“Where–images–fight?”
“Damn it! I don’t have them!” Frustration burst through me like my entire body was a fuse that had just been lit. I crackled and burned, wondered when the fire would reach the built-up pressure inside my chest and I’d explode. What was I supposed to do? Where were the images from the fight? That was the same question the Hive asked me over, and over, and over. What fight? What images? I had no idea.
Trembling muscles made me grit my teeth as tears crouched behind my eyes waiting to pounce. Dead bodies. Aliens. Blood. I was tied up wearing nothing by my sister’s blue nightie. I’d been munching on popcorn watching my favorite baking show when the Hive showed up.
“We go.”
The Atlan seemed to lose half his energy, his body slowed, movements stilted. Blood and goo oozed out of him from all the injuries. The space guns made nasty burns. He had to be in extreme pain.
I was shaking my head when he stepped forward and put a button looking thing about the size of a large coin in my hand. He wrapped my fingers around it and pulled me to my feet. Before I could protest, he wrapped his arms around me in a giant bear hug.
Well, shit. What was I going to do? Try to fight him off? Like that was going to happen when my nose barely reached his sternum and his arms were like steel bands around me. Stay here with three dead, alien bodies? Anotherno.I could call the cops. In fact, I would have to call the police and report this. Maybe he would take me to the leader of the Atlans and I could find out what was going on. I’d have to call my sister, give her a heads up before she walked into this mess. But that would be easy. All I needed was my cell phone. Where was my phone?
I twisted, searching through the shattered glass, dead bodies and gore for my phone. Damn it. I always did this, lost it. Set it down and forgot where it was.
I opened my mouth to tell the big alien man I needed to find it when three more cyborgs walked through gaping front door.
Oh, god. We were dead.
Ice cold pain lanced through every cell in my body and everything went black.
* * *
The Colony,Medical Station, Five Hours Later
“Miss Linton, you must remain calm.”Their doctor, a huge Prillon warrior called Surnen, looked at me with pity in his eyes. Pity. Oh, look at the poor little human female. Isn’t she sad and cute and in need of protection? The fact that he looked like a walking, talking golden god did not soften my mood. He was gold from head to toe. Even his eyes were a disturbing and very unhuman shade of yellow, pale, like lemonade. I wanted to take that gray mating collar he wore around his neck and strangle him with it. What woman was crazy enough to put up with the condescending, placating, don’t-worry-your-pretty-little-head-about-it way he was talking to me? “If you’d like, I can administer a sleeping agent and you can rest while Warlord Kai completes the healing process.”
No. No to all of it. No to this planet. No to the Atlan, a warlord they’d told me was named Kai, thinking I was his mate. No to staying here. No. Just no.
These aliens had a serious listening problem. Especially the one they called Governor Maxim. Just as big as the doctor, his skin was a dark copper color. His hair was so dark it looked black and his eyes were a darker brown than mine. He was the guy in charge of this place, wherever this place was. Somewhere in outer-fucking-space. And my sister was back on Earth, alone. Someone had to warn her.I had to warn her!“No. You have to take me back.”
“We will discuss the situation with Warlord Kai once he wakens from the ReGen pod.” Governor Maxim’s consoling tone did nothing to improve my mood. In fact, these guys were all pissing me off. And Warlord Kai? He’d apparently put some kind of magical transporter thing in my hand and zapped me directly toanother planet.
Poof. We appear on a transport pad on a completely different planet, Kai says ‘mine’ to the guy standing there with his mouth gaping open and passes out cold.
Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful. He saved my life. But now he was putting my sister’s life in danger and none of these aliens were listening to me. They informed me I was Kai’s mate and had to be wherever he was or he’d literally go insane with the Atlan male’s curse, Mating Fever. Every human on Earth who’d read about the Atlans, or watched the international hit show,Bachelor Beast,knew the story. Atlan males, especially the warlords, could only go so long without a mate. After that, they were consumed with pain and the rage of their unmated beast until they lost control and killed anyone and everyone who got in their way. Family. Friends. Didn’t matter once they lost their shit. I didn’t want that to happen to the warlord who’d saved me from the Hive, but I was not his mate. I didn’t want to be, either.
“When will that be?” The door to the room where Kai lay unconscious in one of their high-tech healing pods, their ReGen pod, was open. On the other side of that wall was a massive Atlan warlord who thought I was his mate. Who wanted to claim me. Have sex with me. Put those mating cuffs on me and force me to abandon my sister and live with him here, on another planet. Nope. Not happening.
“I do not know when Warlord Kai will regain consciousness. His injuries were severe.” Doctor Surnen held up what looked like in injector and wiggled it in the air, golden brows raised. Must be the sedative he had been talking about. I shook my head and he put it back on a tray on one of the medical room’s counters.
“Miss Linton, I promise, you are safe here.” Governor Maxim had said this to me no less than a dozen times in the last few hours. “I will ask my mate, Rachel, to show you around and get you some clothing and food. She is from Earth as well. Are you hungry?” So, he was mated to a human woman, too? Explained the copper-colored collar around his neck. His friend’s collar matched. Either they were brothers from the same family, or the third Prillon warrior—another golden skinned male, although he was a darker tone, more gold jewelry than lemonade—glaring at me was the governor’s second, the male he chose to share his female with, in case one of them was killed in battle. So morbid, really.
One of these guys was more than enough for me. Bravo to this woman, Rachel, I had yet to meet, if she was mated to both these guys. Good for her.
“No. I’m not hungry.” I was starving. Tired. How long had I been here? The Hive showed up right before I went to bed. I should have been asleep for hours now and my body felt the lack. “ I mean, yes, but it doesn’t matter. I need to go home.” The blue nightgown I wore wasn’t exactly warm, but the medical team had given me a nice green blanket to wrap up in, so I managed. Still, trying to talk sense into a room full of aliens—all acting like cavemen around the poor, defenseless female—wearing nothing but a thigh length nightie, no bra and spaghetti straps? Didn’t inspire confidence. I felt half naked and at a disadvantage. “Those things are in our apartment and my sister doesn’t know. She’ll be in danger.”
The governor spoke to me like I was a five-year-old and needed to learn basic math. “They were after you. Once you were brought to us, they would have no reason to remain in your living quarters.”
Okay. So, they were trying to protect me. I got that. They were trying to do the right thing for their friend, Kai. I got that, too. But my gut told me I was right and they were wrong. My sister was in danger. “How do you know? What if they’re still there? I need to go home. Now. Right fucking now. Idemandyou take me back to Earth.”
The governor’s buddy with the matching collar scowled at me. His name started with an R. Ryan? Rice? Something like that. “First, you must tell us where the images are being stored? Commander Helion has fighters ready to retrieve them, we just need the location.”
Not this again. “I don’t know. They’re not mine. I told you. I don’t know where they are. Take. Me. Home.” Their lack of listening skills was about to be a serious problem. Wasn’t there some kind of interstellar law against kidnapping women? There had to be. Did they have lawyers in outer space? “Unless this is actually a kidnapping? Isn’t that against a law or something? Do you aliens even have laws? Or do you just kidnap any woman you want, any time you want?”
“There is no need for you to return to Earth and risk your life. Warlord Kai will take care of you now.” Rice-man, Ryston? Yeah, that was it. Ryston bowed slightly, like I was a queen and he was reporting the weather. A simple fact. Not rearranging my entire life.
“No, he won’t. I don’t know him. I don’t know any of you guys. I don’t know what images you’re talking about. I’ve told you this a hundred times. My sister will be home soon. She works nights at the emergency vet clinic. You have to take me back.”
