Truth be told, she wanted to sleep on a nice regen bed for about twenty-four standard hours. She was tired and even she realized she’d used the last of her reserves in the fight with Ullyn. She wasn’t even sure where she’d obtained the reserves she’d used to fight him.
Plus, she didn’t want to endanger any of her men—or Wulf’s.
The two traitors sat, manacled at the arms, wrists, legs and ankles, then to each other and to a support beam. They weren’t going anywhere.
She, apparently, guarded them. Ha!
“You don’t know what you are, do you, bitch?” spat Ullyn.
“Ullyn. I am getting a bit tired of you calling me a bitch.” She glared at him, then turned away to study the action on the screen. “I’m an Alliance Battle Squadron Captain.
You may call me Captain Dmitros.”
She hoped her feigned disinterest would open him up. She wanted him to tell her what was going on. He’d tell her more if he thought she didn’t care.
What was odd, and getting more spooky as the hours went by, was that she could read the Prime crews’ emotions—well, that is, if they did not guard them. Only Wulf, Huw, Iolyn and Maren seemed to know to control their feelings around her, but the rest of the men were like a frigging emotional download into her brain. What even surprised her more was that she was able to single them out and read individual feelings.
Her senses, always highly attuned, had become more so since she had met Wulf.
Why was a question she hoped these two would answer.
Wulf and Maren were withholding information from her—and it had to do with the names Wulf called her. Gemate. Gemate lubha. And the terms that Maren mentioned, battle symbiosis and battle-mate. She particularly didn’t like the sound of that last word.
There was that increasing sense of belonging she’d felt since she met Wulf. A belonging to him—and to the Prime as a whole. If she hadn’t known her parents were Greeks born on planet Earth, she would think she was Prime.
“You’re Wulf’s gemate.”
Well, that was blunt. But she had sort of figured that was what Wulf thought. He’d called her that enough.
She shrugged her attention on the final legs of the battle outside of the engine room doors. From the corner of her eye, she watched Ullyn. He waited for a reaction. She wouldn’t give him one.
“You, stupid bitch.” Ullyn glared at her. “You’re his mate. His woman. His wife, if you want to think of it in Terran terms.”
“Now, how could I be his mate? I only just met him a few hours ago.”
“You’re one of the Lost Ones. You have to be. You have his gemate imprint on your hip. The whole crew saw it,” said the traitor she’d wounded, a man named Prolow.
Everyone had seen her naked torso? She’d thought only Ullyn had. Hadn’t Wulf’s big-ass body blocked most of the view? She frowned, then recalled Wulf growling and ordering the crew back to work. Damn, she’d kick his butt for exposing her like that.
“I think you’re making all this up.”
She turned her attention back to the monitor, continuing to pretend she didn’t care.
Underneath she seethed. Something was going on and she was the only party who didn’t know the score.
The more information she could pry out of these two, the better she could deal with whatever lay ahead. Somehow, even without new information, she’d sensed that Wulf would not let her leave this ship—at least not without him by her side. Plus, he’d already stated he wanted her in a regen bed in his medical unit.
“Listen, you stupid cow. You are Prime. Your gemate mark glowed when Wulf touched it. That only happens in imprinted pairs,” explained Ullyn. “All the female evacuees before the last Antarean battle for Cejuru Prime were imprinted with their genetically optimal mates’ pheromones before they left. Most of the females never returned, depriving a whole generation of Prime males the chance at breeding more females for the next.”
Her mind reeled with the possibility that her whole life had been one big lie. How could that be?
She turned and gave them her full attention.
“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say I’m a Prime and one of the so-called Lost Ones,” she said. “Then what you tried to do here doesn’t make sense. By joining the Alliance, Wulf found me. Mightn’t this open up your planet to receive Alliance aid in finding other survivors? This would further your cause for genetic purity.” Prolow shook his head. His lips twisted into a sneer. “You don’t understand. Our birth rate is so low that even if we found all the lost females alive we could not raise the birthrate for several generations. The Prime leaders would still permit interbreeding with other humanoids. We can’t allow that to happen. Prime blood must remain pure.”
