"Do you need to be here?" Trist repeated.
"Technically, no." The young recruit looked shocked, his fear of Trist causing his skin to pale to a sickly gray nearly the same color as his uniform. With good reason. The captain was nearly as big as Grigg and twice as mean.
"Leave us."
In seconds, I was alone with the captain, who slumped into a seat on the edge of the room. "How do we stop him? It's like he's insane. Hell, it's like he's turned into a raging beast, like a fucking Atlan berserker."
Now that the danger was past, rage mixed with relief as I took a seat next to Trist where we both could keep an eye on the commander's unconscious body. Blood coated our hands, our uniforms.
"We can't stop him." Staring down at my bloody palms, I wanted to strangle Grigg. I loved him like a brother, but he'd allowed his father's rage to push him too far. He took too many risks. He was playing a very dangerous game and he was losing. He was alive, so it wasn't a complete failure, but next time? And the next? Eventually the odds would catch up to him. Next time he really might die.
I'd had enough. Trist'd had enough.
I'd given it a lot of thought, and just one solution presented itself, I just hadn't mentioned it before. There were no secrets between Grigg and me, but this one, I'd kept. Considered it. Ruled it out in the past. But now, now that he was in a ReGen pod healing a fucking severed femoral artery, broken femur, severe concussion and who knew what the fuck else, it was time.
"We'll never convince him to stop, but his mate might."
Trist straightened his legs out in front of him. "He doesn't have a mate."
Slowly, I turned to face him. "Then we need to get him one."
Trist glanced my way. "How do we do that?"
I stood then, pacing. "Right now, you are in command."
Order of succession was taught on the first day of fighting school. This was not something I had to explain to Trist. "And?"
"He's a commander in the Coalition Fleet. He's eligible to request a matched mate through the Interstellar Bride Program. Order me to process him for a matched mate. Order me to put him through the matching protocol."
Trist's eyes widened at the very idea. He didn't live life on a hair trigger like Grigg did. He thought things through, clearly and methodically.
"And when he wakes?"
I grinned. I'd thought this through clearly and methodically, too.
"The processing is subconscious. It'll be like a dream. He won't remember a thing until it's too late. He won't know what we've done until his mate arrives, in the flesh."
Trist smiled. Holy fuck, the man smiled. I'd never seen him do that before, thought his face was broken or permanently fixed in a benign gaze.
"And then he'll be too busy fucking her to care-or get into any more fucking trouble." Trist stared at me for a count of five before he burst out laughing.
I was too shocked by the sound to process his words.
"Do it, Doctor. Get him a mate. That's an order."
Chapter Three
Commander Grigg – Private Quarters, Battleship Zakar
For the tenth night in a row, I stared at the ceiling above my bed, restless. Waiting. For her.
Who she was, I could not say. A goddess, perhaps? A figment of my imagination? An image conjured by my brush with death?
All I knew was my cock was hard as a rock and the softness of her skin, the tight, wet heat of her pussy chased me into my dreams until I woke moaning and sweating, forced to take my own hand to my hard shaft to ease the discomfort. It didn't take much, one stroke, maybe two, and I came like a rutting youth.
This her was haunting me.
Even now, during the fourth rotation, the least active rotation on the ship's schedule, when most of my people slept, I could not rest. I had not been able to rest since I woke up in that ReGen pod to Rav's frown and Captain Trist's scowl. They hadn't said a word about my recent scrape with death. They hadn't needed to. My father had ranted for two hours, until his face was bright orange with rage and I'd worried my ears would begin bleeding. Again.
"Oh, fuck off. All of you." I spoke to no one, my spacious quarters and huge bed big, though large enough to hold three or four bodies, only held me. Not that I couldn't find a woman to warm my bed if I wished. I didn't. At least, I never worried about it overmuch, until now.
When I'd been younger, on leave, I'd had more than enough female companionship to satisfy me. As I'd aged and advanced in rank, the women expected more. It wasn't enough for them to fuck a strong, young warrior. Now they looked at me with calculation in their eyes. Now, I was a Commander and I had value. They didn't want to fuck me, Grigg. They wanted to be mated to a Prillon Commander. They wanted status, rank, wealth and power.
