Mastered by Her Mates (Interstellar Bride Book 0) (16 page)

Amanda’s dark eyes were so serious, so contemplative, and I realized I enjoyed this side of her as much as I enjoyed the wild seductress who submitted to my sexual needs so beautifully. This was the leader I needed for my people, the true Lady Zakar I had begun to worry she might never be.

My hand shook as I lifted my fingers to stroke the delicate arch of her cheekbone, trace the fine line of her face. She did not pull away or deny me, simply watched me with the quiet intelligence I had begun to both expect and admire.

“Our Regeneration technology could save millions of lives, love, but it could be used to murder millions more. That is why we do not think it wise to share with the leaders of your world. They squabble over land and religion, fighting wars and killing tens of thousands while they already possess the technology to feed the hungry, heal their sick, care for all the citizens of Earth. They do not respect each other equally, do not educate their people, do not honor or protect their women. We would be fools to give such a powerful weapon to such primitive minds.”

I watched her as she considered my words, weighed them for truth and accepted what I said. I did not lie, and our collars would transmit my sincerity to her as clearly as it sent her doubts back to me.

“What about the Hive?”

My thumb found her bottom lip and stayed, teasing the plump softness until she opened, letting me in just enough to nip at me with her teeth. “I do not want you anywhere near those evil bastards. But if you require proof, I will take you to the command deck with me in the morning. Our warriors are scheduled to destroy one of their Integration Units. I will show you what you want to see, Amanda, but you will not find what you seek.”

“And what is that?”

“Confirmation of Earth’s hope that the threat was fabricated. The Hive are dangerous and terrifying. Our warriors prefer death to capture. They consume all life they encounter with a ruthlessness that can only be created by the mind of a machine. You are suspicious now, love. But tomorrow you will be terrified.”

She lifted her chin, my finger falling away. “At least I’ll know the truth.”

I shook my head and pulled her back into my arms, where she belonged. “No. You already know the truth. You already know what I tell you is accurate. The world you came from, those people you worked for—who think you still work for them—are no longer yours. You are Prillon now. You are a warrior bride of Prillon Prime, the Lady Zakar. I am telling you the truth.
We
are the truth.
You
are living the truth here, now, with us. You just don’t want to accept it.”

She didn’t respond, for what could she say? She couldn’t debate further, for her data was one sided. Tomorrow, when I took her to the command deck, when she had all the information she needed to make a qualified judgment, then we could discuss further.

Amanda drifted to sleep in my arms and I stared at the ceiling until Rav returned from working his shift. He took one look at us, the forgotten toys still laying on the floor, and chuckled. “You wear her out?”

“She told me the truth,” I replied, my voice dipped low as not to wake her.

That got Rav’s attention. “She admitted to being a spy?”

“Yes. I’m taking her to the command deck in the morning so she can watch the battle wings hit their closest Integration Unit.”

Rav grimaced and shucked his clothes. “That’ll turn her stomach. We lost an entire wing last week.”

I felt Rav’s anger through the collar and Amanda stirred. Perhaps she sensed it, too, even in sleep.

“I know. But she demands the truth, our human mate. And I promised to give it to her. The sooner she can see that, the sooner she will be ours. Completely.”

Naked now, Rav crawled into bed behind Amanda and traced the curve of her hip with one hand, his exhaustion weighing heavily upon me through our link as he stilled and closed his eyes. “She just thinks she wants to know. It will terrify her, Grigg. It’s too much. We could lose her.”

“We’ll lose her if we don’t let her see the truth for herself.”

Rav relented, for we both knew just how stubborn our beautiful mate could be. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Grigg.”

“As do I.”

Chapter Twelve

Amanda

The command deck of the
Battleship Zakar
was not what I expected it to be. I’d seen
Star Trek
more than once and I envisioned a bunch of chairs facing a view screen with the commander at the center sitting upon his throne like a king.

What a joke.

