“Why am I the only one naked?”
Dare’s smile was infectious. “Because you’re the most beautiful.”
I grinned. Flattery was going to get him nowhere. “I disagree.” They were both beautiful, my mates. But I didn’t know anything about them. “Who are you, Dare? You said you’re a pilot, but what do you do?”
He rubbed a strand of my long black hair between his fingers as if the color fascinated him. “I am a pilot, Hannah. I am the leader of the ninth battle w
ing.”
“Another soldier.” I leaned against Zane, grateful when he seemed to know what I needed without me having to ask. He wrapped both arms around me and held me tight, so I wouldn’t float away in a sea of panic. Their explanation for the need all Prillon warriors had to name a second suddenly felt a lot more real. I barely knew these two strong men, but I didn’t want them to die. The thought made me shiver as pain lanced behind my eyes. “What does that mean? What is a battle wing?”
“I feel your worry, mate. Do not fear. We fly the small fighters, designed for scouting missions, tight places and direct, ship-to-ship combat.”
I imagined a scene from my favorite movie in which the small ships zipped around each other in space firing lasers and blowing each other to smithereens at lightning speed. My heart, which had barely recovered from our sexual play, began to thunder in my chest as I imagined Dare in one of those ships, being chased. Fired at. Blown up.
God, what had I done? What was I supposed to do here on this battleship? Accept these two warriors, wait a few weeks or months for one of them to die, and just get a new mate every time? I knew myself too well for that. My heart wouldn’t be able to take it.
It wasn’t just this fear of their deaths that worried me. That was more than enough, but I sensed something through the collar. There was no explanation for it, but I knew I was attuned to these men in ways I never imagined. There was this feeling, this nudging concern that Zane knew more than he was saying, as if he were keeping a secret, hiding something from me.
Did he know something about their imminent deaths he wasn’t telling me? As commander of the ship, of a fleet of ships, surely he would know the status of this war I’d transported into. What wasn’t he telling me and why did I feel that without this secret, I could never accept his claim?
Was this why he held back during our sexual play? Was this secret the darkness I felt in him? Had he brought me halfway across the universe knowing he was going to die? Or was he concealing something else? Another lover? A woman he wanted more than me? A past he feared I couldn’t accept? Did he find me lacking in some fundamental way?
I shoved at Zane’s arms, feeling like I’d just given my body to a complete stranger. I had given these men my body, gave over, submitted to them both. I let them shove a plug up my ass and their cocks in my pussy and mouth. I’d given in to the pleasure they knew how to wring from my body. Yet they wouldn’t give everything in return. Zane was holding back and surely Dare knew, surely he could feel it, too.
Zane let me go and I stood on shaky legs, feeling like a newborn kitten. I couldn’t live like this. Not forever. The matching program must have made a mistake. I couldn’t trust Zane with my heart if he was keeping secrets. “I think—I need to go home now.”
Chapter Seven
Hannah
Both warriors jumped to their feet at my words.
“No,” Zane barked at me.
“Why, Hannah? What have we done to upset you?”
I shook my head and wandered the edges of the room, looking for anything I could wear. The sheet that I’d dropped to the floor wouldn’t do for interplanetary travel. I needed to find one of those transporter things and tell them to send me home. I couldn’t deal with their way of life, their secrets. Bad enough that I was expected to fall in love with a warrior who could die at any moment. Zane, my match, was so sure of his impending death, in fact, he chose a second man to take care of me when it inevitably happened? And in the meantime, he kept things from me? My match. I was supposed to give him everything. Surrender myself, body and soul. Yet he was allowed to remain a mystery, to hide the deepest part of himself? What if I accepted his claim, tied myself to him for life, and then found out he was actually freaking crazy? Or insanely jealous? Or abusive.
No. I couldn’t accept Zane with his true self in shadows. I’d made that mistake before, on Earth, and knew it to be insanity. I’d just have to survive long enough to get out of this mess without falling in love with either one of them. “This is a mistake. I’m sorry. I just—I can’t do this. I have to go home.”
Dare looked at Zane, clearly at a loss, and shrugged. Zane tucked his cock back into his pants and frowned. “Hannah, you are home.”
“No.” I glanced around at the strangely colored brownish walls, the window where, even now, stars and galaxies raced by in a never-ending stream of what looked like shooting stars. The furniture was bolted to the floors and the art on the walls depicted landscapes that felt all wrong, with skies that weren’t blue, and two or three moons hanging above the landscape. I wanted a blue sky, and trees, and soft green grass under my bare feet. I wanted chocolate and coffee and a man to love who wasn’t going to go off and do his best to get himself killed tomorrow or the next day, or next week. “I have to go home, back to Earth.”
Zane looked over his shoulder at Dare. “Go prepare a bath for our mate.”
Dare nodded and left me alone with my matched mate, the one perfect man for me in all the universe. The warrior I was destined to lose.
I turned on my heel and picked up the sheet, but before I could put it around my body, Zane’s arms wrapped around me from behind and I was suddenly held with my back to his chest. His muscular arms surrounded me, one at my waist and one at my shoulders. I couldn’t move, and for some bizarre reason I couldn’t explain, even to myself, that calmed me enough to think. Being confined and held securely soothed me.
“Hannah, tell me what’s bothering you. Were we too rough with you? Did we take you too hard?”
I could feel the heat rushing to my face at his question. The answer was no. Not too hard. Not too fast. I’d loved it. It hadn’t been as aggressive as the processing dream, the recorded claiming I’d witnessed, but it had been… amazing.
“No, Zane. You didn’t hurt me.” In fact, I wanted more. I wanted my warriors to dominate my body and make me come over and over. I wanted to give them everything—but I was afraid. That annoying weakness I had for dominant, alpha males was rearing its ugly head. And Zane was truly my match. I could feel the connection between us—and Dare as well—as easily as I could feel his touch on my skin. It was real and solid and so strong already that it felt like a tangible thing between us. I wanted to know everything about my men. I wanted to truly belong to them. I wanted to claim them as mine forever and trust in the matching program, or God, or whatever bizarre twist of fate had brought me to this place, to this warrior. I wanted to fall head over heels in love with both of them and hold nothing back. Nothing. And that was the problem. I would give them everything, heart, mind and soul, and it wasn’t going to be enough. Zane’s darkness spread, his discontent coming through my collar as clearly as a bell ringing inside my head. I wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t enough, and he just couldn’t bring himself to tell me.
“Hannah, talk to me, or I will have you over my knee.”