His Virgin Mate(46)

“Transport for twelve. Now.”

Shots were fired as I felt the swirling blue pull of the transport. I heard a shout, a cry of a child, Von’s yelling as fire burned through his shoulder.

He’d been hit!

“No!” I cried, shooting upright in bed, the sheet wrapped around me. I was breathing hard, my body laced with sweat. It had been a dream. Only a dream. Why hadn’t Von come to me in my dream and made love to me instead of…that?

As I caught my breath, looking at the plain walls of my room, noting the soft carpeting on the floor, the doorway to the bathroom, my window with the curtains closed on the opposite wall. I ensured I was safe, that I wasn’t in some stark corridor on a Hive controlled ship.

Was Von even awake? Had he intentionally showed me his mission? Did he want me to see that? Or had his mental walls crumbled, exposing his mind to me in ways he had not anticipated? Would he even know I’d shared his nightmare? Talking to him, mind to mind while we dreamed was one thing. But entering his mind? Experiencing what he saw and felt and knew? That was something different.

If I dreamt of tending to my dying father, would Von be there? Smelling the scent of death on my father’s skin? See the blank, glassy gaze of a man who no longer recognized his own daughter, no longer remembered his own name? Would Von feel my pain? Experience my grief? Was this new link between us created because we were almost fully mated now? With each passing day, the need between us grew, the bond became more intense.

Pushing the sheets aside, I rose and walked to the window, the flowing beauty of my nightgown a stark contrast to the horror I’d just witnessed. I pulled back the curtains and stared up at the two moons of Everis. They hung in the sky like two shining balls on a Christmas tree, one partially obscured by the other. Incar was smaller, a pale silvery white, not unlike our own moon. I’d read that Incar was used as a prison colony and held the most dangerous criminals in the entire universe. The Coalition Fleet had built their prison here because it was the renowned Hunters who usually brought them to justice.

The second moon, Seladon, hung like a pale green orb, not dark like fresh grass, but like those little green mints served at a wedding. Pastel green. That moon had been colonized hundreds of years ago by people from Everis and was an active and vibrant farming colony. They supplied much of the planet with fresh food and took the rest to undeveloped worlds, worlds like Xerima…and Earth. Worlds too primitive and volatile to have achieved full admission into the Interstellar Coalition.

The light of the two moons blotted out almost all the stars I could normally see on a clear night, not that it mattered. I did not recognize any of the constellations. The moons hung, large and strange over the horizon taunting me with their strangeness as the memory of those Hive soldiers made me shiver.

For the first time since I’d begun this crazy adventure, I truly felt like I was on an alien world.

Von wasn’t just wandering about the countryside like a sheriff’s deputy keeping everyone safe. He wasn’t a mall security guard. He was a Senior Hunter of an advanced race, a respected member of the Coalition Fleet. He was both honorable and feared. He saved people from harm. From danger. From a fate worse than death.

He was like some kind of superhero, fast, brave and strong and…mine.

Fixing the sheets, I settled back in bed and willed myself to sleep. I wanted to go to him in my dreams, knowing that was the only way I could be with him in this moment.

He couldn’t come into our suite and while I could go to his, I remembered his words. I didn’t want him to claim me until there was no doubt in his mind as to my reason. When I made him mine forever, it wouldn’t be because I was worried about Major Cosmo. It would be because I wanted him to be mine. Forever.



* * *



Lexi



“I can’t believe he doesn’t want you there,” Dani said. She was putting her long hair up into a ponytail, then twirling it into a bun. It seemed to be her morning routine. While her blonde hair was pretty down, she seemed to prefer it up.

I shrugged, plopping down on the couch in my Everian pajamas—a long-sleeved, flowing pearl-colored nightgown that made me feel like a princess. I never wore stuff like this back home, usually sleeping in a pair of pajama shorts and a cami in summer, and leggings and a T-shirt in winter. The suite had one main room with a small kitchen, then three bedrooms with private bathrooms.

She and Katie had been asleep when I came in the night before so this was the first they’d heard of the challenge and his wanting me to remain here, in our suite, when he fought Cosmo.

I was late to get up, the dream Von had shared, most likely unintentionally, had me tossing and turning. He was very determined to keep me from seeing the underbelly of life out here, in space. The Hive, even Major Cosmo. While there was no similarity between the evilness of the two—the major was just a pest and nothing more—Von considered all threats to me unacceptable. I felt that conviction within him in the dream, the protective streak that was more than societal or logical. His need to shelter me from everything, even a frightening dream, was instinctive, hardwired into his genetic makeup and he took the whole thing to an extreme level of seriousness.