Chapter Fourteen
Rezzer
In the blink of an eye, I was no longer in the cave with Kiel and the others. I was kneeling on the floor of a slick, bright interior and Caroline was dropping to her knees before me.
“Rezzer, oh my god!” she cried, wrapping her arms around me and knocking me on my ass.
I was stunned; no one took me out like that. But my body offered no resistance, recognizing her before my mind could catch up. Realizing I held no weapons in my hands—they must not have been allowed through the transport—I wrapped my arms around my mate and held her. Nothing else mattered. Only Caroline mattered.
Gods, she felt good. Soft and warm, her scent aroused and soothed my beast in equal measure. I held her as I lay on my back on the hard ground. Her mouth was on mine, kissing me ardently.
“Caroline. Where are we? The Hive.”
“They’re not here. At least not at the moment.” She clung to me, shaking and frantic, touching me everywhere she could reach as if she needed to assure herself I was real.
She was shocked and trembling—and she smelled like them—the Hive. My beast roared from within, my hands roaming over every inch of her, burying their metallic scent as I assured myself she was unharmed. Her body was barely covered in a light gown, her bare bottom filling my hands as she submitted to my touch, somehow knowing I needed this as much as she did.
My cock thickened, pulsed between us. Every beast instinct roared to life, as if it had never been diminished by the Hive.
Fuck.
The Hive.
Regardless of how much I wanted my mate, I had to be vigilant, not voracious. I had no idea where the fuck we were. Whether or not we were safe.
Hells, we weren’t safe. We were prisoners of the Hive.
“Mate,” I breathed, looking around the space. From what I could see there was a bed and through an open door an exam room as if we were in a med unit. All was quiet. No beeps. Blips. Hive voices. No buzzing of invisible bars. “Are we alone?”
“I’m alone. These are the quarters they gave me.”
“Quarters or med room?”
“Quarters. That lovely exam table is mine too. They believe I’m carrying a Hive baby.”
My beast stilled. So did I. I sat up, gripped Caroline tightly. “Say that again.”
Her dark eyes met mine. I only saw truth there. “They told me I’m carrying a Hive baby.”
“That’s a lie. Our baby, Caroline. Ours. The baby isn’t Hive.”
She shook her head slowly and clung to me, the desolation in her gaze more convincing than any words she could have spoken. Whatever she was about to tell me she believed to be true. And it was going to be bad. “The triplets call our baby Subject Zero-One. You are Subject Zero.”
I was trying to process everything she said. “Triplets?” I asked.
“The three Hive guys. Two Prillon warriors and one creepy blue guy. He’s the one in charge.”
A Nexus unit. Fuck. Me. We were in even more trouble than I’d believed.
“Let’s get off the floor and talk this through.” I scooped her up and stood, looked around the room, peeked into the med room, grimaced. The space was foreboding, knowing the equipment, the table, were all for testing and assessing Caroline and our unborn child. I settled on the bed, the most calming spot in the two room quarters. Her legs wrapped around my waist and it felt good. Right. My beast calmed enough that I could think. “Now, tell me what you know.”
I listened, horrified as she described her encounter with the Hive triplets, as she called them. She told me about the genetic splicing, the protein that was supposed to suppress my beast, the reason so few Atlans survived capture and Integration, and what they had planned for her. For us.
For the baby.
My beast lay quietly within, listening. Rage building. I held her, safe in my arms. It was the only thing keeping me under control.
“You’re telling me they subdued my beast and tried to genetically alter my seed? That all of my cum was Hive contaminated? Designed to make our child more susceptible to Hive technology?”