Her back was to Rav, his body wrapped around her from behind in a protective hold I couldn’t help but approve of. His arm was long and his hand came to rest on my chest as well, his fingers lightly wrapped around her wrist, holding her even in his sleep. His touch did not alarm. He was mine, as well, and I could not have chosen a better second for my mate. He was a proud warrior of our clan, highly intelligent and fierce when needed. He would be an excellent mate for our Amanda, and with rank as a senior officer in medical, the risk that our mate would be left unprotected by two warriors’ deaths in battle was small. If I died in my next raid, he would care for her, love her, fuck her—
The thought made something dark and needy twist in my gut, something that raked my insides like claws, making my soul bleed and ache and want. A sense of inevitability settled over me like a dark storm, the feeling of foreboding I’d carried all my life. My father was right. I wasn’t fit to command. I was weak. Sentimental. My mind clogged with emotion and needs no true warrior dared carry. I hadn’t realized they even existed until now. Until Amanda.
Unable to stave off the pain, I pulled free of my mates’ arms and legs and slid silently from the bed.
Damn Captain Trist and his meddling. There was a reason I had not requested a mate. I didn’t expect to live long enough to claim a woman and make her my own. Rav had always known he would by my second, but I’d made it clear to him many times that if he wanted to request a mate of his own, as Primary, he should do so. He had the necessary rank and status to qualify for a bride. There were a number of warriors who would be honored to be his second.
He refused. We’d sworn an oath to one another when we were merely boys that we would never abandon one another, and we’d remained true.
Often, it would have been easier for me if Rav had abandoned me and my stubborn ways. I wanted him to be happy, but was grateful that his loyalty was now and had always been unyielding. Truth be told, I’d come to rely on his keen mind and calming influence more than I cared to admit.
And still, I’d waited, more focused on the possibility of dying than of living, of having a life, a family. I didn’t want him to mourn my death. I didn’t want a mate to mourn my death. I didn’t want—
Amanda. She sighed softly and shifted on the bed, reached for me in her sleep. When her arms came up empty, she turned instead to Rav, rolling so that her forehead and nose were pressed to his chest, his arms around her in a protective cage as she snuggled deeper and went back to her dreams.
She was unexpected, as was my reaction to her. Everything about her was perfect. I couldn’t stop admiring her strange dark hair or her softly rounded hips and thighs. The lush cushion of her abdomen and full breasts. Her lips, pink and kissable, just like her pussy. I’d nearly lost myself in her dark eyes as Rav made her come, as her pleasure rolled through her an
d they both surrendered to me, to my control. The more I demanded, the faster she melted, so submissive. I’d sensed it in her, knew through the collar that she wanted it. No, needed it, just as strongly as I needed to dominate. So fucking perfect for me.
Even more of a shock was the fierce need I had to control Rav, to direct him, to own him as completely as I owned my mate. I did not want to fuck him, but I needed to own him, control him, protect him and take care of him. The need roared to life from nowhere the moment our mate was between us.
He was mine and I couldn’t understand the ferocity of my instinctive need to make sure he understood and accepted my dominance, my protection just as clearly as Amanda. Suddenly I was irritated that Rav’s belongings were still in his private quarters, and not here, with me and our mate, where they were supposed to be. I fought the odd urge to wake Amanda and talk to her, to ask her about her life and give her a tour of my ship, to show off like a young upstart trying to impress a woman, not a commander who needed impress no one.
Instead of worrying about my command, the scout missions, battle strategy, I sat in the dark like a fool staring her beauty. I counted her breaths, fighting the urge to wake her and take her again, slowly. I imagined kissing her lips, tracing her flesh, learning every curve and dip and hollow, the sensitive places on her skin that would make her melt, or pant, or come. I sat alone in the dark wondering if my mates had what they needed to be settled, content, happy. Wondering if I would be enough for them. I needed to be enough.
And I never fucking needed anything. I didn’t do entanglements. I battled Hive cyborgs. I fucked for pleasure. I fought next to my warriors to quiet the rage in my blood, to fight back the abyss of anger that threatened to drown me every time I spoke to my father or watched another warrior die in battle. And yet that all quieted when I was deep inside Amanda, when I made her come, when I filled her with my seed.
Staring at my mates, something raw and ravenous stirred to life within me and I feared nothing would calm me now.
I felt like an alien in my own skin, a stranger with thoughts and desires I did not recognize and could not control.
Brooding in the dark was not something I enjoyed, so I rose and quietly cleansed my body in the MG unit. As I settled a fresh uniform on my shoulders, I felt the weight of command, the responsibility settling me in a way nothing else ever had, in a way completely different than I found with my mate. This was familiar, normal. Comfortable.
I was on the command deck five minutes later, my mind blissfully empty of longing, need, desire and confusion as I poured over scouting reports, talked to my best flight captains about imminent battles. They noticed the collar about my neck, but were wise not to mention it. Not when we knew there were more pressing matters than my taking a mate.
The Hive would come. The Hive hunger for more bodies to convert, for more raw material for their Integration Centers, was insatiable. They consumed all life, it was their means of existence. And my battle group was on the front lines, so close to the Hive central command that we often fought two or three times as many battles per week as other sectors.
Always before, that thought filled me with self-importance. We were in one of the oldest and deadliest sectors of the war. My father had seen to that, his expectations for his son the only thing bigger than his pride in the Zakar clan’s warriors. Battle Group Zakar would never relocate, never back down. Our clan had fought here for hundreds of years.
“Commander, the comm.” My communications officer spoke from her position at the comm panel.
“My father?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Great. Just what I didn’t fucking need right now. “Patch it through to the Core.” The Core was my personal nickname for the standard-size meeting room found on every ship. The private space was designed for meeting with top officers to discuss strategy or ship’s business. It was where I met with my captains, disciplined my warriors and made battle plans.
I left the command deck and walked to the meeting room. Seconds after the door slid closed behind me, my father’s dark orange face filled the screen near the far wall. I had inherited his eyes, but the rest of me, the golden shade of my skin, was due to my mother. His coloring was passed down from the ancient lines, and he’d always believed me less for not carrying his much darker hue.
“Commander.” He never called me by my name, only my rank, as if I weren’t his son. Only a soldier. “I read the most recent report.”
“Yes, Father. The Hive has been eliminated from that solar system.”
“And you nearly killed.”
And, here we went again… “I’m fine.”
“Damn it, boy. You were weak today. An embarrassment. I’d advise you to spend some time in a basic flight simulator before you fly with another battle wing. You can do better than that. You are a Zakar. I won’t have women giggling and twittering on about how you got shot out of your ship and floated in space like so much garbage.”