The medical officer attached probes to my temples and began pressing all kinds of buttons on the screen in the wall behind my head. I ignored him completely. I didn’t want a step-by-step analysis or explanation. I wanted it over.
“There will be no pain with the testing, Warlord Dax,” the medical officer said, not looking at me but at his screen. “The matching takes into account many factors, including physical compatibility, personality, appearance, sexual needs, repressed fantasies, sexual drive, genetic likelihood of producing viable offspring—”
“Begin, without the blathering.”
The man closed his mouth. Commander Deek may have been in charge of the Atlan battle group, but I was a leader in my own right and everyone knew it. Including, it seemed, those in the medical station.
The man flicked his gaze at Commander Deek, who stiffly nodded.
“Very well. Close your eyes…”
* * *
I opened my eyes to find Commander Deek looming over me. His stern face held a frown and I wondered just how close he was to his own mating fever. “Maybe you should be the one on the table.”
“No,” he growled, looking at the medical officer standing behind me. “Was the match made? Or do I need to send Warlord Dax home on the next transport?”
I blinked a few times, trying to recall what the hell had just happened to me. I didn’t remember much beyond the needy cries of a woman and the bliss of burying my cock deep inside a warm, wet…
“It’s over. The match has been made.” The voice came from beside me and I didn’t need to turn my head to know it was the same medical officer who irritated me earlier by talking overly much. But this time, I required an explanation.
“Are you certain you completed the testing?” I barked. “I don’t remember anything.”
Nothing had happened except I now had vague memories that lingered in the back of my mind, and a painfully hard cock straining to escape my armored pants. I’d been dragged directly from the battlefield to the medical unit, and the hard casing of the ground armor made my erection incredibly painful. With my hands restrained, it wasn’t as if I could even shift my damn cock to a less agonizing position.
The medical officer stepped over to stand near my hip, where I could see him. His voice sounded vaguely bored and routine. “You were put into a trance sequence. Do you remember any of it?”
“Not much. Shadows. The memories are vague.” I closed my eyes. I remembered holding a woman down, her cries of pleasure, the powerful thrust of my hips as the beast took what belonged to him.
“Shadows? That’s why your cock is harder than my ion pistol?” the commander commented.
“Most males do not recall much of the processing data. Their higher levels of aggression during a ritual mating tend to obscure the experience.”
I tried to process what he wasn’t saying. “And the women? They go through the same process?”
He nodded enthusiastically as he removed a sensor from my temple. “Oh, yes. But the brides tend to recall everything.” He cleared his throat. “Down to the most minute sensory detail.”
Commander Deek laughed. “So, the males rut and walk away, and the females remember every detail forever so they can hold it against us later.” He slapped me on the shoulder, hard. “Sounds about right for a mate.”
“It is a consistent result of the testing,” the man commented, “not a judgment on females in general.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, ignoring the throbbing pulse of lust in my cock. If I saw my mate right now, and knew she was mine, I’d leap off this table, rip her clothing from her body, and impale her as I trapped her beneath me on this hard floor until she had so many orgasms that she begged me stop.
I envisioned her perfect, naked ass, pussy glistening with my come as she crawled away from me, her soft, round thighs pale in comparison to the soothing dark green of the medical bay floor. I’d let her crawl a bit, let her think I was finished with her, then grab her, flip her onto her back, throw her legs over my shoulders and fuck her again, my thumb on her clit as I made her chant my name. To anyone not of Atlan, it would sound barbaric, but we gave our mates what they needed, and they needed to know who they belonged to.
My cock pulsed and I growled, eager to find her, to fuck her. Now that I knew she was out there, ready for me, the beast tugged even harder to be free, to take what was his.
I was closer to the edge than I realized. With a supreme act of will, I reined in my need and focused on the conversation flowing around me as the medical officer spoke to Commander Deek.
“…it is often a sign of… compatibility before the bride’s transport begins.”