“I wish to return to my home planet.” The large Atlan Warlord, a giant fighter named Rezz, glared at me from his seat. His dinner-plate-sized hands clenched and unclenched on the arms of his chair and I glanced into the corner of the room where my second, Captain Tyran, stood with both an ion blaster and tranquilizer gun at the ready. I met his dark gaze, just for a moment, a question in my eyes.
Tyran nodded, the movement nearly imperceptible. He was ready to shoot. Not that he would need the weapons, even on a beast. The Hive had enhanced Tyran’s bones and every major muscle group in his body. He was strong, stronger than any living creature I’d seen, including an Atlan in full beast mode. When Tyran and I had been captured together, we’d been friends. After what they’d done to us, I knew there was no other I would trust with a mate, and I’d asked him to be my second.
Needing each other’s trust in battle was over. Sharing a mate would hopefully be our future and even more important than anything else we’d done.
When the first mate had been assigned to someone on the Colony, a woman from Earth named Rachel, I’d been skeptical. But watching as she’d held one of us as he died in her arms had changed my mind about the Interstellar Brides Program. About having a mate. I’d wanted a female’s gentle hands to caress my flesh, to look upon me with something other than fear. Gods, I wanted that badly, but assumed being exiled to the Colony meant that pleasure would never be mine, that I’d never be granted a mate, never share a hot, willing female with Tyran.
But Rachel’s arrival changed everything. Eager, I’d been tested the next day, Tyran the day after. And now, we simply waited and tried not to hope. Hope was painful, filling my chest with an emptiness no amount of drinking or work could fill. Every time I saw Rachel—Lady Rone—with her mates, Governor Maxim and Captain Ryston, that hope grew worse.
I’d learned hope was a dangerous thing. Some was required to survive, but too much and disappointment would be cruel. It was a precarious balance I’d lived with since my own arrival on this planet.
But it had been weeks since my testing, since Tyran’s. Hundreds of warriors on the Colony had been tested and no new brides had arrived. Those of us trapped here began to give up on being matched once again. Hope waned. Anger was better. And work.
I had three Coalition warriors before me, and one bone-chilling Hunter from Everis, who, even now, sat separated and distant from the others. From the looks in their eyes, they had zero hope and that was why Tyran kept his hand cautiously hovering over his ion pistol as he stood near the door.
The Hunter, Kiel, had been rescued from a separate section of the Hive building, a section reserved for breeding. He looked harmless enough, his dark hair and pale skin more like a warrior from Earth or Trion. But he was far from human, the Hunter’s skills of his people frightening and unexplainable. They were like phantoms who could see into the darkness of space. Nothing and no one could hide from them.
Kiel was our first Hunter, and I wasn’t quite sure yet what we were going to do with him.
None but myself and Governor Rone knew the complete contents of these men’s files, but I shuddered to think what the proud and deadly Hunter had endured. The Everians were the Fleet’s deadliest assassins, spies and trackers. They made up a large portion of the Coalition Fleet’s Intelligence Core, and the Hive, when they captured a Hunter, were absolutely merciless. I was shocked the Hunter had survived.
Kiel of Everis must have a will of iron. Unbreakable. Which was helpful in battle, but not here. I needed these men to work as a team, integrate into our society. Gain some hope that, while their old lives were over, new ones could be forged. It was my job, my duty, to make sure they did.
These men needed work, purpose, a place to live and a new group of brothers-in-arms to help them cope with their new lives.
The Colony wasn’t a home, not for any of us. Even with the governor’s mate here, it wasn’t enough. This place was a prison, our last stop, and we all knew it. Someday, with mates and children, it could become a home for all of us. Until then…
“None of us are going home, Warlord.” I pointed to my right eye, pulled up the sleeve to reveal my left arm and hand and the metallic hue just beneath the surface of the flesh on my exposed arm. I never wore my armor for these meetings, instead opting for a short-sleeved civilian tunic and pants to remind these warriors that I was not fighting them. I was not the enemy. I, too, had battled, been taken prisoner. Tortured. Escaped. Survived. Lived.
Rezz’s eyes darted to my arm then lingered on the hand-sewn decoration lining the seams, noticed the green mating collar I wore around my neck, and his frown deepened. That lingering stare, and the disdainful snarl on his lip at the sight of my collar, didn’t improve my mood. I’d been wearing it for three months, since the day I’d gone through the bride testing protocols. Wearing it to encourage others to be tested, to show them I had hope she would come. That I was already hers, wherever in the universe she was. As my hope waned, the presence of the collar became the source of jokes at mealtimes, the others sneering at my optimism. Some even doubted I’d actually been tested.