“Are you certain you completed the testing?” I barked. “I don’t remember anything.”
Nothing had happened except I now had vague memories that lingered in the back of my mind, and a painfully hard cock straining to escape my armored pants. I’d been dragged directly from the battlefield to the medical unit, and the hard casing of the ground armor made my erection incredibly painful. With my hands restrained, it wasn’t as if I could even shift my damn cock to a less agonizing position.
The medical officer stepped over to stand near my hip, where I could see him. His voice sounded vaguely bored and routine. “You were put into a trance sequence. Do you remember any of it?”
“Not much. Shadows. The memories are vague.” I closed my eyes. I remembered holding a woman down, her cries of pleasure, the powerful thrust of my hips as the beast took what belonged to him.
“Shadows? That’s why your cock is harder than my ion pistol?” the commander commented.
“Most males do not recall much of the processing data. Their higher levels of aggression during a ritual mating tend to obscure the experience.”
I tried to process what he wasn’t saying. “And the women? They go through the same process?”
He nodded enthusiastically as he removed a sensor from my temple. “Oh, yes. But the brides tend to recall everything.” He cleared his throat. “Down to the most minute sensory detail.”
Commander Deek laughed. “So, the males rut and walk away, and the females remember every detail forever so they can hold it against us later.” He slapped me on the shoulder, hard. “Sounds about right for a mate.”
“It is a consistent result of the testing,” the man commented, “not a judgment on females in general.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, ignoring the throbbing pulse of lust in my cock. If I saw my mate right now, and knew she was mine, I’d leap off this table, rip her clothing from her body, and impale her as I trapped her beneath me on this hard floor until she had so many orgasms that she begged me stop.
I envisioned her perfect, naked ass, pussy glistening with my come as she crawled away from me, her soft, round thighs pale in comparison to the soothing dark green of the medical bay floor. I’d let her crawl a bit, let her think I was finished with her, then grab her, flip her onto her back, throw her legs over my shoulders and fuck her again, my thumb on her clit as I made her chant my name. To anyone not of Atlan, it would sound barbaric, but we gave our mates what they needed, and they needed to know who they belonged to.
My cock pulsed and I growled, eager to find her, to fuck her. Now that I knew she was out there, ready for me, the beast tugged even harder to be free, to take what was his.
I was closer to the edge than I realized. With a supreme act of will, I reined in my need and focused on the conversation flowing around me as the medical officer spoke to Commander Deek.
“…it is often a sign of… compatibility before the bride’s transport begins.”
“Begin the transport then,” I growled. “I am ready.”
The doctor’s assistant jumped and went to work at a wall screen near my feet, his gaze darting frantically from one item to another as his fingers flew over the controls. “Oh, um… yes. Well.”
I tilted my head and looked up at him. He was a large warrior, not the size of an Atlan or Prillon fighter, but not small either. He’d been overly talkative, as most medical crew tended to be, but he wasn’t just chatting now, he was flustered for some reason. Here I was, strapped to this table, torn between the need to fuck my mate and rip another Hive soldier to pieces, as he fumbled with the controls as if he’d never used them before. His ineptitude did not make it easier for me to maintain control.
“Let me get the doctor.” The man dashed off before either of us could question him. In seconds, he was back with the small female doctor, her lush curves emphasized by the standard dark green instead of the assistant’s gray. But I was too far gone to respect her knowledge or experience, or the fact that she very likely outranked me. I saw only a woman who needed fucking.
“I am Doctor Rone. I have just been told that while your match has been made, there is a slight complication.”
My hands curled into fists and I fought against the tight restraints as the beast within raged, unhappy with this news. “What is the complication?” My voice was clipped and sharp.
The doctor cleared her throat and looked down at a data stream flowing across the portable tablet she carried. “Warlord Dax, your matched mate is a human woman from a planet called Earth. Her name is Sarah Mills. She is twenty-seven years of age, fertile, and meets all coalition bride processing requirements, but one.”
Sarah Mills. Sarah Mills was mine. I looked at the back side of the tablet, eager for a look at my mate. “I would see her likeness.”
The doctor shrugged, as if it made no difference to her, and held out the tablet so that I could see the dark-haired beauty staring out from the data screen. She was stunning and elegant, with delicate lines, arched brows, and a strong jaw more refined than any Atlan female’s. Her long dark hair curved in waves and came to rest just below her shoulders. Her pink mouth looked ripe for kissing… or fucking. My hard cock jumped as I imagined her taking me in her mouth. I nearly came right there on the exam table. The sight of her intense, dark eyes made my mating fever so much harder to control. She was mine, and I wanted her now. Right fucking now. “Where is she?”
The doctor averted her gaze and stepped back, the tablet held protectively against her waist as she looked at Commander Deek for permission to speak.
What the fuck was going on with my mate?
“Where. Is. She?” I bellowed the question and all eyes in the medical station turned with curiosity in our direction. I tensed as the male Prillon doctor stepped in our direction, prepared to fight my way out of here if necessary. My little female doctor waved him off, apparently confident I wouldn’t cause harm even though I was ready to rip this ship apart if the doctor didn’t answer me.
Commander Deek rubbed his eyes and shook his head. We both knew this wasn’t going to be good. “You’d better just tell us, doc.”
The small female doctor remained composed, which was remarkable since my anger and frustration were setting off alarms across an entire wall of biological monitoring equipment. “I’m afraid she was reassigned—to a combat unit.”
Chapter Three