Prime Obsession(15)

Shocked into a total, stupefied silence, she watched him walk away.





Chapter Five


“Maren,” Wulf called out softly as he approached the older man who’d been close enough to witness the whole exchange between him and Melina. The usually restrained diplomat had a grin on his face that said he’d been highly entertained.

Wulf frowned at him. “It’s not funny, old man.”

Maren chuckled. “I’d never thought I’d live to see the day when a woman would go toe-to-toe with you.”

Ignoring his mentor’s words, he said, “Please stay with her. Protect my gemate.” Melina’s snort of disgust over his last words brought a reluctant smile to his lips. She was an obstinate, independent wench. He intended to make it clear from the beginning who was the male and who, the female. He didn’t give a slime creature’s hind end about her military training or position. She was a Prime female, and, thus, had a larger role in the galaxy than fighting. She was his mate—and would be, Diew willing, the mother of a future leader of Cejuru Prime.

“I’ll watch her,” said Maren, his eyes glinting with laughter, then added sotto voce,

“until she is needed.”

Wulf glared at the older man, not appreciating the man’s misplaced sense of humor.

Once Maren reached Melina, he moved to the middle of the room and joined Huw.

“What’s going on?” his brother asked. “Is Melina truly a battle-mate? Maren said her senses fed on yours and yours on hers.”

Wulf shrugged. “It seems so.”

When Melina had sensed the first traitor, he’d only gotten a faint sense of her ability before he himself had felt the hatred. With this second traitor, he’d felt the hatred in the room through her, almost as if she filtered the room’s myriad emotions and then amplified the one she had singled out. The legends had spoken of this symbiosis between certain mated pairs. As soon as Maren had voiced his conclusion, Wulf knew Melina was, in truth, a battle-mate. And that concerned him. He didn’t want the mother of his yet-to-be-conceived children fighting, no matter how important a battle-mate would be to the current political climate on Cejuru Prime.

Tabling his thoughts of Melina’s uniqueness, he turned to Huw. “She sensed another traitor. It is Ullyn. We must approach him carefully. He could harm many before we disarm him.”

Huw nodded and matched Wulf’s stride toward the computer array where Iolyn, unaware of the danger, stood talking to Ullyn.

As they approached the traitor, he turned and grabbed Iolyn around the neck, placing a laser pistol to his brother’s head. “Stop, Wulf. Huw. I will kill him.” Both men stopped. The room went silent at the danger present.

“You can’t escape, Ullyn,” Wulf said in an even, emotionless tone. Underneath his emotions roiled. Then, a coolness passed through him like a breeze off his home planet’s mountains. Whisper-soft words tickled his mind. “Patience, Wulf. Patience. You are stronger. More clever. He is afraid. You have the upper hand.” Melina. Battle-mate instincts and abilities long buried in her, awakened and stimulated by his scent and touch, aided him in battle. She probably wasn’t even aware her thoughts flowed through his mind.

No denying it now. She was, in truth, his battle-mate.

“No, but I can open the door and let the pirates in,” Ullyn snarled, bringing Wulf back to the present danger. Later he would deal with the reality of Melina’s uniqueness.

“You will not win. The Alliance is even now on board and in control of the docking bay. They’ll kill your allies sooner or later. No pirates will get off this ship to plague the galaxy. Letting in those outside this room will do you no good.”

“You’ll be dead.” Ullyn nodded his head toward to Iolyn. “He’ll be dead. As will Huw and Maren. And your bitch of a gemate.”

Wulf stiffened at the traitor’s words.

Ullyn sneered . “ Think we could not see the mark? It glowed against all that pale skin.”

The menace toward Melina threatened to throw him into an uncontrolled rage.

Again, the feathery cool touch stroked his senses. Her scent filled his nostrils. “Patience, Wulf.”

“Why, Ullyn?” Wulf asked.

“To end the joining with the Alliance,” Ulyn snarled. “Not all Prime citizens desire to ally with the rest of the galaxy.”

“But why use pirates?” Huw asked, picking up the train of the conversation, helping Wulf stall until someone could move to disarm Ullyn.

Angry, Ullyn gestured with the laser. “Because they were a convenient tool. Stop stalling and asking stupid questions. Have every crew member throw their weapons into the center of the room.”

