“Wait. What the hell is going on?” Seth asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’ve been to space before?”
“Yes.”
“As a bride?”
She shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. “No. Not as a bride. Does it matter?”
“No.” Seth and I both answered immediately and a small smile tipped up the corner of her lips. The thin lines of strain around her eyes and lips relaxed and she became, if possible, even more beautiful as she gave over to the healing warmth offered by the ReGen wand. I knew that feeling, the one where the pain just disappeared. Her voice, when she spoke, was softer, as if she were half asleep and my cock rose in response until her words registered.
“I was a Coalition fighter.”
“I’ll say,” the doctor grumbled, then stood up from her crouch. “I’m not needed here. Remember, Chloe. You’re not here with the Coalition but as a bride. Your mates will take good care of you.”
She turned on her heel and walked out. What the fuck was the doctor talking about?
“Wait.” Chloe’s eyes snapped open and she dropped the hand holding the ReGen wand to her lap. “Mates?”
Seth grinned then. “You’re matched to me. I’m Seth Mills.” He tipped his chin in my direction. “And Dorian is my second.”
She frowned, a little V forming in her delicate brow. “You’re from Earth. By your accent, I’d say American or Canadian.”
“American. Born and bred, sweetheart.” Seth grinned.
She turned her green eyes from Seth to me. “Yes, but Earth men don’t usually share a woman. Unless you’re into threesomes.”
When Seth laughed, she looked back at him. “Only with Dorian.” He stepped closer, brushed back the fall of her hair. “I’ll only share you with him. But if you don’t want both of us, say the word, sweetheart.”
My heart stopped beating as Seth offered her an escape, from him. From me. I’d only been in her presence for a few minutes, but I already wanted to keep her. To fuck her. To protect her and claim her as my own. She was a dream, a warrior’s fantasy, all soft curves and silken beauty. Her eyes darted from Seth to me and her breath sped, her pulse pounding at the base of her throat.
I stared, hiding nothing, not my lust nor my admiration of her beauty. I wanted her to know exactly what I offered. What we would demand. Surrender. Submission. Her heart. I would not be satisfied with less, and I knew Seth would be as relentless as I when it came to conquering our mate in every way. Body and soul.
I saw the moment her decision was made, the longing in her eyes seconds before her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “Are you sure about this?” She asked me, but turned her attention back to Seth. “He’s Prillon. You’re human. If we do this, you can’t change your mind later and go caveman if I want to jump his bones. Of if I fall in love with him, too. Or if I have a Prillon baby instead of a human one.” She was listing off these possibilities as if they were sure, foregone conclusions. That she would love me. Desire me. Want my child in her womb.
Every instinct I had roared at me to step forward and take her, fuck her now. Tell Seth to either claim her once and for all or get out of my way. But I knew our new mate was correct to question him. There would be no turning back from this, not for any of us. Once she was mine, Seth could not change his mind. He would have to kill me to tear me from our woman, and I had no doubt such an act would destroy her.
My friend turned from her to meet my gaze. Silent understanding passed between us. This moment was not much different than any other battle we’d fought together. Except this time, the prize was not survival, or the death of our enemies, but her.
Seth turned back to her and traced her bottom lip with his thumb. “I am very sure, Chloe. Dorian is a fierce and powerful warrior. I am honored that he would serve as your second. I can promise to give you everything I am, but that is all I can give. We can’t stop fighting to protect our people. This way, you will be cherished and protected, in case…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Chloe grabbed his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek. “I know. I know the risks.” She released her grip on the ReGen wand and her free hand moved slightly, almost imperceptibly, closer to her side. I watched her fingertips tremble as she traced something beneath the gown as if it hurt her.
Chloe’s green eyes were dark with mystery as she turned to me. “I assume you want this as well? To share me with a puny human man, not a mighty Prillon warrior?”
“Yes,” I said, offering her a grin for the first time. Puny? “I have resigned myself to your Primary Mate’s puny physical attributes.” The laughter built within until I could not contain it. I had not laughed in months, not since my cousin’s death.