The room was round with a central aisle for walking and multiple viewing screens that descended from the ceiling at the center. Additional screens lined the upper third of the exterior walls as well. The space was nearly the size of a small café and much more active than I had imagined. The screens displayed planets and internal ship systems, communications and flight plans, schematics and reports that I didn’t understand and had no way of comprehending. The objects chosen to be on display were seemingly controlled by more than one of Grigg’s officers stationed around the outer rim of the room. Nearly thirty officers of varying ranks manned the workstations or hurried about. Communication was precise and orderly and the warriors all worked like a fine-tuned machine.

Some wore the black armor of battle-hardened warriors, some blue for engineering and red for weapons. There were three warriors wearing white. I didn’t know what they did, and I didn’t want to interrupt to ask. The air hummed with tension and that energy flowed through my mate and into me as he prepared to watch his warriors go into battle.

The preschool several floors below was a complete opposite of this. That, was life. This…this was life
and
death.

This wasn’t their first battle, but it was mine. My palms were sweaty and I wiped them on the soft fabric of my blue tunic as I followed Grigg around the room like a puppy, listening to everything that was said, watching and absorbing everything I could. Those who looked away from their displays nodded to me deferentially, but I felt as if the respect was a distraction.
I
felt like a distraction for them, for Grigg. But he wanted me to see. Needed me to do so.

I saw weapons displays, ship tracking systems, navigation arrays that would make the astrophysicists and engineers at NASA drool. It was all here, and Grigg hid nothing from me. Nothing.

“Commander, the Eighth Battle Wing is in position. As is the transport shuttle.”

Grigg nodded. He’d told me the battle wings would take out any resistance as the shuttle landed to retrieve any captives the Hive might have taken. They were protection, the muscle for the helpless shuttle. When the captives were freed, the fighters would destroy the small Hive outpost. My mate walked to the only empty seat in the room. Positioned between the red of weapons’ controls and the blue of engineering, he motioned for me to sit beside him and I did.

“The Fourth?” he asked.

“Ready, Sir.”

“Get Captain Wyle on comms.”

“Yes, Sir.” A few seconds later the screen directly before me filled with the face of a golden-eyed Prillon Warrior, his face slightly obscured by a pilot’s helmet.

“Commander?”

Grigg stood and paced. “Wyle, what’s your status?”

The captain’s eyes darted around, checking data and systems we could not see. “We’re a go, Commander. I’m only reading three scout ships and no soldiers. Should be an easy clean-up, Sir.”

Grigg nodded. “All right, Captain. It’s your op. We’ll be monitoring from here. It’s a go.”

“Understood.” The captain’s face disappeared from the screen, but Grigg’s agitated pacing increased as he muttered under his breath.

“Something doesn’t feel right. It’s too fucking easy.”

A massive warrior with gold bands around his wrists, an Atlan Warlord I remembered, turned to Grigg from his station at the weapons display. “You want me to call them back?”

Grigg shook his head. “No, it’s Captain Wyle’s call now.”

“Everything checks out, Sir. The scout patrols didn’t pick up any additional Hive presence on the moon. Just the Integration Units.” The giant had dark brown hair, his skin more human than anyone else’s I’d seen so far on board the ship. He wore black armor, not red, and by the tight lines of tension around his eyes and mouth I knew he was as unhappy to be trapped in here for this operation as Grigg.

“I know.” Grigg’s eyes darted to me and I was well aware I was part of the reason for his anxiety, his nervous tension. I felt it through the collar easily enough, but it was just in the air too. The pressure, the intensity of what was about to unfold. I wanted to reach out and assure him that I was fine. I’d been in much more frightening situations than this. I was no delicate wallflower to be sheltered and protected. I wanted to know what was going on out there. I needed to know.

“It’s begun.” A young warrior in white spoke and everyone turned frantically to their monitors. In seconds multiple screens were ablaze with shots firing, explosions and the muted sounds of battle filled the room. It was like watching space fighters with live-action cameras attached to their cockpits. A dozen different screens tracked the fighter pilots as they fought the Hive ships. Explosions were muted on our end, as were their rapid-fire communications, the pilots’ voices a constant stream of chatter I struggled to break into comprehensible order.

“Two more on your tail.”

“Fire! Fire! Fire! I’ve got three coming from behind the moon.”

“I see them.”

“Where did they come from? Fuck. I can’t see them.”

“Wyle, I’m hit!”

“Eject, Brax! Now!”

