Hunted

by Grace Goodwin

  She was… gone. It had been a week since the mission to shut down the Hive prison base. Since then the Coalition had taken back the territory near the base and broken it down. The base was gone, and so was my purpose for being in this sector.

  Things had moved quickly. Life moved on. But I hadn’t. My mate had been gone for a fucking week. No word. Not a peep. I’d known her for about seven hours… and nothing. My life turned upside down.

  “Well?” Karter asked, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. Three low rank fighters just finishing their meals at the table behind ours stood and fled. Clearly, they didn’t like the tone of their commander’s voice.

  They didn’t have to worry. It was directed at me.

  A doctor in a green uniform approached, handed him a tablet. Karter glanced at it, nodded, and the male walked away without saying a word.

  “That’s what I asked him an hour ago,” Dorian, the fair Prillon who was mated to Commander Chloe Phan, told him. “He’s been quietly fuming.”

  We’d finished our meals; trays and dirty plates littered the table. Zan and Zeus had gone to the machines and retrieved drinks. While I had been given clearance by the Everian council to leave Battleship Karter and move on to a new assignment, I hadn’t bothered to check in, to evaluate the options.

  I didn’t care about earning more money. I was already wealthy. My family, every one of my siblings, mates, nieces and nephews, were well taken care of on what I’d already earned in this war. I was an Elite and we charged a very high price.

  But the truth was, there was nowhere I wanted to go, not alone. Without her.

  Zeus slammed a large cup of alcohol onto the table before me, the dark liquid a spicy brew from Everis. The others sipped a pale colored alcohol from Prillon Prime. Dorian, had something called beer. An Earth drink I assumed his mate, and Seth, the other male in their Prillon trio, enjoyed from their home world.

  Slouched in my chair, I had my arms crossed, my half-empty glass resting between my fingers. With my legs kicked out long in front of me, I had no doubt I appeared more relaxed than I felt. I now had an idea what an Atlan felt like if separated from their mate. As if missing a part of themselves. I had no cuffs. I had no Prillon collar. I just felt like half my soul was missing.

  I couldn’t fucking breathe.

  And after only knowing and being with Niobe for… fuck, less than a day? I was screwed.

  “It’s been days since the battle and he’s been like this the entire time. Barely says a fucking word,” Zan said, his voice deep.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on The Colony?” I asked. If he was going to pour acid on open wounds, so would I.

  “I leave tomorrow, Quinn. But Prime Nial lifted the ban on the contaminated returning home.” His voice held resignation, not hope. Still, he was a good warrior. A friend.

  “I’m sorry, Zan. I’m being an asshole. So, where are you going? You going home?”

  He shrugged, the slight movement masking a mountain of pain. “No. They will only fear me, despite the lifting of the ban. I will not belong, and I doubt I’ll be matched now. Not like this.” He pointed at himself.

  “I’ve heard there aren’t many females on The Colony, either. If it’s a mate you want, you should go home to Atlan.” The Prillon commander, Zeus, offered his advice. “Fuck those who fear you. Let them be afraid.”

  Zan shook his head, taking another sip of his drink rather than respond and none of us pushed him. This was his life, what was left of it. And when it came to obsessing about females, I had no room to talk.

  I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He’d proven himself returning to Latiri 4, but he was integrated. Substantially. He should go to The Colony. That was the protocol. With Prime Nial’s new rules, it wasn’t mandatory now. Karter wasn’t going to force his transport. But would Zan transition better on The Colony with others who understood his new life? Or should he return to Atlan and take his chances there?

  It didn’t seem like Karter was pushing him to transport. But, apparently, he was pushing me.

  I respected the commander, but in this moment, I didn’t like him all that much. For days he’d been fucking with me.

  Karter kicked my chair and I held back a warning by biting the tip of my tongue. I was not, technically, under his command. But I knew better than to insult a Prillon battle commander on his own fucking ship. “Leave me be. I’m fine.”

