Taken by Her Mates

by Grace Goodwin

  My mind in a daze, I asked the only question I could. “Why? Is it because they think I’m a drug dealer?”

  I’d rather be rejected as a supposed drug dealer than a tomboy.

  “Miss Smith, they don’t think you’re a drug dealer. They know you are a convicted drug dealer. But no, I have sent convicted murderers off-world before. I don’t know why they are doing this.”

  She shook her head sadly and pressed a series of buttons on her tablet. I was lifted further from the water, the smooth glide distracting as I looked down at my body to discover that all my hair was gone. My head ached horribly from the new implants in my skull and my mind buzzed with noise, like static electricity crackling over a speaker.

  As my body was placed back on the exam chair, Warden Egara brought a dry gray blanket to drape over me. “I’m so sorry, Jessica. This has never happened before. I will have to send a formal inquiry to the Interstellar Coalition to find out what has happened.”

  I was naked and dripping bluish water and I had a scratchy blanket over me, still strapped to the stupid table. How much more miserable could I get? “How long will that take?” The buzzing in my head increased.

  “Several weeks, at least.” Her quiet words were suddenly like a bullhorn an inch away from my eardrum and I winced.

  She tilted her head when I cringed and left me for a moment, returning with an injection tube, which she pressed to the side of my neck. I flinched.

  The momentary sting was worth it, as the pain in my head faded in seconds.

  “I’m sorry about your discomfort. Most brides sleep through the neurostim integration process.” She watched me, her eyes soft and round, kinder than at any time I’d seen her. I blinked at the change, then realized what she offered wasn’t concern, it was pity. I couldn’t even get shipped off planet without something going wrong.

  “What’s a neurostim?”

  “It’s a neural implant that allows your mind to adopt new languages and customs. You will now be able to understand and speak any new language within a few minutes, including all the languages of Earth. This technology is only meant for those going off-planet, but since it seems you are remaining, it is quite a perk.”

  I blinked and tried to process what she was telling me. A perk? This was my consolation prize, the ability to speak and understand other languages? “Any language?”

  She nodded once, clearly pleased with the technology, but also still confused and disappointed at my rejection. “Absolutely. Earthen or coalition.”

  Since I was no longer going to a coalition planet, I didn’t figure that would do me much good. I had some kind of super-chip in my head that was going to allow me to understand foreign television programs or foreigners at the airport. Great. Just what I always dreamed about. I would have rather had a free car or a trip to Hawaii. Maybe some cash.

  What would have been better was being transported and living out my own real-life dream, just like the processing dream where two powerful men were covering my body, fucking me like I was the most desirable woman they’d ever met, making me feel beautiful. Wanted. Loved.

  No. I got the stupid in-brain translator.

  I had failed my friends at the news agency, failed my friends in the police force, failed to prove my innocence in court, and now I wasn’t even worthy of an alien male so desperate for a hot, wet pussy that they’d accept a mate who was a thief or murderer, without even seeing her first. Women—criminals—by the hundreds had been sent to the Interstellar Bride Program over the last few years. The women who were arrested and processed came from all walks of life. Drug addicts and traitors. Thieves and murderers.

  All those women had travelled to the stars, found new homes and new lives with alien males desperate for brides through the program. Those women had been given a clean slate, a fresh start.

  Me? Not me. I turned down a bribe, got framed for a crime I didn’t commit, and now I’d been rejected by not just my matched mate, but the fucking king of his entire planet?

  Not my best day.

  “What do I do now?”

  Warden Egara tilted her head and sighed. “Well, your volunteer service to the bride program was all that was required to satisfy the terms of your criminal sentence. Since no one has ever been rejected before, that is a loophole that you fall through and will most likely be rectified. I would assume in the future, a rejected woman would have to go to prison instead. For now, there are no rules regarding alternate punishment, therefore you’ve met all the requirements of your sentencing.”

  “You mean—”

  “You’re free to go, Miss Smith.”

  She lifted the edge of the blanket and wiped several drops of blue liquid from the corner of my eye where it had begun to pool and slide down my cheek like tears.

  I was free. No sentencing. No prison. No off-planet hottie.

  “Go home.”

  I didn’t want to go home. I had no home. No job, no friends, and no future. Since I was supposed to be in a galaxy far, far away, my bank accounts had been cleared out, my home sold. When a woman went off-planet in the bride program, their belongings were divided as if they were dead. Dead and gone, never to return. I had no one to claim my toaster or my worn-out sofa, so I had to assume it was all donated to charity.

  I was the first bride ever to be sent home like a dog, tail between my legs, unworthy of an alien mate.

  If I walked out the doors of the processing center and showed my face around town? Well, the creeps who set me up would send their goons to finish what they started. If they knew I was still on Earth, I’d have a price on my head within hours.

  But then again, I was no pampered princess. I had a go-bag, a stash of clothing, and cash my friend in the intel business overseas had convinced me was necessary for survival. Thank God, I’d listened. All I had to do was get to my storage locker that no one knew about and I could start over. I was free. Lonely. Miserable. Hurt. But free to do whatever I wanted to do… like expose a group of corrupt officers and politicians.

