That made her giggle, and I set her down, watched her ass sway as she moved back toward the chairs and her buzzing communication device.
She picked the device up, touched it with her fingers, and frowned, clearly upset.
“What troubles you, mate?” I would crush whatever it was like a worm.
“Oh, nothing. That jerk, Kevin, is still trying to steal my TV.”
“Should I scare him with my beast? I would be happy to do so.”
That did make her laugh, a full, happy laugh that made me forget there was a human male in need of crushing.
“No. It’s fine.” She went back around the table and sat, tucking back into her lunch. “He’s an asshole. He says he bought the TV so he should get to keep it. It’s ridiculous. His dad’s a state politician. Rich. I’m sure there are ten TVs in his huge waterfront mansion. I have to assume his dad cut him off or Kevin’s just being even more of a dick than usual. Why come after my stupid-ass TV?” She ate a bite of food.
I mimicked her actions and tried a bite of the pasta salad. Unusual but good. “I do understand these Earth dynamics. Is it not true? Should the device belong to him if he purchased it?”
“Oh, he bought it, all right. He went into the store and picked it out. Brought it back to the apartment.” She slid the device into a pocket. “But he used my debit card to pay for it.”
“I still do not understand.” The human system of banking made no sense and seemed designed to enslave the population rather than help them acquire comfort or stability. Their system was one of the reasons Earth had not been offered full membership in the Interstellar Coalition of Planets. That and many other barbaric practices, such as fighting over resources, starving their citizens, denying them medical treatment. Slavery. The list was long, but the Coalition was timeless. They could wait for Earth to mature… or destroy itself.
Angela smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Like Gramps said, I’m starving. Shall I tell you about what you’re eating?”
“Would Howard like it?” I asked.
She laughed. “I think Howard eats anything.”
She took time in explaining each of the dishes. Of the bottles of something called condiments. I liked the mustard, but the pickles were too sour for me.
After saying goodbye to her parents, she drove me back to the hotel, and I reluctantly left her so that she could attend her educational class. I would not waste my time while she was elsewhere. I had things to do to make her mine. First, I would secure my mating cuffs. They were Angela’s, and I would see them on her wrists. Second, I would comm The Colony and tell Governor Maxim that he would need to send another contestant to this human television show. After meeting her family today, it was more clear than ever. I was no longer available.
Angela was my mate. Mine.
The beast agreed.
9
Braun, Presidential Suite
“Why do you keep looking away?” Governor Maxim asked. “Am I boring you?”
I was back in my room, angry and anxious. I lacked patience. Angry that I had to spend a minute apart from my mate. My beast was pacing, waiting the minutes until we could return to her. After the time we’d spent together, after meeting her family, I was more sure of my decision than ever. Not that I questioned my beast, but Angela was… perfect.
She’d told me of her schooling, the years she’d taken to become a nurse. I made the mental comparison to the highly qualified and skilled medical technicians throughout the Coalition. It was an honorable profession, and I respected her desire to help others. She would be well received and kept busy on The Colony. I had no doubt Dr. Surnen would find her an excellent addition to his staff.
Her parents were calm and kind. Her grandfather was honorable and wise, despite the loss of his mate and his battle with human cancer, a horrible enemy for a lonely elder to face alone. But Angela’s grandfather fought to live, to love, to survive. He fought with courage.
Unlike my own father. He had been one of the most respected warlords ever to return to Altan to take a bride after serving the Coalition Fleet. He’d claimed her. Loved her. Lost her too soon.
The memories crashed in on me, but for the first time since I was a boy, they did not cause hurt. I finally understood what had driven my father to abandon me, his only son, when I was just a child, to send me away to a training academy without saying goodbye. To walk willingly into the Atlan prison cell and unleash his beast because his mate was dead.
My father had been executed on my second day of training. The commander of my training unit on Atlan had pulled me aside and told me of my father’s chosen fate. To mourn him as well as my mother.
He’d chosen to die. Because of that, I’d hated my father for many years, feared that my own beast would rage and consume me just like his had done to him. With my mother’s untimely death in a shuttle accident, I had lost both parents, my home and my entire life in the span of a few days. That was the start of my inner rage, of my beast clawing to get out with all the sadness and anger. Frustration and anger.
Since the day of my father’s execution, I had kept my beast caged, unleashed only in battle, and sparingly, lest the wildness that burned in my blood overcome me and force me to make the same choice my father had. Execution. Death.
Peace.
Only now did I finally understand. Angela was everything and the only person in the universe that my beast would now obey. Without her, the beast would rage, as my father’s had. Without Angela by my side, I would choose to share my father’s fate without hesitation.
Without Angela, I was lost. I was alive but dead inside.
“Braun? Speak to me. What is happening? Are you unwell?” The irritation in the governor’s voice had changed to concern, and I realized I’d been staring, unseeing, at the clock the humans kept next to their bed.
“I am looking at the time. There is a human clock next to me,” I explained.
“You requested this conversation, and now you do not speak?”
