If Eddie hadn’t tapped her on the shoulder at five o’clock, she probably would have spent another night at her microscope.
“You better get going, Anna. Don’t keep the Council waiting,” he warned.
“Yeah, they’ve already given me an extra seven years. Stars forbid I make them wait a couple extra minutes.” Anna dragged herself away from the comfortable familiarity of her research.
Damn, she hated meeting new people, and knowing what she had to do with these men in four weeks made it so much harder.
Eddie shoved her shoulder. “Stop stalling. You’re going to be fine. There’s no way the Council would screw up your matches. You’re too important. They’ve got to keep you happy and productive.”
“Then why do they want me to spend time procreating?”
“Because your genetics are too valuable to go to waste. Now, get moving, missy. I expect a full report tomorrow morning.”
Anna nodded as she headed to her personal pod to grab her supplies for a quick shower in the communal bathing room. She figured she should at least make some effort to look good. First impressions were supposed to be important in these matters, she’d heard.
Stars above, she hated this.
* * * *
Marco paced the tiny reception room, feeling like the trapped tiger he’d seen recently in a documentary datafile from ancient Earth. The square room was made even smaller by the two padded benches that bisected the left and right walls and met the back bench on the wall opposite the door. Triangular shelves filled the two corners behind the benches.
He circled the room again, running his palm over his slicked back hair.
Blast, it was getting long. He should have taken the time to get it cut before this meet. What if long hair on males offended her?
He tugged at the collar of his navy uniform. It felt like it was shrinking on him as the minutes ticked by on the wall chronometer. Where the hellitude was everyone?
The handle on the door turned and in walked a three star Lieutenant General of the Second Quadrant.
Marco met the dark-skinned man at the midpoint of the room, and they exchanged formal greetings.
Kojo’s bright welcoming smile put Marco at ease, and he mused aloud, “What are the chances the third mate will also be sporting three stars?” He gestured at the newly acquired third star on his First Quadrant uniform.
Kojo chuckled richly. “I’d say that was a safe bet. The real question is will he be Third or Fourth Quadrant?”
Marco shook his head. “A Fourth Quadrant with a bio-researcher? They’re too hardened and physical in the Fourth. I’d have to go with Third. Though, any of us with a scientist seems like an odd match, doesn’t it?”
Before Kojo could reply, the door opened again, and Marco’s eyes widened as he realized he’d lost both parts of the bet. Entering the ridiculously small reception room was a nearly seven-foot giant, sporting the
four
stars of General…of the Profortuna
Fourth
Quadrant.
“Holy shiitake.” Marco whistled softly. “They’ve loaded this match with some seriously heavy fighting power.” He extended his hand to commence the formal greeting.
Tall, blond and chiseled hesitated before offering his hand, and Marco swallowed his anger at the insult. It helped his pride a little when the General paused in his greeting of the other Lieutenant General as well.
Kojo got the conversation started. “Do either of you have a theory why they’ve matched a bio-researcher with three of the highest ranking, eligible military men on the planet?”
The General remained stoically silent, but before Marco could offer his own speculations, the door handle turned for the third and final time.
Anna stood in the narrow hallway in front of the reception room door, taking a final deep breath. Really, there wasn’t anything to be this nervous about. Surely, the Council had done a thorough vetting and found the three most appropriately brain-heavy men on the planet for her mates.
With that reality crushing her fanciful ideals of a sentimental match, her limbs were heavy as she took the final step toward the door and reached for the handle. Her ridiculous fantasies of finding old-fashioned romantic love—or even lust—beyond this door died, ripping away a layer of her self-confidence.
Her emotional defense mechanism kicked into gear, and she returned to her detached scientific mindset. Straightening her shoulders, she swung the door open and scanned the room.
Three huge, muscular males aimed their attention at her. Their shoulders seemed to fill the entire space of the small reception room, and their heads nearly touched the seven-foot ceiling.
“Oh, hellitude,” Anna cursed under her breath and checked the room number on the door again.
This couldn’t be the right room because she’d never seen brainiacs who looked like these three men. Their holograms hadn’t done any of them true, and they were all wearing
military
uniforms.
It didn’t make any sense that the Council would pick brawn over brains for all three of her matches, unless there was a new theory being tested for mixing the genetic pool to achieve better fertility rates, though, she hadn’t read any research on this conjecture.
A low, rumbling laugh that did strange things inside her belly stopped her from retreating from the room. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, she couldn’t resist the pull of that masculine sound. She took another step into the room, the door closing behind her.
Her gaze swept over the three distinctively different male faces, searching for the source of that stimulating noise. Finally, she attributed the laugh to the dark-skinned male who flashed a broad smile with brilliantly white teeth. The corners of her mouth lifted involuntarily in response to his.
“It appears we are not what you were expecting.” His voice vibrated through her. “May I introduce myself?”
She nodded, as her vocal cords seemed to have petrified since she’d entered the room.
“I am Lieutenant General Kojo, son of Tayari, Kamili and Badru, mates of Dafina.” His words flowed with an unusual accent she’d never heard before. His consonants were sharp, but his vowels rippled.
She cleared her throat and held out her right hand, palm facing up. “I am Doctor Anna, daughter of Isaac, Jonah, and Jesse, mates of Esther.”
Kojo laid his enormous black hand over hers and gently squeezed. Heat radiated from his palm to hers, yet oddly, she shivered as if chilled.
“I am most pleased to meet you,” Kojo replied with a light sparking in his dark eyes, like the first star appearing in the night sky.