Seth growled, leaning in close to whisper his words against her cheek. “I’m going to make you pay for that puny comment later. When you’re naked.”
To my shock, Chloe tossed her head back and laughed. “Bring it on, Captain.”
Instantly, the mood lightened and she nipped at the tip of Seth’s thumb when he protested again. My worry at her odd behavior evaporated. No, my mate wasn’t hurt. She was sassy as hell and I couldn’t wait to ride that fire, bury my cock inside the inferno I saw brewing behind her eyes.
“You’re Seth’s, that’s for damn sure.” Yes, even from the short few minutes I’d known her, she was a touch cocky and definitely bossy. Hell, if she really was a Coalition fighter, she’d damned well have to be. And Seth couldn’t take his eyes off our mate. He claimed not to desire a female warrior, but Chloe already made a liar of him in that regard. He wanted her. So did I. “But you’re mine, too.”
Chloe took a deep breath, her mind working again with a rapid shift in her mood that fascinated me. She looked at Seth. “The warden said you are in ReCon?”
“Captain of ReCon 3, at your service.” Seth grinned and reached out to take the ReGen wand from her lap. He turned it back on and waved it over her head. “All better?” he asked.
She nodded, but pursed her lips as if she didn’t like him fussing over her. She chose to ignore him and looked at me. “And you, Dorian? What do you do around here?”
My name on her lips was like an electric jolt to my body. I wanted to hear it again. And again. “I am a pilot, my lady.”
“Oh.” Yeah, from the tone of that one word she knew what it meant for both of us. The implications. The dangers.
“No wonder you’re so worried,” she replied. “Adrenaline junkies, huh?”
I wasn’t sure what the term meant, but Seth’s shoulders stiffened and I waited for him to answer our mate’s odd question. “I don’t know, Chloe. I just know I can’t walk away from this fight. And neither can Dorian.”
She nodded. “I understand. Trust me. I so get you.”
“Then you know why I chose Dorian as my second? Why it has to be this way?”
I stood then to my full height and I watched as Chloe’s head tipped back to keep her eyes on mine. “Yes,” she repeated, licking her lips again.
“If you’ve been to space before, then you know how this works.” I might be Seth’s second, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t follow Prillon custom. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked to the transport tech, who’d been watching the entire exchange with rapt attention. Brides did not arrive often. His presence here was a gift to him, and he honored that fact well. “Do you have what I requested?”
He perked up and came around his work station. “Yes, Captain.”
He held my collars out to me and I took them, the three black ribbons of a Prillon mating. They were as familiar to me as my own hand. I’d had them since I came of age, waiting for just this moment, when I could present them to my mate. While I was the second here, and should have ceded to the primary mate’s collars, Seth had none. He wasn’t Prillon. But while Chloe was matched to him, not me, she was mine just as much as she was Seth’s.
I wasn’t willing to give up the deep emotional connection other mates shared through their collars. I’d bee
n waiting for her. For this moment. If Seth didn’t like it, he could choose not to join us in our psychic bond. But Chloe? She was mine. I needed to feel what she felt, to know when she was happy or frightened or aroused. She would wear my collar.
I thanked the tech and turned back to my mate and Seth.
“A Prillon mating collar,” she murmured, eyeing me.
“It would be my honor, my privilege to wear a collar that matches yours. My collar will proclaim to all that you are under my protection. My mate. That I am yours. I am possessive, Chloe. I need to see my mark on your body, know that none would dare touch what was mine. Will you honor me and accept the collar?”
“What about you?” she asked Seth.
He flicked his gaze to mine. He knew what the collars represented, what they would mean to anyone who saw one around his neck. My neck. Hers. He also knew of the connection we would share with her. “Dorian?”
I held out a collar and Seth took it from my hand as I spoke. “The choice is yours. But I will not be denied. She is mine as much as she is yours.”
Seth nodded. “Can’t let you have all the fun, now can I?’
