Chapter One

Atlan Warlord Kai, Miami, Florida

I finally tracked the elusive female, the human who risked her life to break into an illegal fight club and capture images of Warlord Maxus, and the rest of us, during the surprise Hive attack. Whoever she was, the moment she sent those images to potential buyers, she placed herself in more danger than she could comprehend.

The Hive wanted her dead.

The Coalition’s Intelligence Core wanted her alive for questioning.

Me? I just fucking wanted. The moment her lingering scent filled my head that day, my beast had one fucking thing to say… mine. Over, and over, and fucking over again.

Mine!

I know. Patience.

No patience. Mine. Go. Now.

Our mate is in danger. You want to fuck around and be killed by Hive Scouts?

Weak. I kill them all. My beast sounded insulted I would even mention the possibility of our death. I never lose to Hive scum.

“You lost once.” I wasn’t trying to be an asshole to—myself—but we had been defeated in battle. Once. Captured and taken to a Hive Integration facility and experimented on. Tortured. Integrated with Hive technology that, even after rescue, made it impossible to return to the Atlan home world. I was an outcast now, contaminated, just like every other fighter, warrior and warlord exiled to The Colony. Too dangerous to be allowed to return to Atlan, take a mate and live a civilian life.

Worse, mating fever raged in my blood. Soon the beast would break free and unleash his agony in an unforgivable killing fury. Unless I convinced my female to accept me, take my mating cuffs and never leave my side.

The odds were not in my favor.

“I’m going in.” I squinted through the dark, grateful for the pitiful light provided by two lamp posts positioned in the building’s parking lot. Three more surrounded the area but were not functional. It was well past midnight. My female—and she was mine—should be asleep.

Crouched on the roof of her three-story apartment building, I jumped to the ground and landed outside her bedroom window. “Are you sure these diagrams are correct?”

“Yes. You still determined to knock on the door?” The voice in my comm belonged to Bahre, our chosen commander while we were here, on Earth. Most of the warlords had been successful in finding their mates. Some had returned to The Colony. I was not among them. The beast within became more difficult to control with each passing day. If I did not claim my mate soon, mating fever would destroy me, and I would be forced to embrace death.

“I do not wish to frighten her.”

“Fucking mistake. Get her out and explain later.”

“She’s my mate. I do not want her to fear me.”

“Fuck. Going soft already. Be quick about it.” Bahre’s sigh spoke for both of us. Protecting a mate, physically and mentally, was the only thing that mattered. “Do you have a visual?”

“Negative.” The human apartment building appeared to be quiet. “Activating scanners.”

“The Hive Scouts we’re tracking are closing in on your position.”

“How long do I have?”

Bahre cursed. “Ten minutes, if you’re lucky.”

Break in, convince a hysterical, human female to accompany me to another planet, put a transport beacon on her, and get her out of here before the Hive showed up? What could possibly go wrong?

I activated the scanners in my Coalition helmet and watched thermal outlines of the humans inside the building appear on my helmet’s screen. “Fifty-seven humans. Twenty-nine female. Fuck. I hope the Hive don’t get any ideas.” The Hive had been kidnapping and attempting to breed human females. “Only one Scout unit? Just three of them?”

“That’s all we’re tracking. Just get in and get her out of there. We need those images. The I.C. is breathing down my neck on this one.” Bahre’s rumbling didn’t help my agitated state. My beast growled, ready to unleash his rage on the world.

“You mean Helion’s being an ass. I heard he claimed a mate. Didn’t that calm him down?”

Bahre’s chuckle sounded like rumbling rocks in my head. “Made him worse, especially when it comes to protecting human females.”

Of course. Now that the notorious asshole commander of the Intelligence Core was mated to a human female, he was obsessed with protecting Earth. Didn’t seem to matter that he’d supposedly retired and relocated his mate to his home world of Prillon Prime. He was even more active—at least when it came to Earth—than ever.

He had his human mate. Time to claim mine.

“Larkspur Linton. Age twenty-three. Where are you?” The apartment number on her government issued identification was one-zero-seven.

“Stop stalling, Warlord. I’m going to think you’re afraid of a tiny human female.”

“Guess you should have come with me. Make sure I don’t fuck it up.”

