Hunted: Interstellar Brides® Program- Book 17

by Goodwin, Grace

She glanced at me, then grabbed the spoon from my hand. “My father, I guess, was on Earth for a mission. Met my mom and got her pregnant. I never knew who he was. I never knew he was Everian. Hell, I never knew I was Everian until those Hunters showed up.”

  “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

  “She died when I was six. I lived in foster care.”

  I frowned, not understanding, then she explained as I ate. The more I heard, the more I didn’t like. The idea of Niobe alone with families who didn’t really care about her, who didn’t love her, made me angry. She’d been alone since she was six.

  But now she had me.

  “I went to Everis with the Hunters and I lived with one of them with his mate and children. They were nice. Kind. But I was human, at least culturally. It took me a while to assimilate, but I didn’t really fit in. When I was eighteen, I volunteered to be a fighter.” She sighed. “God, that was the first place I felt… normal. I loved it. They knew how to use my skills and it felt good. I felt like I belonged.” She shrugged. “Needless to say, I excelled. I served in ReCon for years, then began to teach at the Coalition Academy. Now I run the place.”

  Impressive. It made sense now, her need for control. It also made sense why she needed to hand it over.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  I couldn’t wait a second longer. Instead of responding, I kissed her. Tasted the sweet fruit and a flavor that was all Niobe. My fingers tangled in her hair and I held her just where I wanted her.

  “Quinn,” she breathed. “Answer me.”

  “Elite Hunter. Raised on Everis. Good parents. I am the eldest and have six siblings. I have twenty-two nieces and nephews.” I turned my attention to her neck, kissing the soft skin there as I gave us both what we wanted. “Assigned to Battleship Karter and Section 437.” I ended with a kiss on her lips. I was not interesting. Not in the least.

  “You have six siblings?” she asked. Out of everything I said, that was what she picked up on?

  Nodding, I slid my thumb over her plump lower lip. I did not tell her there was a twelve-year age gap between myself and the youngest, nor that I had spent much of my youth chasing my younger brothers and sisters, bathing them, preparing food. Our family worked together, as a unit. I had chores. Lots of chores. And among them was caring for my younger family members. Protecting them. Keeping them out of trouble, away from danger.

  I’d felt like a father when I was ten. I’d resisted the matching protocol because I was not ready to be a father again. I had come to terms with the fact that a female I was matched to might want children, but to be honest, if Niobe did not care to be a mother, I would be pleased. The need to be a parent had been worked out of me by the time I was fifteen.

  “Yes, six. All younger. I’m thirty-eight and I waited until two years ago to be tested. While I love seeing all my siblings matched and happy and making lots of babies, I was content with just watching them.”

  She looked away, bit her lip. “And now?”

  “Now?” I wondered.

  “You are from a large family. I assume you want a mate and lots of babies?”

  I sensed this was a serious question, so I paused. Considered. “You said before you couldn’t give me what I wanted. You believe I want… what exactly?” Taking her chin between my fingers, I forced her to look at me.

  “Babies. Lots of babies.”

  I held her gaze and decided to be honest. “I do not care to have children.”

  The relief in her eyes, the release of tension in her body gave me pause. “By your reaction, I assume you do not want to be a mother?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’d be a terrible mother. I have no idea what a good one would be like. I’d have no idea where to start. And the truth is”—she bit her lower lip and stared up at me—“the truth is, I have no desire to have children. I could not lead at the academy and serve the Coalition as I like to do, if I had children to care for. I don’t want to be a mother. I never have.”

  Based on what she’d told me of her childhood, it made sense. But I knew her, at least well enough to see that she’d be kind. Sweet. She’d be a good mother if she did have a child. But I respected her choice not to. I had no desire to be a father. I only wanted my mate to be happy, to feel whole. If that wholeness came from being a mother, I would acquiesce. But if not? Well, the possibility of having Niobe all to myself for the rest of our lives pleased me greatly.

