The transport controller sucked in a breath at my disrespectful language. I narrowed my eyes at him and his companion, who was grinning at me like I was the best entertainment he’d had in months. Perhaps I was. I didn’t care. “Both of you. Get out. I’m claiming my mate and I’m claiming her here. Now.”
Hunt, ever the diplomat, spoke up, stepping between me and Maxim, who looked at me with narrowed eyes, clearly struggling with his decision on how to handle me. But there was no handling me. Not right now. “Tyran, we can take her back to the—”
“No.” I could feel the plump fullness of one breast against my palm, feel the roundness of her ass against my belly. Her scent was intoxicating, drowning me and all reason as deep instinct rose within me, and we weren’t even wearing our collars. “They will leave because I am not wasting another moment to make this female ours.”
Maxim laughed, took his mate’s hand and ushered the controllers from their posts.
“What if a transport comes in?” one asked.
“Then the captains will be here.”
The man was dedicated to his post, but in this moment, I didn’t care. Transports occurred, but were few and far between. Still, I didn’t want to have our mate bent over the control panel, my cock in her pussy and Hunt’s in her mouth when someone arrived.
Fuck no.
“Set the transport to standby mode,” I told Hunt. He looked at me with surprise before glancing at Maxim who had paused at the door when he heard me, perhaps because I rarely gave orders—at least not since we’d been in battle. The last order I gave nearly killed us both. My battle rage had won that day, and was the reason we’d ended up in those Hive Integration caves, tortured and weak. The reason we’d ended up here.
I’d spent the last three years paying the price, doing what I was told by the governor, Hunt and the other elected commanders on the base. The deep instincts I had to command, to lead, suppressed until I was choking on them. Hunt was a good leader, deliberate, considering things from every angle and choosing the right path for the warriors here on Base 3. He was one of Maxim’s most trusted advisors.
I was walking chaos. I followed orders because I chose to, not because I needed someone to tell me what to do. I followed orders of the men I respected because I didn’t want the responsibility, the blood of any more warriors’ deaths on my hands.
No, I didn’t give orders anymore, and I saw the shock on Hunt’s face—uncertain if that look was because I wanted to do this here, or because I had just barked an order at the governor of Base 3.
Maxim nodded his head in assent and left us, the door sliding closed behind the men with a nearly silent swoosh.
“She deserves a bed,” Hunt grumbled, his fingers sliding over the panel. When done, he looked to our sleeping mate. “She deserves softness, Tyran. Look at her. She’s so beautiful, so perfect.” He looked down at his left arm, at the Hive technology that turned his arm almost completely silver, and frowned, looked at me, his gaze wandering to my eye and silver temple. “She deserves better than us.”
“She does, but she won’t always get it from me. She doesn’t want it,” I replied.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Because I want my collar around her neck now. I want to fuck her now. I’m not gentle, Hunt. I will demand everything from her and we will give her everything she needs. Your light and my dark.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I continued. “She’s my match, Hunt. Of all the warriors on the Colony, you know me. You know the darkness I carry inside. She won’t always want a bed because she’s mine. She’ll crave what we can give her.”
He moved to stand before me, looked down at the sleeping face of the female who was now ours. “What if you’re wrong?”
I narrowed my gaze. “I’m not wrong, not if she’s mine.”
He frowned, reached out tentatively and stroked a finger over her cheek.
She stirred then and my cock leapt to attention, her feminine scent drifting over both of us as she shifted in the blanket.
“All right, Tyran. We’ll find out soon enough.”
* * *
Kristin, Transport Room, The Colony, Base 3
I was warm, a blanket wrapped around me the way I used to love when I was a little girl. The steady beating of a heart soothed me as I nuzzled my cheek into the hard warmth of the man holding me…
Man?
I blinked my eyes. Once, then again and my vision cleared. After that, I blinked again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Yes, there were two very big, very hot guys staring down at me. Warden Egara was nowhere to be seen and these men weren’t human. They were beautiful, sexy, their coloring gold and brown with slightly sharper features than a human man would have. The man holding me was darker, with skin a creamy caramel, short brown hair and brown, bedroom eyes I could stare into for hours. He held me as his lighter friend touched my cheek with a gentle finger, lingering on my skin as if he was mesmerized by the sight of me.
The second had pale golden hair and amber eyes, his skin fair with just a hint of gold. His right eye held a hint of silver, and a pale silver patch of skin surrounded his eye and his right temple, the odd color disappearing beneath strands of light-colored hair.
My heart raced as I breathed in the scent of them both. Feral. Hot. So sexy my body responded as if it had just been waiting for me to pay attention, suddenly hot and aching, needy.