Bahre burst into laughter. “Fuck no. The day a Warlord can’t handle three Scouts on his own is the day I walk away from Quinn. She’s waiting for me, so hurry the fuck up before my cock insists I leave you without backup on comms.”

My turn to chuckle. Quinn was one beautiful female. I couldn’t blame Bahre for his eagerness to be with his mate.

Speaking of mates....

Mine!

Yes. I know. Just a few more minutes.

No. Now.

My beast was tired of waiting. Frankly, so was I.

I checked the details on the scanner. Human female. Alone. She must have fallen asleep on her sofa. The apartment appeared to have two bedrooms, but the other rooms were unoccupied. My mate was alone.

What did she wear to bed? I inspected the thermal image of her sitting on her sofa. The flickering light of her television, or computer screen, flashed across her window. A strange shimmer appeared, then disappeared on my scans. I would need to get that glitch checked out once I was back on The Colony.

I stared at that curved, red outline and tried to imagine what it would be like to touch her. Other than the grainy image on her driver’s license—brown hair, brown eyes, slightly taller than average for a human, I had no idea what she looked like, sounded like, thought or needed. What if she refused to come with me?

Mine!

The beast didn’t give a fuck what she looked like. All females were beautiful and unique. The only thing that mattered was that she was mine. I knew the moment I caught her scent at the fight club that night, a sweet, feminine fragrance that haunted me every minute since. Taunting me. Daring me to find her.

“Eight minutes. Scouts inbound. Hurry the fuck up.”

Why was I not already inside? Was I nervous to meet her? Afraid she would take one look at the scars and integrations covering my body and find me unworthy? I’ve never feared anything in my life, not on the battlefield, not during my imprisonment with the Hive. Now I dreaded the reaction of a fragile human female?

Mine!

The beast had a one-track mind. The rock-hard cock rubbing against my armor was proof of that.

Moving quickly, I went to her door and raised my fist. My knock rattled the nearby window.

Inside me, the beast lunged, eager to break free.

Holding him back took every bit of self-control I possessed.

I braced my hands on either side of the door frame and waited. Knocked again. Nothing. No footsteps. No calling out. My mate’s apartment remained silent.

Fuck. I didn’t want to have to do it this way.

I kicked the door open and stepped inside. “Larkspur?” A tall, freestanding coat rack, and the variety of items hanging from the black, metallic hooks, blocked my view of the living area.

The narrow hall made it impossible for my shoulders to pass. I lifted the metal rack, coats, purses, umbrella and all, and walked forward. “Larkspur Linton? I’m Warlord Kai. I need to speak with you. You’re in danger.”

“It’s a trap! Get out!” A woman’s shout was cut short by the sound of something hitting flesh.

“We have an intruder. Eliminate him.” A cold, monotone voice gave the order without a hint of emotion. I knew that tone, the cadence of a group mind, the way the Hive always referred to themselves as ‘we’, never ‘I’. Never the individual.

“No! Get out! Run!” A woman’s scream made the beast roar a response.

The Hive were here. For touching my mate, they would die.

I rushed into the small living space. Three Hive Soldiers, bigger, stronger, better armed and with more advanced integrations than their lowly Scouts—surrounded a human female where she sat, facing them, on her light brown sofa. Her dark hair hung on either side of delicate cheekbones and full, kissable lips.

A dark bruise spread on her left cheek and around her brown eye. A short, blue nightgown bunched up on top of her thighs, exposing long, lean legs. A binding device held her wrists bound in front of her, resting on her lap. Tears streaked her cheeks and still, she did not beg for her own life, but glared, defiance in her raised chin and unblinking glare. She did not cower before the Hive Soldier. Instead, she called out a warning to me.

My mate was brave. Courageous. Honorable. Her sweet, feminine scent filled the small apartment. She was fucking perfect.

The beast agreed.

“Mine!” He roared as I felt my body shift and expand, my bones and muscles tearing and reforming as I swung the coat rack at the nearest Soldier. The trio—the fucking Hive always traveled in threes—included three integrated Prillon warriors. Big. Strong. Trained in battle.

They were no match for a beast defending his mate.

The metal hooks in the coat rack hit with such force, the hooks punctured the Soldier’s armor, one hook in his chest, the other in the side of his neck. He collapsed to his knees, blood spraying on the pale gray carpet.

