It tipped forward onto the hard ground of the cave.
When he stopped breathing, and the buzzing in my head faded to empty silence, I knelt beside him. The beast prowled, but I held up my hand to stay him. I didn’t want him to pull this creature’s head from its body. I needed it intact. No. Not me. Helion needed it intact, or at least part of it. The neural transmission juncture. The jar handle attached to the base of his spine. I just wanted to finish this damn mission, get the fuck off this planet and out of this war. A cherry on the sundae of my life would be to find a man to have hot, crazy monkey-sex with for the rest of my life. That wasn’t too much to ask, right? And according to Doctor Moor, I would have a mate waiting for me once I finished this.
I was done. God, I was so done. I hoped the doctor had found a match for me, because my fighting and spying days were over. I just couldn’t keep doing this. I felt like my mind was about to shatter into so many pieces I’d never be able to put myself back together again.
Was this PTSD? My oldest brother had been diagnosed with that right before I left home two years ago. He was a SEAL, same as my other brother and my dad before them. My dad died when I was nine, but that didn’t stop my brothers. You were nothing in my family if you weren’t a SEAL, and my mother had never forgiven me for being born female. So I joined the Air Force instead, ended up in military intelligence. And when that wasn’t enough, I had to get away, to prove myself.
So I did one better than all the dicks with pricks in my family tree and joined the Coalition Fleet. My unique skills and training caught the eye of their intelligence branch, along with my training in electronic weapons systems, and I’d jumped at the chance to make a real difference. Which put me here, in a cave. Trapped. Light years away from any SEAL. But three feet from an Atlan beast.
The blue-skinned bastard on the floor of this cave was my ultimate prize, the fucking Holy Grail in this war, and I wasn’t about to lose my shit now. Beast or no beast.
Kneeling, I tried to push the Nexus onto his side so I could access his spine, but he must have weighed four hundred pounds. I couldn’t even budge his legs. Fucking implants.
“Help me. I need to get him onto his side.” I looked up at the Atlan and nearly stopped breathing. There was no sign of non-beast counterpart behind his eyes. He was all wild animal, and his complete attention was not on the creature we’d just killed.
It was on me.
Mating Fever.
I’d seen it before, and my traitorous body, still high on adrenaline and fear, channeled the last few hours of aggression and terror into the one area I’d been hoping to devote a lot more time to in the near future…lust.
In the near future didn’t mean in the next few minutes. It meant after I’d been released from service and been matched to my mate from the brides program.
My traitorous body didn’t seem to agree with that. I wasn’t sure if Atlans had pheromones like humans, but something was coming off him in waves and I was sopping it up, even through my armor.
Through the visor of his helmet, I could see his eyes were so very pale and my pussy clenched with want, instantly wet. Intense, ice-blue eyes.
Oh, fuck yeah. I licked my lips as I took in his huge size. The way he was breathing deeply, the way his heartbeat thrummed along the length of his corded neck. His hands were as big as dinner plates. I had to wonder what else on his body was big.
I wanted more than that beast’s attention on me. I wanted his body pressing into mine up against the wall, fucking me like there was no tomorrow.
But not yet. I didn’t want to get naked with a dead body just inches away, even if it was a Nexus. Because—well—yuck. Just yuck.
Not wanting to trigger him in beast mode, I kept my voice low and controlled. Calm. “Warlord, I need your help. We must remove the spinal implant from this Hive and return it, and its helmet, to the fleet. Please help me roll the body onto its side.”
The beast didn’t know this was a special Hive, that he was a Nexus. He just knew the creature needed to be eliminated and had done his job quite well.
With a shudder, the beast knelt beside me and shoved the Nexus over with about as much effort as me rolling a soda can…downhill.
Whatever. I was human, I was female. I was used to being at the bottom of the physical pecking order out here in space. Just meant I had to be smarter than the rest of them. Which, so far, I’d managed just fine. Except, I was stuck in a dang cave, so that was still questionable.
With the Nexus turned away from me, I ignored the beast and examined the monster’s helmet and attachments. The doctor had told me what to look for, at least in theory.
With shaking hands, I reached for the arched neural tissue that bypassed his spine and connected to the base of his skull. With a slow, soft sigh, I gathered every ounce of determination and pulled. Slowly.