“So, as I explained, they also possess the ability to go into what they refer to as beast mode, becoming larger and stronger in the heat of battle, or when they are…”
“Fucking?” The deep rumbling growl in my ear from the processing dream, the monosyllabic conversation, made more and more sense now. Beast mode. Damn, that was hot. “So? They’re like the Hulk when he’s angry. Got it. You already told me that. What’s the problem?”
“If they wait too long to claim a mate, they lose control of their beast side. They transform and can’t restrain themselves. They’ve been known to kill their own friends and allies, men they’ve fought beside for years. At that point no one else can save them. They only recognize and respond to one person in the entire universe.”
I waited, barely able to breathe as she finished.
“Their mate.”
I relaxed, the tension draining from my shoulders. “Okay. Great. Send me to him now. That’s what the protocol says, right? If he only recognizes his mate, he’ll know me and get his beast under control.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Atlans are linked to their mates through special neurologically binding cuffs.”
I remembered the beautiful golden cuffs around my wrists, the strange designs. “So, I need a pair of cuffs in order to help him?”
“You have to already be bonded to him, to already be his mate, in order to control his beast. I’m afraid he’s lost.”
“Lost? They can’t find him?”
“No, the beast has taken over. I’m so sorry, Tiffani, but he’s beyond saving.”
Beyond saving? The one man in the universe who was supposed to be perfect for me, supposed to want me and love me and accept me, beyond saving? “Then what happens to him?”
At last, she met my gaze, and I wished she hadn’t. All I saw in her eyes was a deep, dark well of pity and pain. “My contact on Atlan, a bride I sent not long ago, says he’s scheduled for execution.”
Chapter Two
Commander Deek, Planet Atlan, Bundar Containment Facility, Block 4, Cell 11
I startled awake, my body slick with sweat. The cot beneath me was too small for my frame in beast mode and I shifted onto my side. Three days. I’d been in this hell for three days. When I’d witnessed Dax’s fever come upon him, it had come upon him over two weeks, slowly building. But it had been in the height of battle and his rages had been disguised at first as battle adrenaline. Understandable, considering what the warlord had witnessed and fought against.
Most Atlan warriors had their fever build slowly, allowing them time to find their mate before their inner beast took over. But I wasn’t a normal Atlan warrior, it seemed, for I’d gone from a battle commander to a beast condemned within a day.
I’d raged through Battleship Brekk and it had taken four warriors to pin me down. Warlord Engel, visiting from Atlan, and no doubt eager to press the issue of his unmated daughter upon me once more, had been present when I lost control, had witnessed me attacking a young Prillon warrior during my rage. I could not recall that incident, for I was too far gone with the fever, but I’d wreaked havoc on the ship. A planned attack on a nearby Hive outpost had to be postponed and the sector gain we’d made against the enemy had been reversed. In the med unit, I’d been diagnosed with Phase Three Beast Complex. It was the final phase of a warrior’s deterioration. The phase where my mind would regain control less and less often, until I went full Beast and never came back.
There was no cure except a mating bond. I’d have to fuck my mate while in beast mode, coming deep inside her, marking her, claiming her and making her mine. Fucking in beast mode was not an issue. I could feel him within, his rage building and seeking an outlet for release. But I faced no Hive soldiers to kill, and I had no mate.
None. I was a threat to safety if I failed to take a mate, for even now, my fever did not wane. Simply lying in the cool cell, without battle or a female nearby to provoke the beast, the monster within me raged. Sweat soaked my
skin, my clothes. Basic restraints had done nothing to contain me. I’d ripped them from the wall within the first five minutes of my confinement. Only the graviton force field was strong enough to hold a beast, and my cell had that powerful energy field hidden within every wall, the ceiling and the floor. The front of the cell appeared to be nothing but empty air, but I knew differently, had thrown myself against the grav-wall time and again while in beast mode last night. My strength could not defeat it. My beast had tried, but lost.
And so, immediately after transport back to my home world, back to Atlan, I’d been summarily sentenced to execution. Dax had visited and had afforded me four days’ delay, hoping that the fever would diminish or a mate would appear.
The way I felt, constantly on edge, my beast prowling inside me, ready to attack anything that came within reach, I knew the fever would not end. I would be forced to fuck. But the female before me now did not incite lust, but anger.
I growled, letting it rumble through my body at the futility of it all. How had this come about? I was of an age for the fever, yes, but not like this! There were no signs, no history with the males in my family line of losing control like I had.
My father died in the Hive wars when I was still a boy, but he fought for many years and died with honor. My grandfather fought for nearly a decade and come home, took a mate and still served on the other side of the planet as an advisor to top council members. None of my cousins had ever succumbed to the fever. The fact that I had, made me a blight on the family name.
And I still didn’t understand what had happened.
The nearly uncontrollable rage had come on so unexpectedly and intensely that I lost focus, my mind solely on soothing the beast. I could not think clearly, could not speak coherently or with any logic to defend myself or my death sentence after I attacked the Prillon warrior. My beast, restless and edgy my entire life, had become wild and inconsolable.
For the first time in my life, I was out of control. And I did not like the feeling.
The only avenue left to me was a mate. Somehow, the Atlan females who walked past my cell did nothing for my beast. Unmated themselves, they volunteered to soothe the beasts within the warriors who were locked up, their last chance to mate and end the fever. It worked frequently, but the beast within the warrior had to be receptive, had to want the female. Fucking for release with a female that was appealing enough was well and good for an Atlan male, but not enough during mating fever.
Only taking a mate would do. The warrior in the cell to the left of mine had found a worthy mate, for I could hear the rough sounds of fucking. Wild cries of pleasure, wet slaps of skin against skin, and the growls of the beast were loud in the cavernous corridors. This cellblock was nearly empty, just three of us locked up, and all from wealthy, highly respected families.