Silver

by Siren Allen

  Not the thoughts of their peers or the concerns of their family. The only person who mattered was the being fate had gifted them with. But his mate was not a Time Dweller and his customs were unknown to her.

  This placed Silver at a disadvantage. He was clueless regarding how to win her heart and quickly seeing as how time, for the first time since he was born, was not on his side. Frustrated, Silver turned away from the dome, needing to return to his team before they destroyed their hiding spot and each other.

  Misting, he glided through the air, enjoying how hot Venus was. The heat made him feel alive and reminded him of home. When he’d awakened he’d felt cold, so cold. Silver kept going until he came to the abandoned military station he and his kindred now occupied.

  Rematerializing a few feet from the station, he surveyed his surroundings, making sure all was clear. It was. No intelligent life forms lived outside the dome. That wasn’t to say no Venusian born citizens didn’t venture out here. So far they’d encountered two.

  They called themselves the Outland Rebels, a very uncreative name for a very uninspiring group of individuals. Silver had killed them both. Not because of their name choice, because they attempted to run him and his kindred away from this station, claiming it was theirs.

  Once upon a time this place might have belonged to them. That time had passed. He and his kindred would remain here for however long it took them to fix their ship and for him to persuade his mate to leave Venus with him.

  He and his team were lucky Venus didn’t possess the technology needed to detect cloaked ships. If they did, he and his crew would be in trouble. This planet had come so far, yet they still had a long way to go.

  Though the outside of the station was quiet, the inside was full of chaos. He could hear the raised voices of his kindred in heated debate. Silver pulled the door open and stepped into a wrestling match.

  Beta and Gamma were battling it out, again. Chairs were strewn all over the room. Broken pieces of metal littered the floor. Silver frowned. Wait, those metal pieces were once a table on board their ship.

  They currently had no means of replacing the belongings they’d salvaged from the ship. This senseless bickering was going to destroy them before they had a chance to repair their craft and leave this planet.

  “Enough,” Silver roared. Everyone froze, including Epsilon who was seated in the corner of the room fiddling with a recording device salvaged from their ship.

  “Alpha,” Epsilon raised his head from his task. Frown on his face, he said, “We didn’t expect you back for at least another twenty minutes.”

  “Mate problems?” Beta inquired, his arm still wrapped around Gamma’s neck.

  Silver ignored the question. “First, Beta release Gamma.”

  “Stay out of this Alpha,” Gamma protested, once again struggling to break free of the bigger male’s hold. “Just because B’s bigger doesn’t mean I can’t kick his ass.”

  Silver grinned. “His weight shouldn’t matter. You have to learn to outsmart him. But now is not the time for that. Release him Beta.”

  Beta hesitantly unwrapped his large arm from around Gamma’s neck. The moment Gamma was free he spun and swung on Beta, connecting with the older and bigger male’s chin. The hit didn’t faze Beta.

  The male just grinned and said, “You hit like a kid.”

  Gamma raised his fist again.

  “Enough,” Silver roared. “Gamma… Beta… different corners, now.”

  Still eying each other, the two males separated.

  “What’s got you pissed off?” Beta asked, plopping down on the couch next to Epsilon. “Did your mate not answer your questions the way you wanted her to?”

  It was unnerving how his friend was able to figure him out so easily.

  “She closed her establishment before I arrived.” Silver admitted.

  “Really? You told her you were coming, didn’t you?” Gamma sounded just as surprised as Silver had felt. The younger male wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm while he waited on Silver to answer.

  Silver nodded. There was no point in trying to hide his failure from his crew. His success in wooing his mate affected them all. “Yes, I told her I was coming.”

  “And she still closed?” Gamma frowned. “Man, that’s cold. I thought you were winning her over.”

  “He lied,” Beta added before Silver could speak up. “He didn’t want us to know how badly he was failing with his female.”

  “I did not lie. Her response to me seemed to warm the more we talked. I don’t know what happened tonight.”

  It was mind boggling. Last night she’d smiled at him, leading him to believe he was making some progress. He’d been wrong. What the hell was he doing wrong? Perhaps it was the way he acted whenever he was near her.

  He couldn’t help it. It was her smell. Stars, her scent made his mouth water. And her curves, he’d never seen a more shapely female in his life, and he’d been alive for a long time. There was no other creature like his mate.

  And when he was near her, his heart raced and his mind turned to mush. He’d thought when he found a mate he would be charming and funny. He wasn’t. The only thing he could think about when he was near her, was stripping her free of her clothes and fucking her senseless then holding her close and thanking the stars for his special gift.

  “Hey, Alpha.” Beta clapped his hands together to get Silver’s attention. “What the hell are you thinking about? You didn’t hear me calling you?”

  Silver cleared his throat. “What is it?”

  “Considering I’m the only one in here who’s been with a female within the last thirty days, I think I should talk to your mate for you. Maybe I can be more persuasive than you.”

  More persuasive than him? Silver saw red.

  Another male.

  Near his mate.

  He would destroy any who dared.

  “You will not go near her.” Silver flexed his hands, balling them into fists then releasing them.

