Nial turned to me and held out his hand to Ander, who took one of the strips and lifted it to his neck. Nial did the same, laying the third on the table next to me. I wondered why they were donning black chokers, but as I watched, they both turned a deep, dark red and seemed to melt into the men’s skin so that they looked more like a tattoo than a collar.
Nial picked up the third as Ander helped me to sit, carefully with the thing in my bottom. “For you, mate.”
I reached for the black strip in his hand with trembling fingers. “What is it?”
“Our bonding collar. This marks you as ours for the claiming period. No other warriors may approach you or try to steal you from us. The collars will link us as one, a family.”
I looked at the seemingly innocent strip of black in my hand and realized exactly what I was holding. This was their version of a wedding ring. Permanent claim. A big fat mark on a woman’s body that said taken.
And they hadn’t even asked. Seriously? I wasn’t one of those girls that expected a big production out of a wedding proposal, but it would have been nice to at least be asked. What happened to the whole, I love you and want to be with you forever speech? After what they’d just done to me—or rather, what they’d allowed the doctor to do to me—I wasn’t in the mood to be forced or coerced into anything else. I had a plug in my ass because they wanted it there, and because I was honest enough about my own desires to know that I wanted to take them both, at least once. But this…?
I closed my fist around the collar and lowered it to my lap. “No.”
He glowered as the doctor stepped back mumbling about challenges and killing. I could have tried harder to listen, but I was too busy staring down two big, bossy aliens.
“Put it on, now.” Nial’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed as he tried to intimidate me into obeying him. “Jessica, by Prillon law I cannot force you to wear my collar. However, if you do not put it around your neck right now, you will be placing yourself at risk.”
I glared right back. Seriously? He’d just let a doctor double penetrate me with a couple of dildos and a magical suction cup in sexual fantasy land, and he expected me to say yes to a proposal he’d never made? I looked around the room. Nope. No big hulking monsters waiting to strike me down for refusing his non-proposal. Just me, my mates, and the doctor, who’d already done just about everything he could do to me. I would not be bullied into obeying. Not for this.
“Where I’m from, when a man asks a woman, and let me repeat that one critically important word here, asks a woman to be his bride, he usually gets down on one knee and gives her a damn good reason to say yes.”
Nial’s brow went up, but that was it. “Put the collar on.”
“No.”
“Put the collar around your neck, right now.”
“Ask nicely, Nial.”
I threw his own words back in his face and crossed my arms beneath my naked breasts. I was over being embarrassed by my nudity and sat like a queen holding court. There was nothing on this body that all three men in this room hadn’t seen aplenty and my pussy and ass still tingled and throbbed from the release. Surely the table was slick and wet beneath where I sat.
Ander rose from his place beside me and faced what appeared to be a doorway, ignoring me as Nial’s silver eye turned jet black. I didn’t care if he was angry. I was, too.
First I’d been denied transport by his stupid father, tracked by the Hive and nearly killed by my old mentor. Nial had saved my life, but he’d tricked me into being with both of them right after I’d been shot. Then they had taken me from my planet, tied me down, spanked me, and fucked me with strange medical equipment and forced me to lose control of myself in front of a total stranger. I rolled with the punches, adapting to the situation. I had gone along with everything they had wanted, despite my own better judgment. I was not going to agree to marry these two cavemen if they didn’t even ask me!
I glared right back at him waiting for him to figure out what I wanted, what I needed from him. His shoulders dropped and his eye changed back to silver as he stared at me. “What do you want, Jessica?”
The defeat I saw in his eyes nearly made me relent, but damn it! I wanted a real proposal. After everything they’d put me through already, I at least deserved that. It wasn’t like I was going to say no. I had no home and no life to go back to. If I went home—which was probably impossible anyway—I’d be dead in less than a week.
And I’d miss these two warriors as well, as much as it pained me to admit that, even to myself. I’d only known them a few hours, but already they felt like they were mine.