No one complied. The room was still, but no … Wulf sensed a movement along the wall, approaching Ullyn from behind.

 Melina! Damn her battle-mate little hide.

A soft touch again stroked his neck, ruffling his hair as if to say “don’t worry.” Their binding was so strong, so quickly, due to the strong battle-mate genetics.

Despite the situation, his loins ached to possess her to take their connection to the highest and most complete level of the gemat-gemate binding.

Huw’s body language indicated he also had seen Melina. Huw moved to draw Ullyn’s attention away from her movements.

“Stop right there, Huw,” Ullyn yelled, his laser waving all over the place.

Huw stopped. “Taking on the pirates as allies is pretty stupid. They’ll take your payment and then kill you. They are greedy, Ullyn, and they don’t leave witnesses.”

“You lie,” Ullyn yelled. But his eyes narrowed in concentration.

Ullyn was a follower, not a leader. While Wulf wanted the mastermind behind the seizure of his ship, he wasn’t going to let the small fish off the hook. The bastard had threatened Melina—and his family.

Someone among the crew gasped, betraying Melina’s movement. Wulf wanted to kill the man who dared endanger his woman.

Ullyn whipped his gaze toward her. His weapon now fluctuated between her and Iolyn.

Wulf moved to draw Ullyn’s attention, all instincts urging him to protect his woman.

Melina leapt at Ullyn as Wulf made his move. Their battle symbiosis was fully in sync; their brains worked together to find and defeat a common enemy. She latched onto Ullyn’s weapon arm, shoving it up and away from Iolyn, away from her.

Iolyn broke free and moved to take over the disarming of the traitor.

“Stay out of the way, Iolyn. You, too, Wulf,” Melina shouted as she torqued Ullyn’s arm. The resulting snap resounded in the room.

Ullyn dropped the laser. Screaming from the pain, he stepped away and kicked at Melina, grazing her injured right side.

“Son of a bitch,” she yelled and retaliated with another twist of the broken forearm that she’d never released.

The agony in Ullyn’s scream was evident.

Wulf approached the duo laterally.

Melina sent him a fiery emerald glare that burned to his soul.

“I said stop, Wulf,” she snarled.

Huw and Iolyn also approached.

“All you Caradocs, just stay away. He’s mine.” She turned and bit out the words,

“Call me a gemate bitch, will you?”

Melina pushed Ullyn away from her and followed with a flying round kick, snapping Ullyn’s head back and shoving him into a computer panel.

Wulf waved his brothers away. He didn’t want them to distract her, giving Ullyn an opening to harm her. He moved closer, just in case she needed him, but not so close so as to impede her decimation of one of his Prime warriors.

His connection to her told him she had this traitor under control. Despite his reluctance to see her as a battle-mate, he did.

Concentrating, he followed the instinctive path that had been awakened upon holding and scenting her for the first time and fed her his strength as battle-mates of the Prime’s glorious past had done for many millennia.

 Ansu bhau, but she was magnificent, just as his brothers and Maren had advised him.

Her supple strength, her ferocity, made him hot. It would take all his control not to throw her to the floor and take her in front of his men, claiming her in the most primitive of ways possible.

He snorted back a laugh. She’d emasculate him on the spot if he tried. Later. It would all happen later—in privacy. And he planned to take a long, long time learning all the secrets of her body. Of her fascinating mind. Of her woman’s heart.

His crew crowded around, all respectfully giving her the room to fight. The mood in the room was one of awe. Pride. Envy. Many of his men had lost their mates because of the exodus. He thanked Diew his had been returned to him.

Narrowing his gaze, he observed Melina’s movements. She was visibly tiring. He felt her exhaustion and pain as his. Even battle-mates had limits—plus she fought with injuries, blood loss. He’d give her a chance to finish it; he would not shame her in front of his men. But if she couldn’t, he would. He could not allow her to harm herself, even to save face.

“Finish it, gemate lubha— or I will.”

The crowd grunted their approval of his words. The whispers of “battle-mate” swept the room. They all knew of the legend, but had never thought to see one.

As Melina kicked and punched Ullyn in a rapid sequence of punishing hits, she panted out a response to his deliberately arrogant order. “I’m. Not. Little. Nor. Your.