I stepped onto the black scanner pad lined with bright green bars and waited. This part always burned a bit, as the scan was more intense than the normal used for clothing measurements. Not many knew the scanners were also capable of becoming transport pads, but Trist would know. As did I. And the weapon I’d requested was way above a doctor’s grade, reserved for Intelligence Core operations or battleship commanders.
As for the access code Earth Miranda Doyle, it was the one I’d been using for the last two years since her arrival on Trion with Natalie and baby Noah. My obsession with her did not weaken or fade with time. I didn’t want to talk about that. Not right now.
The S-Gen machine’s bright green light faded. “Scan complete. Please clear transport pad.”
I stepped back and waited as a special black weapon appeared. Not a typical ion blaster, this one could ionize an enemy completely. Not simply injure or burn, but turn an enemy into particles smaller than dust. They were top level clearance only. Even Trist didn’t have one. They were not battle issue, as the I.C. did not want them falling into the hands of our enemy Hive.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle and grinned at Trist, raising my brows. “So, what’s this alarm all about?”
“You lied to me, Doctor,” he said, his voice calm and accusatory, even with the alarm blaring.
I shook my head. “You banished me to private quarters and didn’t bother to ask about my background.”
His eyes narrowed. “We will discuss this later.”
The young Prillon boy made his way to my side, and I shifted my attention to him. “Do you know how to use that blaster?”
He looked offended, which had been my intention. Better angry than scared. “Of course. My fathers have taught me well.”
“Good.” I nodded and put my hand on his shoulder. “Take the rear and be ready in case they transport in behind Lady Treval or the other children.”
“Who? In case who transports in?” Miranda asked as she watched the young warrior reassure his little sister before moving into position behind her and the other three much younger children. The Prillon boy pulled his blaster from where it had been strapped to his thigh—clearly not a practice weapon—and turned his back on us, watching the other side of the room. Good lad. Well-trained.
“The Hive, mate. Remember the other day when we were in the command deck and there was talk of ships disappearing? I fear this ship is their next target.” Trist looked at me and I returned my attention to the door.
“Comms are dead?” I asked.
“Yes.” His dark look said it all. We’d be fighting our way out of here.
13
Miranda
* * *
What the hell was going on? I’d never heard that sound before, but I instinctually knew it wasn’t good. Not the way Brax and Trist were behaving. The way the children stopped what they were doing and lined up quietly. Orderly. It reminded me of a fire drill in elementary school on Earth. But we weren’t walking outside. There was no outside.
The fire department wasn’t coming. The Hive was.
Here? On this ship? On this silly little ship where I was baking cookies? Even now the scent of vanilla and cinnamon Snickerdoodles filled the air. Damn Hive. They were going to try to hurt us, and they were going to make me burn my cookies. Okay, I shouldn’t be so flippant about the Hive, especially with children here.
“Trist?” I asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do not fear, Miranda.” He looked over his shoulder at me where he stood in front of the door and I felt something I’d never felt from him before. Fear. Not that he would die, but that something would happen to me. He probably wasn’t too keen on me knowing his inner thoughts and feelings at this moment, but it definitely helped me remain calm, to judge just how much danger we were in. If he were to protect us, then I needed to keep my wits about me. I needed to stay calm for the children.
“I will allow nothing to harm you, mate,” he vowed.
I sensed his resolve, his complete devotion to me. His willingness to die to keep me safe. To keep the children of others safe. That last bit truly scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want him to die. I needed him to live. I hadn’t even told him I loved him yet. I hadn’t even accepted his claim, my collar still black. And black was not my color. I loved him. I did. I knew it that first night when I’d been with both him and Brax. I had become even more sure when he’d banished Brax to the visitor’s quarters and spent the next two nights making love to me, pushing my boundaries, exploring the dark needs I’d not shared with him before Brax came into the picture. My nipples hardened at the memory.
Not the time! Not the time, nipples.
It turned out Trist loved dominating me, body and soul. He’d learned quickly that the bossier and more demanding he became, the more powerful my response. Now that had been a time when the collars came in handy. I still loved Brax, part of me always would, but I knew now that I would be happy with whatever Trist decided. Submitting to him, in bed and out, was what I wanted. Craved.
Needed.
And if he didn’t feel Brax was worthy, I would accept that, accept a new warrior into my bed. Trist was mine and I was his. I loved Brax, but I would not sacrifice my new life, this new happiness, to have him. If Brax couldn’t accept that, then he didn’t really love me. It saddened me to think it, but one thing this Brides testing thing had taught me was that I didn’t have to compromise. I could have it all. I deserved it.
I would not accept less than total devotion from a mate. Even a second. I deserved better. Trist had reinforced those thoughts.
Trist blocked the door with his body so I couldn’t see beyond him.
Then Brax blocked my view of Trist.
The young man who’d been happy to smile, laugh, make cookies and tease his little sister was now standing at our backs with an ion blaster drawn in a battle stance. I’d thought it humorous he’d worn the pistol in a holster, just like a gunslinger in the Wild Wild West, or a kid with a pop gun playing grown up. He wasn’t playing at anything, I realized. His sister had flour in her hair, but she obviously loved and trusted her older brother, and he was prepared to protect her, just as Trist was for me. When he’d touched her on the head as he walked past, she’d smiled and relaxed her hold on my hand.