“But that means your race as a whole will die out. Correct me if I’m wrong, but inbreeding would reinforce genetic defects and hasten the end of your race. Don’t you see that?”
Prolow’s jaw grew hard. “You do not understand, woman. We must remain pure. If Diew chooses our race to die out, then it must die with pure blood intact.” Mel shook her head. Fanatics. The Prime leaders were right: New blood would strengthen and allow for more selective mutations. This had been proven within the Alliance as more races joined and commingled. The Prime would have a chance of survival with potentially even a stronger set of bloodlines. All humanoids fought to survive; it was the natural order of things.
While Prolow and Ullyn surely believed the line of propaganda they fed her, it still rang false. Allowing a whole species to die out was just plain stupid. The rebel leaders might have another agenda—one not told to the rank and file minions such as Prolow and Ullyn. She wondered what it was.
Well, whatever it was would be the Galactic Alliance and the Prime Council’s problem. Not hers. She was just a soldier.
“What’s battle symbiosis?” she asked. She might as well pump these two stooges for all they were worth. She didn’t want to place her faith in Wulf’s continued promise of explaining all later. She didn’t plan on being here later.
“You believe you are a Prime and Wulf’s mate?” Prolow asked.
“No, I’m humoring you.” She noted that the battle outside the engine room was nearly over. She wanted all her answers before she left the Galanti. She wanted to know what questions to ask her parents, the people who raised her for as long as she could remember.
“Battle symbiosis has not been seen since several centuries ago, before the Berean Wars.” Ullyn paused, his brow creased in concentration. “The stories say some mated Prime fought alongside one another and worked as one unit.”
“Battle-mates?” she whispered.
“Yes. In a perfect gemat-gemate match, the mated couple’s hearts beat at the same rhythm. What one sensed so did the other. One’s adrenaline aided the other’s. Legends even say they could communicate with their mind during times of strong emotions—
during battle and making love.” Prolow leered at her.
Ullyn added, “The mind-connection allows them to anticipate each other’s moves so as to become the perfect fighting machine.”
“So, Prime females used to be warriors?”
“Yes. Some,” Prolow qualified, “not all mated pairs had this battle symbiosis, you understand. But those that did were the leaders of their time.” Mel turned toward them. “I’m not sure about anything you’ve told me, but let me clue you in about partnering with pirates. You should be happy we caught you, stopped you, because the pirates would’ve turned on you, killed you and then where would your cause be?”
“You know nothing, bitch.” Ullyn glared at her in defiance.
“I may know nothing.” Shakily, she rose and turned the monitor off. “But your mercenary allies just got their asses handed to them.”
* * * *
“Mel, what’s going on?” Nowicki said through gritted teeth. “Captain Caradoc looks at you as if he wants to eat you for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and his night-time snack. He almost cut me in two with a glare when I held you up so you wouldn’t fall flat on your face.”
“I’ll explain later,” she hissed under her breath. “Let’s get this wound up. Garth can take charge of the prisoners and escorting the Galanti to Tooh 2. We need to get me out of here and back to Tooh 10.”
“What we need to do is get you to the Leonidas and onto a regen bed. You’re a mess, Mel.” Nowicki growled. “Is there gonna be a problem getting you off this ship?”
“Maybe.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I’m tired. I hurt. I can’t explain it all now. And we don’t need the resulting diplomatic incident if the Prime try to keep me on the Galanti. We need to sneak out.”
“Shit, Mel. Caradoc is heading this way.” He rubbed his mouth, whispering through his fingers. “Can you faint on cue?”
“Yeah, but Wulf will just sweep me into his arms again. And whatever you do, don’t call me Mel in front of him. It would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.” Nowicki’s face reddened with anger. “Why in the fuck was he carrying—?” Cutting off his question, she lifted a finger and pointed it at him. “Just stop. I’ve had it up to my neck with alpha-male chest-thumping.” She let out a huff, keeping an eye on Wulf’s progress across the now overly crowded engine room. “I needed to be carried when he did it, so do not go there. Men! You all try to protect me—and I resent it.”