His eyes opened slowly, as if reluctant to face such a morbid question. “Tyran is unlike any other warrior I know. They didn’t mark him on the outside. I think they wanted to send him back to us, to fool our commanders into thinking he was untouched.”
“But he’s not?”
“No.” Hunt turned his head and placed a kiss in the center of my palm. “Tyran’s muscles and bones have been infiltrated.”
I tried to imagine what that meant and couldn’t. “So? What does that mean?”
Hunt sighed and pulled away and I felt guilt running through him like a river. Guilt that he was here, with me, receiving pleasure while Tyran suffered. It was my stubborn mate’s own damn fault. If Tyran hadn’t walked away, I’d be petting him right now, too. But he hadn’t let me.
“His body is strong, abnormally strong and fast. He’s stronger than an Atlan in Beast mode. I saw him pull apart the hull of a fighter with his bare hands, shredded the metal like it was paper.” Hunt paused to let me process, but not long enough. “Most of us have one or two places on our bodies scarred by the Hive, like me with my eye and my arm. We have small scars. But Tyran’s entire body is Hive. He has microscopic implants in every muscle and every bone. He was to be careful every moment of every day. And he has to be very careful of you.”
“Why me?”
Hunt laughed then, his amusement genuine. “Because you, mate, are small and fragile and perfect. You’re a flower petal under our boots and as badly as we long to touch you, we are always aware of how easily you might be broken.”
So, I’d been having sex with some kind of Superman who could rip through sheets of metal with his bare hands?
My stomach growled a reminder that I hadn’t eaten in over a day and I shook my head. Whatever. I wanted him. I needed him. I was hungry and mad and I didn’t care what kind of fucked up mental games these warriors were playing with themselves on this planet. He was mine, microscopic parts or not.
“He’s mine. I don’t care what he is. I was matched to the way his is now. You’re both mine, and I’m not giving either of you up.”
“While I remember what happened to me, I don’t let it rule me. I have accepted the change. Some cannot and they kill themselves. Some become aggressive. Others acclimate over time, their anger diminishing as the months pass. Tyran, well, his failure haunts him more than most.”
“Why?” Was that the only word I could speak today?
“He’s a Zakar.”
I opened my mouth to give him the two-year-old’s favorite question one more time, but he cut me off.
“The Zakar family is a very important family on Prillon Prime. They have commanded the Fleet in Sector 17 for more than six hundred years. His cousin, Grigg, was made commander of the battlegroup a few years ago, the youngest commander in over a century.”
The lights were coming on in my mind, slowly. “What does that have to do with Tyran?”
Hunt sighed. “My family is not of the elite class, so I don’t feel the pressure Tyran does. His family is—difficult. Full of warriors who served, who fought for many, many years. Even their women are ruthless and cold. His family cut off all contact when he was taken by the Hive. His lands and wealth were given to his sister. He is dead to them.”
Dead to them? My whole body clenched with pain. “What assholes.”
Hunt held my gaze. “Now you begin to understand. Coalition fighters are captured and contaminated. Should we survive Hive torture, we are sent here to live out our lives. We were denied mates, denied family, our wealth gone. Our homes, gone.”
“But I’m here.”
He stroked my cheek. “Yes. Thank the gods, our new Prime is one of us. He understands and is trying to help. But hope is fragile, Kristin. You are only the second mate to arrive to the Colony even though our warriors began testing nearly six months ago. Your arrival is a miracle. And the fact that you will be a bride of Zakar—here—” He cut himself off as if he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“So, Tyran doesn’t want a mate?”
“He wants you so badly it is destroying him. When he is in pain, he just gets… quiet.”
Quiet? Was that what they were calling it these days?
“Don’t you mean highly sexual and extremely dominant?”
Hunt shrugged. “It is one way he copes. He lost control when he was at the mercy of the Hive, so it’s understandable that someone like him would become even more tempered. He preferred to be in control before he was captured, but he needs it even more now. You help with that, giving him an environment where he can wield power.”