There hadn’t been a Death Match in over two hundred years, since our ancestor had won and claimed the throne. “I am strong, father, my mind intact. There is no need to sacrifice our strongest warriors…”
I had to at least plead with the man to save the others. The strongest would rise to make a claim, and they would die, needlessly, when they should be out on the front lines, battling the Hive.
“You are contaminated.”
“I have knowledge of the Hive’s systems, their strategies. You would be foolish to banish me to the colonies. I should be on the front with the battle groups, where I can…”
He cut me off again. “You are no one, a contaminate. Hive. You are dead to me.”
I would have argued further, but the communication cut off from his end.
Bastard. Every day for the last few years I had swung like a pendulum between the need to impress that asshole or kill him.
“I should have killed him,” I murmured to myself.
I stared at the blank screen for several minutes. I’d been dismissed, and I knew I would never speak to my father again. I wasn’t sorry, not anymore. Perhaps something good came from the cyborg implants. I knew where I stood with my father and he didn’t deserve any more of my time or my thoughts.
No. The thought whirling in my mind in a building storm caused me far more distress. He’d refused my bride. My match. A beautiful Earth female like Commander Deston’s Hannah Johnson. I had hoped for such a match, for a soft, curved female from that planet. Hannah was small, but strong and so in love with her mates, both of them, that she had begged them to take her in the claiming ceremony.
My Hive implants had given me one advantage that day, one secret I’d not shared with anyone. I had a full recording of their ceremony in my system. I watched it often in my mind, seeing again and again the way the human woman liked to be touched, the way she had arched her back, the sounds she made as her mates kissed her, touched her, fucked her. I’d wanted that for myself. Wanted a mate like that so I’d reviewed that recording until it was burned into my very soul. Learned. Memorized every bit of their ceremonial fucking.
I would make my mate scream, as they had. I would make her tremble and beg for my cock to fill her.
Witnessing the ceremony was one honor that had not been denied me by my cousin, Commander Deston. I’d watched as both he and his second, Dare, fucked Hannah like two wild men. Their human bride loved their attention, begged for more, looked at her warriors like they were the breath in her body, the very beat of her heart.
I remembered the other ceremony I’d witnessed, this one during my processing center testing. It had been the dream that had matched me to my mate. The men had been demanding, dominant, and devoted. Since my mate had been matched to me with the same dream, I knew what she would need from me. From my second.
I wanted that kind of connection that was in both ceremonies, and I would have it.
I had a match. A woman had been processed and matched to me. To that fucking hot mating ceremony. The Interstellar Bride Program’s match was almost one hundred percent perfect. That left no doubt that there was a woman just for me. I had no second, no throne, and no future, but none of that mattered. The only thing—the only person—that mattered to me was this woman on Earth who was my mate. She’d been denied transport by my father. That didn’t negate the match, the bond that we shared. It only made me want her even more. I would not be denied her. I had to wonder what she had thought of me when she’d been rejected. The hurt must have felt something like the rage I had burning inside at my father’s intervention.
She would not be denied her mate, her match, just because of my asshole of a father. She would not be a victim of his machinations.
She was an innocent.
She was mine.
If the processing center wouldn’t sanction the transport, I would simply go to Earth and take her.
Chapter Three
Prince Nial, Battleship Deston, Transport Room
I walked the corridors of the battleship like a monster. Hardened warriors averted their eyes, unable to stand the sight of my silver flesh. I doubted it was because of me, but what could happen to them. I cared not. In a matter of hours I would be on Earth, my bride in my arms. This was a mission that would not fail.
Once my mate was secured, I would find a warrior willing to share her, I would name a second mate to protect her, and then find a way to reclaim my throne. As I walked, rage curled in a tight knot in my gut. My father was foolish, and I had spent too many years blindly following his orders. It was time to take the throne from him, by force if necessary. His tactics in the war against the Hive were ineffective and weak and I was proof of that. If not for Commander Deston’s masterful leadership of the battle fleet, we would be lost already.
The transport room was nearly full. Commander Deston, his mate Hannah, and their second, Dare stood waiting for me near the edge of the transport platform. Two warriors I did not recognize worked the control station, inputting the coordinates for my transfer to Earth’s processing center, where just a few days ago my mate had been turned away. Turned away! My rage only grew at how she had been rejected.
Two huge warriors stood guard at the door. At the sight of them, I realized the risk my cousin took for me. Not all on board the ship were happy to know a contaminated warrior walked among them, prince or not.
“Commander.” I clasped my cousin’s forearm in the old greeting, unable to express in words what this chance meant to me. By sending me to Earth to hunt my bride, he defied both my father and the entire planetary council. It showed that he had little regard for my father and a strong belief in the matching system.
I glanced at Hannah, who stood by his side. So small, so frail in comparison to her two mates, yet strong and powerful. She truly was the strong one in their bond. I glanced at their matching collars and I envied their connection.
I, too, would have that bond. Soon. I just had to get to Earth and find her and bring her home.
“Safe journey, Nial,” Deston said. “Once we transport you, your father will surely lock down the transport stations and, most likely, send bounty hunters to track you down.”