.”
She blew her bangs out of her eyes and sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I’m all set up. Are you sure they’re going to come?”
I nodded, turning to look at Kristin where she sat with her legs crossed in front of her on top of the table. She was too small to sit in the chairs, and she hated being so much shorter than everyone else. “Kristin? How many humans are on Base 3?”
She tossed a card into the middle of the table and raised her gaze to me. “Five since Brooks.”
Behind me, Lindsey sighed. “Just five? Really? That’s it?”
Kristin’s gaze shifted to my mate, and the look in her eyes was neither welcoming nor hostile. Blank. Carefully blank. “There were six, before Brooks died. Eight, if you count me and Rachel.”
Kristin unfolded her legs and walked over to Lindsey, standing eye-to-eye with my mate. “Where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh. You?”
“I was born in San Diego, but I was an Army brat. We moved every other year.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kristin shrugged. “I’m not.”
“Where are you parents now?”
Kristin’s shrug was even smaller. “Dead.”
Lindsey froze, her hand stopping midway to the camera she was positioning for her interviews. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s life. Lindsey, right?”
My mate nodded.
“We heard about you. Everyone’s heard about you. We have to move on. Leave people behind. Adapt.” The words were simple, and just what my mate needed to hear. Being a marked mate was new to me, too, but I would adapt. Unlike Lindsey, I wanted to do so. I wanted to make a life with her.
Cyborg Seduction (Interstellar Brides: The Colony Book 3) Page 8