Mating Fever (Interstellar Brides Book 10)

by Grace Goodwin

  The beast had settled, for my new mate was no longer huge. Well, he was always huge, but he wasn’t beast huge.

  On long battles fighting the Hive, I’d slept wrapped around teammates for warmth. I’d allowed a lover to sleep over a couple times in the past. But no one’s presence had ever made me feel like this.

  Safe. Protected.

  Cherished.

  It was the last I struggled with. I’d heard all about Atlan women. They didn’t fight the Hive in battle. Yes, they were big and strong, but they didn’t go into combat. They didn’t suit up and carry ion blasters. And they sure as hell didn’t lure Hive creatures into remote caves and yank parts off their dead bodies.

  Nyko had painted such an amazing picture last night, promising me he didn’t want a docile, girly-girl. Part of me—no, a giant chunk of me—wanted to believe him. But then there were my mother’s words chasing each other around in my head. And my brothers’ taunts. And years of fighting and scrapping and being treated just like one of the guys. Did Nyko want a mate who was one of the guys? It wasn’t very sexy.

  I wasn’t mate material. I’d thought—hell, I had no idea what I’d thought. That I would be mated to someone far, far away, a man who’d never met me, didn’t know me, and who would have no idea about my past, my missions, my life. Had I hoped to keep my entire past a secret, be whatever he wanted without him ever knowing I was just one of the guys?

  But what kind of mating would that be? If I survived, I’d known I would no longer fight. I knew, deep down, I couldn’t pretend to be something I wasn’t. I let that sink in as I contemplated the fact that, technically, I was no longer a Coalition fighter. I’d done my time. I was a veteran now, an Interstellar Bride, a human who chose to be mated instead of going home to Earth.

  What was I supposed to do now? Right now? What did mated women do? Was I supposed to lie here like a lump on a log and wait for Nyko to wake up? He’d probably wake up horny. Hell, I was. As much as I liked the idea of more hot sex, I only had a few hours left on this ship and I had things to do, people to see. So no more cuddling or sleep for me.

  One long mission, a brain bleed, and a new mate? Surely that should wear me out. But nope. I was always high energy. Always had been. And I’d been put in a ReGen pod. Speed dial to high-energy reset. My mind wouldn’t just go quiet. Actually, the only time I’d ever had my brain go blank was when Nyko was fucking me. While the idea of doing nothing but fucking all the time was appealing on some level, it wasn’t going to happen.

  I needed to move. I needed to get out of this room and burn off some energy—and it wasn’t the sexual kind.

  I wanted to say goodbye to Seth and the rest of the team. As an I.C. recruit, I’d fought with a lot of different units, but Seth and Unit 3, the boys from Earth, were the closest thing I had to a family out here. Until now. I owed them a farewell…and perhaps one more good ass-kicking.

  Grinning, filled with equal parts glee and anticipation, I winced as I carefully slipped from Nyko’s touch and padded to the S-Gen unit in the corner of his room. I activated it with a wave of my hand and waited as the bright green light faded, my new armor and under suit waiting on the small platform.

  One thing that never failed to amaze me was the technology on these battleships. The first time I’d been shown how to operate an S-Gen in a cafeteria, I’d walked straight up to it and said, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

  It worked. I Captain Picard’ed that shit all over the place. Problem was, I hated bergamot, and the tea didn’t have any sugar or milk. Seriously. I couldn’t deal with that. So I gave it back and got coffee instead. Extra milk, extra sugar. As vices went, it was a small one. I knew guys with worse.

  Smiling, I pulled the black pants and shirt on over my naked body in preparation of donning my armor.

  “Where are you going, mate?” Nyko’s deep gravelly voice made my heart leap and my skin shiver with goosebumps. My nipples tightened at the soft rasp of his real voice, even though it was no longer laced with his beast’s intensity. Sleepy, relaxed Nyko might be an even bigger threat to my peace of mind.

  “Hogan’s Alley. ReCon 3 will be down there this time of day, giving each other hell.”