I sighed, trying to be patient not only with being away from Angela, but with my governor. My life had changed the second I saw my mate when she’d come into my bedroom. I’d been blind to everything but her. I’d been too busy focusing on being with her, touching her, satisfying her—and my beast—that I had not dealt with the logistics of making her mine. The fact that there was anything in my way made me even more riled.
“I’ve found her.” There. That explained it all. The comm call could be over now.
“Found who?” he asked.
“I found my mate.”
Even through the small tablet I’d brought with me from The Colony, I couldn’t miss the way his eyes widened. “How? I thought the program hadn’t begun. I was told there was a delay of some kind.”
I nodded. “That is correct. My mate is not one of the contestants. She is employed by the hotel.”
He paused, processed. “Fuck,” he said, exhaling heavily. “You didn’t destroy the set like Wulf, did you?”
I frowned. “No.”
“You didn’t claim her on camera?”
“No. She came to clean my room, and my beast recognized her as mine.”
I remembered Angela’s words about wanting to keep her pleasure private. Now that I’d spent additional time with her, I agreed. I wished to let everyone know she was mine, but not through her screams of satisfaction. The mating cuffs would do. That was also on my list of things to resolve.
I also remembered how upset Governor Maxim had been dealing with the humans and their bizarre paper contracts. They had made unreasonable demands on Wulf and his new mate. Wulf had complied because Olivia had not wanted to upset or anger the humans who operated the mating show. And also because he knew there were other males on The Colony who very much needed to find a mate.
Males like me.
Still, things had become crazed because Wulf’s beast had taken over and made a mess of things. The set, the program’s schedule. Everything. I kept my beast under strict control so th
at anything like what Wulf did wouldn’t happen with me. But if Maxim denied my mate, I wouldn’t be able to refrain from doing whatever was necessary to keep Angela. I hadn’t even been on the main set yet, so at least that would be safe.
He glanced off-screen, spoke low to someone, then turned back. “I’ve called for Lindsey to join this comm.”
She’d been the PR person who’d organized the program to grow interest in females volunteering to be brides. From what she’d said, there had been an uptick in bride tests, but the show hadn’t gone as planned. Wulf had found his mate, Olivia, but she’d been a makeup artist for the program instead of a contestant. Now I’d found a hotel maid to be my mate. Again, not a contestant.
“I’m offering you the courtesy of a comm to share with you my intentions. I have returned to the hotel to obtain my cuffs so that I may properly claim Angela Kaur.”
Maxim nodded, then looked away.
“What’s up?” Lindsey said as she moved into view of the comms and dropped into a chair beside the governor. “Hey, Braun! Did you find that authentic Earth ice cream store Jorik told you about? The one where Gabriela worked?”
“He found something else. His mate,” Maxim told her.
She raised her arms over her head. “Hallelujah! I never liked executions.”
I was pleased with her enthusiasm, but it was a little more exuberant than I was expecting. And the grim reminder of my alternative wasn’t as funny as she was trying to be. Humans had a way of speaking called sarcasm that wasn’t used on Atlan. What she considered humorous came across differently through an NPU. I was thankful I understood English well enough to recognize she wasn’t being literal.
Making light of an Atlan’s mating fever and imminent execution was not a normal topic for jests. Still, Lindsey’s heart was in her eyes, and she leaned toward the comm screen with obvious excitement.
“That’s so awesome, Braun. You deserve it. Is she the pretty redhead contestant from Arizona? I saw her and thought you two might hit it off.”
I frowned, filtering through all the contestants I’d run into in the hallway, and couldn’t picture her. Of course, I couldn’t imagine any female but Angela now.
“No. She’s a maid who works for the hotel.”
She blinked. “A maid. As in, that’s her job?”
“As in a hotel maid who is not part of the Bachelor Beast program,” Maxim clarified.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. “I’ll patch the producer in. Wait, he’s taking a day off because of the delay. I’ll have to let Chet know.”
“I heard the program was stalled. What was the problem?” Maxim asked. “Not your mate?”
“Pink eye,” I said.
He frowned. Obviously he hadn’t been apprised of the details about what was happening on Earth, but he was the governor, not the one organizing the program. I’d called him, not to tell him about the show but to inform him that I had found my mate because it had been his decision to send me. I felt obligated to tell him first. I owed him my life.
And now he would choose another to take my place. Perhaps Lindsey’s red-haired contestant from this Arizona would interest another. I had found my female, with her black hair, dark eyes, and soft brown skin. I wanted no other. She was kind and compassionate, accepted my contamination, and I hoped was coming to care for me. She was perfect.
“Hang on,” Lindsey said. She fiddled with something and didn’t pay Maxim’s confusion any notice. I waited patiently. Barely.
Chet’s face filled a box on the tablet screen I was using.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Maxim asked him, leaning in to get a better look.
Chet’s eye was pink and crusty and… I tried not to wince.
“It’s nothing. An infection. I’ll be fine in a day or two,” Chet said.
Maxim looked to Lindsey for clarification. She leaned in and whispered in his ear. He turned back to the comms and cleared his throat, clearly not wanting to mention it further. “Warlord Braun has found his mate,” he announced.
One of Chet’s eyes got big—the non-pink one. “The show hasn’t started.”
