I’d just be… living. Surviving. Fighting. No happiness. No joy. No connection other than through the minds of other Hive. And that wasn’t the connection I craved.
Without Mak, I’d be just like the Atlan I just killed. A former shell of myself in a body that was no longer my own. Used for battle, for fighting. For strategy and nothing more. I would be a pawn in the fighting cog that was spread out over the entire galaxy.
I couldn’t live with that. Not for long. Not if I couldn’t have the only male I wanted. It had only been a day since I’d chosen him, since we’d made the bargain. But so much had happened since then. The connection—yes, that word kept repeating in my head over and over—was powerful. Intense. It was as if we had been matched through the Brides Program. Or were marked mates from Everis. The bond was real, and he hadn’t even claimed me. I had to wonder what it would be like if he did make me truly his.
Powerful. Intense. Just… peaceful.
Yet Makarios of Kronos was a wild thing, a free spirit. He had not promised anything. Had not gone back on his word, nor behaved dishonorably. I couldn’t fault him for anything except hooking my emotions in a way I never anticipated. But that was my problem, not his. I would not be a shackle around his ankle. I would honor our bargain.
But I knew nothing would help except striking at the heart of the Hive itself. At their core. At the Nexus minds that controlled them all.
And Nexus 4 hiding on the planet’s surface like a snake? He’d know I was coming. Which was just fine with me.
Walking toward the Hive ship I intended to pilot to my meeting with Nexus 4, I allowed the Hive tech that nearly covered my body to return to its original color—the better to tempt the Nexus unit with—a dark, vibrant blue. I’d learned to hold it off, but now, like a dam breaking, the color washed over me. I looked just like him now. The way Nexus 2 had made me.
Blue. Feminine. Strong.
Perfect for breeding.
If there was one urge as primal as survival, it was the urge to fuck. And as far as I knew, I was the only female in the galaxy custom designed to tempt the blue bastards. If I could get him thinking with his cock instead of his head, I’d have a chance. And instead of touching him with lover’s hands, I’d rip his head right off.
Chapter 9
Mak, Surface of The Colony Moon
I’m out?
Was that what Gwen had actually said to me? I was going to find that female, put her over my knee, and spank her ass until it burned red under my palm.
I’m out.
No. She’d be spanked, and then I’d be inside her, fucking her into submission, making sure she never did anything this stupid again. When I’d sat in the mission briefing, I’d said I’d keep Gwen safe. Yes, it had been a ruse to get me off the fucking planet, but I’d told the truth. While she was with me, I’d keep her safe.
And then she went off and did this. What the fuck?
She could be off on her own being killed by the fucking Hive right now. And she had a bag full of explosives strapped to her back.
FUCK.
The thought of her dying, being blown to bits, had me running faster, screaming at Marz and Vance to hurry the fuck up.
“We’re closer to our ship,” Marz replied. “We’ll run back and fly to her last known location.”
“Just hurry the fuck up, Marz.”
“We’re coming, Mak. Just keep her alive.” I heard his pissed off tone. While I had no doubt he’d want to spank Gwen for her behavior too, he’d just have to be satisfied knowing I took her in hand.
I just had to keep her alive until then.
Easier said than done. If this was how the governor thought he would control my female, he had failed. Miserably. No doubt he was following every second of this cluster-fuck through the sat-comm. What had I been thinking? I could never leave her under his protection. She was too damn stubborn. Too strong-willed. Too fierce for her own good. And the way she’d run off—with her ridiculous Hive speed—into the swirling fog and toward the enemy, was proof of that.
Warlord Braun’s advice on human females haunted me yet again. I had not understood the weight of his words, the depth of understanding he had gained about these females. Fierce didn’t begin to describe them. And mine, with Cyborg integrations… I was fucked.
These females charged into battle with no thought for their own survival. And even if Gwen was not officially my mate, the fact that I could not mate and bite her would not stop me from protecting her from herself. I was a male of honor, and whether she liked it or not, she had given herself to me. Submitted to my care. Submitted to my cock. She was mine.