The female scrambled away from the fight, hurling her small body toward the far end of the sofa.

The two remaining Hive Soldiers turned to face my beast, weapons raised.

Rage unlike anything I’d ever known pumped through every cell at the glimpse of my small, delicate female trapped behind them. I’d fought countless battles against creatures like these, been consumed by the fury of war. This was deeper. Primal.

“Mine!” The word filled the room like booming thunder. My mate screamed.

The two Hive opened fire, their blasters hitting my armor, charring the flesh beneath.

Her scream was an explosion inside my skull, my mate in danger, threatened by my mortal enemy. Dozens of battles flashed through my mind, the images so vivid and real the room before me faded until I stood on the battlefield, muscles straining as I tore a Hive Scout’s body in half.

My beast’s cry of rage echoed through the small apartment. The thunderous roar in my ears broke the spell and I came back to myself. That nightmare happened on another day, in another battle. These two were here, now.

They continued to fire, their blasters turning my armor into molten metal on flesh. Searing. Burning.

The pain enraged my beast.

I stepped into the blasts and reached out to wrap my hands around the head and shoulder of the nearest Hive Soldier. He fought as his companion blasted me from the side. A head shot blurred my vision as my helmet took the brunt of the discharge.

The Hive before me was stronger than a Prillon warrior should have been. His Hive integrations gave him unnatural strength.

With a growl of intense satisfaction, I pulled the Hive’s head from his shoulders and tossed it on the floor next to his fallen, dying companion. I stomped on the polished black coat rack for good measure, driving the metal tips deeper into the enemy’s neck.

One more.

Never before had I been grateful for my weeks of capture at the hands of the Hive, until now. Without the integrations in my own body, I might have been in trouble. But I was captured. Tortured. Integrated. Hardened. As one of the few Atlans to survive the Integration process, I was stronger than any Atlan warlord should be. So was my beast. These Hive Soldiers were Prillon warriors once, before the Hive changed them into something else.

They were following orders, doing a job. I was a warlord, a beast, a killer protecting the only thing in the universe that mattered… my mate.

“Kai, what the fuck is going on?” Bahre’s voice finally broke through. He’d been talking, but my beast was too focused on battle to process his annoying questions.

“Hive.” My beast gave a typical one-word response.

“The group of Scouts in four minutes out. They’re picking up the pace.”

“No. Here. Now.” My beast’s tone left no room for argument.

“I don’t understand. That’s not possible.” Bahre’s confusion was one I shared. How did these fuckers not show up on my scans? I should have known they were here.

With a flick of my eyes toward the on-screen command in my helmet, I began broadcasting the scene to Bahre and anyone else who was monitoring the situation.

“Fuck!” Bahre’s shout in my comms matched my mood perfectly.

“We are here for the female. Leave. This human is nothing to you.” The remaining Hive Soldier faced me but ceased firing his blaster.

“Mine.” The beast would not be reasoned with. There would be no bargaining, no mercy.

The final Soldier resumed fire as I advanced. He took one step back. Two. The backs of his legs hit the sofa and my mate gasped, scooting farther away.

The Hive Soldier turned his head to look at her, the thought clearly forming in his mind. He knew he was dead. Fucking dead.

He lifted his blaster, pointed the weapon at her head.

Read now! Bad Boy Beast

* * *

HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE COLONY?

Read Rachel, Governor Maxim, and Ryston’s sexy menage next in

Surrender to the Cyborgs

READ CHAPTER ONE NOW!

Rachel Pierce, Interstellar Brides Program Processing Center

“You can’t escape us.”A rough male voice whispered in my ear. The room was dark, nearly black, and I could not see his face, but his tone excited me. I should have been afraid, terrified, and yet my body arched off the bed at his words, eager. Wet. Throbbing with need.

I tugged at the bonds about my wrists, the unbreakable cuffs secured over my head. The fit was snug, but not painful. They ensured that I was well and truly captured, yet unharmed. There was no give in the restraints, but the soft yield of the bed under my back was soothing. So were the calloused hands that ran over my heated skin, that cupped my upturned breasts, the insides of my spread thighs, my bare mound.

“Our little prisoner.”

I stilled at the voice. The second voice. There wasn’t just one man in bed with me, but two. Two sets of hands.