Chloe smiled, but Seth’s serious expression caused her smile to wilt like a flower in the driest desert. “I will wear your collar, Chloe. From this moment, I am yours. You and I, we humans, don’t have any kind of customs out here in space. There’s no church, no priest, no one to marry us. Just know this, sweetheart, when I take you the first time, there’s no going back. You’ll be mine.”
Her mouth fell open. “I have thirty days to decide, hotshot,” she countered.
Seth gave a slight shrug. “Yes, by Coalition law. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be mine.”
She frowned, seemingly not liking his bossy answer.
“The collar is black. When Seth and I claim you in the formal Prillon tradition, it will change to gold, my family’s color.”
She took a step back. “I know all about the Prillon mating ceremony and I’m not fucking you guys in public. Not happening.” She crossed her arms over her chest and I could see the slight swells of her breasts plump up beneath the thin material of what looked like a hospital gown.
Seth didn’t even look at me. “I’ll share you with Dorian, sweetheart. No one else. As for the Prillon claiming custom, Dorian can have his collars. He won’t have his way with the rest. No public fucking for you. Ever.”
Her slight shoulders slumped in relief.
I was surprised by my own emotions in this. I’d known my whole life I’d fuck a mate with another male, that I’d claim her publicly. I’d been fine with that. Until now.
Just knowing that with her arms now crossed over her chest, the back of her gown was split open, baring her curves, had me wanting to toss her over my shoulder and carry her back to our private quarters. We’d requested the new quarters upon our return from the last mission, moved everything we both owned into the new suite in less than an hour.
We were warriors. The only thing that truly belonged to us, that mattered, was standing before us in this room. Chloe. She was ours and I used every ounce of self-control not to rush to her and explore every inch of her body with mouth and lips and tongue. My need was growing, and feral. Unexpectedly hard to control.
But then, I had not expected our mate to be so beautiful. So sassy. So soft and perfect.
The transport tech watched us all without blinking, his concentrated interest in our mate no longer feeling like a point of pride, but an annoyance. He looked at what was ours. Wanted what was ours.
No. I would not claim her publicly. This tiny Earth female was ours and no one else’s. Her pleasure, her skin, her surrender? Ours and ours alone.
“No public claiming,” I confirmed.
I lifted a collar to my neck, affixed it and felt the seam seal close, the material adjust in size to fit about my neck. A slight buzz coursed through my body, as if an open communications channel had been made, but there was no one else on the line.
Chloe looked to me, then to Seth, then back, studying the collar about my neck. After a minute, she put her hand out, palm up, but I stepped closer to her.
“Allow me, Lady Mills. Please.” I addressed her by her new, formal title for the first time and felt more than saw Seth shudder next to me at the finality of those words. Lady Mills. Claimed. Collared. Ours.
I raised the collar toward her neck. Seth came around behind her, lifted the long fall of her hair so I could encircle her slim nape. The sides of my hands brushed her soft skin. So warm, so smooth. The collar joined, then sealed and I moved my hands away to watch as the collar resized to her neck.
My cock pulsed at the sight of it about her neck, but when I felt the jolt of her emotions through my own collar, I gave a slight groan.
Seth looked to me and I watched Chloe’s eyes widen. “Do you feel me, mate?” I asked.
She nodded and I staggered as her desire sliced through me like a blade made of pure flame. She wanted us, all right. She wanted us almost as much I wanted her.
Seth placed a chaste kiss on the back of her neck and her fluttered response moved through me like the fast, frenzied flight of a dozen tiny wings. Seth let her hair fall and stepped back to place the last collar on himself.
His possessive fire joined the swirl of emotions coursing through our mate and she swayed on her feet, licking her lips as her eyes glazed with desire. Need.
“You Prillons are geniuses, Dorian,” he murmured, once his was fitted as well. His eyes locked like laser sights on our mate.
I could feel them both. Their emotions, their need. Not just Seth’s toward Chloe—she was a beautiful female—but also hers for us.
