Did I accept the match? If I said yes, I was going to be transported off Earth and to Prillon Prime, several light years away. This wasn’t a trip to Italy.
But wasn’t this exactly what I wanted? I’d volunteered for this. I’d put my own butt in the stupid hospital gown and submitted to the testing. I’d loved every minute of that dream. I wanted more. I wanted to feel like that woman, wild and wanton and free.
“Yes.” There was no going back now. “Yes, I accept the match.”
She nodded once, her fingers swiping busily across her tablet. “To follow protocol, please state your name.”
“Kristin Webster.”
“Have you ever been, or are you now, married?”
“No.”
“Any biological offspring?”
“No.”
“I am required to inform you, even though I mentioned it already, that you will have thirty days to accept or reject the mate chosen for you by the Interstellar Brides Program’s matching protocols.”
I took a deep breath, let it out. No more sex crimes unit. No more bad guys. No more FBI. Hell, no more Earth. Just what I’d wanted.
I took a deep breath, let it out. “I guess I’m going to Prillon Prime. When do I get my men?”
I couldn’t help but grin at the idea. It seemed insane. It was insane.
She looked down at the tablet again, did some more swiping, glanced up. Smiled brilliantly. “How about right now? Your mate resides on a secondary Prillon planet known as The Colony. You’ve been matched to a warrior with ninety-eight percent compatibility.”
The Colony? Never heard of it, but who cared. Alien was alien. “And the second mate is the other two percent?” I wondered.
She stepped back, laughing at my sarcasm. “You could say that.”
With one final swipe of her finger, the wall behind me opened, a blue light coming from beyond. I turned my head, but couldn’t see anything but the colored glow.
“Don’t panic. When you wake, Kristin Webster, your body will have been prepared for their customs and your mates’ requirements. He will be waiting for you.” She spoke as if from a script, and that meant I wasn’t the only woman who panicked right about now.
Two large metallic arms with gigantic needles on the ends appeared to be headed for the sides of my face. “Hang on a second. What they hell are those things?”
I tried to wiggle away, but that wasn’t working since I was still strapped to the damn chair.
“They will insert the Neuroprocessing Units that will integrate with the language centers of your brain, allowing you to speak and understand any language. Be calm and you’ll soon be with your mate.”
I held my breath as the needles came closer, then pierced the sides of my temples, just above my ears. I winced, but it wasn’t really that painful. Once the robot arms retracted, my seat slid backward and I found myself being lowered in a warm, blue-glowing bath. I exhaled and relaxed, for all my fears seemed to melt away.
“Kristin Webster, you are off to your Prillon warrior. I am not biased, since everyone is matched to the planet perfect for them, but I hold a soft spot for those Prillon males. I know you will be happy, as I once was.”
I sighed, closing my eyes. Happy? That was the biggest dream of all.
“Your processing will begin in three…two…one.”
Everything went black.
Chapter Two
Captain Hunt Treval, The Colony, Base 3, New Arrivals Processing Room
Impatience clawed through me, making me twist in my seat. Across the table, our four newest arrivals stared at me with a mixture of rage and despair. They attempted to mask their pain, but the anger? The anger was clear in the tense lines of their bodies, the grim set of their lips, the complete lack of humor in their gazes. They were warriors of the Coalition Fleet, had survived capture and torture at the hands of our enemy, the Hive, and now they were here.
No one ever wanted to be here.
The fury was something warriors were all too familiar with. And those sent to the Colony had more reason to rage than most. I knew. We all knew. We were outcasts. Abandoned. Rejected by the people we’d fought to protect after suffering agonizing torture and experimentation at the hands of our enemies. We survived, some of us barely, but we were no longer wanted. And that was difficult to accept. Arriving at the Colony was proof of that rejection, just as the changes to our bodies were proof that we would never again be whole.
Anger masked a good many other emotions, but especially pain. As warriors, we were the strongest, toughest fuckers in the universe. We didn’t do heartbreak. Most of those who’d come through this room in the last two years—since I’d been put in charge of acclimating new arrivals—would prefer torture to tears. These four, it would seem, were no exception.