Mating Fever. Grace Goodwin
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one sleepless night lost to anger.
Megan Simmons. She was a human and a Coalition soldier who had been with the battlegroup for the last two years. Her rank was Captain, but she bounced around between units, always moving. She was unruly and unstable and seemed to have a thousand secrets. Lately, she’d been going out with Captain Seth Mills, the newly assigned commanding officer of ReCon Unit 3.We’d been their escort and protection on more than one mission the last few months. Each time, it seemed she would seek me out and purposely challenge my patience. Even Seth, a human I liked and respected, a human whose own sister was mated to one of my Atlan brothers, could not control her. He would either scowl or grin, but never try to stop her from sassing me, or anyone else on board the ship.
There were so many times I wanted to spank some sense into that small female, but she wasn’t mine and never would be. Thank the gods. That female was trouble. No doubt, even now, she and her unit were here somewhere, combing the ravines and flushing hidden enemies from their traps.
Even last week, she’d come across a trio of Hive and tried to kill them on her own. No support from an Atlan. What had she been thinking? She and her unit were little better than a suicide squad, and not one of the stubborn humans seemed to recognize this absolute fact. Nor care if they died. Especially Megan Simmons.
Both things that made me crazed with the need to turn her over my knee and make her see that she was going to get herself killed. Why her lack of caution pissed me off so much, I had no idea. Why I kept an eye on her more than any of the other Coalition fighters, male or female, I had no idea. Why I wanted to spank her ass for being reckless and no one else’s, I had no idea.
There was something wrong with me. My beast was making me lose my mind, especially where Megan Simmons was concerned. There were nights I would stare at my ceiling and think of her dark skin and black hair, the lush, ripe curve of her ass. She was tall, and muscled. Strong for a female.
I’d always wanted a mate who would submit to me, a female who was gentle and tender, whose touch would ease my mind and soothe my flesh.
Megan Simmons challenged anyone and everyone who crossed her path, Atlan, Prillon or human. She had a mouth that never quit and was absolutely fearless. Reckless. Wild.
And that thought made my cock hard as a rock, even as my mind rebelled at the thought. Atlan females did not fight. They did not challenge authority nor charge into battle. They lived to soothe the beasts within their mates, to keep us sane when killing or fucking were the only two desires our minds could process.
“Nyko?” Commander Wulf’s yell had me turning away from the Hive before me. I was nearly upon them, Ang a step ahead of me.
“Go!” My own deep voice rolled over the rest of the unit and Wulf smiled at me, his beast clearly hungry for more havoc and destruction as the unit left Ang and me to deal with the three Soldiers. The rest of our unit moved on, ever closer to that last transport platform. We needed to get the fuck off this planet. Now.
I turned back around just as the Hive Soldiers looked up at us, shock rounding their pale silver eyes as Ang grabbed the first one around the neck and lifted him from the ground with one hand. Ang’s second hand found the base of the Hive’s spine and I knew it was a matter of seconds before the Hive’s head would no longer be connected to his body. Ang specialized in tearing their bodies to pieces. He’d lost his youngest brother to the Hive last year, and his hatred added fuel to his beast’s rage, a rage already extremely difficult to control.
My target drew his weapon as I approached and fired at point-blank range. The blast seared my chest through my armor, the heat staggering as I reached him.
I did not have time for Ang’s games as the third Soldier raised his weapon and fired on me again from directly behind the first.
Pain ripped through my left shoulder and I knew I would need use of the ReGen wand in my combat pack before I would be back to full capacity. But my wounds could wait. I’d had worse. Much, much worse.
Grabbing the closer Hive’s head, I smashed it against the boulder behind him, satisfied with the crunch of collapsing bone as I dropped the limp body and raced to the third Soldier.
Fucking Hive. They always traveled in threes. Three Scouts. Three Soldiers. Three. Three. Three.
They couldn’t operate on their own. They didn’t even speak like real people. Everything they said started with the word “We”.
Reaching the third Soldier, I lifted this one from his feet and swung his body until his back was parallel to the ground. He scrambled for purchase, trying to grab me, force me to release him. Every single Hive underestimated the Atlan beast. Perhaps news didn’t return of our strength and power because every one we encountered was eliminated. This one seemed to think the same, that he was stronger than me.
Right.
Instead, I rammed his back down on the rocks before twisting his head hard enough to feel the crack-crack-crack of bone as his spine and metallic implants shattered and his body twitched and twisted in death throes.
I looked up from where I knelt on the ground to find Ang already running to catch up with our unit on the way to the transport platform.
Leaping to my feet, I tensed and shifted to follow when a scream reached me.
Human. I knew that sound. Someone was in trouble.
The noise came from a narrow ravine behind the boulder, from the same direction the now dead Hive Soldiers must have come from before falling into our hands.
A quick glance at my unit showed them well ahead of me. Commander Wulf stood atop the hill now, the transport platform behind him, throwing Hive Scouts and Soldiers over his head like a battering ram hitting a wall of children’s dolls. Bodies flew before him, and the rest of the Warlords, almost all in beast form, were nearly to the transport platform. Warriors fell into line behind them, Prillon and human, warriors from Trion and every other race and species in the Fleet as the Atlans cleared the path so all could transport back aboard the ship.
“Hurry.” I spoke to no one, but my beast was agitated. We watched hundreds of Hive flooding the narrow gaps not more than a mile from the transport platform. If they reached it before our soldiers got off world, anyone still on the ground would be lost.
We were losing this battle, the Hive swarming in numbers far greater than anticipated. Commander Karter wasn’t a stupid man. He would pull his warriors, regroup, and strike again in a few days.
I could either join my unit and transport off this blood-soaked rock, or I could go try to help the human in the ravine and lay low until tomorrow. The designated extraction point wasn’t far. I could hide through the night and signal for transport tomorrow, frightened little human soldier in tow. The Hive didn’t have sensors capable of penetrating the metallic rock barriers any more than we did. With the rocks and ravines to hide in, they would have no way to find us, to root us out and kill us. They would only attack if they saw us. If we weren’t in their path, we would be safe enough.
Another scream from the ravine, this one of rage, and I made my decision. Or rather, the beast made it for me and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. I couldn’t. I was too far gone.
Racing around the boulder, I dashed into the ravine, dark gray and black rock formations made a long, narrow corridor that looked to be about a mile in length. I could see the opening on the other end, as if the ground had decided to split open, just a bit, and only here.
Behind me, and everywhere else I’d been on this gods’ forsaken planet, the rocks were red or brown, a sea of monochromatic color as far as I could see in any direction, a desert of stone.
Here, the rocks were black, gray and silver, the planet’s inner depths exposed like muscle beneath skin in a deep cut. As if the planet had cleaved open and the insides burst forth.
Ahead of me, three Hive stood. They had someone trapped halfway up the side of the ravine. I recognized the smaller body and armor of a human climbing the rock face to get away from them, the uniform from one of the human