  “I’m not going to touch her. I just…”

  “You won’t go near her,” Silver advanced on his friend.

  Beta rose. “I see your failure has gotten you riled up. Perhaps a fight will help you release some steam. If I win, I get to be captain.”

  A fight… yes. That was exactly what he needed. To kill the bastard who offered to go near his mate.

  “Let’s go.” He would rip Beta to pieces and prove to Gamma that size didn’t matter, at least not when it came to combat.

  Gamma stepped between the two of them. “Stop. It’s pitiful that I have to be the voice of reason here. I mean seriously, I hate reason. But you two are acting like fools. Beta you have no right to brag about sleeping with a female. You were with an Outland whore. She was nothing to brag about.”

  “Did you see her tits? She damn near smothered me with those things. Those alone are brag worthy.”

  “Yeah, and you had to give her your necklace to get her to lie with you.”

  “So,” Beta shrugged. “I stole it from a centaur.”

  “Still, it wasn’t your charming ways or your sexual prowess that got you that lay. It was the necklace. She was a whore.”

  “I fucked her. That’s all that matters. I’m doing better in the female department than Alpha is or any of the rest of you.”

  Gamma sighed. “We agreed when we embarked on this journey…”

  “This isn’t a journey,” Beta interrupted. “We crashed here and we...”

  “We agreed we would respect each other’s mates.”

  “Why does he get to be the first one to seek out his mate though?” Beta sat back down on the couch, eyes trained on Silver.

  So this was the crux of the problem. Beta was ready to find his mate. Perhaps he should cease fucking Outland whores then. Silver stepped forward, shoving Gamma’s arm off of him.

  “I’m getting my mate first because I’m the only one who knows exactly where their mate is. I’m the only one whose memories are comin
g back. Plus, I won the arm wrestling match.”

  “My arm slipped,” Beta complained.

  “Your arm didn’t slip.”

  “It did. I want a rematch.”

  “No. I won. We take my mate first then we search for the others.”

  That was the plan they’d come up with once Silver had awakened and sensed that his mate was near. When the others awakened they sensed their mates were near also. But none had felt the pull as Silver did.

  His mate was very close, only a few zones away. He would claim his mate first, then they would search for the others. His kindred already felt the tingle alerting them to their mates’ presence.

  They would find their life partners in this galaxy. None of them had ever been this close to finding their other half. It was exciting. It was also unsettling, considering they couldn’t remember why they were in this galaxy.

  Still, they wouldn’t allow the chance to find their mates pass. But they would stick to the plan. Silver first, and then Beta and so on. Once they were all mated, they would leave here and journey back to their own home to figure out what the hell had happened to their ship. Who the hell wanted them dead?

  Silver was eager to know what had taken place on board The Striker moments before they were flung into this galaxy. However, now that he’d scented his mate, now that he’d seen her, all else seemed so miniscule, pointless.

  Until he claimed her, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his job, or his crew. The mating pull was the reason most of his kind shied away from mating until they were older and done sowing their wild oats. Once the pull grasped you, you were unable to turn your thoughts to anything that didn’t involve your mate.

  Your mate became the most important thing in your life. Finding her, holding her became your obsession. Even after you claimed her, the mating pull still demanded it’s due. He’d heard of newly mated couples spending months locked away in their homes, held captive by the mating pull.

  Silver was currently held by that grasp. Nothing and no one else mattered right now, only Malia. She was now the reason he lived, the reason he breathed. And he would kill anyone who got near her, who touched her. He would destroy any one who…

  “Alpha did you hear me?”

  Silver blinked and turned his eyes too Gamma. “What?”

  “Beta is a dick for saying he could extract your mate for you,” Gamma told him. “I may not remember shit these days, but I’m sure he’s always been that way. But he’s right about one thing. It’s taking you too long to claim her.”

  “Listen Gamma…”

  “Just take her. Steal her away from that rundown diner and bring her with us. The quicker we get this mating business over with, the quicker we can leave this place. Even after you get her, you’ll be out of commission for a while, thanks to the damn mating pull. We’ve all got to do our part to get the things we need done, done. We’ll fix the ship. You retrieve your mate, so we can leave this rock.”

  Their task would be much easier than his. “This is going to be harder than I thought.” Silver ran a hand over his locks. “She’s not giving in to me the way I thought she would.”

  “But she’s your mate. Winning her should be easy.”

  Should be. It wasn’t. She wasn’t a Time Dweller. She didn’t feel the pull. But surely she felt an attraction to him. Why wouldn’t she warm to him? Why wouldn’t she give him a sign that she was interested? All he needed was a sign. And then he could take her and work on wooing her later.

  “I just… I need more time.”

  Beta threw his hands up. “We’re never going to leave this place.”

  Next to Silver, Gamma exhaled. Silver could sense the male’s frustration

  “Beta’s right,” Gamma told him “I hate to agree with the bastard, but we can’t stay here for too much longer. We’ve managed to remain undetected this long, but the ship’s cloaking won’t last forever. The Striker is in bad shape. Soon, we’ll have to start working on repairing it. The locals won’t see us, but they’ll hear us and they’ll come looking.”

