“Bullshit,” Blade argued. “That bastard at the Intelligence Core offered us a lot of perks we’ve never taken advantage of. Including being processed for an Interstellar Bride.”
Blade was right, but I didn’t want to call the Prillon bastard, Doctor Mervan. He was a spy, his heart as black and merciless as the cold of deep space. “What if we submit to that process and we aren’t matched to her?”
Running his hands through his long silver hair, Blade snarled. “You’re right. She won’t be in the Brides Program database anyway. She’s in MedRec. We’d be matched to someone else. Fuck.”
“Exactly. And I don’t want Doctor Mervan to know about her. She’ll give him too much leverage over us.”
Blade slammed his palm flat against the wall in frustration. “How much longer? How long does the Coalition own her?”
“I don’t know.” But I intended to find out. And the moment we could take her without endangering the rest of the legion, she’d be safe on Rogue 5, and in my bed.
Chapter Four
Harper, Battlefield Medical Recovery Mission, Sector 437, Latiri Star Cluster
Gravel and dust crumbled beneath my feet as I ran from body to body, the team moving around me like a swarm of ants. We’d done this so many times we didn’t need to talk to know where each of us would go. We had a pattern, a rhythm that worked for us, that got the job done, especially here. This planet, this sector of space was hell. Literally. Hell. Constant battles with the Hive. So much fighting. I could walk this rock without a map.
We naturally split into three teams of five with two fight-ready Prillon warriors on protection duty, guarding the transport pad—and us—as we scurried around the field hunting for survivors.
I was triage, looking for signs of life. Rovo carried the portable transporter devices—a transport patch. They were small but powerful, the size of a silver dollar. When we found someone who needed immediate transport, Rovo would attach the device with a quick slap of his palm against the patient, hit a button and voila. Gone. Directly back to Zenith for immediate medical attention.
Somehow, the device moved the person to the nearest full-sized transport, like a game of leapfrog. Yeah, it was space aged and too advanced and techy for me to understand. The first time I saw it work, I was impressed. Now? I wasn’t impressed by much of anything at all.
Okay, I was impressed by the way Styx and Blade had made me come. No, I was impressed by the way they got me so hot for them that I let Blade drop to his knees, toss my leg over his shoulder and eat me out as if he were starving. In a hallway! But the end of my orgasm drought wasn’t for me to think about now. I’d tuck that steamy memory away for when I got back to Zenith and was alone in my tiny quarters.
For now, I had to think about the massive Atlan warrior on the ground before me. He was huge. Heavy. Just like the rest of these aliens. Pack on their gear, and some of them probably weighed three-fifty. I worked out. I was strong. But not that strong. Not when this small area of battlefield was littered with well over a hundred wounded and scores more dead. And the fact that we were over a hundred feet from the pad.
I lifted my arm to signal Rovo for a transport patch. “Got one.”
He finished placing a patch for one of my teammates and walked on to another who signaled him. I’d have to wait because there were too many in need. He’d get here in a minute. Until then, my job was to keep this warrior alive.
The Atlan blinked up at me, his eyes glazed. Unfocused. I pressed a bandage to a gaping wound in his shoulder and he growled. God, he was huge.
Just what I needed. A full-on berserker moment with a beast. “Don’t you dare go beast on me, Atlan, or I’ll leave you out here to rot.”
The Atlan chuckled, some of his beast receding before my eyes, and the tension in my jaw and shoulders lessened enough that I could move again. Sometimes they were so out of it, they couldn’t focus. Sometimes, we couldn’t save them.
“You are a bossy female.” His voice was as rough and gravely as the ground he laid on.
I smiled down into his face. “Of course. I’m human.”
He grinned, then groaned as I tightened the bandage on his arm and ran the ReGen wand over it to help stanch the bleeding. It would help, but not enough to heal. This guy needed a dip in the blue coffins, the ReGen pods back at Zenith.
“I know. My friend Nyko is mated to one of you bossy Earth females.”
“Then he’s a lucky man.” I laughed at the huge, wolfish grin the Atlan gave me. He was tough, I’d give him that. Lying here, bleeding everywhere, dying. Cracking jokes. “You need a ReGen Pod, Atlan. Then you’ll be all better and can get a bossy Earth female of your own.”
“Wulf. My name is Wulf.”
I ran the ReGen wand over the rest of him, but it wasn’t enough. He’d been shredded. The front of his armor was in tatters, as if he’d been in a fight with a grizzly bear back home, one with six-inch claws. “What the hell happened to you, Wulf? These cuts aren’t from a blaster.” He really needed to get out of here. Where was that damn transport beacon? I glanced up looking for Rovo, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Rovo was the second-in-command, and I’d been assigned to his team the moment I’d arrived from Earth. He was a hard-ass, smack-talking former Army medic from L.A. Having the same hometown put us on the same side during debates on most topics, from football to good Mexican food. Rovo was his family name, Italian. I didn’t know his first name and didn’t ask. Not out here. Names didn’t really matter out here. You were either Hive, or you fought them. There was no middle ground. No negotiating.
“Your friend disappeared behind that rock.” Wulf struggled to lift his hand and point to wher
e a few black and gray boulders dotted the landscape. It wasn’t far away, maybe the length of a football field, but…
Wulf coughed and there was blood on his lips.