Wulf’s father inclined his head toward the Admiral. “The bond between my son and Melina was created over twenty-seven standard years ago during a mass evacuation of our planet. My son was three standard years old and Melina, the daughter of Ambassador Maren’s sister, was six standard months old. It was unusual to do so at their very young ages, but we felt it was needed. The process protects the Prime females from mating with males too close in blood-ties.”
The Admiral’s forehead creased as if he pondered what Wulf’s father had just conveyed. Nowicki just snarled, his whole demeanor one of repudiation of anything Wulf or his father had to impart.
Wulf stood up. “Father, they don’t understand. We’re wasting time. Melina could be in danger of harming herself; she doesn’t understand the bond. She could be in pain.” His hands fisted at his sides. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Concern flared in Nowicki’s eyes. The commander didn’t want Melina to hurt. That was the only thing that Wulf and he would ever agree on—Melina’s safety and health.
His father nodded. “Sit down, Wulf. Let me explain further.” Wulf dropped back into his chair. “In each generation there is one genetically optimal match for each Prime female. This does not preclude other potential matches, but biologically, over the centuries, we have found that the match that is optimal is best. The gemat-gemate markings only appear on optimal matches.”
“How does this matching occur?” the Admiral asked. “They were practically—and literally—in diapers.”
“Normally, we do wait until puberty, but … let’s just say the circumstances were exigent at the time of the exodus.” Wulf’s father sighed. “The match is more sensory than hormonal. There is a part of the Prime brain that processes all the sensory and extra-sensory emanations as each male is passed by an unmated female. If the match is genetically optimal, the female develops the gemate marking. The male develops a similar marking called a gemat. Melina was the optimal match to my son. Her symbol lay dormant until she met him on the Galanti.”
“But what does this bond have to do with Melina’s well-being?” demanded Nowicki, his fists bunched on the table in front of him.
Wulf, spacing his words deliberately for maximum effect, responded, “Melina and I have begun the first stage of Prime courtship—the linkage through hearing, scent, and touch. She needs to see, hear, touch and smell me to feel safe, calm—and to remain physically well.”
“Physically well? Is this separation life-threatening?” asked the Admiral.
“Possibly,” Wulf’s father stated. “Already her mental state might be such that she’d take reckless actions, endangering herself. Gentlemen, we can’t let that happen. Besides being Wulf’s mate, she is a battle-mate. The Prime have not had a battle-mate in several centuries.”
His father paused, then heaved a great sigh. “She is vitally important to the future of our planet. My son will lead after me—and, if he and Melina are blessed, their son after them. We need the strong battle-mate line to give our people a proud link to their past as we forge ahead and intermarry with other humanoid species to save our future.” The Admiral nodded. “She went home to Obam IV. She told me that she needed to talk to her parents … uh, the people who raised her.”
“Admiral!” Nowicki turned to his superior, anger in every line of his body. “She doesn’t want to see him.”
“That’s not true, Commander,” the Admiral said. “She confided all to me before she left. She knew you would come after her, Wulf. She pretty much described the feelings you’ve just attributed to her.”
“What was her mental state? Was she depressed?” Wulf closed his eyes and groaned.
She needed him and still she’d left. His eyes flashed open as a further, even more horrifying thought entered his mind. “Is she afraid of me?”
“Melina Dmitros has never been afraid of anything that our training or Alliance enemies have ever thrown at her, including you,” the Admiral said with an amused grin.
“By the way, she said to tell you that you’ll have to court her. That there would be no shortcuts because of some genetic code she had no control over.” The Admiral paused, his eyes glinting with suppressed laughter. “She also said you had to earn her; she is not a gift. Her words, not mine.”
Wulf’s lips twisted into the first smile he’d had since he realized that Melina had left the safety of the Galanti. He turned toward his father and Maren. “I told you she was a fighter.”
“Yes, you did, son.” His father slapped Maren on the back. “Maren told me the bloodlines through his mother’s side had many battle-mates in the past. We are a very lucky family.”
