“Rowan,” I said softly, keeping my voice low and steady. “I know this is all happening fast. I know you’re probably scared and confused. But I swear to you, you are safe here. It is a great honor to be your second. I will protect you. I will pleasure you. I will care for you. I will kill to keep you safe.” The promise felt heavy on my tongue, weightier than anything I’d ever sworn before. Because it wasn’t just a promise to her—it was a promise to myself. A promise that I’d find a way to silence the Hive once and for all. Or die trying.
“As will I. We are yours, mate.” Marz tightened his grip on her, but his expression held no doubt—only a mix of relief and gratitude. He looked down at me, his jaw clenching as though he struggled to find adequate words himself. “You have two warriors sworn to you, as is your right,” he said, his voice rough, almost hesitant. His gaze shifted to Rowan’s face, searching forsome sign of acceptance there. “If you agree, we would like to welcome you properly.”
She gasped, her gaze locked onto mine, her pulse racing at the base of her throat. “How?”
“Pleasure.” I rose to my feet slowly, my hand still resting over hers. I felt her pulse flutter beneath my fingertips, a rapid rhythm that matched the chaos I saw in her eyes. She looked overwhelmed, but something else sparked there too—something that flared to life despite her attempts to hide it from us.
Need. Hope. The collar should be around her neck so I would not be forced to guess at her emotions. How could we care for her if we did not know what she required? What did the vulnerable look in her gaze mean, exactly? Did her body hunger for our touch? Did her heart ache to hear words of assurance and adoration? Was she in pain or tired from transport?
“Where are your mating collars?” I tore my gaze from Rowan and made my way to the retractable storage drawers I knew were embedded in the wall. Marz directed me and I opened the correct drawer. After removing three collars, two burgundy and one black, I returned to our mate.
The black collar washers.The collar would clearly indicate she was under a warrior’s protection but would not turn the color of Marz’s family until the thirty-day claiming period was done, or we’d formally claimed her.
I was ready to claim her now. But the choice was hers, not ours. We must woo her. Give her pleasure. Care for her. She needed to choose to accept our claim. If we failed, the laws of Prillon Prime were clear and unbreakable. If we failed to win her heart, she would be matched to another. We would lose her.
I will kill any other male who dares touch her.
Fuck. Violence rolled through my body and I clenched my fists as I realized, with a sudden, terrible clarity, that I should not be here. Marz should have chosen another.
Too late. She was mine.
The blanket slipped slightly from her shoulder, revealing a hint of the curve of her collarbone, the delicate line of her throat. Blood rushed to my already hard cock. Heat surged through me at the sight. My fingers twitched with the urge to touch her, hold her, taste her sweet pussy, make her beg me to fill her tight ass. The primitive need to claim her, mark her, fill her with my seed. I’d become an animal. Mindless with the need to shield her from everything that wasn’t me.
6
Rowan
Holy shit.My mates were freaking gorgeous. Marz looked like a golden god, everything about him practically glowed, from the pale-yellow hue of his skin to the rich yellow-gold of his shoulder length hair. One eye was silver, with silver all around. But his skin was so light, the silver blended in until I could almost believe it was a trick of the light. He looked too beautiful to be real, like a fairy prince.
Vance? The bad boy look made my pussy clench. I never realized dark, brooding bad boys were my flavor, but damn. Everything about him was darkness to Marz’s light. Dark brown skin tinged with copper, hair so dark it looked nearly black, and intense eyes the color of mahogany, alive with intelligence and obsession. He apologized for being ugly. He had no idea the thin streaks of silver that covered the side of his neck and face made him look invincible. Strong. Sexy as hell. Darkness and light. A golden prince and a scarred savage. Every fantasy fulfilled in two alien males who, I hoped, were about to fuck me into forgetting my own name.
The blanket slipped and I didn’t reach for the edge. The way Vance’s dark eyes locked onto my bare shoulder made me want to pull it down a little lower. He held the mating collars in his hand, and I knew what that meant as well. Psychic connection. Shared pleasure. Everything I felt, they would feel.
The moment that collar was around my neck, I would know if the desire they claimed to feel for me was real or a lie. If they had any doubts. If they really weren’t attracted to me. Unlike the human men I’d dated, they wouldn’t be able to lie or keep secrets or manipulate me with words. There would be nothing between us but raw emotion and truth.
Lust and hope swirled together, made my heart race with excitement. Those collars changed everything. The connection we would share would be unlike anything I had ever seen — or even imagined — back on Earth. It would be like dream Warden Egara had stolen from me when she woke me, except this time it would be real. My alien mates and I would be connected. One. I would never be alone again.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to steady my nerves and held out my hand. “I assume one of those is for me.”
“Yes.” Vance’s deep voice made my nipples harden under the blanket. Instead of putting the collar around my neck, he placed one around his own and handed the other two to Marz, who carried me, and the collars in his hand, toward the large bed in one corner of the room.
Damn it. How long was he going to make me wait? I wanted that fucking collar around my neck, and both of theirs, right now. I needed to know if this was real or the cruelest joke the universe had ever played on me and my foolish, romantic heart. I realized I was grateful that Marz brought me straight to our private quarters. If I had to wait and wonder, worry, I would lose my damn mind. We were alone now. The three of us. Me and my mates.
Just like the processing dream.
God. My greedy body wanted what the woman in that simulation, that intense, sexy, naughty dream, had. The attention of two mates. Drowning in their desire, their need to fuck me. Their obsession with touching me. Tasting me. Two mouths exploring my body. Four hands touching me everywhere.
Two cocks fucking me, filling me, making me lose control.
Marz laid me down in the center of the bed and lowered himself onto the soft surface beside me, brushing a lock of hair from my forehead tenderly. His touch sent shivers down my spine as his hand trailed down my arm, his rough fingers finding their way under the edge of the blanket to trace patterns over my stomach. A gasp escaped me when he reached lower, teasingly running his fingertips along the sensitive skin of my mound before dipping between my folds, eliciting a moan from deep within my throat.
"Are you ready for us, Rowan?" His voice was low and husky, filled with promise and desire. “Are you wet?” He leaned down to kiss my cheek as he thrust two fingers deep. “It’s time to give you pleasure, mate.”
With an act of will I would be proud of until the day I died, I lowered my hand to his wrist and held with every ounce of strength I possessed. I did not want him to stop, but I needed something else first. “Put on your collar.” I worried I would be unable to speak past the lump in my throat, but if they were going to fuck me now, I had demands of my own. “I want the collars.” I wanted to know they were real, their emotions, their needs, their desire for me, was real.
His gaze locked with mine. Held. “What I am feeling might frighten you, mate.”
“I don’t care. I need to know.”