But fucking and mating were completely different. Fucking was an impersonal few hours of pleasure. Mating was … everything.
My fist gripped my hard length, pulsing and ready for release. Using my thumb, I rubbed along the ridge with each pass. I knew how to get off and it was quick. My body tensed, my breath seized as a murky vision of her filled my head and my seed spurted hotly into my hand.
With my balls emptied, for now-I sighed, tossed off the covers and walked naked to the adjoining bathing room. Shit, I was hard again. Maybe there was something wrong with me. I wasn't about to go tell Rav that my cock kept getting hard at the thought of a beautiful woman. I sighed, gripped my cock again. Yeah, he'd fucking believe that. Worse, he might and then he'd laugh his fucking head off.
A hot shower might ease me to sleep, but first, I had to ease the ache that was growing in my balls once again.
Moments later, I closed my eyes and let the hot glide of water pour over my body. I washed quickly, enjoying the luxury and quiet. We did not require water for bathing, but kept the ancient practice for one simple reason … pleasure.
My hard cock wept, a drop of pre-cum gathered on the tip. Fuck, maybe the ReGen pod had fixed me too well, given me some kind of super-cock, for I'd never been this quick to recover. Wrapping my hand around the thick head, I turned to face the water and leaned back against the shower tube as the heat surrounded me, and I tried to remember.
The dream. Her wet pussy. Her full, round breasts. The strange color of her skin, her strange and exotic dark eyes and black hair. She was not a golden Prillon female, but an alien woman. Strange. Beautiful. I'd held her legs open and spread her pussy lips open wide with my rigid-
"Commander!" The excited voice blasted through the comm speaker in my bathing room and I froze beneath the water. Fuck.
"This is Zakar," I growled. My thoughts of her were clearer this time. I recalled more details of her and the comm had stolen that vision from me, ruined the moment until she faded in my mind once more.
"Commander, there's an emergency. You're needed in med station one."
"What is it?"
There was a short silence and I pumped my cock once, twice, then growled. This time, I didn't have time to finish. I'd have to stuff my poor cock into a proper uniform and suffer the stiff, black armor squeezing my cock and balls like a vise.
"Doctor Zakar said to tell you-I can't say it, Sir."
That made me chuckle. I could just imagine what my smart-mouthed cousin had instructed the young officer to tell me. "Speak freely. What did he say?"
With a sigh, the officer answered. "He said to get your ass to medical and to fucking hurry. Your mate has arrived."
"My what?" My booming voice echoed off the walls in the small bathing room.
"He ordered me to cancel comms. Sorry, Sir." The comm unit went dead and I rinsed and dried my body, my head spinning.
My mate? What the fuck was he talking about?
A few minutes later, I stormed down the green-lined hallways to medical station one and found my cousin pacing.
"What the fuck, Rav?"
He turned on his heel, spinning at the sound of my voice. "Prime's ballocks, Grigg. You're fucking slow." Rav was tense, the lines of his neck and temples strained, his eyes glassy with excitement, or terror, I wasn't sure which. My need to offer reassurance and control, even with my warriors, settled in me and my pulse slowed as I placed my hand on Rav's shoulder and squeezed.
"I'm here. Now, tell me what you need."
Rav stood tall in his dark green doctor's uniform, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When I was sure he was all right, I dropped my hand to my side and waited.
Rav opened his eyes, the bright sheen still there, still unidentifiable. "She's here."
"Who?"
"Her name is Amanda Bryant. She's from a new member planet called Earth."
"Who is she? Why is she here?"
"She's your matched mate, Grigg-our mate."
I couldn't breathe. The ReGen pod. The dreams. Fuck all, those dreams. My cock stirred to life. The dreams were real. She had a name. Amanda Bryant.
"What have you done?"
Rav turned away from me without answering. Instead of explaining himself, he went into a med unit and I followed, the door sliding silently closed behind us. There were a few beeps from machinery, but all of the medical techs worked quietly and efficiently. I didn't take my focus from Rav to count the number of patients, but the unit could handle three critical cases and had nearly twenty additional beds, and they all seemed to be buzzing with gray uniformed medical officers and a couple of doctors wearing green. I ignored them all, waiting for Rav's reply.