Fighting For Their Mate. Grace Goodwin
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tested for a mate of my own.”
Seth froze in the act of wiping grime from the sleeve of his armor. A lost cause since all he did was smear it around, but it kept his gaze off mine. “So? Go down to medical. Do it.”
“I don’t want to.”
He looked to me. Sighed. “Jesus, Dorian. You aliens don’t make any sense. Why are we having this conversation?” Seth’s head was tilted, impatience finally showing in the harsh line of his mouth and the tapping of his boot. He shifted on his seat, the butt of his ion rifle resting on the floor beside him, his grip on the barrel so tight his knuckles turned white.
“You have a mate, Seth. A matched mate. Do you know how special that is? How rare a gift?” I wanted to kick him now, wake him up. He was being a fool.
“Oh, no.” Seth’s eyes rolled back into his head and his chin rose at an odd angle before settling back into place, a strange smile on his face. Sometimes, human expressions were difficult to decipher, and I did not have the benefit of the psychic connection of a Prillon collar to help me understand. “Is this where you give me the lecture about how lucky I am? How I should get down on my knees and thank your gods for sending an innocent woman out into space to be my bride?”
“Yes.” So he did understand.
“No.”
“No?”
Seth stood and I did as well, the small space placing us nearly nose to nose as anger rose within me. How dare this warrior, this human, dishonor his matched mate? It simply wasn’t done. “Why do you dishonor your bride?”
Seth barked with laughter, but there was no humor in the sound. Only pain. “I’m not dishonoring her. I’m saving her.”
I frowned. “From what?”
“From me. From grief. From loving a man who could die tomorrow. I’m not ready to stop fighting. I can’t go home, back to Earth. I’m different now. Too different for the mundane shit Earth people deal with every day.” He sighed. “I can’t have a mate. I won’t do that to her.”
“So you are a coward.”
I thought, perhaps, the human would punch me for such a statement. But his shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes in defeat. Let his head drop so his chin touched his armored shirt. “I suppose I am. I won’t leave a widow. Children with no father to protect them. If I accepted a mate, I’d be selfish, Dorian. I’d want it all. I’d want to fuck her until she had my baby in her. And then another. Pure and simple.”
Yes, his desire was one most males shared, from all planets. I agreed with him, but I could see his problem. His Earth problem.
“If there was no danger to her, no chance that she would end up alone and unprotected, would you accept her?”
He looked at me as if I were crazy. “Of course, but that’s—”
“Agreed,” I said, cutting him off. “I will be your second. You are a warrior. You will claim your mate as a warrior should, with a second to ensure her pleasure, protection and happiness. She will be cherished by both of us, as a Prillon bride would be. The risks you speak of would no longer be a concern. Should you die, I vow to care for our mate and protect our offspring. And I assure you—” I smiled then. “—she would be filled with that baby twice as fast if she belonged to both of us.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“You would need to make the same vow to me. That if something happened to me, you would be there for our mate and children.”
That stunned Seth speechless, but I waited. He knew the ways of the Prillon warriors. He’d been in space long enough to know our custom. We always shared a bride to protect her from exactly what Seth feared. A Prillon bride was never alone, never abandoned. If one mate died, the other assured the care and protection of their mate and children. I very much had looked forward to sharing a mate with my cousin, but that was not to be. I respected Seth as a warrior. He was one of the few humans I counted a friend. And he’d saved my life more than once. I trusted him to care for a mate. To protect her, as I would.
But Seth was human, not Prillon. Humans, I had been told, were territorial, more like Atlan beasts than Prillon warriors. Perhaps the idea of sharing a mate was too difficult for him. There could be jealousy. Rivalry. Anger. Instead of making the closest of bonds with a shared bride, it would rip us apart. So I waited for him to consider my offer. I, too, knew the power of patience. Of silence.
When he raised his eyes to me, I saw hope, but also speculation. “And what if she refuses this arrangement? She was matched to me. A human. One man. She might not accept a second mate. Hell, she might be an uptight, puritanical freak who prays for forgiveness every time she has an orgasm.”
I couldn’t imagine such a female, but I had to assume there were some of such mind on Earth. Strange.
“Is this how you would describe your ideal match?” I asked.
“Hell, no.”
I nodded, pacified. I doubted a warrior as strong as Seth would be attracted to such a female. And if that was not what he wished for in one, that would not be the match that had been made. “Accept her. I will be your second. And we will seduce her together. We will convince her that two mates are better than one.”
Seth held out his hand in the odd way humans did to seal an agreement. “She will have final say. And if she doesn’t want both of us, she goes home, or to someone else. I won’t leave a widow behind crying over my grave.”
I placed my hand in his. “Agreed. But unless you don’t know how to bring a woman pleasure, I am not concerned with that possibility.”
He scoffed at my obvious insult. “You talk a big game, Prillon. You don’t know what Earth women are like.”
“Enlighten me.”
Seth shrugged. “Clingy. Needy. Soft. They don’t like to get their hands dirty.”
“I do not require my female to be dirty. I want her to need me and to be soft.” My head buzzed with confusion. “Is this how you describe Trinity? Is she not an Earth female?”
Seth chuckled. “She’s not a woman, she’s a soldier, like my sister, Sarah. Soldiers are different. Hard. Tough. They’ll lead you around by the balls and run your life. I don’t want that either.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Hell if I know. If your subconscious bride matching system works like you aliens claim it does, I guess we’re about to find out.”
Indeed.
Chloe
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you were doing for the Coalition for the last four years? If possible, I’d like to place some basic information in your file for your mate. It will help him understand you and relate to your past.”
“No, I don’t suppose I can,” I replied. I’d been back on Earth for a year. I’d served four years with the Intelligence Core. But in the last twelve months, I was rarely asked about my time with the Coalition. Not many on Earth believed in the Hive—especially since the news services didn’t share any of the horrors the space bad guys were inflicting. As of now, Earth was insulated from the Hive by the rest of the Coalition planets. Even though there were some who volunteered to serve, like I had, the percentage was small. Earth met the volunteer quota required to retain Coalition protection and no more.
Earth’s governments were still too busy fighting each other to dedicate serious resources to space.
And returning to Earth? No one who’d been out there was allowed to talk about what they did. Even if the debriefing wasn’t so severe, and we could talk, no one understood, or believed most of it. No one within