  I was staring at her lip, remembering the taste when she spoke again. “Besides, I’m thirty-six. What on earth is called an Old Maid. My biological clock isn’t really ticking anymore. My eggs are old and dried up.”

  I had no idea what her clock was, or how eggs could be tired. I understood her age. Females older than she was had children. It wasn’t unheard of. But she didn’t want them. And she worried I would, that she would not give me what I wanted. That she wouldn’t be a good mate because of it.

  My mate watched me intently, worry and pain in her eyes. Not acceptable. Not when everything about her made me content. No. More than content. Happy.

  “I want you, Niobe. I do not want children. I have never wanted to be a father. I enjoy my nieces and nephews. Twenty-two of them are plenty of children for me. Niobe…” She looked at me. Really looked. “We would not have been matched if our intentions didn’t align.”

  She must have known that, but doubted. Until now. “You really don’t want kids?”

  Kids? Wasn’t that the Earth word for baby goats?

  But judging by her earnest expression, she was referring to offspring, not agricultural animals. Perhaps this was more Earth slang.

  “I do not want to be a father. All right?” I asked, smiling.

  She smiled in reply. “Yes.”

  I lifted my hips, pressed my cock into her. “We might not make a baby out of it, but we will fuck.”

  “Good, because I… want more of you.”

  “I know,” I replied smugly.

  She rolled her eyes and I stood with her in my arms, walked the few feet to the bed and dropped her on it so she bounced, her legs flailing. I grabbed her ankles, pulled her to the bottom of the bed, dropped to my knees on the floor, then placed her feet nice and wide, on the soft surface.

  “Quinn,” she murmured, coming up on her elbows and looking down her bare body at me.

  This view, fuck. I’d never get tired of looking at her, legs spread, pussy wet and open, her soft belly, full breasts with tight nipples. The aroused look on her face.

  I took a deep breath, breathed her in.

  “I wonder if you taste as sweet as the fruit.”

  I didn’t wait a second longer to find out, licking up the seam of her pussy, getting all her sticky juices on my tongue.

  “Quinn!” she said again, this time in a surprised gasp. Her hands tangled in my long hair, pulled me into her.

  I grinned. “You can’t control me, mate.”

  Those were fighting words to her. She released her grip, then slid to the floor directly in front of me. That smile now was feral, lethal to my senses. She was gorgeous, hair tousled, naked, aroused. Playful.

  Her hand came to my chest, pushed. I let her, of course. Lowering to my back on the carpeted floor, I wanted to see what she intended.

  Fuck. She intended to grip the base of my cock and take me into her mouth. Suck me like a black hole.

  Her mouth was hot, tight. Wet. The suction powerful. Her grip firm, sliding. The devious female had me close to coming. She literally had me by the balls.

  She sat up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She was panting and very pleased with herself. I was dying to come, my balls full and aching.

  Sweat coated my skin, my lungs sucked in air.

  This was a battle of wills. Of who was in control. Who would submit.

  “You’re mine, mate. I control what happens in the bedroom.” I wasn’t going to argue on this. It was fact.

  But she was. A dark brow winged up. “Oh really?” she glanced down at my co
ck, hard and rigid, slick from being in her mouth, almost purple in color and throbbing with the need to come.

  She was right. When I was practically down her throat, there was nothing I could do but give over. What male could resist such a temptation?

  But she was at her most vulnerable when her legs were parted, my mouth coaxing her pleasure from her. She was far from in control.

  This wasn’t going to be resolved in the next few hours. She’d learned earlier if she fled, I’d hunt. I’d always find her. She would always be mine. I had the rest of our lives to prove this to her, to repeat the lesson over and over until she understood.

  For now, we both could hold the power.

  “A compromise.” I curled my finger for her to come closer. She crawled up my body so she was looming over me, her dark hair a curtain around us. My cock nudged her belly, then slid over her pussy.

  “Turn around.”

  Her eyes flared wide in understanding. Slowly, carefully, she turned, tossing one of her knees over my head so she was straddling my face, hers directly over my cock.