  My mate grunted as he rose from the bed, but he didn’t argue or tell me to stay. I’d been half afraid that once I had the mating cuffs on my wrists he’d turn psycho and get really, really bossy. “You wish to go to this Alley?” He walked over to the S-Gen unit and my mouth watered as I watched him, every glorious, naked inch of him. Somewhere deep inside me there was a cheerleader I’d never let out, and she was suited up, shiny pom-poms doing a dance as she chanted M-I-N-E, mine, mine, mine!

  I knew if he didn’t get pants on in the next few seconds, I’d jump him, plans be damned.

  I swallowed, licked my suddenly dry lips. “Yes.”

  “Very well. We’ll go.”

  “You don’t have to go with me,” I countered.

  That earned me another grunt. “Yes, I do. At least for now. When you wear the cuffs, mate, I must be nearby or we will both experience extreme pain.” He angled his head toward my arms.

  “What?” I scowled at the shiny metal circling both wrists. A few moments ago, I’d thought of them as pretty bangles, jewelry. More like a five thousand carat wedding ring than actual manacles. They were pretty, like Wonder Woman bracelets, although I doubted they deflected ion blasts. Tugging at them, my heart raced. I did not like to be trapped. Stuck.

  Nyko’s hands settled over mine and I calmed. “It’s all right, mate. Once we are on Atlan, you may remove them. Until then, you must wear them to protect yourself and everyone else on this ship.”

  “From what?”

  “Me.”

  That was the only explanation I got and I shrugged, following suit as Nyko donned his own armor and boots. He was ready before I was, which annoyed me almost as much as the un-removable cuffs.

  “What about you? Can you take yours off?” If they had some kind of chauvinistic, Neanderthal double standard, these things were coming off. Now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Megan

  “Never.”

  I quickly glanced up and saw the dark penetrating stare that matched the sharp tone of that one word. My heart skipped a beat. He would never take them off? “Never?”

  He stepped to me then, gently cupped my face in his massive palm. “Why would I want to remove them, Megan? They are a sign of your claim on me, the only thing that shows the others that I belong to you. They calm and reassure the beast that my mate is real, and near, and mine. Without them, I am naked and alone. Nothing. Another numb soldier just waiting for death to find me on the battlefield. Without them, my beast will fall into despair and go feral, wild with emptiness. The isolation will grow inside me like a disease until the fire of that pain is all I see and all I know, until I no longer recognize friend from foe.”

  “I thought the fever was over now that we…um, you know.”

  “That I claimed you?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes, the fever is broken, but that doesn’t mean my beast and I won’t go insane if you are not near.”

  “Berserker.” I knew Mating Fever would eventually kill an Atlan male, but I’d had no idea that once his beast mated, so would being away from their mate. I had no idea it was so intense. And now I understood why mated Atlans always retired, taking their mates and going home to live out their lives as civilians. There was no deployment and return home to the little wife six or nine months later.

  “I would have died if I hadn’t mated, but if you are separated from me, by choice or by force, I’ll lose control of the beast eventually. When you die, mate, I will go with you.” He lowered his head to kiss me full on the lips, a soft, slow, lingering kiss filled with a whole lot of emotions I couldn’t process yet. “I may have saved your life in that cave, Megan. But now, you have saved mine.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close because I had to. I had no idea this big and tough, stro
ng and fearsome male would have such soft, mushy insides. But Nyko did, and I knew I was the only person in the universe who’d ever see this side of him. It felt intimate, more intimate than having his cock inside me. This was personal. Real.

  This Nyko I could love, and that thought made it hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.

  I could have kissed him for hours, but I wanted to say goodbye to Seth, and I knew I’d never get another chance so I pulled my mouth from his and buried my face in his neck, surrounding myself with his scent. There was something so reassuring about the solid heat of him pressed against me. I didn’t want to analyze it, I just wanted to enjoy the feeling.

  Nyko’s hands ran up and down my back in a slow caress that made me feel like I was almost dainty, delicate and special. “We have a very important meeting today, mate.”