“Ah!” I cried, when little erotic bites elicited a fiery burst of pain at the tips of my nipples. Two mouths.

I couldn’t see their faces, but I could feel their hands, hear their ragged breathing, feel their heat, smell their dark, spicy scents.

“I want to touch you,” I replied, licking my dry lips. I tugged once again on the binds, but they were unforgiving. I didn’t need to see them to know they were big, so much bigger than me. Their hands were large, spanning the breadth of my belly, dwarfing my breasts, which were far from small, gripping my knees and holding them apart so that my naked body was open to their every urge, every desire.

I should feel panicked, for while I didn’t seem to know these men, I knew them, felt safe with them. Safe enough to be tied up and at their sweet mercy.

I’d never been into bondage play or any kind of BDSM before. Not even a little kink tossed into a wild night. My sexual experiences ranged between high school fumbling and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinds of encounters.

This, this was something else entirely…and I liked it.

I liked the heavy weight of the cuffs about my wrists. I liked the way there was no give in the rope. I liked the way the men were touching me, arousing me to a fervor I’d never known before. And they were only touching.

When a hand dipped between my thighs, I arched my back, pushing my hips into the touch. “She’s dripping. You like to give over control.”

I didn’t know that to be the case before, but with these two, now, I did. Hell, yeah.

I moaned at the feel of his fingers stroking over my folds, circling my clit, pulling back its protective hood for…oh fuck. His hot breath.

When his mouth closed over my clit, I cried out, tugged involuntarily. Hands on my thighs held me open, exposed, available.

I couldn’t do a thing but take whatever they wanted to do to me. To give to me.

“You’ll come first, then we’ll fuck you.”

I had no problem with that whatsoever. “Yes,” I replied on a breathy moan to the man who was licking my pussy.

The other was working my nipples with his mouth, alternating between them. I felt the rasp of a trimmed beard, the soft hairs tickling my tender skin and awakening every one of my nerve endings. “You can feel it, can’t you? Our need, your need, building and building. The collars join us, link and share our pleasure.”

I felt the weight of something about my neck, felt the eager intensity of the men’s desires, their domination, my submission, swirling around us like a vibrant, red aura. I was hotter, wetter, more eager than ever in my life.

I was going to come. There was no way I could stop it, for while I was bound by rope and cuffs, I was ensnared by their attentions. My pussy ached, swelled, pulsed. My clit throbbed. My nipples stung.

“Yes, I’m going to… I need, right there…just a little—no!”

The men knew I was going to come and not just from my mindless rambling or the way my body shook. It was the damn collars. They knew one more flick of a tongue against my engorged clit, one more decadent bite on my nipple and I would have succumbed to the most powerful orgasm.

Instead, I was sweaty and needy, tears slipping from my eyes, desperate for them. My body was almost electrified with need. Just a touch in the right place and I’d go off.

The man by my head moved to lie down beside me, his hot length pressing against my side. Hands gripped my waist and flipped me over on top of him, my arms still up over my head, over his as well. If I leaned down a few inches, surely I would kiss him. Shifting my legs into a comfortable position, I straddled him. My breasts chafed against the soft hairs on his chest. My slick skin slid easily over him. My pussy coated his cock, which I rested upon, the girth of it parting my folds. Our breaths mingled and yet I still couldn’t see him.

“Please,” I begged, wiggling my hips to get his cock at my entrance, so I could get him deep inside me. I needed him deep inside me. I had never thought it before, and if that made me a total slut, I didn’t care, but I needed cock.

A hand came down on my upturned bottom, the sting of it a surprise. While it hurt, it morphed into even more pleasure and I gasped, then groaned.

“We say how,” the man behind me said.

“We say when,” the one beneath me finished.

A palm cupped my stinging bottom, pulled my cheeks apart. A hard finger, slick and coated with something cool slid over me there, finding my back entrance, circling, then pushing in.

The sharp bite of the stretch had me panting, stilling. The finger worked the lube into me, more, then more still.

“Are you ready for our cocks, mate? To be ours forever?” The man behind me spoke as he gently yet thoroughly prepared my ass for…oh god. Our cocks. Forever.

Yes. I was ready. More than ready. Time didn’t exist, only the feel of his finger as he worked me, stretched me open, the feel of the hard, muscled body beneath me. Hands stroked my back, my sides, my hair.

