His Virgin Mate(7)
I looked at the other two women, recognized kindred spirits. We were very similar, perhaps not personality-wise, but we were all matched to Everians. We were all virgins and we were going to be transported together. We would be the only friends from home, all each other had once we got to Everis. We might have been from different parts of the US, but we were all from Earth. I’d say that made us BFFs.
“Let’s make a pact,” Katie said.
Dani wiggled in her chair. “Yes! We share everything. No holding back. Even embarrassing things like sex and orgasms and toys. Whatever they do to us, we have to talk. Okay? We’re all each other has, right?”
“Besides each of us having a hot, alien hunk who wants to take our virginity?” I asked, an excited grin on my face. The thought of feeling the kind of desire I’d just experienced in that processing dream made my heart skip a beat.
“Those are guys. No offense, but they don’t count. Not for this. Us girls have to stick together,” countered Dani.
“Like the three musketeers,” Katie added.
“All right,” I said. “I agree, but I’m not drawing blood or spitting in my palm.”
Katie cringed. “Yeah, no. Gross. Yes, to the pact. We spill. And I mean details.”
“Details,” Dani repeated.
When Warden Egara lifted her head from her tablet and said it was time, we grabbed each other’s hands. “Details,” I added.
We had to part in the hallway, each of us going back to a separate testing room for our final processing.
“Will it hurt?” Katie asked Warden Egara.
The warden shook her head. “Not at all. You’ll be processed and transported. Before you know it, the three of you will be together at the Touchstone gathering on Everis. There, you will meet your mates. Good luck, ladies.”
I looked to Katie and Dani. Gave them each a small smile. This was it.
Katie, who seemed to be the most adventurous, gave a little wave of her fingers and dashed into her testing room, her bare butt the last we saw of her. Dani rolled her eyes and went next. I stood in the quiet hallway with Warden Egara.
“Would you go, if you were me?” I asked her. I figured Katie and Dani were talking up going to Everis because of nerves. Pep talk. I didn’t blame them. But Warden Egara was more impartial.
“I did. I was mated to a Coalition warrior.” She turned and walked into the testing room and I followed, curious about her answer.
“You were? On Everis?” I asked, sitting down once again in the testing chair.
She shook her head, but looked down at her tablet. Flicked her finger once, twice. The restraints returned about my wrists.
“No. Prillon.”
She’d been sent to Prillon Prime? I’d heard of the planet, of the big—no, huge—warriors. The way they claimed their mate with a second male. She’d had two mates? Yet she was here, on Earth? “You had two mates?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t offer details, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from pushing. I knew my mother would be rolling in her grave at my lack of manners, but I couldn’t stop the words from flowing out of my mouth. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“My mates died, Lexi,” she sighed. “I was a special case, a long time ago. Would I go again? Would I be you if I were ten years younger?”
I nodded. I watched her face, looked at her eyes for any deception.
“Absolutely.”
I saw sadness but no regret and that made me feel better.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath, let it out.
She pressed a button and the wall behind my head opened. I couldn’t see very well, but a soft blue glow came from it. As if on a Disney World ride, the chair tilted back, slid through the wall, which seemed to be a small space, just right for my testing chair. A robotic arm with a needle came silently toward me. I winced when it pierced my skin.
“Do not be afraid. You will be given an NPU. The Neural Processing Unit will be placed just behind your ear and will allow you to speak and understand Coalition languages. You will be processed and transported to Everis.”
The chair lowered into a warm bath, the blue glow even brighter. All of my fears melted away like a snowball in the sun. I was going to Everis to meet my matched mate and I was finally going to—
“Your processing will begin in three… two… one.”
Chapter Three
Senior Hunter Von, Planet Everis
I was eager to return to bed. To sleep and dream. Of her. She was close, so close my body operated in a nearly constant state of arousal. In the weeks since my return from fighting the Hive in deep space, I’d wanted nothing but peace, the quiet of the wind in the trees and the water pouring over stones in the river. Quiet and solitude.