Grigg growled and one of the men in white moved frantically at his station, communicating with someone I couldn’t see. Whatever he was doing must have been expected because Grigg turned to him immediately.

“The shuttle?”

“No go. They’re already on the surface. Closest pickup is three minutes away.”

“Fuck. That’s not fast enough.” Grigg’s jaw tightened and I knew he believed the warrior to be doomed.

True to Grigg’s prediction, I watched a bright flare of yellow head toward the pilot floating in space like a rolling target. I stopped breathing as the orb engulfed him, his screams of agony filling the small room as the warriors in the ships around him spurred to action, taking out the Hive ship that had fired the shot.

“Kill that fucker!”

“Brax! Damn it!”

“Move Fourth, we’ve got more coming from the surface.”

“Fuck. How many? I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t see—wait. Fuck. Ten. No, twelve. Can someone fucking confirm twelve?”

“Another three here. Abort. There’s too many.” I recognized Captain Wyle’s voice. “Shuttle crew, get out of there. Now. All fighters into defense formation. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Commander Zakar? This is Wyle.”

“I’m here.”

“We’re coming in hot. Nothing on our system scans, but visual count at fifteen fighters and they are in pursuit.”

“Understood. Hang on. We’re coming.”

“Fucking hurry up, Commander, or we’re all dead.”

Grigg turned to one of the warriors in red. “Scramble the Seventh and the Ninth. Now. All pilots. I want them gone in sixty seconds.”

The warrior didn’t answer, just turned to his station and spoke to someone as bright lights and warning dings sounded from his workstation.

The dipping and zooming, the high-speed motion on the screens made me sway. I was grateful to have the chair to hold on to as motion sickness loomed. Determined not to look away I tried to track and understand the images moving at speeds that made me dizzy. I felt helpless, weak, useless. I could only imagine what Grigg felt like, his men out there under his command, under fire. Dying.

All around us battle chatter sounded as the pilots spoke to one another, fending off the pursuit. A small celebration sounded as the reinforcements arrived and the Hive fighters broke off their chase, turning around to flee in the opposite direction, back to wherever the hell they’d come from.

Captain Wyle’s voice came through loud and clear. “They’re running, Sir. Do you want us to pursue?”

“Negative. What I want you to do is find out how we were surprised by an entire fucking squadron of Hive scout ships.”

“Copy that, Sir.”

The mood in the room settled to a busy hum, one of recovery after an explosion and I leaned back in the chair, my pulse pounding and my mind racing as the pilots reported in. The battle had been real, the poor pilot, Brax, dead. But my curiosity remained unsatisfied. I wanted to see the face of the enemy, I wanted to
know
what they were.

I was so tense I felt like I was going to throw up in my mouth. Some of the tension was mine, but no small part came from Grigg, the energy and rage flowing through him in a tidal wave of raw hatred so intense I could barely comprehend it. Grigg
hated
the Hive with a vehemence that was a sucker punch to my gut. And I’d doubted this war. I’d doubted
him
.

But on the surface my mate’s face was stone cold, calm as granite, and I marveled at the façade, the iron control required to govern the storm of power I felt brewing beneath his skin. My admiration for him grew as he anchored the crew with his level voice and confident stride. His power kept chaos at bay, his will alone all that stood between life and death for so many, both on the ship with us and out there fighting for their lives in space.

The warrior in white turned to Grigg. “The shuttle reports two survivors from the Hive base were brought on board, Sir.”

Grigg’s shoulders tightened and the pain that flooded me through our bond was old and deep, like a broken bone that refused to heal. On the surface? Nothing showed, not even a twitch of his eyelid nor the smallest frown. I wanted to soothe him, hug him, take some of the pain away. “Alert medical.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Grigg turned to me then and held out his hand. His jaw was tense. Every line of his body was tense. “You want to see the face of our enemy, understand them?”

“Yes.” I placed my hand in his and stood as he gently pulled me to my feet.

He sighed then, his lips forming a thin line I’d come to recognize as dread. “All right, Amanda. Seeing the battle was bad enough. Come with me, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I walked beside him as he spoke to a large warrior across the room. “Trist, the command deck is yours.”