  “He’s barely said anything since the vice admiral transported with the Nexus back on Latiri 4,” Zeus explained. Like a recap had been necessary. Everyone knew what had happened. Dorian had been above ground and he knew. These ranking fighters were like a bunch of girls, blathering and gossiping. “Days ago.”

  I sighed.

  “Exactly,” Karter snapped. His shoulders were tense, his gaze shrewd. Didn’t he ever relax? “Like I said, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  Seth walked over then, handed a drink to the commander. Karter nodded his head in thanks and took a sip as Seth sat across from me. Five Coalition fighters sitting around drinking and looking at me. Probing me for my inner thoughts and feelings.

  What the hell was this? An intervention?

  “Commander Karter.” A voice came from the leader’s comm unit on his wrist.

  “Go ahead,” he said, lifting his arm to speak into it.

  “The data you requested from Prillon Prime has arrived.”

  “Send it to my comm,” he replied.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Sorry, Commander, direct interrogation doesn’t seem to be working with this very stupid Everian,” Dorian said when Karter was done with his communication.

  Dorian was trying to coax me out with humor, a little lighthearted banter to get me to talk. Karter, the opposite.

  I took a swig of my drink. This was my second, not enough to get me drunk, which I wanted to be, so I could wallow in my own anger. How many males in the galaxy had their matched mate transport away on their first day together?

  Karter sighed. “Fine. I shall handle this a different way.” He pulled his ion pistol from his thigh holster and aimed it at me. Seth pushed his chair back two feet to get out of the line of fire—but the bastard still laughed.

  I could see the weapon was set to stun and I rolled my eyes.

  “Talk or I stun your ass and take you to Dr. Moor for counseling.”

  My eyes narrowed at the battlegroup leader. “You play dirty,” I countered.

  “Don’t try to pull that Hunter shit and run off faster than I can blink. I’m a fast shot. I hear Dr. Moor has a couch for you to lie on. Says it helps a patient to relax while they share their feelings.” A slow smile spread across Karter’s face. “Talk.”

  It had grown quiet in the canteen, conversations dropped to whispers and no one was eating. I couldn’t hear one scrape of a fork across a plate. And I heard everything if I let it in. I doubted everyone had paused to listen me baring my soul. But waiting to see if their commander intended to shoot me? That was high value entertainment.

  “Commander,” someone called.

  Karter lifted his free hand, waved it in the air, but didn’t look away from me. He didn’t need help.

  I sighed. “My answer to your question is, I’ve been working.”

  “Why aren’t you with your mate?” he countered.

  “If you remember, my mate transported off of Latiri 4 with the Nexus.”

  The Nexus who had murdered my friends, tortured them in front of me, forced me to listen to their screams. I was confident the blue fucker had worked on Zan’s integrations, too, but I didn’t look his way. This wasn’t about him.

  “She didn’t kill him, didn’t end him. She should have let me kill him so that no one else’s life could be destroyed by him and his minions,” I continued. “She transported him to some… some I.C. base. She saved his life.”

  “You’re pissed because your mate saved the Nexus’s life?” Karter asked. He hadn’t lowered his weapon. Yet.

  I lea
ned forward, set my glass on the table. “He was mine to kill. He controlled me. Controlled all the prisoners who went through that base.”

  My sensitive ears heard Zan’s deep growl, knew it was his inner beast. He’d wanted the Nexus dead, too. I looked into his eyes, knew it.

  “And you think Niobe is yours to control?” Karter asked.

  I whipped my head around and glared at Karter. “She’s my mate!”

  “She’s also a vice admiral.”

  “She’s my mate,” I repeated, my voice deep, slow, as if that would help them understand. “I want to take care of her, not control her.” She was brave and fierce and perfect. I didn’t want to change her, I just wanted her to allow me to take care of her, body and soul. She needed release. She needed to let go. She needed a safe place to surrender to the world… to me.

  “So you say. And as her mate, you see a part of her that no one else does.”