The young man whispered to her, softly, but I heard him.
“Don’t worry. I will protect you.” Yes, just as I thought. Prillons raised their boys well.
Her smile was one-hundred percent love and complete trust. “I know.”
She stood next to me, stoic and unafraid, as the other two younger children clung to my side as if their world was about to end.
And Brax? He’d worked the S-Gen machine like a pro and had created a black space gun that looked even nastier than the one Trist had pointed at the closed door. Seemed there were things we didn’t know about Brax after all.
“Try comms again,” Brax said.
“I did. No one is coming,” Trist replied, jaw clenched.
Brax tensed, his back going rigid. “The S-Gen is too small to transport us out of here.”
I looked to the machine like the one I’d used to make ice cream on Trion. It transported people? God, I could have sent myself to Rogue 5 by mistake!
“We have no comms,” Trist replied. “We can’t reach the Zakar and we can’t initiate transport from here.”
Brax took a moment to digest that and I did, too. My men thought the ship was under attack and we had no way to contact the battleship… or anyone else. Or transport from this spot. Leaving this room… “What are your orders?”
Trist leaned around Brax to glance at first me, then the children. “We make a run for the shuttle. Can you fly?”
Brax nodded. “Yes.”
“Rating?”
While Brax rattled off a list of stuff that made no sense to me, but satisfied Trist—and surprised him, a reaction I felt via the collars—I had to keep myself busy. If I just stood about feeling useless,
I’d go crazy. So, I cleaned, which was ridiculous since we were leaving the room any minute. But the kids saw I was calm, that things weren’t so bad that I felt it okay to organize the supplies. I even wiped off the counter as best I could with my hands. What a mess.
Baking was messy.
A sound filled the air and moments later the door slid open.
Trist stepped back, weapon raised…
Nothing. The corridor beyond was empty.
With a curse, Trist fired his blaster into the seemingly empty space.
I winced and wanted to cover my ears, but I dashed to the girls and wrapped my arms about them.
A heavy thump followed and Trist fired again and again, at nothing.
Something rolled toward Trist on the floor.
“Get down!” Trist screamed and threw his chest over the thing.
I doubled over, my ears ringing as a shrill whistle filled the room, followed by a blinding flash.
“Plasma bomb!” Brax cursed and moved into position at Trist’s side, firing at the same nothing as my mate attempted to lift himself off the floor.
What were they firing at? Where had the plasma bomb come from?
Brax fired again, using one hand placed beneath Trist’s arm to help him up. On the floor, just outside the door, a dead body appeared as if out of thin air. It was like magic, one second invisible, the next… there. The creature had a Prillon’s face, except it was half dark copper skin and half a bright, shiny metal that looked like polished chrome. His body was covered by a strange, shimmering armor that I’d never seen before, but it almost looked like glitter. Holographic glitter.
Why was a Prillon firing at us? What was all over him?
I tugged the children and we ducked down behind the table where we’d been baking as Trist bellowed in pain. I winced, then panicked when I smelled burning flesh. His agony blasted me through the collar so that I fell to my knees and gasped with the intensity of it.
“Trist!” I screamed, but Brax bellowed at me before Trist could respond.
“Stay down!”
I tucked the girls’ heads down, but knew Trist had been hurt. No enough to stop him, but he was hurting. Definitely injured by that plasma bomb.
Beside us, the young Prillon, Var, began firing his weapon as well. He shouted a warning. “More back here!”
“Go!” Trist yelled at Brax and the man I’d only ever seen as a lover, or a doctor, leaped across the room to assist the young Prillon with the speed of an Everian Hunter I’d met once on Trion. Brax shot and fired his special gun and one enemy magically appeared dead on the floor. I understood now this was the Hive. This was the enemy I’d heard about but never believed existed when I’d been on Earth. Why were they invisible? Brax didn’t let up, exchanging ion blasts with more attackers. It was odd to see him firing at someone he couldn’t see. Not until they were dead and then they appeared, it seemed.
The little girl watched her brother, still unafraid. She caught me looking, and the faith I saw in her eyes nearly broke my heart all over again. “Var won’t let them hurt me. He’s strong, like our fathers.”
How did someone so small seem so confident, so assured at a time like this? I was the one to be the example, but it seemed she was an example to me. I ran my hand through her hair. “Yes, he is.”
Two more blasts aimed at Brax. It appeared the invisible intruders believed him to be more of a threat than the young Prillon. They were right.
But he couldn’t see them to fire back.
I stared at the flour coating the young girl’s hair and a thought came to me like a plasma bomb explosion.
“Yes!” Elation filled me as I was struck by an ingenious idea. Apparently, Trist felt my excitement, and my determination to help.
“Stay down!” Trist commanded.
Too late. I was on my feet, the bowl filled with unused flour in my hand. Desperate to help, I ran around the edge of the table, throwing flour into the air as I went. First to Brax and Var. Three handfuls of flour caught the air like pixie dust in a Disney movie and the unseen became ghosts coated in white.