“She’s ready.”

I’d been ready for a while but didn’t mention it, afraid I’d get spanked again. They were in control, so I bit my lip.

I felt them move, heard the rustling of their actions as I was lifted up so that the cock beneath me nudged my pussy. Yes! I wiggled, trying to lower, but he would have none of it. I realized when I felt the other’s cock at my prepared back passage that they were going to take me together.

Really together. Not one after the other. Not one in my pussy, the other cock in my mouth. Together, as in double penetration.

As I panicked, a sense of eagerness, of extreme arousal washed over me. I felt the men’s desires mingle with my own through the collar and it tempered my panic and soothed it with mindless need.

“Please,” I begged, feeling their cocks pressing. The one at my pussy slid in easily, the wet sound of my arousal as loud as our breaths. In a smooth stroke, he sank deep, filling me. He groaned. I groaned. God, he was big. Thick. Hard. So fucking deep.

“I’m going to come.”

I was. They’d primed me so well that I was shaking with it.

“Not yet. As soon as you are ours, when you take both our cocks we will be truly joined. Only then will you be collared, mated, claimed.” The man behind me spoke in my ear as he pressed inward, the broad head of his cock slowly opening me. My body held barely any resistance to his efforts. Perhaps it was the lube or his intent, but I truly believed it was the collars that connected us, that made me relax, to breathe out, to give over. They’d wanted me to submit and this act was the ultimate submission.

I could do nothing but take whatever they wanted. When they wanted. How.

It was that knowledge more than the second cock sinking into me that had me coming on a blissful scream. I was so full, so open. Exposed. Vulnerable and yet powerful all at once.

It was too much, the pleasure. I was truly imprisoned, caught not only by the bonds over my head, but the cocks that joined us. We were one.

When I felt their hot seed spurt from them, I screamed again, then again.

“Miss Pierce!” The voice repeated itself and a hand shook my shoulder. “Stop screaming, please.”

I was thrashing, felt the way my hands were bound, knew it was real.

“Rachel!”

No, it wasn’t real. The voice shouting at me was a woman, not the deep rumble of either man.

I blinked, once, then again. Bright light filtered through the seams of my closed eyelids, turning my vision a deep, dark red until, unable to deny the annoying woman’s voice, or the too small hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes.

Fuck. There were no men. No hands, mouths, cocks. There had definitely been an orgasm though. I was sweaty and I could feel the heat of it, the pleasure still coursing through my body. My pussy rippled and pulsed around…nothing. My bottom clenched. Empty. The wet result of my arousal made my bottom slip and slide on a strange exam chair. It was like I’d been tied down, naked, at the dentist’s office.

My hands were bound, but not by the men’s cuffs and I wasn’t in a soft bed. No. I was restrained to the testing chair in the Interstellar Brides Processing Center. The men were nothing more than a dream, a figment of my sex-starved imagination. I hadn’t been with a man in a long damn time. Over a year.

Apparently, my body had gone from zero to orgasm in about five seconds flat. But it had been so good, so hot and hard and…

“Miss Pierce. I need you to look at me.” There was that annoying female voice practically barking orders at me. I didn’t care for her tone. Not one bit.

I focused on the face swimming before me and waited for my vision to clear. When it did, I found a somewhat unpleasant young woman’s face looming over me. I remembered her now. Unfortunately, I remembered everything. “Warden Egara.”

“Good. You’re awake.”

“You wanted me tested and now you’re taking the dream away from me?” It had been a dream. Since when had reality included two hot, virile lovers who fucked me at the same time? When had I ever had an orgasm that strong? That intense? When had I ever been so desperate to be touched that just thinking about it had nearly made me scream?

Never. Smoking-hot, dominant lovers were not part of my reality.

My reality included prison. Harsh lighting. Bad food. Stale air. Several hundred women who looked at me like I was fresh meat. Loneliness. Betrayal.

“Yes, Miss Pierce. I’m terribly sorry. I don’t normally stop the testing so abruptly, but I have to admit, I was a little nervous about your screaming.”

I couldn’t help but flush. “Let’s just say the dream was very… vivid.”