I shut off my helmet’s relay, the line of communication back to mission control, back to the planet’s surface. There were some things I didn’t want to share, including whatever the fuck set Gwen off.
I smelled them before I saw them, the metallic tang of Hive who survived on their strange mixture of nutrient shakes and electrical charges, who did not sweat or cry or feel.
My Hyperion fangs burst free, not to mate, but to rip and tear flesh from bone. To fight.
I scented Hive. And my female was among them. Fighting. Alone.
Never again.
With a roar of challenge, I leaped over the small rise to find devastation, and Gwen standing, untouched, in the center of one, two, three… six, no nine dead Hive Soldiers. One of them so big he had obviously been an Atlan.
The sight made me tremble. She’d taken them on alone. All of them. Nine fucking enemies.
When she turned to look at me, her eyes swirled a dark, impenetrable blue, the color one I’d never seen before. Not her own. Alien. Like her face, her hands… blue. But the way she was looking at me was a punch to my gut, so filled with agony and betrayal. I doubted she knew how much she revealed to me in that gaze, but I knew her. Had been inside her.
Loved her. Fuck. I loved her. I’d die for her. Never leave her.
If she’d have me. It took almost losing her to realize that.
And after only a day. When I thought now that she was mine, I wasn’t just a protective male. No, I was so much more. My heart was involved.
“Go, Makarios,” she said. “Take the ship we arrived in and go home. You are free.” Turning away from me, she removed her helmet and shook out her black hair, letting it fall down her back. The toxic chemicals that swirled in the air around us seemed to have no effect on her. She wasn’t gasping for breath. No warning signals came through my helmet because of her diagnostics. Nothing. And thankfully I’d shut comms down. I didn’t need the governor hearing this conversation, knowing I’d planned to take a ship and go back to Rogue 5.
“Gwen? What are you doing?” I took a step closer to grab the helmet and shove it back on her head. “Put that back on.”
She turned to face me, unzipping her uniform as she did so. She stepped out of everything as I just watched. Transfixed. Stunned. Confused. After a minute, she stood naked before me, the strange fog swirling around her body like whispers caressing her skin.
Frozen in place, I stared. I couldn’t look away. She was beautiful, yet not the same Gwen I knew. Vibrant, deep blue from head to toe, her black hair formed a dark halo around her curves. The blue was divided into sections of color, forming a pattern of light and dark I longed to trace with my hands. My lips.
By the gods. What the fuck had the Hive done to her?
“Go, Mak. We had a deal. You’re free.” She repeated her words, but I still couldn’t move. Or look away. Like I’d be able to leave her now. Naked and blue with dead Hive littered around her feet.
“And where are you going? What do you think you’re doing, female?”
She tilted her head, her smile sad. “Killing as many of them as I can.” Moving slightly, her head rotated as if she were listening to something I couldn’t hear. “He’s angry with me for killing his Soldiers. Good.” She was grinning now, the sight almost frightening. All she needed was a flaming sword or serpents coming out of her head and warri
ors on dozens of worlds would build shrines and worship her. “We must go now. He is waiting.”
I frowned. “Who is we? Who is waiting? What the fuck is going on? Why the fuck did you take your clothes off?” Moving closer, I stopped her from walking away with a hand on her bare shoulder. “Gwen. Talk to me. Please. I’ll help you.”
She shook her head, her black hair sliding like silky rope. “You can’t help me.” Her blue hand rested on top of mine, her naked body so perfect I felt like I was talking to a statue carved by an artisan. Where was my mate? My Gwen? And who was this creature looking up at me with such resignation in her eyes?
“I can, if you’ll tell me what you’re doing.” I’d never talked to her so softly. We’d been all fire and stubbornness, a battle of wills, fighting and fucking until we both were finally sated.
But this? Her, now? I didn’t understand and there was no fucking way I’d be leaving her side.
She blinked, slowly, and I would swear I could see her mind calculating her options. “I’m taking the Hive ship to the surface and killing Nexus 4 before he can take another shipment of transport minerals off the planet.”