  I pulled back to look up into his eyes. The intense blue was focused on me, and completely serious. Butterflies fluttered through my stomach. What now? “With who?”

  “Commander Wulf.”

  “Why?” Warlord Wulf was the elected commander of the entire group of Atlans serving in the battlegroup. I’d seen him on the battlefield—heard him bellowing orders from nearly half a mile away—but I’d never met him.

  Nyko lowered his forehead to mine. “The Commander has access to the Atlan data files. He is going to show us everything currently available.” His smile was contagious. “Today you get to choose our estate on Atlan.”

  “What?” Shocked, I tried to straighten and pull away from him, but the arms that had been so soft and tender moments ago were like steel bands holding me to him. “What are you talking about?” Oh, I knew. I’d heard that an Atlan Warlord’s prize for surviving the war was wealth and lands and titles. The whole thing sounded like the old-fashioned romances my mother used to read where Dukes and ladies lived in grand estates with carriages and servants. I didn’t know if any of that was true, but I guess I’d find out.

  “I have been fighting for a long time, Megan. My people will gift me with wealth and property. I will take care of you. I promise you that.”

  I was not worried about that. Hell, I could survive with a knife in the woods if I had to. But this was Nyko’s reward. Not mine. “Why did you say I would choose your estate?”

  “Our estate.” He kissed me, his arms tightening to emphasize his words. “You’re mine. I don’t care where we live. But I’ve been told that females prefer to choose the home where they will raise their children.”

  “Children?” I squeaked the word. Oh holy hell. I hadn’t really thought about children more than in a completely abstract—someday—kind of way.

  He was watching me closely, too closely, so I looked at his chest instead of his face. “I don’t know anything about Atlan. I’ll choose the wrong city or climate. I don’t know where your family is or where you’re from.”

  Nyko lifted his hands to cup my face and angled my head up so I’d look at him. When our gazes locked and held, he spoke again. “You are my family. There is no one else.”

  “No one?” Was he an orphan? “What about your friends? Or cousins? A mentor or teacher you want to be close to?”

  “No.” It was his turn to look away, but my reprieve didn’t last long. And when his gaze returned to me, the emptiness I saw there made me want to take him in my arms, kiss him all over, and make him forget this entire stupid conversation. “There is no one, Megan. My friends, the brothers I care about, are almost all either dead or still fighting on this battleship. I have no family, my parents died years ago in a war. My father was older when he mated, and she was alone in the world before their match, sent to him by a matching service on Atlan. I have no one left, Megan. You are my life now. You are my family. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, barely holding back tears for his pain. I never cried, not like this. I was soooo not an empathy crier. And definitely not about bullshit family. I’d had my dad, and for a while, my mom, until the bottle took her from me. My brothers were pains in the asses, and we didn’t exactly hug it out at Christmas, but I always knew, if the shit hit the fan, they’d curse and bitch and moan, but they’d kill for me, just like I would for them. But Nyko was mine, and it wasn’t until this moment that I fully understood what that meant.

  Lifting up on tiptoe, I pulled his head down to me and kissed him softly, putting the love I could not yet speak in the touch, hoping he’d feel it. “All right then. If I get anything I want, I want a huge house with eight bedrooms, a cook and someone to clean, because I don’t do bathrooms. I want a courtyard full of trees so tall I can’t see the tops. I want the place to feel like a forest, with flowers and vines and so many plants I can’t see the ground. And in the center, I want a fountain, a pretty fountain surrounded by benches where we can sit in the sun and catch bugs with our children.”

  “Then you shall have it, mate.” His words sounded oddly like a vow, but I wasn’t worried about it.

  Releasing him, I stepped back and finished notching up my armor. “Okay. So, later, we’ll go house shopping. Right now, I want to say goodbye to my team.”