She looked down at her tablet, apparently having decided that I was not dying in her testing chair. She went around the generic table and sat down. The room was clinical, stark. I’d think I was in an office conference room if not for the fancy testing chair I sat in. No, that I was tied to like a mental patient. The restraints around my wrists were at least four inches wide and an inch thick. I wasn’t sure what kind of superhuman women they normally strapped down, but the only way any normal girl would get out of these was with a hacksaw.

I looked down at myself, oddly pleased to see that I wore the bland, gray testing gown instead of the orange prison pants and white t-shirt that had made up my wardrobe for the last few months. I was naked beneath, and bare from the knees down. Medical gowns, it seemed, were standard-level ugly no matter what planet they were from. And I wasn’t a fan of my bare ass sticking to the chair. Where was the standard-issue granny panties and sports bra?

“The testing was successful, a match was made at a ninety-nine percent.” Her smile transformed her face, and I realized that she wasn’t that old, probably even a few years younger than me. Her brown hair was pulled back in a severe bun, a style that reminded me of Wild West school marms in the old movies. Her gray eyes held a keen intelligence I could respect, but her words alarmed me. I was here at my attorney’s insistence. But I’d never really believed in this whole matching process. I mean, really? How the hell could some alien computer select a man who would be perfect for me? I didn’t believe it. But that didn’t stop the little kernel of hope from bursting to life with a painful buzz in my chest.

I frowned to hide the reaction. This was not how things were supposed to go. “I’ve been matched?”

“Yes, to a Prillon warrior.”

“A Prillon?” I knew nothing about the other planets in the Coalition. I’d had my nose in a petri dish and my eyes on the lens of a microscope for the last decade. “I told you I didn’t want it. A match. This. I don’t want to go off to some…some planet.” I spit out the last as if it were foul on my tongue. “I told you. I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be in jail. I’ve done nothing wrong, except expose the truth. I’m not going to leave Earth because someone else broke the law.”

The warden looked at me with sympathetic gray eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard of your case, heard your claims of innocence. From a process standpoint, the testing doesn’t change that you’ve been convicted of a crime. It doesn’t change that you are going to be in jail for the next twenty-five years.”

“I filed an appeal.”

“Yes, your attorney informed me and I wish you the best of luck.” Her gray eyes softened and I found my anger fading beneath the onslaught of pity I saw there. “I’m sorry, Rachel. But your innocence or guilt is irrelevant to me. And believe me, your new mate won’t care. You’re here. You were convicted. They must have had evidence.”

“It was planted,” I countered.

All hints of the orgasm had faded, replaced by the same anger, frustration and bitterness that had followed me for the past five months. When the Whistleblower law went into effect, it hadn’t included me. No. I’d been quickly taken away, falsely pinned with crimes I didn’t commit by people who committed far worse just to hide their own.

Yes, I’d been the lead researcher at GloboPharma. The trials had been under my supervision. But I’d pulled the plug when things went wrong. I’d followed the FDA guidelines to the letter. The data in my reports was truthful and accurate. Yes, I’d known that the company had hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, looking for a cancer cure. And the treatment worked, it just killed too many healthy cells in the process.

I’d filed my reports and expected my superiors to do the right thing.

The day I heard that the FDA approved the drug, I’d nearly puked up my hot mustard and salami sandwich at my desk. I’d called the president of the company personally, and when she wouldn’t listen, I called the CEO.

They all ignored me, and sent some goons to wreck my house and shut me up. They’d fired me, discredited me, and, little did I know, kept my data and lined me up to take the fall if things went bad.

And things went really, really bad. At least four hundred people died before the FDA figured out it was the new drug doing the damage. When they came looking for someone to blame, GloboPharma handed them my head on a silver platter.

Fuckers. I refused to go down without a fight. I was not going to run like a scared puppy and live the rest of my life on another freaking planet. I had to do the right thing. I had to fight. If I didn’t, the bastards who did this to people would just do it again. And again. And again. I went to graduate school and completed my PhD just last year in biochemistry. I studied physiology as an undergrad so I could make a difference in the world, so I could help people. I never wanted to be in a fight like this. But now that I was here, I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t have a choice. It was either fight or rot in jail. And if I let them beat me, they’d just do it again, make another mistake. Kill people. Lie about it.

“I can’t leave. I have to go to court. Please, I want you to understand.”

