Chapter Eleven
Kristin
I paced the confines of our quarters, fuming. I had no idea if my irritation could reach my mates through the collar, but I couldn’t make myself care. I was no eight-year-old little princess running around in sparkly shoes needing my big, strong daddies to protect me.
For three days, my mates had kept me here, locked away for my own safety while they’d been out there hunting for the missing men and coming away empty handed. Three days! I’d managed to get my hands on one of the ion blasters, but they’d found it—damn the collars for the sense of satisfaction I’d felt at grabbing the stupid thing—and promptly taken it away from me like I was a helpless child, not a trained Federal Agent.
I told them about my job, my skills, my experience, but they didn’t care. Earth was a lesser planet to them, which made my abilities lesser. I knew they saw me as an equal. No, they placed my life above theirs. I knew they valued me, well, I felt that. But it wasn’t my value or equality on the table here, it was my skills. My abilities.
They would give me anything I wanted…except when it came to my protection. They wouldn’t care if I had Wonder Woman bracelets that deflected bullets, they weren’t putting me in harm’s way. I didn’t want to go into danger, but I was completely useless here, trapped and feeling helpless. Neither condition I tolerated well.
I kept telling myself that they didn’t know me, didn’t truly know or understand what I was capable of, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the discontent growing inside me like a cancer. The missing warriors were still MIA, even my powerful Prillon mates and the other twenty Colony warriors out searching every day couldn’t find them. Every evening, my mates came back from their fruitless search and fucked me until I couldn’t breathe before falling into an exhausted sleep.
They had granted me access to Base 3’s reports database, thanks to my anger, and at both Governor Rone’s and Rachel’s insistence. My mates had no problem allowing me to read and analyze data that might assist them in their search. From afar. But they would not let me go out and actually interview anyone, look in their eyes, watch for lies, ticks, nerves. Reports were great, but nothing was better than staring someone down and making them squirm. Seeing the truth even when they spouted lies.
I’d been the princess locked in the tower long enough. And I was done waiting.
Walking to the communications panel next to the door of our quarters, I waved my hand over it, pushed it, stared at it, trying to make it work. Something must have triggered, because I got a response from one of the communications officers somewhere on Base 3. His face appeared on the small screen and I squinted to get a better look. He wasn’t Prillon, looked far too human for that. Deep green eyes, caramel colored skin, and wavy hair that was the color of melted brown sugar.
He was gorgeous. Stunning. And to my absolute disgust, I found him utterly and completely unattractive. He could win modeling contests back on Earth, and for all the interest I had, I might as well have been talking to a block of Swiss cheese.
Boring, boring man. No heat. No fire. Not enough badass alien for my newly acquired tastes. Tyran and Hunt had ruined me for all others. I wanted what I wanted and that was my mates. And they were mine. The overprotective jerks. So, if my pussy was telling me I was stuck with them, they were going to have to learn to behave.
“Lady Zakar, how may I assist?”
“What planet are you from?” I blurted the question without thinking, but then, that’s what I did. I asked questions. It was kind of my specialty.
“Trion, my lady. Do you require assistance?”
“Yes. Get these two monster sized guards out of my hair.” While I couldn’t see them through the closed door, I knew they were there. The two Prillon warriors standing guard were meant to keep me safe. Which was a joke. Give me freaking gun and I’d take care of that myself.
At his confused look, I gave up on the slang and said something even a hard-headed, alpha male alien would understand.
“I need to speak to Lady Rone immediately. Please ask her to come to my quarters at once.”
“Yes, my lady.” He nodded and disappeared from the screen. I knew he’d do what I asked. No doubt, Rachel would arrive with a string of her own guards, which might present a problem. But I would deal with one challenge at a time.
The fury growing inside me was shocking, but it shouldn’t have been. I’d dedicated my life on Earth to protecting people, to tracking down criminals and seeing justice done. That these wounded Colony warriors wouldn’t allow me to help made me feel like I had cockroaches crawling around inside my chest. The feeling made me crazed, made me want to hiss and scream and throw things in the mother of all meltdowns.
But that wasn’t my style. I’d learned how to cage my rage and helplessness, strap it down deep in my mind and function, despite the emotions clogging my throat. The horribleness of what I’d seen, what I’d uncovered in all my years with the FBI would have put me in the looney bin otherwise. But for the first time in years I struggled to maintain control. And why?
I knew why, because my mates, the men I was growing to love, the men I’d given myself to, surrendered to, were now the ones holding me back.
As much as I needed Tyran’s strong handed dominance in the bedroom, I wasn’t willing to give up that level of control in other areas of my life. Hunt, I was sure, would come around eventually. I would need to make him understand and then ask him to help me handle Tyran.
As much as that caveman male could be handled.
In their arms, in their bed, I could let go, give up my iron control and be free in a way I never was anywhere else. I craved those moments, that release.
But this was something else entirely. This was evil stalking the citizens of my new home, and the Colony—and every warrior here—was mine now. This was my new family, which meant these people were mine. Just like the girls I’d helped save on Earth were mine. It wasn’t logical, but serving the community wasn’t about logic. Neither was being with two hard-headed warriors even though they were a pain in my ass.
I’d watched a movie once where a father explained things to his little boy by grouping all people into one of three types: sheep, wolves, or sheepdogs.
Protecting the people—the sheep—from the wolves was just what I did. And as shocked as I was by the fact that I was on an alien world, with aliens for husbands, that one fundamental truth about me hadn’t changed. Not. One. Bit. I was not prey.
Yet, it seemed my mates thought of me as a sheep. Until they saw me for what I was, the ruthless, relentless guard dog, then we’d have problems and I’d be pissed.
A chime of some sort sounded and I jumped, startled out of my thoughts. Must be the doorbell. Who knew there were space doorbells?