“You were dying.”
“Rav!” I snapped, making the techs jump.
“She’s beautiful, Grigg,” he said, his voice almost…wistful? “So soft.” He stepped close to me, lowered his voice so only I could hear. “So many fucking curves. God, her pussy is pink. And her ass. Fuck, I’ve been ready to take her since the moment she transported. Wait until you see—”
A soft, feminine moan sounded from the other side of one of the private medical exam rooms, the sound going straight to my aching cock. My eyes widened, for I recognized that sound deep inside me. I’d heard it in my dreams. I’d come not long ago while aching to hear that sound.
Rav grinned like a child on his birthing day about to open the largest present. “She’s coming awake.”
Despite my irritation with Rav and Trist’s interference, I was intrigued and followed a step behind the doctor as he entered the smaller exam room. “She’s mine?”
“Yes. Matched per the Interstellar Bride Program’s formal processing protocols. The match was almost one hundred percent. She’s perfect for you in every way.”
I was fucking tired of the Coalition dictating every tiny detail of my life and wasn’t sure this would be any different. There were so many protocols, all of them impeccable. As leader, I was fucking sick of protocol. That’s why I had promoted Trist to my second-in-command. He loved that shit.
“Look, cousin, I know you’re excited, but I doubt—”
I saw her then, my mate, my bride, and I stopped dead. Rav grinned and walked past me, gathering his medical equipment for something.
“What’s all that for?” I asked, my voice filled with awe.
“For her exam and testing. I had to wait until she was awake, and for you to be present.”
She was stunning. Thick dark hair lay in dark curls over the thin pillow. Her skin was not golden or yellow like a Prillon female’s, but a softer, deeper shade of dark cream. She lay on her back on the exam table.
“She transported here?”
Rav shook his head. “To the transporter room, but she was transferred here.”
“Like this?” I saw red, for she was gloriously naked and she was mine. “Who saw her like this?”
Rav’s eager expression—that of being her second mate—shifted to the clinical face of a doctor.
“I was there for her arrival. I wrapped her directly in the sheet that’s beneath her.”
I saw the white covering that hung over the edges of the table.
“No one has seen her like this, but me.”
I glanced behind me, the door firmly closed.
“That’s right, Rav. No one sees her like this. Ever,” I growled the last, an instinctive need to protect her rising with a speed and ferocity I would never have believed possible. My reaction was illogical, as our official mating ceremony wo
uld be witnessed and blessed by my chosen warriors, those Rav or I chose to honor with my trust during that sacred right. But they would be watching us fuck her, claim her, make her ours, not simply admiring her beautiful body.
Her face was delicate and softer than any female’s I had ever seen. Her breasts were full and ripe, and her pussy, as Rav had promised, was an intriguing shade of dark pink I’d never seen before. I ached to lean down and run my rough tongue through the delicate folds, to discover her exotic taste. I wanted to wedge my shoulders between her perfect thighs and spread her open so I could fuck her with my tongue. My mouth watered at the thought.
“What type of female did you say she is?” I asked, not looking away from her. She stirred, but her eyes had yet to open. It was as if she were waking from a nap, not a transport across the galaxy.
“Earth. They refer to their race as human.”
“I’ve never seen a female like her before.” I hadn’t. She was beautiful, lush, exotic. No female I’d ever seen compared.
“She’s the very first bride from their world.”
That shocked me enough to look at Rav. “The first bride?”
He nodded. “Yes. Earth was granted provisional Coalition membership weeks ago. The Hive expanded their scouting runs into the outer reaches, transport Zone 2.”