Nexus 4 on the planet’s surface? Minerals? Whatever. Other people could work on that problem. She could tell the governor and the thousands of restless warriors on the surface the details, let them deal with it. And they would. Eagerly. I didn’t give a shit about any of them, or the Hive, or how furious the governor was going to be. Only her.
“Alone?”
She looked at me as if I were the crazy one, standing naked on a moon. “Of course. The rest of you would never get close enough to touch him.” Her smile was frightening, full of death and menace. Not human. “He will want this body. He will not be able to resist what the other created for him.”
Let her get close enough to touch a Nexus 4, who or whatever the fuck that was? Naked? To tempt him into touching her?
“Over my dead body.”
“Go, Mak. You are free.” She shrugged out of my hold and resumed walking. Quickly.
Running after her, I swept her up into my arms and held her against my chest, exactly as I’d done when carrying her to my quarters to lick and taste and fuck her. I wanted her to remember that. I needed her to remember us. But I was in this damn space suit, so I couldn’t kiss her. Taste her.
But I could touch her, to get her out of her head like I had in my bed. Up against my wall. Oh yeah, I’d wiped all thoughts from her head, and I wished I could do that now.
“Let me go,” she struggled, but for once I would use all of my strength and kept her right where I wanted. She could hurt me, force me to fight her with all my strength. I saw the knowledge in her eyes, but she didn’t. Which made my heart skip a beat. She cared, at least that much.
“You’ll have to kill me, Gwen. You’re not going alone.”
She froze in my arms, the glazed look finally leaving her eyes. Anger flared. Good, I could deal with anger. “That’s not fair, Mak. We had a deal. You’re supposed to go. Go home to Rogue 5 and Kronos. So, do it. Leave.”
“No.” I wound my gloved hand into her mass of black hair and held her still, tilting her head back so she would have to either look at me or close her eyes like a coward. And I knew she had courage to spare.
“God damn it.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears and I wished I could kiss them away. My fierce warrior was no more. I did not like that she was reduced to tears, but I would not let her go until this was settled, until she understood I wasn’t leaving her side.
“What are you doing? You don’t want a mate, remember? So, go.”
“I want you.”
She shook her head. She heard me but wasn’t really listening. “No.” Her gaze darted down to my elongated fangs, then back up to my eyes. “No, Mak. You don’t. Not forever.”
The bite. Gods be damned, she thought I didn’t want her because I didn’t bite her as a Hyperion would. Hadn’t claimed her. Her upset, these tears were all because of me. “My bite would kill you, Gwen. I am half Forsian. The combination of the Hyperion and Forsian genetic lines makes my bite toxic to a mate. There are only three half-breeds like me in existence, and the last male who tried to claim a female could not resist the instinct to bite. He watched her die in his arms.”
She tried to push against my hold as I heard the rumble of Marz and Vance’s shuttle landing nearby.
“That’s bullshit,” she countered. “You should have told me. I’m not exactly normal, Mak.” She motioned down to her startlingly blue body, the fact that she wasn’t wearing a helmet either. Or anything, for that matter. She took a deep breath and blew it out into the swirling fog to emphasize her point.
I told her the truth, but it didn’t mean I would bite her. Ever.
“How is it that you can breathe this air?” I asked, changing the subject. No one should be able to do that. Even the Hive she’d killed had been wearing helmets.
“I’m not exactly human anymore, in case you didn’t notice.”
I looked her over, taking my time, making sure she would see the desire building in my eyes. “I don’t care what color your skin is, mate. Blue or orange, red or purple, makes no difference to me. You are beautiful. And you’re mine. I’m not letting you go.”
Footsteps sounded behind me, but I ignored the two Prillon as they approached. Gwen, however, was not as lucky, flinching at their words.
“By the gods.”
“What the fuck?”
Scowling, I turned and snapped my fangs at the two males. “Do you dare insult my mate? And get your fucking comms units turned off,” I growled, not wanting them to capture any of this for others to know about.
