Tamed by the Beast. Grace Goodwin
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my skin, just behind my temple and I bit down, trying to ignore the pain as the device swiftly withdrew, rotated to my left, and repeated the process on the other side.
When it moved back to its place, nestled in the wall, my chair lurched and I began to sink into a warm pool of clear, blue water.
“’Your processing will begin in three, two…”
I closed my eyes. Adrenaline made my heart pound as I waited for her to say, “one.” Waited, and waited.
She sighed. “Not again.”
My chair stopped moving and I opened my eyes to see her frowning. She hurried to a panel on the wall in the exam room as I watched.
My eyes widened in fear and confusion. “What’s wrong?”
She glanced at me quickly, then away, not making eye contact. “There’s a problem at the Atlan transport center. I’m sorry. This has only happened once before.”
Great. They didn’t want me. I knew it, could feel it deep down. My heart imploded in my chest, all the hope I’d just given free rein, hope that I’d finally find a man who actually wanted me, who thought me beautiful and sexy and desirable? Gone, and the remnants were sharp blades in my gut, made worse because I’d dared to hope for something different. “Fine. Get me out of this chair so I can go home.”
She shook her head, ignoring me as she spoke to someone on the screen, someone I couldn’t see. I could hear the voice coming through. It was a woman’s voice, but I couldn’t make out her words, only the warden’s.
“What’s going on, Sarah?” She paused, listened. “What? But that’s impossible.” Another pause. “I see. So, what does Warlord Dax want me to do about it?” I heard the growing agitation in her voice. “No, he has a mate, and she’s human. She’s strapped to the chair right now, ready for processing.” A long delay. “I can’t. The transport permissions have been automatically deactivated by the system. I’ll need new ones.” She sighed. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”
The warden said goodbye and walked toward me with her brows drawn together, her lips in a thin line. Her shoulders were tight and her steps were short and clipped, as if her muscles were so tense she could barely move.
“What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.” I strained against the cuffs as the warden raised her hand in a motion meant to pacify me.
“Your mate, Commander Deek, has been lost to mating fever.”
That was not what I’d expected. I assumed she’d say that my mate had changed his mind. But mating fever? “What does that mean?”
She sighed and dropped her hand to her side. “Atlan warriors are very big; they’re the largest, strongest warriors in the entire Coalition Fleet.”
My pussy clenched at her words. Oh, hell yeah, I knew exactly how big they were. “So?”
“So, as I explained, they also possess the ability to go into what they refer to as beast mode, becoming larger and stronger in the heat of battle, or when they are…”
“Fucking?” The deep rumbling growl in my ear from the processing dream, the monosyllabic conversation, made more and more sense now. Beast mode. Damn, that was hot. “So? They’re like the Hulk when he’s angry. Got it. You already told me that. What’s the problem?”
“If they wait too long to claim a mate, they lose control of their beast side. They transform and can’t restrain themselves. They’ve been known to kill their own friends and allies, men they’ve fought beside for years. At that point no one else can save them. They only recognize and respond to one person in the entire universe.”
I waited, barely able to breathe as she finished.
“Their mate.”
I relaxed, the tension draining from my shoulders. “Okay. Great. Send me to him now. That’s what the protocol says, right? If he only recognizes his mate, he’ll know me and get his beast under control.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Atlans are linked to their mates through special binding cuffs.”
I remembered the beautiful golden cuffs around my wrists, the strange designs. “So, I need a pair of cuffs in order to help him?”
“You have to already be bonded to him, to already be his mate, in order to control his beast. I’m afraid he’s lost.”
“Lost? They can’t find him?”
“No, the beast has taken over. I’m so sorry, Tiffani, but he’s beyond saving.”
Beyond saving? The one man in the universe who was supposed to be perfect for me, supposed to want me and love me and accept me, beyond saving? “Then what happens to him?”
At last, she met my gaze, and I wished she hadn’t. All I saw in her eyes was a deep, dark well of pity and pain. “My contact on Atlan, a bride I sent not long ago, says he’s scheduled for execution.”
2
Commander Deek, Planet Atlan, Bundar Containment Facility, Block 4, Cell 11
I startled awake, my body slick with sweat. The cot beneath me was too small for my frame in beast mode and I shifted onto my side. Three days. I’d been in this hell for three days. When I’d witnessed Dax’s fever come upon him, it had come upon him over two weeks, slowly building. But it had been in the height of battle and his rages had been disguised at first as battle adrenaline. Understandable, considering what the warlord had witnessed and fought against.
Most Atlan warriors had their fever build slowly, allowing them time to find their mate before their inner beast took over. But I wasn’t a normal Atlan warrior, it seemed, for I’d gone from a battle commander to a beast condemned within a day.
I’d raged through Battleship Brekk and it had taken four warriors to pin me down. Warlord Engel, visiting from Atlan, and no doubt eager to press the issue of his unmated daughter upon me once more, had been present when I lost control, had witnessed me attacking a young Prillon warrior during my rage. I could not recall that incident, for I was too far gone with the fever, but I’d wreaked havoc on the ship. A planned attack on a nearby Hive outpost had to be postponed and the sector gain we’d made against the enemy had been reversed. In the med unit, I’d been diagnosed with Phase Three Beast Complex. It was the final phase of a warrior’s deterioration. The phase where my mind would regain control less and less often, until I went full Beast and never came back.
There was no cure except a mating bond. I’d have to fuck my mate while in beast mode, coming deep inside her, marking her, claiming her and making her mine. Fucking in beast mode was not an issue. I could feel him within, his rage building and seeking an outlet for release. But I faced no Hive soldiers to kill, and I had no mate.
None. I was a threat to safety if I failed to take a mate, for even now, my fever did not wane. Simply lying in the cool cell, without battle or a female nearby to provoke the beast, the monster within me raged. Sweat soaked my skin, my clothes. Basic restraints had done nothing to contain me. I’d ripped them from the wall within the first five minutes of my confinement. Only the graviton force field was strong enough to hold a beast, and my cell had that powerful energy field hidden within every wall, the ceiling and the floor. The front of the cell appeared to be nothing but empty air, but I knew differently, had thrown myself against the grav-wall time and again while in beast mode last night. My strength could not defeat it. My beast had tried, but lost.
And so, immediately after transport back to my home world, back to Atlan, I’d been summarily sentenced to execution. Dax had visited and had afforded me four days’ delay, hoping that the fever would diminish or a mate would appear.
The way I felt, constantly on edge, my beast prowling