Three. And as I looked from one to the next, they all had the same expression in their eyes. Devotion. Possession. Obsession.
Yeah, I was in a helluva lot of trouble here.
“The seed power from just one Viken can be overpowering during a mating, Bella. You have three.”
I cleared my throat and looked at Rager with his beautiful bronze hair and warm eyes. “You mean I’m overdosing on orgasms? What, exactly, does this seed power do? Other than make me so horny I can’t think straight.”
Silent and steady, Evon continued to stroke my back, soothing me with his gentle touch. On my other side, Liam chuckled but answered the question.
“Viken men have a bonding chemical in our seed that helps us pleasure our women, bond them to us more quickly and completely.”
So, they had a cheat? One little drop of that stuff and their women started having orgasms like they were hiccups. Unstoppable. Powerful.
Addictive.
“That’s cheating, you know.”
Evon’s hands stilled on my back and his deep voice rumbled through me. “We are ruthless, mate. When it comes to you, we will do whatever we must to keep you safe and happy by our sides.”
Holy shit. I should have been freaked out, at least a little. A few hours ago, I’d been an independent, single woman. Before landing in jail, I’d been powerful in my own right, a programmer and hacker. I wasn’t stupid, and I wasn’t used to depending on a man for…well, anything. Not even my pleasure. I’d found my vibrator to be a more consistent and trustworthy form of release than any man.
But now? Here I was, wrung out on orgasms, surrounded by not one, but three of the biggest, hottest alien men I could ever imagine. And they all looked at me like I was the sun and stars, their whole world.
It was surreal. Too much to process. I closed my eyes and allowed the exhaustion of transport, and our mating, to drag me under. Surrounded by my mates, I felt safe.
Chapter Five
Liam
“Why did you volunteer to be a bride?” I asked. After the sweaty bout of fucking—gods, it had been incredible—we’d all fallen asleep. If Bella hadn’t spoken at the end, I would have thought her falling unconscious from pleasure.
She shook her head, her sleek hair falling over her shoulder. I tucked it back behind her ear as she spoke, my longing to touch her so deep I could not stop, not for a moment. “I didn’t. Well, I did, but not exactly.” Her dark eyes met mine. “I…um, thought you guys knew about me.”
Her eyes closed as she pressed her cheek into my hand and contentment flooded me for the first time in long years. Perhaps ever. I couldn’t help the grin that split my face. I felt good. Not just because Bella’s mouth was pure heaven or that she’d sucked the cum from my balls, but because she was here. With us. Between us.
She was mine now, my mate, my purpose for breathing and fighting. Honor had kept me on my chosen path these long years, but this was something different and much more powerful. She was mine to cherish and protect. This was personal, and that changed everything.
Having blood relatives, alive and on the same planet, didn’t make them family. I’d once belonged, a long-awaited son, but I’d turned my back on my past when my family disowned me, when they refused to see reason. My father was still a leader of the Viken Sector Separatists movement. He spoke at VSS rallies and stirred up trouble. My entire family believed the Viken should separate from the Interstellar Coalition and return to autonomous rule of our own planet.
But they hadn’t seen what I had. They’d never faced down a Hive Scout or encountered a friend who’d once been whole and was now nothing more than a walking cyborg mind, connected to their core control, unable to think or walk or act alone. There was nothing left of the man inside that machine shell.
The Hive destroyed everything it touched, devoured entire civilizations. My father refused to believe the threat was as severe as the Coalition claimed. He’d lost a daughter to the Interstellar Brides Program when she’d volunteered to escape his fanatical views, matched to Atlan, a planet far from Viken. And he’d lost me when I’d been caught vandalizing a government building. I’d set the damn thing on fire late at night, convinced by my father that routing the Coalition supporters was the only way to win our freedom.
I’d been a fool, just a teenager on the edge of adulthood, desperate to do anything to please my father.
Being young, and foolish, I’d agreed and been caught. Processed by our justice system, I’d been given two choices, years of confinement or service in the Coalition Fleet. I’d grown up out there, in space, facing monsters my father had spent my entire youth insisting weren’t real.