  Karter was recently mated to Erica, along with his second, Ronan. Seth and Dorian were mated to Chloe. Both Earth women. Both quite a bit like Niobe because of their shared culture.

  “Your mate remains here on the battleship with you. She’s not a fighter.”

  Karter shook his head, lowered his weapon to rest on his thigh, but he didn’t slip it back in his holster. “No, she’s not in the Coalition in the same way everyone at this table is. Or your mate. But she is Lady Karter now. She is responsible for everyone in the battlegroup not fighting. She’s the highest ranking civilian officer in the battlegroup, and she takes care of me.”

  A large task full of responsibility. Full of people to take care of. Women, children.

  The commander.

  “You want Niobe to remain by your side where you can keep her safe,” Seth said to me. He glanced to Karter, then reached for his glass on the table, ensuring he wasn’t going to get shot by doing so. “You want her to be with you, within sight, so you can protect her.”

  “Of course.” I looked to all of the males. “You can’t blame me. It’s in our very nature to protect.”

  “No, Quinn. It’s in our nature to control.” Everyone glanced at Dorian who sat across the table. “Our mate is a commander. Chloe works for I.C. Do you think it’s easy to let her go off on missions, leaving not only us, but two children behind?”

  “Then how do you handle it?” I asked. “Chloe was at the briefing before the mission. She was in control then, just like Niobe. You two were there, allowed it. You allowed her to go into battle with the Hive.”

  He grinned, looked to Seth. “We didn’t allow her to be at the briefing. We didn’t allow her to go into battle. Her superiors require it. Her job requires it. Your mate outranks everyone here. Hell, she outranks everyone in the entire battlegroup.”

  Seth sighed and shook his head. “We’re both captains. Chloe’s a commander. Like your mate, she outranks us. She might be ours, but she also belongs to the Coalition. And the I.C.”

  “They don’t fuck her.”

  “Watch it,” Karter warned.

  Seth held up his hand. “No, it’s okay. I understand what he’s getting at.” He looked to me. “And you’re exactly right. The Coalition and the I.C. own Commander Phan outside of our quarters. But within? She’s ours, and she knows it. She needs us to take command.”

  “You have the collars. Of course, she knows what you want.”

  Dorian slowly shook his head. “When she drops to her knees for us, when she shudders with pleasure every time we give her a command, we don’t need collars to know she’s giving us control.”

  “Or that her surrender brings all three of us pleasure.” Seth tugged at his collar, then stood. “Time to go see our mate.”

  Dorian grinned. “Damn straight.”

  They left without another word. They weren’t Hunters and didn’t move quickly, but they were hustling. No doubt our conversation had them eager to see their mate.

  “I’m unmated,” Zan said. “I tested recently and am waiting. My mate is out there. Somewhere. I am possessive of her now, even though I don’t know who she is, or where. I understand your concern.” He set his supersized forearms on the table. “My beast doesn’t, for he wants to go search the galaxy for her right now. But like I said, look at me. I doubt I will be matched now.” He paused, moved the conversation back to me. “You were tested?”

  I nodded.

  “Remember, the testing gives each of you the mate you need, not the mate you think you want,” he said.

  A member of the engineering staff approached the table, handed Karter a tablet. This seemed to be a consistent occurrence for the leader. “Not three. Only two.”

  The engineer agreed on whatever the topic was, then took the tablet and left.

  Karter couldn’t get a break long enough to enjoy a single drink in the canteen. But his female, Erica, accepted him anyway. Loved him. Belonged to him.

  There was no question Niobe was my mate. I thought of the instant connection. The heat. The way her body came alive beneath my hands, how her mind went quiet when I took control. Perfection.

  “She was doing her job,” Karter said, finally tucking his pistol away and taking a big swig of his drink. “She didn’t take the Nexus from you just to be hurtful. It was her job. Having him in the hands of I.C. scientists could mean hundreds… thousands of Coalition fighters might be saved. Her decisions aren’t personal. They’re instrumental. Complicated. Difficult.”