“I found her outside the female contestants,” I explained.
“Where?”
Angela had said she could be fired for spending time with a guest. While she would be heading to The Colony with me instead of working at the hotel, I didn’t want her to be in trouble. I would not have anyone devaluing or bothering her in any way.
“Her name is Angela Kaur. How I met her is irrelevant,” I told him instead. “I am collecting my cuffs and will make the claim official this evening.” I had never liked the idea of my family mating cuffs being away from me. I had agreed because I’d seen the fancy box they’d been placed in when Wulf appeared on the show. I remembered how Wulf’s had been shown to humans during the program, and mine were to be displayed identically.
However, I had not yet surrendered them. Thank the gods. I would not have to deal with Chet or any other humans. I would take the cuffs to Angela, ask her to be mine forever, and place them on her wrists. Tonight. I would do so tonight. The thought made me smile even as Chet groaned.
Chet’s face mottled the same color as his infected eye. “We have no show. Again!”
“Now, Chet, there is an endless supply of worthy males here on The Colony,” Lindsey said, her tone pacifying. “We will replace Braun with someone else. We have time to make a switch. There was a delay, remember?”
She stared at him pointedly. The program was on hold because he wasn’t hygienic.
“Who the hell are you going to send at such a short notice?” he practically shouted.
“People aren’t going to want to watch this show if the beasts keep… being beasts. And the contestants… women aren’t going to volunteer to participate if they don’t even have a chance.”
Lindsey narrowed her eyes. “There was no guarantee that any of the warlords would meet their mate among the contestants. I will remind you the ratings of the first round with Warlord Wulf were the best of any program in US television history, and all because the mate wasn’t a contestant. It was considered romantic. Fate.”
I’d known Lindsey for a while, and for a small human, I didn’t want to be the one at the end of her tongue lashing. While she and Angela looked nothing alike, their spunk and attitude were similar.
“What do I tell the contestants? The viewing audience?” Chet countered.
“The truth. That Warlord Braun has found his true mate and has returned to The Colony.”
“Then who will take his place? The show will start as soon as this”—he pointed to his eye—“is cleared up. A day. Maybe two at the latest.”
Maxim looked to Lindsey. “Warlord Bahre would be an excellent option.”
Lindsey’s face lit up. “Yes! Perfect.” She focused on Chet. “There is an excellent replacement just waiting to meet twenty-four women. We will send another warlord to be the next bachelor beast. Just like Braun, I promise you he’ll be big, handsome, a warlord, and a very available bachelor.”
I sighed, glad for Lindsey’s pushiness and order. If I’d had my way, I’d have gone to Chet’s room and pounded him until he accepted my withdrawal from the show, but then I’d perhaps get the horrid pink eye. My mate had informed me that the condition was highly contagious.
“With all of this resolved, I will collect my cuffs and collect my mate. Thank you for your assistance, Governor. Lindsey. Please wish whomever you send to Earth good hunting,” I said, then ended the comm. The details of Bahre’s, or any other warlord’s, trip to Earth to take my place were not my problem. I had one thing to take care of, one thing that mattered to me, and she wasn’t here.
Looking at the clock once more, I saw it was almost time to return to Angela’s quarters. Her schooling would be complete. I would ensure she was fed and comfortable, then well pleasured before I put my cuffs on her wrists.
With my plan in place, I went to grab the cuffs. should wait and ask Angela to place mine
around my wrists, but my beast was already fighting me with a newly enraged fury. He wanted out. He wanted Angela, hot, wet, naked, and submissive as he claimed her. I couldn’t afford to wait. I needed the control now.
With a smile I felt all the way to my toes, I snapped the heavy cuffs around my wrists and welcomed the pain. They were designed to cause enough pain to get the beast’s attention, to remind me that I had a mate even when I could not see her. They were a physical and mental link to the female who owned me, heart and beast and soul. And it was time to make Angela mine forever.
Placing her much smaller pair of matching mating cuffs in my pocket, I stalked out of my room with an actual smile on my face.
This trip to Earth couldn’t have gone any better.
10
Angela, Her Apartment
I could have kissed my professor for letting us out of class early. I’d barely heard a word of what she’d said, and my notes looked like something I might have done in seventh grade, with my name and Braun’s doodled inside of hearts all over the page. I’d barely said goodbye to my classmates before practically running to my car. I ached in all the good places after being with Braun. Again and again. To say he was voracious was an understatement.
But only for me. That was the one thing I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around. Was he serious? Was I his chosen mate? The One? Really? And what would that mean exactly? Would he expect me to leave my family and go live on another planet?
Would I? Could I do that and be happy?
So many questions. Possibilities chased themselves around inside my head like a puppy going after its tail. Yes. No. Maybe. I didn’t know. That was the big one. I didn’t know anything. Not for sure.
Well, that was a lie. I knew I was falling in love with an alien. I knew he touched me like I mattered, like I was his world and he’d never get enough. I knew he listened to everything I said and remembered what I told him. I knew he acted respectfully to my parents and Gramps, which was something stupid Kevin had never quite managed.
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