Silly hope died with that one question. I’d thought maybe none of it would matter, but no. He only saw what the Hive had done, not his son.
“Dr. Mordin says the grafts are permanent. They’d have to take my entire arm to remove them.”
“I see.”
“Do you, father? What do you see?” He hadn’t seen the similar Hive grafts that covered half of my left shoulder, most of my left leg, and part of my back. I could see in his cold eyes that what he had seen was plenty.
My father, the man I had never loved, but had respected and had spent my entire life trying to please, shook his head.
“I see a warrior who used to be my son.” He leaned back in his chair, and the look in his eyes had gone even colder. “You will be removed from the list of heirs and reassigned to the colonies. I’m sorry, son.”
“Son? Son? You dare call me son in the same sentence as banishing me to the colonies?” My voice had risen. Remaining calm didn’t matter. It afforded me nothing.
He leaned forward to sever our connection, but my next question stopped him. “And who will be your heir?”
“You have many distant cousins, Nial. Perhaps Commander Deston will provide an heir with his new bride. If not, I’m sure the people would welcome the ancient customs once more.”
The ancient customs…
“A Death Match?” He would rather see good, strong warriors fight to the death for the right to be Prime than to even consider his own son? Simply because that son had some Hive biotech grafts in his flesh?
“May the strongest warrior survive.”
If I could have reached through the screen and punched him in the face, I would have. “You would see our finest warriors die?”
I’d thought the man uncaring. Unfeeling, at least toward me. I realized that it extended to everyone. He’d see strong men fight needlessly, die needlessly, all because he was… So. Fucking. Cruel.
“There is no heir. It is our way.”
There hadn’t been a Death Match in over two hundred years, since our ancestor had won and claimed the throne. “I am strong, father, my mind intact. There is no need to sacrifice our strongest warriors…”
I had to at least plead with the man to save the others. The strongest would rise to make a claim, and they would die, needlessly, when they should be out on the front lines, battling the Hive.
“You are contaminated.”
“I have knowledge of the Hive’s systems, their strategies. You would be foolish to banish me to the colonies. I should be on the front with the battle groups, where I can…”
He cut me off again. “You are no one, a contaminate. Hive. You are dead to me.”
I would have argued further, but the communication cut off from his end.
Bastard. Every day for the last few years I had swung like a pendulum between the need to impress that asshole or kill him.
“I should have killed him,” I murmured to myself.
I stared at the blank screen for several minutes. I’d been dismissed, and I knew I would never speak to my father again. I wasn’t sorry, not anymore. Perhaps something good came from the cyborg implants. I knew where I stood with my father and he didn’t deserve any more of my time or my thoughts.
No. The thought whirling in my mind in a building storm caused me far more distress. He’d refused my bride. My match. A beautiful Earth female like Commander Deston’s Hannah Johnson. I had hoped for such a match, for a soft, curved female from that planet. Hannah was small, but strong and so in love with her mates, both of them, that she had begged them to take her in the claiming ceremony.
My Hive implants had given me one advantage that day, one secret I’d not shared with anyone. I had a full recording of their ceremony in my system. I watched it often in my mind, seeing again and again the way the human woman liked to be touched, the way she had arched her back, the sounds she made as her mates kissed her, touched her, fucked her. I’d wanted that for myself. Wanted a mate like that so I’d reviewed that recording until it was burned into my very soul. Learned. Memorized every bit of their ceremonial fucking.
I would make my mate scream, as they had. I would make her tremble and beg for my cock to fill her.
Witnessing the ceremony was one honor that had not been denied me by my cousin, Commander Deston. I’d watched as both he and his second, Dare, fucked Hannah like two wild men. Their human bride loved their attention, begged for more, looked at her warriors like they were the breath in her body, the very beat of her heart.
I remembered the other ceremony I’d witnessed, this one during my processing center testing. It had been the dream that had matched me to my mate. The men had been demanding, dominant, and devoted. Since my mate had been matched to me with the same dream, I knew what she would need from me. From my second.