Surrender to the Cyborgs(22)

The collars we all wore linked us together with an intimate telepathic bond I had heard about but could not have imagined. Such strong emotions coursed through me, and not just my own. My mate’s. Ryston’s. Their reactions to my feelings created a loop that rubbed me raw and made me vulnerable in a way I hadn’t felt since I was a very young boy.

Rachel rested against me and I hurried my pace through the long, empty corridors. The dark green striping along the base of the wall and in the center of the floor gave way to a dark orange and that faded to a subtle cream once we reached the living quarters of the base. The suite of rooms I now entered was new to all three of us. Prior to my mating, I’d lived in a small, two-room area above Base 3’s command center so I could be close to the action if the need arose.

But now I was grateful for the much larger living area. When the door slid open and I carried my mate inside for the first time, contentment settled over me. I set Rachel down on her feet and let her wander around the room, exploring the space.

Our new home. For the first time since I’d been banished to the Colony, I felt like I had a home. A family.

Her gaze flicked to mine, once, then again. Could she sense my feelings through her collar? The soft smile that she gave me as she glanced at me over her shoulder after peeking into the bedroom said she could. It was reassuring to know that she could understand me—as much as anyone could a governor of a banished group of warriors.

Rachel’s hand smoothed over the back of a large brown sofa. There were two in the room, settled facing one another. A workspace and chair was set against the wall just below the comm screen that was nearly as tall as my bride. In the far corner of the room, the S-Gen unit sat, waiting to answer my mate’s every command, to create anything she desired. And if she wanted something that had not been programmed into our system, I would find a way to get it for her.

Anything. I would give her anything.

A small dining area was off to the side, but most took their meals in the common rooms and cafeterias, meals often the only time many interacted with others during their workday. And the Colony warriors did work. We ran some of the deepest, most dangerous mines in the solar system. We monitored Hive activity and fed intel on all member worlds back to Prillon. We were analysts and builders, programmers and battle-hardened commanders. We planned battle strategy and monitored the front lines for shifts in Hive strategy. And we had every scientist, doctor and engineer on the planet working on a way to get rid of the implants that scarred us. That made us unfit. That denied us brides. Families. Lives outside this forsaken world.

But now, with my mate walking around our new home with curious eyes, everything inside me shifted.

When I first put the collar on when I heard I’d been officially matched, I’d felt no change. Only the physical symbol of a match occurring was heavy about my neck. When Ryston donned his, I sensed his pride in being my second, at the collar’s confirmation and permanence of the decision. He was eager to meet our mate as well. I’d been able to filter his feelings and emotions from mine. They weren’t a heavy burden to carry along with my own. Perhaps it was because we were both male, or that we were warriors together, or even that we were Prillon. A similar history, a similar sense of tradition, rules and custom.

When Rachel affixed the collar about her neck in the processing center on Earth, accepting both of us as her matched mates, was something else entirely. It was as if I was being held down by the Hive, my emotions, my feelings, hell, my brain being tugged and pulled on.

The sensation of absorbing a mate’s wants and desires, her fears and disappointments was powerful and had my cock turning rock hard in an instant. The need to sink balls deep into her had been immediate and intense.

But that had been dampened when every bit of her frustration at her incarceration, her innocence and her need to prove it hit me next. That was followed by her indecisiveness of becoming our mate and leaving Earth.

What the fuck? I’d known she had refused the match, but she’d been in a prison, with bars. No freedom. I would save her from that as I’d saved Ryston and others from the Hive’s captivity.

It was all there, her emotions and anger, in my head, bombarding me and knocking on my defenses.

As governor, I was responsible for a large group of men, or rejects, on the Colony. They weren’t easy to rule, to organize into a peaceful society. Who could blame them for their defiance after what they’d been through? What we’d all been through? I’d built walls to keep my personal opinions at bay in order to rule without bias and to remain mindful of what was best for all.