  The underhanded bastards thought I was gone, off-planet. No longer their problem. Perhaps that was the only luck I was going to have today.

  I swung my legs off the table and smiled, suddenly filled with unexpected glee. I might not be good enough for an alien fuck, but I was very good with a telephoto lens. I thought of it as my own personal style of sniper rifle. One perfect picture was all it took to take someone down, expose their lies, ruin their life. If my camera was a weapon, then I had a hit list a half-mile long. If I was a ghost while doing it, a person who wasn’t even supposed to be on Earth, then so much the better.

  I hopped down off the table, clutching the blanket closed, but had to rethink the sudden movement when the room spun. Warden Egara’s arms shot out to steady me and I nodded my thanks.

  Time to go, but there was one thing the masochistic side of me needed to know. If I were to leave my off-planet opportunity here in this room, then I wanted to know. “What was his name?”

  Warden Egara frowned. “Who?”

  “My match?”

  She hesitated, as if she were imparting state secrets, then shrugged. “Prince Nial. The Prime’s eldest son.”

  I laughed then, for had I left Earth, I would have been a princess indeed. Matched to an alien prince, wearing ball gowns and ridiculous shoes, my long blond hair tamed not by my normal ponytail, but with gemstone pins and elaborate twists as befit my royal station. God help me, I would have had to wear mascara and lipstick, for my pale complexion was less than beautiful when bare.

  A princess? No flipping way. Perhaps that really was the reason I’d been rejected. I was absolutely, positively, not Cinderella.

  “I think it’s for the best, warden. I’m not exactly princess material.” I was better with a dagger than a politician’s silver tongue, more skilled with a rifle than on the dance floor. And that, sadly, was simply a fact. Whoever this Prince Nial was, he’d just dodged a bullet.

  Me.

  Perhaps this prince

was better off without me. That didn’t mean that deep down, where the emotions of that other woman’s claiming ceremony lingered, the dream in which, for a few moments, I knew what it felt like to be wanted, loved, fucked and claimed by her mates, that I wasn’t bleeding.

  * * *

  Prince Nial of Prillon Prime, Aboard the Battleship Deston

  As I lumbered to the view screen to speak to my father, I was numb. I felt as if my body weighed next to nothing, no more than a child’s. It was the easiest way to handle my father if I offered no emotion.

  The cyborg implants injected into my body during my time in a Hive Integration Chamber were microscopic, and impossible to remove without killing me. Hence, I was now considered contaminated, a risk to the men under my command and to the people of my planet. I was to be treated as a highly dangerous rogue. At least that was what everyone thought. Warriors who were contaminated with Hive technology were typically banished to one of the colonies to live out the rest of their lives doing hard labor. They didn’t take brides. And they didn’t become the Prime of Prillon’s twin worlds.

  My birthright, as Prime heir and prince of my people, had kept me from being immediately banished to the colonies, but there was one thing I cared about more than that and it wasn’t the person who filled the screen before me.

  I stared at the carefully blank face of a man twice my age. He looked quite similar to me, only older, and without any of the cyborg implants. He was huge, with a fierce face and custom armor designed to make him look even larger than his seven-foot frame. He was the Prime of two planets of hulking warriors. He had to be strong. One hint of weakness, and his enemies would take him down.

  Right now, I was that weakness for him. I was the rogue son turned dangerous cyborg threat.

  “Father.” I bowed my head slightly in greeting, despite the rage coursing through my blood. He may have biologically been my parent, but he was no father.

  “Nial, I have spoken to Commander Deston. I have filed a formal order for your transfer to the colonies.”

  I gritted my teeth to hold back my immediate response. So much for being numb. So, my status as blood heir to the throne was not to save me from banishment after all. He didn’t give a Prillon fuck that I was his son. I was damaged, ruined by the Hive and not worthy of being a leader. Of being his son.

  Someone handed him a tablet and he perused its content as he spoke to me, not bothering to look up. “I leave for the front in a few days to visit our warriors and assess the condition of several of our older battleships. I expect your transfer to be completed by the time I return.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to keep my voice as neutral and benign as his. “I see. And what of my bride? She was due to arrive via transport three days ago.”

  “You had no right to request a bride. I had an agreement with Councilor Harbart. You were to claim his daughter as mate.”

  I couldn’t help the way my hands gripped the chair in front of me.

  “Harbart was a foul coward who planned to murder me and Commander Deston’s bride. Why would I claim his daughter?”

  The Prime raised a brow and actually looked up at me, as if confused. “The question is irrelevant now since you are… unsuitable to claim a mate. You will claim no one. Your Earth bride’s transport has been denied, of course. No contaminated warrior is allowed the honor of a bride. You know this. By now, she may well be matched to another warrior who is not…”

  His voice trailed off and he tilted his head, studying me. I let him look. If he were a real father, he’d look past the Hive’s cyborg modifications and see that I was the still the same person, still his son. Still the prince.

  “Who is not what?”

  This was the first time he had seen me since my rescue from the Hive. Arms crossed, I let him take in the slight metallic shine to the skin on the left side of my face, the now odd silver coloration of the iris of my left eye, once a dark gold. I had purposely left my forearms bare so he could see the thin sheet of living biotech that had grafted to half of my arm and part of my left hand. I wanted him to see it all, yet still see me.