  “She hasn’t reached out to me. For seven fucking days.”

  “I have a thirteen-year-old niece on Atlan,” Zan said. “I do not know how it is possible, but you sound exactly like her.”

  “Fuck off, Zan.”

  He laughed. “Stop whining.”

  I glared at him.

  “I’ve been here five minutes and been interrupted three times,” Karter said. “This is what my life is like. My time is constantly redirected to things besides Erica. Like, dealing with your sorry ass. A commander’s mate understands this. Erica understands this.”

  “Yes, but she is female.”

  All emotion slipped from his face and he lifted his weapon again. This time, he held it out to me, handle in my direction. “Here, take it. Shoot yourself now before any female hears you speak that way.”

  Zeus grunted. “It is good your mate is not on the ship. If she truly is Everian, she’d have heard those words from any corner of this ship and did that speed running thing to get here before you could get out the word ‘sorry’.”

  “You’re a dumbass,” Zan added, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

  “I’m not belittling women,” I said, pushing the pistol away and holding up my hands. “They are smarter, more cunning and resourceful than we are. Hell, an Atlan female could snap me in half.”

  They nodded.

  “But we’re males. It’s in our fucking DNA to protect and possess. To be in control.”

  All three were quiet for a moment. Since they weren’t countering that, they must have agreed with me.

  “Do you doubt your mate’s abilities in battle?” Karter asked, head cocked to the side.

  I thought of her getting me and the other prisoners out of Latiri 4 when she’d been completely unprepared. She’d expected to find a mate waiting for her, not the fucking Hive. Her involvement in finishing that base. Shutting that Hive shit down. She’d been incredible.

  “No.”

  “Then you must let her fight. Let her do her job,” Zeus said.

  “Hunter, the problem isn’t with Niobe,” Karter declared. “It’s with you. You are mated. Get your head out of your ass. You must compromise.”

  “Compromise,” I replied, as if I’d never heard the word before. “How am I to do that?”

  Karter stood, slapped me on the shoulder. “Let her be vice admiral.”

  What the hell did that mean? “And?”

  “She is giving you the opportunity to be you. A Hunter.”

  I was still lost. The Prillon, Zeus, slammed his huge fist down on the table. “For an El
ite Hunter, you are not very bright.”

  I turned to stare down at him. “I’ll take you right now, Prillon.”

  He had the nerve to laugh. “You are too slow to catch a female who wants to be caught. You are not worthy of a challenge.”

  What was he talking about? What was I not seeing?

  Thank the gods, Commander Karter put me out of my misery. “What does an Everian love more than anything?”

  “The hunt.” It was in our blood. Our DNA.

  “So why aren’t you hunting?” he asked.

  Realization dawned and hope made my body come back to life. Karter slapped me on the back, a bit too hard.

  “As of right now, you’re dismissed from this battleship. You can go back to Everis, accept a new assignment, or…”

  “Or?”

  He grinned. “You can hunt your mate down. Why do you think she hasn’t contacted you?”

  I just stared at the commander until realization dawned. My mate was Everian. She had instincts, as well. And an Elite female from my world needed not to be courted… but to be caught.

  11

  Vice Admiral Niobe, Coalition Fleet Academy, Zioria, One Week Later

  * * *

  So much for matched mates.

  I didn’t speak the thought aloud. Surrounded as I was by high-level Coalition ambassadors and military commanders, now was definitely not the time or the place to be mooning over one sexy Everian Hunter. Nor should I have spent the last few days micro-analyzing every moment we’d spent together, wondering if I truly would have to sacrifice my happiness for duty. I felt like a high school girl wondering if the quarterback really was interested. Why, now, did I have normal girl feelings? I didn’t have time for that stupid shit.

  Yet, I still thought. Considered. As for right now, it looked like the answer to the sacrificing was a resounding yes. Which really was not helping me concentrate on this meeting.