  “Fine.” Nyko watched me get ready, and when I was done, he lifted me from my feet and backed me up against the wall. I put my legs around his waist, full armor and all. “But then I want you again. You are perfect, mate. Too beautiful. I find I can think of nothing but filling you with my cock, licking your sweet pussy until you scream.” He kissed me, hard and rough and deep and I was so wet and eager from that one kiss, I nearly changed my mind about going anywhere.

  Tearing my mouth from his, I laughed, the sound pure joy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard that sound come from my throat before, at least not since I was too young to know better. “You are such a sweet talker, beast.”

  “I’d rather do things other than talk.” He shifted his hips, pressed that huge, hard cock of his against the apex of my thighs and I whimpered.

  God, he could reduce me to a mindless, hungry animal with just a kiss. Maybe I was turning beast.

  I couldn’t help but grin, and lowered my legs from his waist. With great reluctance, and not a lot of urgency, he lowered me to the floor. “Later. I promise. But I’m going stir crazy in here. I need to move. And I want to go kick some ass one more time before I go.”

  “As long as the ass kicking does not involve the Hive, my beast will remain calm. So will I.”

  We grabbed our helmets and Nyko followed me through the ship to the training levels. I hadn’t paid much attention the first time around, and I’d never been in the Atlan section of Coalition-assigned living quarters before, but the hallways here were huge. Beast sized. Twice as wide as those in the human section, with ceilings several feet higher.

  I felt small walking beside my mate in these huge corridors, and I never felt small. It was a novel feeling, and I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed it, or hated the feeling of weakness and doubt that came along for the ride. Not that it mattered. I was what I was. So, I ignored the whole train of thought and led Nyko to the training level. Sure enough, Seth and the entire unit were on the holographic training course. On Earth, we called a setup like this Hogan’s Alley. Bad guys popped out, along with civilians. Split-second decisions were required, when to shoot, when not to. But this included physical traps and an obstacle course meant to test soldiers in every way, with attacks coming from every direction. Of course, we turned it into a game. The challenge changed once a month and was played in teams of two, which meant we had to rely on someone else, learn to trust our fellow soldiers. Everything was tracked, scored, and added to our permanent record.

  Seth Mills, captain and commanding officer of ReCon Unit 3, was my friend and usual teammate. He smiled when he saw me, but his eyes widened at the sight of the Atlan who’d come along.

  “Simmons.”

  “Mills.”

  Seth’s eyes took in everything at once, lingering on my cuffs half hidden by the black under suit that lined my armor, but Captain Mills didn’t miss much, and I knew he saw them when
his eyebrows raised in surprise. Nyko had rolled up his sleeves so the glint of metal was prominently exhibited. He wasn’t hiding our match, but displaying it proudly for all to see. The sight cracked my heart open a little more. “…the only thing that shows the others that I belong to you.”

  He was mine, and that made my chest ache. Love. It was coming at me like a freight train and I wasn’t ready. I’d felt this way in the cave, but he hadn’t really been mine then. I’d kept my feelings guarded because, at that time, I’d known he wouldn’t be mine. Ever. I’d been processed, and he hadn’t even been on the market. But now…

  The rest of the unit whooped and yelled as some of the others finished a challenge. I leaned to the side, looking over Seth’s shoulder to watch the finishing time. It was good. Damn good. “Five-o-three.” Those assholes had just replaced me and Seth at the top of the all-time leader board. By four full seconds. Scowling now, I waited for the digital screen to update, clenching my jaw when I saw my name next to Seth’s bumped to second place.

  Seth’s smile was a mile wide. “Want to grind their fragile little egos under your boot heel?”

  “Was that really a question?” Of course I did. That top spot on the all-time leader board was mine.

  “Are you in, or are you out?” Mischief sparkled in his eyes. “You and me one more time.”

  Nyko put his hand on my shoulder, shook his head. “I challenge you, Captain Mills to a shootout. If I win, I do the two-man run with Megan, not you.”

  My friend looked up at my mate and tilted his head, as if sizing up the competition. “Look, Nyko, just because my sister, Sarah, mated one of your old friends, doesn’t mean I’m going to take it easy on you.”