  His eyes lingered on my arm. “The implants and skin grafts cannot be removed?”

  Silly hope died with that one question. I’d thought maybe none of it would matter, but no. He only saw what the Hive had done, not his son.

  “Dr. Mordin says the grafts are permanent. They’d have to take my entire arm to remove them.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you, father? What do you see?” He hadn’t seen the similar Hive grafts that covered half of my left shoulder, most of my left leg, and part of my back. I could see in his cold eyes that what he had seen was plenty.

  My father, the man I had never loved, but had respected and had spent my entire life trying to please, shook his head.

  “I see a warrior who used to be my son.” He leaned back in his chair, and the look in his eyes had gone even colder. “You will be removed from the list of heirs and reassigned to the colonies. I’m sorry, son.”

  “Son? Son? You dare call me son in the same sentence as banishing me to the colonies?” My voice had risen. Remaining calm didn’t matter. It afforded me nothing.

  He leaned forward to sever our connection, but my next question stopped him. “And who will be your heir?”

  “You have many distant cousins, Nial. Perhaps Commander Deston will provide an heir with his new bride. If not, I’m sure the people would welcome the ancient customs once more.”

  The ancient customs…

  “A Death Match?” He would rather see good, strong warriors fight to the death for the right to be Prime than to even consider his own son? Simply because that son had some Hive biotech grafts in his flesh?

  “May the strongest warrior survive.”

  If I could have reached through the screen and punched him in the face, I would have. “You would see our finest warriors die?”

  I’d thought the man uncaring. Unfeeling, at least toward me. I realized that it extended to everyone. He’d see strong men fight needlessly, die needlessly, all because he was… So. Fucking. Cruel.

  “There is no heir. It is our way.”

  There hadn’t been a Death Match in over two hundred years, since our ancestor had won and claimed the throne. “I am strong, father, my mind intact. There is no need to sacrifice our strongest warriors…”

  I had to at least plead with the man to save the others. The strongest would rise to make a claim, and they would die, needlessly, when they should be out on the front lines, battling the Hive.

  “You are contaminated.”

  “I have knowledge of the Hive’s systems, their strategies. You would be foolish to banish me to the colonies. I should be on the front with the battle groups, where I can…”

  He cut me off again. “You are no one, a contaminate. Hive. You are dead to me.”

  I would have argued further, but the communication cut off from his end.

  Bastard. Every day for the last few years I had swung like a pendulum between the need to impress that asshole or kill him.

  “I should have killed him,” I murmured to myself.

  I stared at the blank screen for several minutes. I’d been dismissed, and I knew I would never speak to my father again. I wasn’t sorry, not anymore. Perhaps something good came from the cyborg implants. I knew where I stood with my father and he didn’t deserve any more of my time or my thoughts.

  No. The thought whirling in my mind in a building storm caused me far more distress. He’d refused my bride. My match. A beautiful Earth female like Commander Deston’s Hannah Johnson. I had hoped for such a match, for a soft, curved female from that planet. Hannah was small, but strong and so in love with her mates, both of them, that she had begged them to take her in the claiming ceremony.

  My Hive implants had given me one advantage that day, one secret I’d not shared with anyone. I had a full recording of their ceremony in my system. I watched it often in my mind, seeing again and again the way the human woman liked to be touched, the way she had arched her back, the sounds she made as her mates kissed her, touched her, fucked her. I’d wanted that for myself. Wanted a mate like that so I’d reviewed that recording until it was burned into my very soul. Learned. Memorized every bit of their ceremonial fucking.

  I would make my mate scream, as they had. I would make her tremble and beg for my cock to fill her.

  Witnessing the ceremony was one honor that had not been denied me by my cousin, Commander Deston. I’d watched as both he and his second, Dare, fucked Hannah like two wild men. Their human bride loved their attention, begged for more, looked at her warriors like they were the breath in her body, the very beat of her heart.

  I remembered the other ceremony I’d witnessed, this one during my processing center testing. It had been the dream that had matched me to my mate. The men had been demanding, dominant, and devoted. Since my mate had been matched to me with the same dream, I knew what she would need from me. From my second.

  I wanted that kind of connection that was in both ceremonies, and I would have it.

  I had a match. A woman had been processed and matched to me. To that fucking hot mating ceremony. The Interstellar Bride Program’s match was almost one hundred percent perfect. That left no doubt that there was a woman just for me. I had no second, no throne, and no future, but none of that mattered. The only thing—the only person—that mattered to me was this woman on Earth who was my mate. She’d been denied transport by my father. That didn’t negate the match, the bond that we shared. It only made me want her even more. I would not be denied her. I had to wonder what she had thought of me when she’d been rejected. The hurt must have felt something like the rage I had burning inside at my father’s intervention.

  She would not be denied her mate, her match, just because of my asshole of a father. She would not be a victim of his machinations.

  She was an innocent.

  She was mine.

  If the processing center wouldn’t sanction the transport, I would simply go to Earth and take her.

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