“Your appeal is two months away,” she replied, not commenting on my rant. She knew what had happened, the charges, the trial, my conviction. It was all in my file on that tablet of hers. Everything about me was on there, including what I ate for lunch three months ago and my bra size. “Your lawyer recommended that you be tested for the Interstellar Brides Program, just in case.”

My lawyer was a nice man, accomplished at his job, but he had highly skilled, very well-placed people at the FDA and GloboPharma’s army of attorneys fighting against him. He’d told me it was going to be a hard fight, but I didn’t care. I’d done nothing wrong. I’d found out what others had done, were doing, to tens of thousands of frightened people desperate for a cure. They’d taken advantage of people who were sick and scared. They’d forged documents, lied, conspired and put my name on everything. The company paid a stupid fine and walked away. I was the one in jail for forgery, fraud, conspiracy. And that was the short list. I didn’t care what they said about me. I wasn’t giving up.

“Yes, two months, then the truth will come out and I’ll be free.”

She didn’t look hopeful. “Mating a Prillon is not the end of the world, Rachel.”

“Yes, it is. Literally. I wouldn’t be on Earth any longer.”

“I’ve been there. To Prillon Prime.” She angled her head toward me. “I was mated to a Prillon warrior six years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Yet you’re here,” I countered. Her lips compressed into a thin line and a shadow passed through her gray eyes. I’d said something to hurt her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your story, your life. I’m just—” I tugged at the restraints “—trapped.”

When she did not respond, I studied her carefully stoic expression. Yes. She was young, probably younger than my thirty-two by at least four years. But the pain in her eyes was old pain. Old and hardened into armor around her heart.

“How could you have gone to Prillon Prime six years ago? The Brides Program only started two years ago.” Two years since the aliens landed. Two years since everything on Earth went into a tailspin and we learned we weren’t alone.

Two years, and our governments were still struggling with each other like bullies on the playground fighting for territory. Nothing changed. Nothing would ever change. Human nature was…well…all too human.

Her smile was controlled, and didn’t reach her eyes. “Well, I was not in your position. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. My mates found me before Earth was officially brought into the Coalition. I didn’t have a choice, Rachel. Not like you. I was only with them a short time before they were killed by the Hive, but I loved them and I don’t regret a moment I spent as their mate. I understand your fear of going to another planet. But you’ve been matched to a decorated Prillon commander. I have no doubt you will grow to love him. His second will, I’m sure, be just as impressive.”

“Second?”

She nodded. “Yes, all Prillon warriors share their mate with another. It is their way. If one of your mates should be killed in battle, you, and any children, would have the second to protect and care for you.”

“Two men? A threesome?” Was she crazy? I didn’t want a ménage. I didn’t want one space alien, let alone two.

My body recalled the two men filling me with their cocks just moments ago, in that damn dream, and heated instantly. No.

No. No. No. I was not walking away from my appeal just to go have hot alien sex. Just, no.

“No way,” I said. If I could have sliced my hand through the air, I would have. As things stood, I had to settle for rattling the chair beneath the cuffs attached to my wrists. Looking up into her eyes, I shook my head again to make sure she understood exactly what I was saying. “No, thank you. I know John said I should come down here, but no. I can’t leave. I refuse the match.”

“Then you will go back to the maximum security prison until your appeal.”

The idea of going back to solitary confinement was miserable. A jail cell or space. The choices were grim. The knowledge that I was innocent set my resolve.

“I appreciate your concern, Warden. But I’m innocent. I have to believe I can win this. I can’t let them get away with lying to the FDA and all those poor patients and their families. I won’t go off-planet and ruin my career. If I run, everyone will believe what they said about me, that I lied about the risks, that I lied to protect the company. I didn’t. I gave them the real data and I can prove it. I don’t want to go to another world. I like this one. I had a good life. I want it back!”

Tears filled my eyes, but I willed them away. I missed my house, my sports car, my freaking cat. I had never wanted to sleep in my own queen-size bed so badly in my life. But I’d cried enough. Hell, that was pretty much all I’d done the first couple months in prison. No more. I was innocent and I would prove it. Go free. Go back to my life in the lab. I would continue my research and save lives. That was the only thing I’d ever wanted. I refused to give it up.