  “They call this sixty-nine on Earth,” she said, flicking her tongue over my cock.

  I groaned, bucked my hips. Not to be outdone, I grabbed her hips, pulled her down so she was sitting on my face. I might be smothered to death, but what a way to go. I licked up her sweet arousal, flicked her clit.

  She gasped. “What do you call it?” She took me into her mouth, sucked.

  I ate at her like a starving man.

  “Heaven,” I said. “I call it fucking heaven.”

  The fight now would be to see who came first.

  7

  Quinn, Battleship Karter, Command Deck

  My mate was seated on the commander’s right, a place of honor. On his left, another female from Earth, Commander Chloe Phan, leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed. The two females knew one another well, apparently. They had embraced before the meeting began, and spoke freely to one another, using first names.

  Niobe.

  She was mine, and I stood behind her chair like a jealous idiot as the Prillon captain, Prax, grinned at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  I doubted that, for my mind was focused on the way Niobe had submitted to me. Given herself over to me sexually. I doubted this was something she did, dressed or naked, and it had been a first for her. No doubt. I’d seen the flare of frustration in her eyes when I bent her to my will. Oh, I didn’t force her. Hell, no. But I knew. My matched mate would need to submit, to have someone take control, to let her mind go free, to give over to the safety of someone else with her worries. Questions. Issues she dealt with every single day, instead getting lost in pleasure.

  And Niobe had done it beautifully. She’d resisted, at first. I wouldn’t have imagined her doing anything less. And her submission had been so much sweeter for it.

  Now, seeing her in complete control of herself, her emotions… everything, only made my cock hard. Again. I wanted her again. Still. Why?

  Well, why the fuck not? I could scent her. I could scent me on her. Knew my cum was deep inside her. Marked her, filled her.

  Now, in this room, she would know she belonged to me. She could give orders to the warriors here, yet her pussy would ache from the way I’d pounded it with my cock.

  She could walk away from the meeting knowing I’d be there to keep her safe, to let her bare her soul to me—clothed or not—and I wouldn’t let her down.

  Yeah, all that shit went through my head while I should have been following the conversation. About the plan to go back to Latiri 4, to that same fucking hellhole, and save the other warriors trapped inside.

  Instead, I was consumed with the knowledge that Niobe—no, the vice admiral—was going to be on the mission with us. Carrying a weapon. Putting herself at risk.

  In fact, when Commander Karter had respectfully, and carefully, suggested that she remain on the ship until the fighting was done, she had glared at him until he shrugged and returned his gaze to the battle plans laid out in graphic detail on the table before us.

  She and I had been on his ship less than a day and he’d already learned she wasn’t going to give in to his commands. I didn’t care if she pushed him, but she wouldn’t push me. No fucking way.

  Zan, the huge Atlan who’d tried to kill me, was our primary source of intelligence on the Hive operation going on down there. While I’d been in a cell right next to the transport room, he’d been deep inside the base, spent several days fully integrated into their Hive mind. He’d been put in a ReGen pod to heal. After that, the doctors had spent several more hours removing Hive tech from his body piece by piece. He was in control now, the influence of the Hive gone from his mind, but they’d never really be gone completely. Already the Commander had mentioned transporting him to The Colony once this mission was over.

  I expected Zan to argue, but the pain in his eyes was one I’d seen before.

  He was dangerous on a good day. Now, with Hive tech scattered throughout his body? There was no way any of us could know what would happen when we went back down there, when the Nexus was close. And we would get close to that Nexus because he—it—was our mission objective.

  Then again, there was no way for me to know how I would react either. The injections that blue bastard gave me had burned like acid in every nerve and muscle… inside my mind. The buzzing noise in my head had been consistent and powerful, and I had no way of knowing what would happen once I returned to that base.

