Mated to the Warriors(38)

And the news from my private life was not much better.

I was not winning the war for my bride’s heart.

Hannah had been mine for three weeks now. Dare had somehow calmed her down about her concerns for our lives, but something else lingered. She still had not vowed to accept my claim. I was running out of time. And, as usual, when I returned to my bed it was to find her wrapped around Dare, both of them naked and sated, and pressed together as if they were already one flesh and one mind. And I was not part of that equation.

I could feel her pleasure from Dare’s touch from as far away as the command deck. Our bond through the collars was a constant reminder of her pleasure—without me.

Hannah would not look at me, not the way she looked at Dare. She was supposed to be my match. Mine. Yet she turned to him, trusted him, wrapped her naked arms around him and slept.

I wanted her to accept him as her second. I needed her to accept him, but a dark and angry part of me twisted on the inside when I saw them together like this, when I wanted and couldn’t have her affections. I needed her in a deeper, darker way than what she could handle and my frustration with not taking what I needed from her made me blunt and too curt with her, which sent her running back to Dare. It was more powerful with the collars.

With me she was constantly nervous, fidgeting and biting her bottom lip because she could sense I was… off. She seldom looked me in the eye, and rarely laughed if I was in the room. Dare spent more time with her than I did, my role as commander keeping me away from her much more than I liked.

I understood the logical reasons why she would feel more comfortable with him. He was more affectionate. He touched her in little ways, smiled at her, and constantly brought her gifts. Me? I wanted to pin her back to the wall and fuck her like a wild animal. I wanted to tie her to my bed and force orgasms from her beautiful body until she broke from the pleasure, until she ceased to think and could only feel what I gave her. I wanted to spank, paddle, and flog her perfect ass as I controlled her body, her orgasms, her very pleasure. Until she lost herself completely and forgot her own name, but not mine. I would have one name fall from her lips, when nothing else mattered to her: master.

As commander, I needed an outlet, a release for the stress and yet I knew it couldn’t come at the price of her body. I was beginning to doubt the matching process. She was supposed to be perfect for me, but she was fragile and so small. The things I wanted would just scare her more, so I held back. I tried to be more like Dare. Softer with her. Tender. Careful not to scare her. And it wasn’t working. It wasn’t fucking working.

I’d decided to seek outside guidance. Enough was enough. I needed an expert, and in my fleet, when it came to human women, there was only one.

A snooze alarm sounded and Dare’s eyes opened instantly. His gaze settled on me at once. His reflexes were as sharp as ever, which was one of the reasons I trusted him to keep my Hannah safe.

“Zane.”

I nodded and looked at Hannah’s dark hair where it rested nestled in the crook of his arm. I ached to reach out and stroke the silky strands, especially now when she was asleep. She wouldn’t be withdrawn or resistant if she wasn’t awake. “How is she?”

“I told you, she senses something with you. The collar allows her to feel your rejection.”

My eyebrows went up. “I’m not rejecting her!” I tried to keep my voice low, but it was difficult.

“You aren’t showing all of yourself and she knows it. You’re frustrated with her lack of acceptance, but how can she accept you when she knows you’re holding back? Growling at her all the time isn’t going to help us win our claim.” Dare’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and I lowered mine to match. Neither one of us wanted her awake for this conversation.

This was also the first time Dare had spoken to me about Hannah’s feelings and I crossed my arms. Was my caution with her that obvious? “All right, second. Tell me what you need to tell me. My matched mate is afraid of me. What else do I need to know?”

Dare rolled his eyes and I wanted to punch him. “She’s afraid of loving you. She’s afraid one of us is going to die, of course, but besides that, she knows you aren’t giving her everything when she’s practically bared her soul.”

“That’s life for a Prillon bride.”

“You are such a hard ass, Zane. Was your head diamond hard when your mother gave birth to you? Or did you grow into it?” Dare sighed and gently moved our sleeping mate off his shoulder. She was dead to the world, as she was most mornings. Not an early riser, my Hannah.

My second slid from the bed and I grit my teeth as I saw that they were both very naked. I enjoyed fucking my mate, but she did not curl around me and sleep as she did with Dare. I wanted that trust from her. I needed it with a ferocity that was eating me alive, burning in my gut like acid devouring my flesh from the inside.