Chapter 9
Mak, Surface of The Colony Moon
I’m out?
Was that what Gwen had actually said to me? I was going to find that female, put her over my knee, and spank her ass until it burned red under my palm.
I’m out.
No. She’d be spanked, and then I’d be inside her, fucking her into submission, making sure she never did anything this stupid again. When I’d sat in the mission briefing, I’d said I’d keep Gwen safe. Yes, it had been a ruse to get me off the fucking planet, but I’d told the truth. While she was with me, I’d keep her safe.
And then she went off and did this. What the fuck?
She could be off on her own being killed by the fucking Hive right now. And she had a bag full of explosives strapped to her back.
FUCK.
The thought of her dying, being blown to bits, had me running faster, screaming at Marz and Vance to hurry the fuck up.
“We’re closer to our ship,” Marz replied. “We’ll run back and fly to her last known location.”
“Just hurry the fuck up, Marz.”
“We’re coming, Mak. Just keep her alive.” I heard his pissed off tone. While I had no doubt he’d want to spank Gwen for her behavior too, he’d just have to be satisfied knowing I took her in hand.
I just had to keep her alive until then.
Easier said than done. If this was how the governor thought he would control my female, he had failed. Miserably. No doubt he was following every second of this cluster-fuck through the sat-comm. What had I been thinking? I could never leave her under his protection. She was too damn stubborn. Too strong-willed. Too fierce for her own good. And the way she’d run off—with her ridiculous Hive speed—into the swirling fog and toward the enemy, was proof of that.
Warlord Braun’s advice on human females haunted me yet again. I had not understood the weight of his words, the depth of understanding he had gained about these females. Fierce didn’t begin to describe them. And mine, with Cyborg integrations… I was fucked.
These females charged into battle with no thought for their own survival. And even if Gwen was not officially my mate, the fact that I could not mate and bite her would not stop me from protecting her from herself. I was a male of honor, and whether she liked it or not, she had given herself to me. Submitted to my care. Submitted to my cock. She was mine.
I shut off my helmet’s relay, the line of communication back to mission control, back to the planet’s surface. There were some things I didn’t want to share, including whatever the fuck set Gwen off.
I smelled them before I saw them, the metallic tang of Hive who survived on their strange mixture of nutrient shakes and electrical charges, who did not sweat or cry or feel.
My Hyperion fangs burst free, not to mate, but to rip and tear flesh from bone. To fight.
I scented Hive. And my female was among them. Fighting. Alone.
Never again.
With a roar of challenge, I leaped over the small rise to find devastation, and Gwen standing, untouched, in the center of one, two, three… six, no nine dead Hive Soldiers. One of them so big he had obviously been an Atlan.
The sight made me tremble. She’d taken them on alone. All of them. Nine fucking enemies.
When she turned to look at me, her eyes swirled a dark, impenetrable blue, the color one I’d never seen before. Not her own. Alien. Like her face, her hands… blue. But the way she was looking at me was a punch to my gut, so filled with agony and betrayal. I doubted she knew how much she revealed to me in that gaze, but I knew her. Had been inside her.
Loved her. Fuck. I loved her. I’d die for her. Never leave her.
If she’d have me. It took almost losing her to realize that.
And after only a day. When I thought now that she was mine, I wasn’t just a protective male. No, I was so much more. My heart was involved.
“Go, Makarios,” she said. “Take the ship we arrived in and go home. You are free.” Turning away from me, she removed her helmet and shook out her black hair, letting it fall down her back. The toxic chemicals that swirled in the air around us seemed to have no effect on her. She wasn’t gasping for breath. No warning signals came through my helmet because of her diagnostics. Nothing. And thankfully I’d shut comms down. I didn’t need the governor hearing this conversation, knowing I’d planned to take a ship and go back to Rogue 5.
“Gwen? What are you doing?” I took a step closer to grab the helmet and shove it back on her head. “Put that back on.”