My dad would roll over in his grave if I walked away from this fight. He’d watched my mom die when I was just five. I barely remembered her, but I remembered the way her bald head had felt when I hugged her. I remembered the smell of sickness in my house.

After she died, my dad had tried to hang on. He’d made it until I left for college. And then he’d drunk himself to death.

Guilt. What a weak word for the emotions that roared through me when I thought of my father. I never should have left him alone. I knew he still missed her. I knew he fought his own demons. But I’d been eighteen, and eager to go out into the world and start a new life. I’d moved a thousand miles away for college, only returning home a couple times a year. I’d walked away, and he’d faded right under my nose. Big mistake. Huge.

No. I was not walking away from this.

Warden Egara sighed and I did not welcome the disappointment or resignation I saw in her eyes, as if I was making the wrong choice.

“Very well. Please know the match has been made, recorded and filed in your record. If you change your mind, it is your legal right to contact me. Should you choose to become a bride, all charges will be dropped, your record will be cleared and you will be sent to your mates immediately.”

As she spoke, she lifted a strange, hand-held device to the side of my neck and I yelped as a sharp, biting pain struck just behind my ear.

“Oww!” I twisted away from her, tugging on the restraints with renewed determination. “What was that?”

“I’m sorry, Rachel, but it was necessary.” She walked away and placed the odd, cylinder-shaped object down on the table before turning back to me with her data pad firmly in hand and a frown on her face. “And I’m sorry for the headache you’ll have for the next few hours. Normally, you would be in transport while your brain adapted to the NPU, but you won’t have that luxury.”

“NPU? What is that?” I wanted to lift my hand to the side of my neck and rub the aching spot there. What the hell had she just done? “What did you do to me?”

The restraints about my wrists came undone with a single swipe of the warden’s finger on her tablet. She lifted her gaze from the tablet to meet mine, and I saw no sympathy there, more like pity. “The NPU is a neural processing unit required for transport off the planet. Its neural technology will merge with your brain’s language centers, allowing you to understand and speak all known languages of the Coalition Fleet. You can’t be processed as a bride without one.”

“I don’t want to be a bride.” As I rose to stand, a guard walked in with the all too familiar shackles, a long chain rattling between the wrist cuffs. I knew where he would take me, back to prison, back to solitary confinement where the guards would treat me like I was invisible, a rat in a cage that needed food and water, and nothing else. Still, that was better than the alternative. I didn’t want to be more to them than another inmate, another mouth to feed. I didn’t want them to notice me.

But I was innocent. Surely my attorney and my friends on the outside would figure out the truth. I had to believe the judge sitting my case would see through the prosecution’s lies.

“If you didn’t want to be a bride, then why did you follow your attorney’s recommendation for processing?” Her question struck a nerve, but I refused to back down. I refused to believe the justice system would fail me so completely.

“Just in case.”

Her nod was quick and precise. “Exactly. And now you have an NPU, just in case.”

She threw my own words back at me, but the underlying tone made it clear she believed I would be back, sooner rather than later. And if the system failed me and I was convicted, maybe I would come back. That dream. My body still ached with lust. I wanted those big hands on my body. I felt like I was a touch starved idiot, but I wouldn’t stop thinking about the way their hands had stroked my skin, their huge cocks had stretched me open. The intense pleasure as I’d ridden them to the strongest orgasm of my pathetic life.

A fake orgasm, from some stupid computerized highjack of my brain. If I understood the process correctly, I’d been living another woman’s actual memories, experiencing what she experienced.

The whole thing freaked me out. And I didn’t want to leave Earth. I wanted my damn life back, and I was going to get it.

I could survive another two months in solitary. I refused to break. But a nagging voice had begun to haunt me in the quiet silence of my existence in the prison. Even if I beat the charges and won my appeal, what would become of me? Even if I were allowed to go home, would I ever be truly free? If the charges were dropped, if my name was cleared, there would always be those who doubted, who would consider me and any data I found to be tainted. No lab would touch me. At least not in the US. I’d have to relocate, start a new life.

And if I didn’t win, if the system failed? I’d either be shackled and jailed for decades or be sent to a new planet where I would be at the mercy of not one huge alien, but two.

Sounded like, one way or the other, I was already doomed to serving a life sentence.