Marz put his hands to his helmet, then in front of him, palms out. “Done,” he said. “And insult your mate? No. Never. But what the hell happened to you, Gwen? Are you all right? Why are you blue? Where’s your armor? Do we need to call medical? We can have you back to the surface and in a med station in no time.”
“I’m fine.”
Vance walked around me and whistled low, taking in the dead Hive bodies lying on the ground a small distance away. “You do this, Mak?”
“No. I did not. And you insult my mate by considering me first.”
“Holy fuck.” Marz joined Vance, looking around. He bent over to inspect one of the bodies, blatantly ignoring the fact that Gwen was naked. As if this were a normal occurrence on a mission. “Remind me not to piss you off again, Lieutenant.”
Gwen’s burst of laughter was music to my ears. She sounded like herself again. Better than that, she relaxed in my arms, content to allow me to hold her. Even though she was still blue, she was still mine.
Would always be mine.
I looked down into her eyes. “Now that the team is here, tell us what the plan is.”
“There is no us, Mak,” she replied.
“The hell there’s not.” Marz’s tone was full command mode. He outranked both of us, and he was not shy about reminding Gwen of that fact. “Talk to me, Lieutenant. Tell me exactly what the fuck is going on here. And why the fuck are you naked?”
With a sigh I knew was surrender, I wrapped my arms around her body the best I could to cover her. Thankfully, Marz and Vance both had the good sense not to look anywhere but at Gwen’s face, which saved me from the need to bash in their skulls.
She recounted everything she’d learned from the Hive she’d killed, including the part where she could talk to them telepathically, which was fucking insane. I’d seen the integrations the Hive had made, up close and personal, but we were all now learning the sheer extent of what they’d done to her. More than any of us ever even imagined. Probably so much more than the intake doctor had even known. She was fucking blue. When she was finished, we all stood in silence. Shocked.
Numb.
And deep within, the Hyperion beast paced in his cage, biding his time. Waiting to kill.
Vance was seated on a rock, tapping his ion blaster against his thigh. “Shouldn’t we tell the gove
rnor? At least let him know what we’re going to do?”
My mate fought my hold and I let her stand, let her pace before us, glorious, beautiful, and naked. She had no modesty, no shame, and so I sat back and admired what was mine. When I suggested she cover up, put her armor back on, the scowl she’d given me shut me down instantly. “It’s covered in blood, Mak.”
I didn’t like the idea of Marz or Vance seeing her, but unless I wrestled her to the ground and covered her up forcefully—which wouldn’t get me anywhere with her—I’d just have to resign myself to the fact that those males could look, but would never, ever touch.
She was fierce and I had no hope of controlling her. Each sway of her hips, every rock she crumbled to dust with her bare hand, was a reminder of that. A trail of dust clung to her feet from the rocks she’d pulverized as she paced. Thinking.
Gods, she was strong. Stronger than anyone I’d ever seen. Man. Beast. Atlan or Hive.
And she’d given herself to me. Let me hold her down. Fuck her. Fill her with my seed. Eat her pussy. Conquer her body. Let me. Because if she hadn’t really wanted me, there would have been no way for me to do any of it. She was too powerful in her own right. And yet…
Mine.
I ached to toss her over my shoulder, carry her to the nearest boulder large enough to bend her over and fuck her. Hard.
“Mak, you still with me?”
Telling my cock to stop tormenting me, I lifted my head and answered my female. The plan she laid out for us was dangerous. Deadly. Insane. And she was fully prepared to do it alone.
“Always, mate.”
“Good.” Gwen clapped her hands together and pointed at Marz and Vance. “You two take the two shuttles back to Base 3. Get Rezz. Tell him what’s going on. Just Rezzer. No one else. You have a locator beacon?”
“Of course.” Marz reached into his pockets and tossed her the small device. She caught it easily.
“Good. Give Rezz the frequency to this beacon and tell him to be ready to move. Tell him we’ll meet him at the beacon’s location. Got it?”
Rogue Cyborg (Interstellar Brides®: The Colony Book 6) Page 10