  “Then we will destroy any who gets in our way,” Silver replied.

  “Yeah, that will work, until the people Inland hears of us and sends in the military. These rebels we can defeat, the military will have too great of a number for us to fight them.”

  Beta flexed his muscles. “We’ve defeated larger numbers.”

  “When?”

  Beta shrugged. “I don’t remember. But I’ve been reading Epsilon’s diaries. We’ve fought and won many battles.”

  Ep glanced up. “They’re notes, not diaries.”

  “You wrote it in a little book with dates and your thoughts. Looks like a diary to me. And in your diary it says that we’ve battled large numbers. Hell it even said that we went to war here before.”

  “This isn’t the run down planet it used to be,” Gamma told them. “I’ve been venturing closer to the Inlands. This place has grown since the last time we were here.”

  “Damn it Gamma, did you read my notes also?” Ep asked.

  “I got bored,” Gamma shrugged. “Diaries aside…”

  “It’s not a damn diary.”

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter what battles we’ve won or lost. This is no battle. This is a simple extraction. Let’s not turn it into a war. We would lose. Just get the girl and go. Simple. No one has to die.”

  Silver took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Gamma was right. As captain, he should be the one giving that speech. But, as a Dweller on the hunt for his mate, his mind was on the female he wanted to claim.

  “Gamma’s right,” Silver told the group. “The last time we were here as a unit, we were here to destroy this world. We failed then…”

  “Only because we had a traitor among us,” Beta interjected. “I read the diary, I mean notes. There was no way they should’ve been able to figure out our plan. Someone told the people that we weren’t here for trading and that we were actually here to take over the planet and make them our portal to another galaxy. Someone snitched.”

  Though that had happened hundreds of years ago, the loss still stung. It was their one and only defeat. It left a bitter taste in all of their mouths.

  “Be that as it may,” Silver stated. “We lost. Those we battled then are not alive today. No one here knows us. No one here remembers us. And we want to keep ourselves off their radar, especially since we have so low numbers.”

  “I still think we could take them,” Beta leaned back against the couch.

  “Yeah,” Gamma grinned. “Just like you thought that Outland whore would screw you for free.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Make me.”

  “Enough,” Silver roared before the two of them could get into another wrestling match. “Epsilon, you’re extra quiet today.”

  The male looked up. “You all know my stance on this mating thing. I want to get back to the mission at hand, but you three want to be led around by your genitals.”

  Here was another argument Silver wasn’t in the mood for. “It won’t take me much longer to convince her to leave with me.”

  “You said that yesterday,” Ep told him. “And the day before that. And the…”

  “I know. But I will find a way to make her see things my way.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “Then I will…” he had no idea what he’d do. “I will…”

  “You will take her,” Epsilon told him. “Beta and Gamma still have to find their mates before they go wild with need. I’m surprised they’ve been able to hold it together this long.”

  “The fighting helps,” Beta added.

  Silver knew the male was only partially joking. The only reason Silver wasn’t losing his mind and going into fits of rage was because he knew his mate was near, he knew how she looked, how she smelled, how she felt. That calmed him, for now.

  The longer his kindred felt the mating pull and ignored it, the more aggressive they’d become. If only he could come up with a plan to
extract his mate quickly without scaring her or making her feel threatened. He would never hurt her. She didn’t know that. And he didn’t want her to hate him.

  “Captain,” Epsilon interrupted his thoughts of his mate and Silver felt a low growl build in his chest. He told himself to calm down, he could think of his mate later, while he rested for the night.

  “What is it Epsilon?”

  “I’ve been going through the ship’s recorded log. Some of the footage is too damaged to tell what is taking place. However, someone of it is decipherable. I’m running a clean sweep to make it better. Soon we will know who it was that was bombing us. When we do, I seek permission to leave the unit and investigate this further.”

  “What the hell? You want to go off on your own?”

  “The three of you are caught in the mating pull. I’m not. I don’t want to sit around while you all search for your females. I want to find out who was trying to kill us. I want to fight.”

  “No,” Silver shook his head. “We stay together.” It made no sense for them to split up, especially since the memory loss left them vulnerable.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t go,” Ep challenged him.

  “Because you don’t remember where to go.” That was a pretty damn good reason.

  “Not true. We all remember what we are. We remember where we’re from. We remember the name of our ship and that it is linked to you. Every day more memories open up to you and in turn, you tell them to us. What we don’t recall are our names, who was after us and why they wanted us dead. I trust that those will return to us soon.”

  “Still, I think we should stick together.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Tough.”

  “Perhaps we should vote. All in favor of me leav….”

  “I agree with Alpha,” Beta interrupted.

  “Unfortunately, so do I,” Gamma chimed in.

  Frowning, Ep sighed. “Perhaps we should settle this another way. Who wants to wrestle?”

  Before the other males could rise from the couch, eager to fight, Silver spoke up. “There will be no voting, or wrestling. As captain, I have decided that we will all remain together. Anyone who leaves is in violation of a direct order.”