Hugging Wulf, his father added, “Go, woo your battle-mate. And then bring her to Cejuru Prime. I wish to meet my new daughter.” He turned and skewered the Admiral with a piercing gaze. “I assume Melina has enough leave so that she can visit her home planet and be introduced to her people?”
The Admiral nodded. “She expected that would happen. She has taken an open-ended leave of absence.”
Nowicki gasped at that news. The man’s gaze turned bleak.
Melina’s superior hesitated. “Will she be coming back to the Alliance military? We need her, Premier Caradoc. She is one of our most effective squadron leaders.” Wulf’s father turned his head. “Son?”
“I expect so, father.” Wulf frowned. He’d rather she didn’t, but he knew asking her to give up her career would not be the way to woo her into accepting him as her mate.
“I’ve seen her fight. I’ve felt the battle symbiosis. It is … unbelievable.” Wulf rubbed his hands over his face. “She’ll want to come back. But, we would have to serve on the same ship because of the bond.”
“That can be arranged, Wulf,” Admiral Nelson said. “I’ll put together a proposal and send it to you as you travel to Obam IV.”
“That would be fine, but,” Wulf shrugged, “I can’t speak for Melina as much as I would like. As Maren has so pointedly told me time and time again, she is not a typical Prime mate. She and I will discuss how that will work alongside her other duties.”
“And what would those other duties be, Caradoc?” Nowicki asked with a snarl.
“Why being my mate, or wife as you Terrans call it,” he smiled, “and bearing my children, of course.”
“I almost pity you, Caradoc,” growled Nowicki. “Melina is one hundred percent a soldier. Babies have no place on a battle-cruiser.”
“I quite agree, Commander. My children will not be raised on a battle-cruiser.” Let the jealous bastard chew on that one.
Nowicki lied. The man did not pity him, he envied what Wulf would possess. The Terran had never possessed Melina; Wulf had sensed no intimate connection when she was around Nowicki. All proprietary feelings were on the Terran’s side. Wulf would ensure that the Commander would never get a chance to act on his feelings for his mate.
Melina would know only him in the future—no other.
“She was a soldier before the bond awakened,” Wulf added. “Once we fully consummate the bond, she’ll be forced to make choices.”
“Will they be her choices, Caradoc?” Nowicki asked.
“That is none of your business, Commander.”
Wulf had only shared what he had because Maren and his father had felt the Alliance Military needed to know the genetically imperative nature of the bond. There would be compromises on both sides, and he and Melina would deal with those as they arose. That would be their private business, and no one else’s, especially a jealous wannabe lover such as the Commander.
“But no matter what path she chooses, Commander,” Wulf stated, a warning in his eyes and voice for the Terran who loved his woman. “We will be side-by-side, a unit. No gemate bond has ever been broken while the mated pair both lived. She is mine—
forever.”
Nowicki growled, shot Wulf one last killing glare, and stormed out of the room.
* * * *
Obam IV dig, one standard week later
“Where the hell is the man?” Mel viciously wielded a small brush to dust off an artifact so that she could classify it. If she’d known how strong the bond already was between her and Wulf, she’d have stayed on Tooh 10 with the protective might of the military between them and duked this out sooner.
“Did you say something, Mellie?” Irina Dmitros, the only mother she’d ever known, sat next to her, occupied with a larger piece of the same artifact. An early Prime weapon.
“Nothing, Mama.” Mel threw the brush onto the table and gently placed the artifact in the correct specimen box. No use taking her erratic emotions out on an innocent artifact.
“Mellie, your father and I told you that Wulf will come to claim you. If all you told us is true, one of your female ancestors could’ve worn that breast plate over there,” her mother pointed to a beautifully worked piece of metal and with inlaid semi-precious stones lying on a table, “in battle on this very planet. No Prime male in the history of Cejuru Prime has ever abandoned a gemat e, especially a battle-mate.” Her parents had quickly clarified Mel’s position vis á vis Wulf. She was his by genetics. Neither of them could fight it. Her parents had also told her that the current status of Prime females as protected possessions had not been the norm. They’d concluded that the low birth rate and the loss of females had driven the Prime males to turn their back on their battle-mate heritage. Losing fertile women to war was not an option where the survival of a species was concerned.