Still, for the first time since I’d joined the Coalition Fleet, walking beside Nyko, I felt safe. Even now, walking through enemy territory.
Which was a cruel joke. Because for the first time since my dad died, my heart was breaking into tiny little pieces. I never should have touched him. Never should have let him touch me. It would have been better just to have him drive me crazy with his bossy ways, his disagreeing with everything I said or did. Now, I knew what it felt like to have him inside me, touching me, fucking me. Making me gasp with lust and want and pleasure.
As we used our sensors and discovered the hundreds of Hive that had descended on the battle the night before were now gone, I knew I was in deep emotional shit. I was sore. I wouldn’t be forgetting what we’d done for days. My muscles ached and my clit still tingled and throbbed for more. Despite the stern lecture I gave myself, I couldn’t tear my gaze from his shoulders, his muscled thighs, his ass. I still wanted him. Even worse, I wanted him to take care of me, protect me, turn all that big, bossy aggression toward watching over me, loving me.
God, my mother would be screeching to the heavens about weak-willed sluts and stupidity. Nyko made me stupid. No other man had ever managed that. But no matter how much I tried to ignore the longing coursing through me, it was too late. The cat was out of the bag, people. Now that I’d had a taste, I wanted more. More. More.
I kept leaning forward, trying to draw the scent of his skin into my lungs. We walked for several hours, never stopping, never slowing our pace. I was in good shape, but my head seemed to grow worse with each step. Pain pulsed through my skull with each hard strike of my boots on rock, each beat of my heart. Through it all, I followed him. I didn’t pay attention to our surroundings. I couldn’t. I was in too much pain. But I could follow him. Somehow, I felt like I could follow him anywhere. I let him worry about watching for the enemy, and I focused all of my attention on watching him.
I was turning into a crazy person. This obsession I felt toward him now, the possessive, needy, feminine lust? Total trouble. Since only his mate would be able to save him from his intensifying Mating Fever, one night with Nyko was going to have to last me a lifetime, and I was afraid it wasn’t going to be enough. But it would have to be.
And Nyko? I doubted he’d summoned an Interstellar Bride. If he had, if he was ready to take a mate, he wouldn’t be here with me right now on this shit-hole planet. He wasn’t ready, and I was one simple swipe of Doctor Moor’s finger away from having a mate of my own. An Atlan, from what the doc had said. An Atlan that wasn’t Nyko.
That thought made my eyes ache and burn with unshed tears. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I hormonal? Exhausted? Was this thing in my head going to make me lose my mind before it killed me?
We reached the transport station just as the planet’s brightest star reached its zenith. It was hot, so hot the cooling system in my uniform couldn’t keep up. Sweat streamed down my temples and leaked into my eyes, making them sting beneath the helmet where I couldn’t reach in to wipe them away.
At least two dozen Coalition warriors had set up a defensible perimeter around the transport pad, and Nyko marched us straight up into its center.
He turned to me then, as he’d done many times over the last few miles, making sure I was with him.
With a grunt, he settled his heavy hand on my shoulder and watched me as the transport began. Moving through space this way was harsh, a slicing cold pain twisting my body into a contortionist’s box before putting me back to rights somewhere else.
God, I fucking hated transport.
We were only halfway home, the transport pad we
were sent to was a relay station of sorts, one stop on the way back to Battleship Karter. And home. My eyes were burning with salt and sweat and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating inside my helmet. I needed cold air. I was going to pass out if I didn’t get some on my face.
Reaching up, I unlocked the helmet from my shoulders and lifted it off. Gasping for breath, I dropped it at my feet. The heavy weight of it was the reminder that my helmet wasn’t standard issue.
But it was too late.
Pain lanced my mind with a thousand voices, buzzing. Humming. Burning. Like a group of starving vultures, the Hive minds that touched mine clung and picked at me, at my uniqueness, at my thoughts, calling the others until the pressure built, the weight of it crushing me beneath them.
I didn’t know I’d fallen to my knees until my head cracked on the hard floor. Nyko lifted me into his arms. I tasted blood in my mouth, felt the boiling heat of more blood leaking from my nose and eyes to run down my face like red tears.
And my head. God, my fucking head.
Nyko held me cradled to his chest and I clung to him, my only anchor to reality, as every Hive intellect within broadcast distance assaulted my mind.
Chapter Seven
Nyko, Transport Station 27-J, orbiting Planet Latiri 4
“Doctor! Now!” I growled, watching as Megan gripped her head as if it were going to explode. She was curled in on herself in my arms and an odd sound of pain and whimpering escaped her lips. I smelled blood. Megan’s blood. And her body trembled, clinging to me. My beast was raging, torn between the need to hold Megan and the urgent desire to tear whoever was hurting her in half. But there was no one for my beast to kill. I was helpless, and the sick twisting in my gut spiked my heart rate, made my vision begin to blur as the beast fought to the front, out of control.
“Helmet. Nyko. I need—” Her body shook, and my beast held her closer, her arms and legs pinned by my tight hold, trying to prevent her from hurting herself. She’d already fallen to the ground once, hitting her head on the ship’s transport pad. Her fingers tunneled into my hair, twisting and tugging as her body writhed and she buried her face in my neck. “Nyko.”
That one small, helpless word undid me. Megan Simmons was a Coalition captain, a warrior and a feisty, smart-talking pain in my ass. She did not cling, or beg, or ask for help, which only meant she was hurting and trusting me to take care of her.
“Doctor!” My roar shook the containers stacked near the edges of the transport platform.
We’d just transported from the extraction point on Planet Latiri 4 barely two minutes prior. Alone. I had no idea all the other Coalition fighters had withdrawn or escaped the hoard of Hive the day before. It didn’t matter. We’d come here, per protocol, stopping at this temporary transport station that made sure the Hive could not transport directly to our battleship. If they tracked our movement off the planet, they would follow only to this vacant ship—it orbited the planet for the sole purpose of extracting troops—but would not be able to monitor the next step of transport, thus keeping them from intercepting fighters midway. This worthless hunk of junk kept our battleships safe, but right now I didn’t care about the Karter, I cared about the woman in my arms.
I worried for Megan. My beast snarled and wanted to rip the head off the transport technician. His wide-eyed stare told me he knew it, too.
Megan was writhing and panting, then switching to moaning as she lifted her arms to cradle her head. I looked from Megan to the transport technician. “Why? You hurt her?”