  The doctor said my body was at eighty-five percent saturation. Did that mean my head would start buzzing again the moment the Nexus was close? Or had my weakness been lack of sleep, food, water? Would my mind be clear now that my body was healed? Or would I have to grit my teeth and fight through it?

  I would, there was no question, but I preferred not to have the Hive buzzing around in my head like insects.

  Zan and I were in the same uncharted territory. He’d have lasting emotional effects from his time in captivity, as I would, but he was here, ready to fight, ready to save others. To kill every fucking Hive on that planet.

  I only wanted to kill one.

  Nexus 4. He’d told me his name. He spoke as an individual, controlled everything on that base. He’d killed the rest of my Elite Hunter unit. He’d tortured my friends and forced us to listen to one another’s screams. He’d killed them one by one until I was the only one left.

  Karter might be talking about the group mission, but mine was specific. Personal. Nexus 4.

  I’d have his head before I came off that rock. I needed to know he was dead. Gone. The buzzing in my head had been him. And with the doctors unable to remove the microscopic tech he’d injected into my body, there was a very real possibility that once I returned to the base, I would hear him again.

  In fact, I was counting on it. It was as if he’d put a beacon inside me that would lead me right to him. And while his plan had been to keep me by his side, to fight with him, I would use it now to end the fucker.

  I paid attention to the battle plan as much as I needed to. I didn’t like knowing Niobe would be among us, but according to the plans, she would be implanted with a group of Atlan warriors, fresh fighters from the battleship eager and willing to avenge their brothers still strapped in prison cells.

  According to Zan, there were at least a dozen more Atlan Warlords still imprisoned inside the base. So Commander Karter—no, Vice Admiral Niobe—insisted we transport in two Atlans from the ship for every one potentially integrated Atlan Warlord.

  Thank the gods, the doctors on board this ship had managed to save him. Our Atlan, Zan, knew where the guards would be, where the Hive’s most heavily armed soldiers would resist, and where the rest of the prisoners were being held. He was most likely destined for The Colony, but not before we finished this mission.

  We needed him. He needed to finish this.

  The Everian Hunters, like me, had been kept separate on Latiri 4, per Nexus 4’s instructions. That’s
why I hadn’t seen anyone else once they’d walked past my cell from the transport pad. Why only I knew of the other Hunters’ deaths.

  Zan didn’t know why they’d separated us from the other prisoners, and I didn’t either. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. I did, however, hope the blue bastard was trapped down there—because my mate had locked the place down before we transported out—with the rest of them. He had tortured me, effectively murdered my friends. If I understood the latest Coalition reports correctly, the Nexus were believed to be the elite leaders of the Hive, their commanders and organizers. The brains that ran their entire operation. They were a unique species, conquering and integrating the rest of us to use in their war.

  One had even tried to create a female mate for himself. Or so I’d heard. That rumor hadn’t been in any official reports, but I had contacts on Rogue 5, and according to them, the female in question—a human like my mate—had not only escaped a Nexus unit, but managed to set a trap and kill him. The very idea made me want to go rip heads off like an Atlan beast.

  When that specific Hive Nexus had died, thousands of integrated warriors had dropped dead on the battlefield in several nearby sectors of space. The scientists on Rogue 5 believed that most of the fallen had died from the shock of such an abrupt mental separation, but some had blinked, looked around and woken as if from a nightmare.

  I’d asked around, within the Coalition, but the Intelligence Core was tight-lipped about the Nexus units and what they did—or didn’t—know about the Hive leadership. They didn’t share information, because the Nexus had spies as well.

  My mate was tracing her finger along the map projected onto the table, laying out priorities for extraction.

  The first was to save any warriors currently inside the medical labs where the integrations were installed. That area was closest to the transport room, and next to where they’d held me. That transport station was on the third level, deep underground. Before Niobe’s arrival, it had not been well defended.

  We had no idea what we’d be dealing with this time around, which was why an entire attack force was going to hit the base at the surface in a full-frontal assault. Fighting ships, Atlan and Prillon units on the ground, charging the landing bays and exterior doors.