“As I am you,” Anna finished the proper greeting, regretting the end of their hand contact when she returned her arm to her side.
The Latino male stepped toward her, making her feel like the walls were closing in as she was surrounded on two sides by broad chests.
“May I introduce myself?”
“Please do,” she managed to say this time.
“I am Lieutenant General Marco, son of Barto, Fresco, and Cris, mates of Lia.”
Again, Anna was surprised by the sound of an accent she’d never heard before. She held up her hand and repeated her introduction.
Marco answered with the appropriate verbal responses. Except, when it was time for Anna to drop her hand, he turned their joined hands over so Anna’s was on top. Then he bent forward and placed his mouth on the back of her hand.
His lips were soft and warm, and Anna’s head spun so wildly she thought she might fall over. She gathered her wits about her as he slowly lowered her hand and released his hold on her.
She glanced up at the Russian whose blond hair came the closest to touching the ceiling. His feet seemed frozen to the floor as he stared at her with icy blue eyes. She shivered again, and this time, it was because she
did
feel chilled. How the hellitude was she supposed to warm up to this guy enough to drop a trouser leg for him?
When he didn’t seem willing to take the first step in her direction, she moved toward him. “May I introduce myself?” she asked respectfully.
He nodded curtly.
She gave her credentials and waited for him to offer his palm and his introduction. She had to wait longer than was considered good custom before he finally raised his right hand, palm facing up.
“I am General Vadim, son of Viktor, Ivan, and Gleb, mates of Vera.” His consonants were just as cold and hard-edged as the rest of him.
She hated the hesitation in her movements as she raised her hand to lay her palm on his. It was such bad form to hesitate, but he intimidated her on a cellular level.
“I am most pleased to m-meet y-you,” she tripped over the last two words, and her cheeks heated.
“As I am you,” he replied, but his gaze seemed to register her apparent falsehood as his eyes narrowed slightly and his jaw tightened. He dropped his hand, and Anna gratefully returned her arm to her side before her internal shakes became obvious on the outside.
Stars above, how was she going to make it work with him? She hoped he’d soften a bit once they became more familiar with each other over the next four weeks, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
Anna stared at the three very different-looking faces. If an offspring ever did result from this mating, it certainly would be easy to tell who the sperm donor was.
That was something that had been puzzling her about this mating ever since she’d viewed their holograms.
Usually, the matchmakers picked three males who shared some cosmetic similarities in order for the child to be more readily accepted by all the males and not be singled out for preferential treatment—or ignored—by any of the males. Why would the Council assign three so distinct-looking men to her?
Chapter Two
Kojo glanced at the three members of his newly acquired mating quad. They each looked too nonplussed to make the next move. He nodded to the padded bench behind Anna. “Would you like to sit?”
She startled at his words before bobbing her head in agreement. There was something beguiling about his obviously inexperienced mate. Her big brown eyes held an innocence he hadn’t seen in a woman’s eyes in a long time, due to the fact that the only women of his acquaintance were the professional ones hired to service the men of the military.
Once Anna was seated, it was proper for the men to sit, but the General seemed to prefer standing—practically at military attention with one eye on the door. Was he expecting a General from the Third Quadrant to join them?
Kojo thought that was highly unlikely, but nothing about this meet had been what he’d expected.
Marco sat on the bench to the left of Anna, so Kojo chose her right side and settled back to get to know his mate. It was obvious by the way she was rubbing her thumb over the knuckles of her left hand, she was feeling extremely ill at ease.
He glanced again at the other two men. Yeah, he could understand her discomfort. She was a small little thing surrounded by three mountains of muscle, and as a member of the intellectual elite, she probably only viewed them as beefheads with no brains.
That thought pricked his ego and prodded him to do what he could to prove his worth.
He broke the awkward silence. “So, tell us something about yourself, Anna. Your bio material contained very little information about you, merely your general stats. I know you’re one point five two four meters, fifty kilograms, have brown hair and eyes, and are a bio-researcher. There must be more to you than that,” he encouraged her to share.
She turned her attention to him and blinked a few times. “Um.” She bit her bottom lip, and her eyes narrowed as if she was contemplating some advanced scientific equation.
He chuckled. “I don’t need anything too personal, so don’t tax yourself. Just something easy like…what do you do in your spare time?”
Her shoulders lost some of their rigidity. “Oh, spare time… I surf history.”
“Any particularly favorite time?” Marco jumped in.
Anna’s head swiveled towards the First Quadrant officer. Her cheeks colored with a light pink. “Ancient Earth,” she answered quietly.
Marco grinned. “Me too. Do you ever watch the documentaries?”
Anna leaned towards Marco, her initial shyness seemingly gone. “Yes! I love the diversity of the animal population in those nature ones. It’s such a shame the ancient ones didn’t think to send more species on the pioneer ships.”
“It was probably a matter of size constraints,” Kojo offered. “They had to maximize the number of humans they could transport with an adequate food source. There wasn’t much room left over for the animals that couldn’t provide a sound nutritional benefit,” he finished, feeling satisfied he’d shown he was more than the sum of his muscles.
“That didn’t stop some families from bringing pets,” Marco rebuffed.
“And how many of those ended up being eaten when food supplies ran short?” Kojo asked.
A soft gasp drew his attention to Anna. Her brow was creased as her mouth turned down at the corners.
Hellitude, he didn’t mean to upset her. Obviously, his social skills were rusty, and of course, they would be. He spent one hundred percent of his time with military men, ensuring the security of his quadrant from the increasing threat of enviro terrorists.