“So, are we done here? I’d like to get out of the transport room.” Chloe’s hands fluttered nervously as she stared us down, accepted the powerful flood of my desire for her combined with Seth’s. He was not Prillon, but his need for her, his protective and possessive feelings, were every bit as strong as my own, and I knew I had made the right choice, the only choice, in becoming his second.
Chloe. Beautiful Chloe, was ours. And now, with the collar about her neck, she knew exactly how much we wanted her.
“We’re not done,” Seth said, his voice almost a growl.
“Not even close,” I added.
Chloe shook her head as if she were stunned by the feelings swirling between us. It was potent. Intense.
There would be no escape, for any of us.
I swept her into my arms, unable to fight the need to touch her for another moment. Seth didn’t argue, feeling my need to possess her, simply led the way to our quarters. It was time to make Chloe ours.
Chapter 5
Seth
* * *
I led the way to our new private quarters, the space I’d be sharing with both the Prillon warrior and Chloe, our mate.
Mate. Just a few days ago, that word lay heavy on my heart. All I could see was loss and pain and longing for something that could never be. I was human. I was ReCon. My team joked that I had nine lives, but I knew the truth with a bone deep certainty. I only had one.
And now it belonged to her.
As meticulous as I’d been in my planning before, as much as I did to protect my team, I vowed to redouble my efforts. No one was going to take me from Chloe without a fight. And if the unthinkable happened, I’d be at peace, knowing the massive, protective, over-bearing, smart-ass warrior carrying our mate down the hallway would protect her and cherish her to the last breath in his body.
I knew. Thanks to these damn collars. His need, his instinct to claim her, was riding him hard, testing my control. We were both so amped up at the prospect of fucking her, that I was having a hard time remembering where to turn in the maze of cream colored hallways.
Civilian living quarters.
Another first. Thanks to her.
After just a few minutes—that felt like hours—we arrived at the door. I stopped without opening it and turned to Dorian, and the tiny woman he held in his arms.<
br />
God, she was beautiful. Long black hair as smooth as silk. Almond shaped eyes that were a startling green against her creamy skin. Her eyes were large and she stared at me with a combination of emotions I would have had no hope of unraveling without the help of these genius Prillon collars. Hope. Nerves. Lust. Anxiety. Longing.
I looked up at my second. “Put her down, Dorian. We do have one custom on Earth that I need to keep.”
Dorian shrugged and gently placed Chloe on her bare feet in the hallway. It was mid-morning, and everyone was either on duty or at work. The hallway was empty as I scooped Chloe into my arms and asked Dorian to open the door as I stood before it, cradling my new bride. There was no long, flowing gown, no diamond on her finger, but she was mine, and I would carry her over the threshold into our new life together.
The door slid open and I looked down into Chloe’s upturned face. “You ready for this?”
She grinned up at me and her arms came up to wrap around my neck. It was a picture-perfect moment happening billions of miles from home. No white picket fence. No dogs, or a floral bouquet, or any of the rest of the things humans associated with this moment. Just me. And her.
And an alien watching us like we were both out of our minds. “I assume this is some strange Earth custom?” Dorian asked.
“Yes.” We both answered in unison.
“A man carries his bride across the threshold the first time she enters their new home,” I explained.
“Why?”
Chloe smiled up at him. “I have no idea, but they do.”
Dorian looked at both of us for a moment, then nodded his head as if making a serious decision. “Then, I will not be denied this custom.”
Before I could react, he’d moved behind me and lifted both of us into the air. Chloe squealed and grabbed onto me, hanging on for dear life. I barked with laughter at Dorian’s huff of exertion and cursing as he plodded through the open door.
“You are heavier than you look, human.”
Chloe burst out laughing and the joy and excitement coming through her collar, the blast of fun and happiness silenced any protest I might have made at Dorian’s odd gesture. Chloe was still laughing. “You two are going to be crazy, I can just tell.”
Fighting For Their Mate Page 5