“Brilliant, mate!” Brax yelled as he and Var took down the intruders with much more accurate shots.
I turned to see if Trist needed any help finding his invisible opponents, but he had two dead bodies at his feet. The third intruder I could not see, but he grappled with Trist in a physical struggle. It was the strangest thing, as if Trist were possessed, shifting and kicking, punching and firing at… nothing.
Screw that.
I ran as close as I dared and threw more flour into the air where I knew, logically, Trist’s assailant had to be. One handful. Two.
The invisible enemy turned white. He was huge, and not Prillon.
Brax saw the enemy as well. His eyes widened. “A farking integrated Atlan. Gods help us.”
He fired at Trist’s attacker, shoving me behind him now that he could see the enemy. Over and over the blaster fire struck the huge Hive warrior. Terrified Brax would shoot Trist accidentally, I couldn’t tear my gaze from the fight for survival raging before me.
“Take him out!” Trist ordered. Using a strength I could only imagine, he lifted the Hive off his feet and threw him several feet away.
The moment they were separated, both Brax and Var fired without stopping.
When the beast was down, unmoving, they stopped, both Brax and Var looking to Trist, who staggered back against the wall, his breathing ragged, his shoulders drooped with exhaustion.
Trist stared at the huge Atlan, bleeding and broken on the ground. I’d never seen anything so tragic in my life and tears gathered as I wondered about the giant who fought to get up. To keep fighting.
“There are nine of us.” The Atlan pulled himself to a sitting position and turned his face to Brax. “Do it. End this torment.”
Oh god. I remembered now. I’d heard about what the Hive did to those Coalition fighters they captured. They integrated them, some more than others, converting them into fighting machines so they attacked those who they used to serve with. It seemed this Atlan had not been fully integrated. He knew he was the enemy, that he was beyond saving. Beyond redemption. Death was the only release from the prison where the integrations in his body had him trapped.
He didn’t want to fight us. He knew he was one of us, but could never be more.
God, it was so awful. I blinked back tears as Brax kept his blaster trained on the Atlan, adjusting something on the top of it. Brax addressed the warrior, the only Hive fighter still alive in the room. “Die with honor, brother.”
The Atlan bowed his head and closed his eyes in obvious relief. “Thank you.”
Brax bowed slightly at the waist and fired. The Atlan flashed so brightly I had to avert my eyes. When I turned back to look, there was gray dust, finer than flour, where the Atlan had been moments before. I swallowed a lump in my throat, smiled down at the girls.
“Three more.” Trist spoke into the quiet, his powerful frame sliding down the wall until he landed on his ass with a hard thump. His agony hit me as if he’d been holding it back, protecting me, and no longer could. As if he were losing consciousness.
“Trist.” I rushed to his side, everything else forgotten. “Trist. Oh my god. You’re hurt.” And he was. His chest and shoulders were an oozing mess, as if he’d been on fire. Blood slowly pumped from his leg in a constant stream. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew that meant he had a severed vein, maybe even an artery. I’d taken basic first aid, but didn’t spurting mean artery? No spurting. But still, god, he was dying.
Brax was at my side, pushing Trist onto his back. He turned to Var. “Watch the door. Count to three and fire. Keep that corridor clear.”
“Yes, sir.” Var moved into place and I was shocked to see his sister race to his side, bowl of flour in hand. She hid behind the door’s frame, blindly throwing handfuls into the air in the corridor to help her brother.
So fierce, for children.
Brax gently moved me to the side
and pulled his green doctor’s tunic off over his head. Using it as a tourniquet, he yanked and pulled the fabric around Trist’s thigh above the wound until Trist moaned in protest, but at least the bleeding slowed to a small trickle. “Miranda is going to be upset if you die, so get yourself together, Captain.”
Brax’s voice held the command that usually came from Trist.
Trist actually chuckled at that, but I was too stressed to appreciate that fact. I knew we had to get to a shuttle to save Trist’s life. And per the Atlan who’d given us the info and then asked to be put out of his misery, we knew there were three more of those… things… in our way.
I grabbed Trist’s blaster thing out of his limp hand and pointed it at a chair. “Brax, show me how to use this thing.”
“No.” Trist started to protest, but I ignored him. “Now, Brax, or I’ll never forgive either one of you.”
When Brax hesitated, looking to Trist for permission, Trist lifted his hands to wrap around mine. Shaking and weak, he curved his fingers gently until I held the weapon in the proper position. “Aim, mate, and when you are ready, squeeze here.”
It wasn’t exactly like a trigger on a handgun back on Earth, but it was close. I took aim and blasted the stupid chair off its legs. Good. If any of those things thought they were taking one of my mates from me, they had another thing coming. And they better think twice about fucking with any children.
I turned to Brax, fierce and ready to end this. “Let’s go. We need to get Trist out of here.”
“Agreed.” Brax looked grim, but not scared, and that gave me hope that we would all survive this mess. I knew he was more than just a doctor, but I hadn’t talked about that with Trist during our time alone. I’d been much more interested in exploring… other things than talk about Brax and his secret missions—missions which I technically knew nothing about.
Matched and Mated Page 12
