“This is Dr. Surnen.”
“Surnen? This is Rachel. What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you down here? Hurry up!” The human female was mated to the governor of Base 3 and his second, Captain Ryston. We had not been friendly when she’d first arrived on The Colony. Far from it. But the delivery of her child had earned me her forgiveness for following protocol upon her arrival and insisting on medical exams that she had not wanted.
“Oh my God, this is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet her!”
That voice belonged to another human female, Lindsey, if I weren’t mistaken. She’d arrived and brought her mother and young son to The Colony and taken an Everian Hunter as her mate. I had delivered her new child as well. I was becoming an obstetrician as much as a bacteriologist.
“What is going on down there?” I asked. My heart began to pound in my chest, but I pushed all excitement back. Surely this was a trick. My mind engaged with difficulty, still fully engrossed in genetic analysis. The switch in thinking was extreme, and hard to accept. A mate. Could it be true?
“Get your ass down here, Doc. We received word of your match and your mate’s imminent arrival. Trax looks like he’s about to lose his shit.”
Those blunt, crass words could only have come from Kristin—mated to Tyran and Hunt—who had been a law enforcement officer on Earth and still worked with the scouting teams here on the planet. How those two males allowed their mate to place her life in danger on a daily basis, I could neither understand nor condone, but she was not my female to protect. Not my problem, at least until she got herself hurt.
If my female spoke to me in such a tone, I would turn her ass red right before I filled her with my cock.
“Doc? You there?” Kristin asked.
“Yes.”
“Your mate. Did you hear those two words come out of my mouth?”
“Yes.” I had, but I still didn’t believe them. I didn’t dare. The only thing that had kept me sane all these years on this wasteland of a planet was resignation. I would serve my purpose and die on this rock. That was my fate.
A mate meant hope. And hope would fucking kill me.
I stood, but my feet remained frozen in place as an explosion of noise, of voices and excited females became a jumble of sound through the comm.
“Dr. Surnen, this is Maxim.”
My entire body flooded with relief at the deep, authoritative voice. Finally, an end to this madness. “Yes, Governor.”
“This is not a joke,” he snapped. “Your mate, Umiki Tanaka from Earth, is listed as being the next inbound transport. Trax is standing here with a blue blanket awaiting her arrival.”
Fuck.
Blue was Trax’s family color, not mine. Not fucking mine. He’d been serious.
“I received notification, Doctor, that Trax sent a request to Prillon Prime to be assigned Primary Male. Do you wish me to support his claim?”
Fuck that.
“He is my chosen second, and she’s mine,” I said, walking toward the door… and closer to my mate.
His chuckle would have made me furious if I hadn’t been such a stupid ass for the last few minutes. “I thought you might say that.”
* * *
Mikki, Interstellar Brides Processing Center, Earth
The cornerof Warden Bisset’s mouth tipped up at my question. “All it means, Ms. Tanaka, is that the testing took twice as long as usual. I had to initiate a second simulation, one you would accept, but the data was finally gathered. You have been successfully matched.”
I frowned. “I have?” I tried to raise my hand to scratch my head, but I was restrained. “Can you open these up?”
“No. Per protocol, all felons are to remain confined for the duration of the testing and transport. I’m sorry, Ms. Tanaka.”
“Call me Mikki. And I’m not going to hurt you.” I tipped my chin up. “I’m an environmental biologist. I’m sure that tablet has all my information in it.” Sighing, I went on. “Fine, I was sent to prison, but for destruction of property, not murder.”
I’d blown huge holes in a couple of boats. Empty boats. Commercial whaling ships that were breaking the international ban. Scientific research, my ass. They gave real scientists like me a bad name. Yet that was the excuse they’d used. So what? It was okay for them to go out and kill whales, but putting a hole in the side of an empty boat was worse?