“Let him go, Nyko.” The voice was female and for that reason alone I didn’t strike her down. “You got Megan here. Let us help her.”
Slowly, one finger at a time, I released the idiot’s arm, the idiot who’d been about to remove Megan’s helmet again and hurt her. “Helmet on.”
“We hear you.” The doctor I did not know waved at me absently as he issued orders. “Pull up her profile. I need to know if she’s ever had surgery. Look for medical notes under a doctor named Helion.”
“Got it, sir.” One of the medical staff hurried over, transferring the information on his tablet to a screen above Megan’s head. My beast couldn’t talk, but he could read just fine.
Doctor Helion of Prillon Prime. Two surgeries for Megan Simmons were listed. All they said were a section of the brain, and two words, Nexus Project.
Nexus? That blue fucker? The spinal attachment Megan had pulled out of his head after I killed him? She had one of those in her head?
No. I’d touched her head. Held her. Kissed her. I hadn’t felt anything like that. I knew her body now. I would know if she had something like that. The doctor was talking to himself.
“I knew it. Just like last time. Crazy bastards.” He stood, but this time he touched a comm station and hailed Commander Karter himself.
“Commander, I need a level five scan on all potential incoming Hive transmissions.”
I expected the commander to ask questions. Level five? We never did a level five scan. That was like looking for one sliver of moonlight while staring at a burning sun. The commander’s voice was serious. Too serious. “Understood. Give me a few minutes, Doctor.”
“We might not have a few minutes.”
The silence lasted only a few seconds, but it was pregnant with unspoken understanding. “Two minutes.”
“Hurry.” The doctor ended his transmission and I hovered at the foot of Megan’s table. “She’s going to need a ReGen pod the second we get that helmet off. I want the pod prepped and ready. As soon as the commander gives us the all clear, we get the helmet off her and go.” She looked ridiculous and small lying there with her filthy armor and helmet still on her head. She didn’t look like a person, she looked like one part of a massive machine. A pawn, and she appeared to be playing a game I knew nothing about.
My beast growled and I stepped closer, the growl becoming a snarl when one of the medical staff bumped into me. What. The. Fuck. Was. Going. On?
“Warlord, your beast. You must calm it.”
I turned to look in the direction of the voice, Doctor Moor, a female Atlan, tall and attractive with short brown hair and a shiny gold pair of mating cuffs around her wrists. I knew her, trusted her. She was of normal size for those of our shared planet, but much shorter than my beast. A deep breath didn’t calm me, nor another, and she waved a wand of her own in front of me.
“Doctor.”
“As I expected. Mating Fever,” she said, her voice no-nonsense. “How long has this been going on, Nyko?”
“Weeks.”
One dark brow went up. “Weeks? And this episode? How long have you been in trapped in beast mode?”
I heard Megan whimper as they injected her with something and I growled.
“Warlord.” The doctor raised her voice, crossed her arms over her chest. “How long?”
“Day.”
She looked over her shoulder at a pair of medical assistants in the adjoining room. “Prepare the brides program testing protocol for Warlord Nyko. Now.”
Two assistants went to work then and I found myself pushed by Doctor Moor toward a strange chair.
“No.”
“No, Warlord? Your fever is raging and will not break without a mate to soothe it. Since you just came from another battle—” she looked down at my dirty armor and my wrists where there were no mating cuffs, “—I assume you do not have one?”
“Megan.” My beast insisted, but the doctor’s face went from stern to sympathetic.
“Captain Simmons was tested for the Interstellar Brides Program two days ago.”
That did not make me happy. She wasn’t mine. Could never be mine. She was someone else’s bride, belonged to another male, someone who needed her soft touch and warm, dark eyes. Her perfect match. A warrior who wasn’t me.