Dax
“Reassigned?” What? How did a matched mate become something else? The matching protocols used were precise and had been routine for hundreds of years. Once a match was made, there was no changing it unless the female found her mate unacceptable and asked for another. Even then, the psychological profile used by the process guaranteed the bride would be assigned a mate from the same planet.
“How can that be possible?” Commander Deek asked.
“Your match was made with an Earth woman.” The doctor resumed her matter-of-fact perusal of the tablet data and ran her fingers over it a few times before looking at me again. “When she was processed for a match, you were not yet in the system. And since Earth allows their women to serve in combat positions, she elected to be reassigned to an active duty combat unit.”
“What does that
mean, exactly?” I was afraid I already knew the answer and could feel my rage building. What type of idiots allowed their weak, soft, helpless females to fight? “Where is she?”
The doctor’s eyes filled with pity and the beast raged. “She’s in Sector 437, in command of her own recon unit assigned to the Battlegroup Karter.”
“My mate refused me to go to the front lines and fight the Hive?”
My bellow shook the chair beneath me and I knew if I didn’t calm down, right now, I’d tear this entire medical station to pieces and be one step closer to execution. Sector 437 was a known hotbed of Hive activity, and had been for the last eighteen months. This meant every second I sat in this damn chair my mate was in danger. The restraints weren’t helping the monster within see reason. I’d expected my mate to be reassigned to a strategic unit, or perhaps one of the guardian ships that accompanied civilian cruisers through relatively safe flight zones. Not to be in active combat, engaging the enemy face to face! Not in one of the most dangerous sectors in the entire coalition front.
Calmer now, I repeated my question with a low growl. “She refused me?”
How dare an alien from Earth deny me and risk her life? Didn’t she know that she was matched to an Atlan warlord? Being mine was an honor many elite Atlan females would fight over. And yet, this Earth female refused me?
“She didn’t refuse you personally. She didn’t know who her match was. In fact, she was processed several months ago. There was apparently some confusion on the part of bride processing center on Earth. It turns out she had never actually given her consent to be a bride, so she was allowed to opt out of the program and transfer to be a coalition fighter.”
I saw red. The anger pulsed through my blood with hot fury. A bellow ripped from my lungs and I tensed, tugging with ease at the restraints and breaking through them. The doctor and her assistant both jumped back and everyone in the room began to scramble.
“Hell, Dax. You need to calm down. Calm down!” Commander Deek shouted.
I stood now, tugged at the wires still connected at my temples and clenched my fists. I was breathing hard, as if I’d fought an entire brigade of Hive.
“Find another match.” Commander Deek held his hand out in my direction, his size and my respect for him the only two things keeping me in place as the doctor shook her head.
“I can’t. It doesn’t work like that. I don’t know why she wasn’t removed from the system when she was transferred to the battle group. I’m not part of the bride processing unit. I don’t have the authority or the ability to cancel a match or reassign a bride. We receive brides here; we don’t process them. I will have to request a formal investigation of the events that occurred to create this complication during her processing on Earth.”
The doctor crossed her arms and glared right back at me, as if seeing an Atlan warrior in battle rage in her medical station was not an unusual occurrence. Either that, or the woman was too brave for her own good. As I looked more closely, I realized the doctor did not look dissimilar from my mate.
“You look like her. Like my mate.”
The doctor held out her hand. “Melissa Rone, from New York.” When I simply stared at her outstretched hand, she dropped it to her side. “I’m from Earth as well. My primary mate is a Prillon captain.”
I wanted to rip the heads from every living person in the room, and she offered her hand to me? Was she reckless or stupid, this human female with long dark hair and dark eyes, similar to my mate’s? “Do you know my mate?”
“No. I’m from New York, she’s from Miami. My dad was from Korea, and she looks like she has Greek, or maybe Italian heritage. We grew up on the same continent, though.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“Find him another match. He can’t wait two years for her military service to be up.”
I had all but forgotten Commander Deek as I studied the woman, but he stood at my shoulder now, two Atlan warriors towering over a small, curvy female. She thinned her lips and I knew I was not going to like what she had to say.
“There is no other match. She is the only match for him. The system will not provide another compatible alternative unless she first accepts your match, goes through the thirty-day trial period, and requests a new mate. Or, she’s deleted from the system.”
Deleted meant dead. Killed in combat.
The doctor smiled and a knowing look entered her eyes. “Although, if you can get your hands on her, I imagine she won’t want to leave you once the thirty days are up.”
I imagined her shared by her two Prillon warriors, begging them to take her, and I smiled back. Perhaps a human woman could handle me after all, if my mate were as feisty an alien as this one. I needed to find my mate. I needed to fuck her. I wanted her now, with a sassy smile on her face and a wet pussy ready for me.
The doctor continued, “I could run the test a thousand times, but the results would be identical. The system will provide the exact same result. She is your only match.”