Cyborg Seduction(37)

I’d gone into this little adventure into outer space with only one thing on my mind. Wyatt. While I didn’t think any less often of him, I’d been surprised—no, stunned—by what I’d come to learn. The Colony wasn’t some prison. It wasn’t some outer space outpost of heathens. These were warriors who’d fought for the Coalition, been brave and courageous, even when captured by the Hive. Tortured. Altered. Forever changed.

Yet when it was time to go home, back to the families and people they’d fought so hard to protect, they weren’t welcome. Rejected by their own people as being dangerous and damaged. Broken.

Despite it all, they were on the Colony building new lives, a new world. They could have been lawless, like a weird Mad Max movie, but they were honorable warriors, not just from Earth, but from all the Coalition worlds. I’d met Rezzer the Atlan and he’d transformed into his beast for me, on camera, and under complete control. The memory sent a shiver of adrenaline through my body. The sharp-featured warriors with the golden, brown and copper coloring were from the main planet, the people in charge of the whole Fleet, the Prillons from Prillon Prime. They were huge, but had been nothing but courteous to me. The two Prillon that were friends with Kiel, Captain Marz and Lieutenant Vance, fought in the war for fourteen years.

That was more than half my life.

They gave me access to video records of Hive battles and I saw what those things were. And here, on the Colony, I was surrounded by what they did. Hurt people. Torture their captives. Change their bodies into something no longer human, or Prillon, or Atlan, no longer safe.

Contaminated. That was the word I heard over and over from the human men I interviewed. They looked frightening, something straight out of sci-fi movie with silver skin and circuitry built into their flesh. One of them had two completely silver eyes. He was dark skinned, from Atlanta and his mother had named him Denzel after her favorite actor. Now his close cut, curly black hair and dark skin surrounded eyes that looked like liquid mercury.

Seeing him cry had almost broken me in half. He had two sisters and a mother who’d raised all three of them on her own. She’d screamed and cried when he’d called her on the video screen to tell her why he could never come home again.

A very religious woman, she’d taken one look at his eyes, called him a demon and told him to kill himself.

And that wasn’t even the worst I’d heard. Seemed it didn’t matter what planet these guys were from, no one wanted them back. Everyone was afraid. Their people were afraid of them. Their governments were afraid of them. According to Kiel, that fear was not without merit.

One bad frequency generator could reactivate all of their Hive technology. The implants were literally dormant, waiting to be turned back on. And some of the men had the Hive implants in their brains. Their spines. According to Rezzer, the Prillon named Tyran, one of Kristin’s mates, had so much Hive technology in his muscles that he was actually stronger than the Atlan in full beast mode.

Scary was an understatement.

But they’d all been kind to me. In fact, the two people on this planet with the worst attitudes were the two human women, Rachel and Kristin. They both looked at me like I was torturing their favorite pet. They were so protective, so determined to save these guys, to give them some kind of happiness. Hope. Their mates had been tortured and broken, and now the women were determined to save them. To see other brides come to The Colony.

Senator Brooks had been wrong. Very wrong. Why shouldn’t he have been? No one knew the whole truth. I did. But I was here on the planet. I was supposed to be an observer. A hidden observer.

Yeah, that had lasted all of five minutes just as Rachel had said. I was a horrible investigator. But I’d gotten involved with these people. Learned the real stories. The truth. That’s what they wanted back on Earth. Well, that’s what they claimed to want, but I couldn’t guarantee these guys that their stories wouldn’t be spun into lies. I hadn’t cared when I was on the transport shuttle. I hadn’t cared about anything but making Wyatt better. Safe.

But now I cared about more than just my son. I cared about the warriors here. I cared about Kiel. He’d refused to be interviewed, but I didn’t need to put him in front of a camera and pester him with questions to know he was a good man. I felt it when our minds touched in the dreams. I felt it when he touched me.

Kiel.

He’d been unexpected. Yeah, I’d longed for someone to be mine. I longed for a man who was trustworthy, protective, honorable and brave. Caring and thoughtful. Even a little wicked and a whole lot dirty. But I never would have found him on Earth. No, he’d been waiting for me here. And he wanted me. Said I was destined to be his. Me!