He lifted the hand farthest from me and had a strange looking wand in his grip, the tip a strange blue coil that glowed in the dark room. “This is a ReGen wand. It will heal you.”
A strange, very faint buzz seemed to come from the thing and I leaned back, trying to get away from it. “I’m fine.”
“No. We were rough with you.” He frowned at that statement and I felt doubt cloud his mind. Worry. About what, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to ease him. I nodded and he moved the wand closer to me, holding it just a few inches from my skin as he started at my head and worked his way down my entire body. My chafed nipples stopped burning and the soreness between my legs faded to nothing as it passed.
“Wow.” I would have loved to have one of those back on Earth a time or two. Like when I fell out of the swing and broke my arm in third grade. Or the first time I’d been cold cocked during hand-to-hand training at Quantico. “Thank you.”
“Anything, mate. Anything you need, you have only to ask.”
“I need a shower. And food. In that order.” The ache was gone, but the scent of sex and sin clung to my skin like hell’s own perfume. “And why can’t I feel Tyran anymore?”
Hunt swallowed. Hard. “He’s too far from us at the moment. He’s out checking on our new warriors.”
“Oh.” I was bummed. I missed him, but I wasn’t going to say it. Apparently, Hunt felt it. Pain and disappointment flooded my collar.
“I will take you to him.” He stood, not looking at me and I couldn’t let him walk away. Not feeling like that. Reaching forward in a rush, I grabbed his huge hand and pulled back, stopping him.
“Hunt, the testing matched me to Tyran, but there’s a reason Tyran chose you to be my second. I need you, too.”
His gaze met mine. The color was striking. I’d never seen caramel eyes before, but I was mesmerized. By him.
He shook his head. “No, mate. Tyran could have chosen from dozens of others. Any of them would have been honored to care for you, to cherish you.”
I squeezed his hand. It was so big, proof that we were so very different.
“No. After what we did last night, what Tyran just… knew about me, about what I wanted—no, what I needed—it’s obvious the processing protocols work. He knew things about me that others have never understood. He knows, and he needs me, too. He needs me to be what I am. I don’t have to hide. I don’t want to hide. The testing really makes the whole getting-to-know-each-other phase much easier.”
He frowned, but he was listening so I continued.
“Tyran made you his second because of who you are. He needs you. You two balance each other out and that means that I need those same traits. I don’t want two mates who are bossy as fuck, who ride the razor’s edge all the time. I like to be dominated in the bedroom, yes, but I also like this. You. Me. I like to feel safe. I need stability just as much as I need Tyran’s passion. I need you making me feel like this. Cherished and protected.” My smile was shy and I batted my eyes at him. I’d never, ever had this kind of conversation with a man before. But he wasn’t a man. He was an alien, and my mate. He was mine. “You’re kinda sweet, Hunt, and I’m not giving you up. If Tryan’s going to break me, I need you here to put me back together.”
He smiled then. “Always, mate.” He lowered his hand to my neck and pulled me to him for a slow-burn kiss before releasing me. I swayed on my feet and he laughed, grabbing my hand again with an easy familiarity that would have taken months, if not years, of dating on Earth. I knew my arousal, my complete surrender, was his to claim if he wanted it. And I knew he could feel my desire for him through the collars. “If you tell anyone I’m sweet, I’ll spank your ass and I won’t need Tyran to tell me to do so.”
I blushed at the thought of my gentle giant making my flesh burn. “I’ll keep it a secret.” I was quiet for a moment, just staring at our joined hands, but one image circled in my mind, haunting me. Tyran. Silent Tyran. His heart heavy with a darkness I didn’t understand. Leaving me. Leaving us. “Tyran…,” I began.
Hunt sighed. “Tyran, like me, fought for the Coalition and was captured by the Hive. Each and every warrior on the Colony was a prisoner at one point. We all escaped, but we endured our own horrors. The torture each of us suffered was different.”
I reached up with my free hand and caressed the silver skin at Hunt’s temple, stared into Hunt’s silver eye. He shuddered and closed his eyes, leaning into my touch as if I’d offered ambrosia straight from the gods. I stroked the flesh with my thumb, finding it to be slightly cool to the touch, but the change in temperature was hardly noticeable. I soothed my mate and realized I had absolutely no idea what the Hive had done to Tyran. “What did they do to him?”
His eyes opened slowly, as if reluctant to face such a morbid question. “Tyran is unlike any other warrior I know. They didn’t mark him on the outside. I think they wanted to send him back to us, to fool our commanders into thinking he was untouched.”
“But he’s not?”
“No.” Hunt turned his head and placed a kiss in the center of my palm. “Tyran’s muscles and bones have been infiltrated.”
I tried to imagine what that meant and couldn’t. “So? What does that mean?”
Hunt sighed and pulled away and I felt guilt running through him like a river. Guilt that he was here, with me, receiving pleasure while Tyran suffered. It was my stubborn mate’s own damn fault. If Tyran hadn’t walked away, I’d be petting him right now, too. But he hadn’t let me.
“His body is strong, abnormally strong and fast. He’s stronger than an Atlan in Beast mode. I saw him pull apart the hull of a fighter with his bare hands, shredded the metal like it was paper.” Hunt paused to let me process, but not long enough. “Most of us have one or two places on our bodies scarred by the Hive, like me with my eye and my arm. We have small scars. But Tyran’s entire body is Hive. He has microscopic implants in every muscle and every bone. He was to be careful every moment of every day. And he has to be very careful of you.”
“Why me?”
Hunt laughed then, his amusement genuine. “Because you, mate, are small and fragile and perfect. You’re a flower petal under our boots and as badly as we long to touch you, we are always aware of how easily you might be broken.”
So, I’d been having sex with some kind of Superman who could rip through sheets of metal with his bare hands?
My stomach growled a reminder that I hadn’t eaten in over a day and I shook my head. Whatever. I wanted him. I needed him. I was hungry and mad and I didn’t care what kind of fucked up mental games these warriors were playing with themselves on this planet. He was mine, microscopic parts or not.