Surrender To The Cyborgs (Interstellar Brides: The Colony Book 1) Read online

  My lawyer was a nice man, accomplished at his job, but he had highly skilled, very well-placed people at the FDA and GloboPharma’s army of attorneys fighting against him. He’d told me it was going to be a hard fight, but I didn’t care. I’d done nothing wrong. I’d found out what others had done, were doing, to tens of thousands of frightened people desperate for a cure. They’d taken advantage of people who were sick and scared. They’d forged documents, lied, conspired and put my name on everything. The company paid a stupid fine and walked away. I was the one in jail for forgery, fraud, conspiracy. And that was the short list. I didn’t care what they said about me. I wasn’t giving up.

  “Yes, two months, then the truth will come out and I’ll be free.”

  She didn’t look hopeful. “Mating a Prillon is not the end of the world, Rachel.”

  “Yes, it is. Literally. I wouldn’t be on Earth any longer.”

  “I’ve been there. To Prillon.” She angled her head toward me. “I was mated to a Prillon warrior six years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Yet you’re here,” I countered. Her lips compressed into a thin line and a shadow passed through her gray eyes. I’d said something to hurt her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your story, your life. I’m just—” I tugged at the restraints “—trapped.”

  When she did not respond, I studied her carefully stoic expression. Yes. She was young, probably younger than my thirty-two by at least four years. But the pain in her eyes was old pain. Old and hardened into armor around her heart.

  “How could you have gone to Prillon six years ago? The Brides Program only started two years ago.” Two years since the aliens landed. Two years since everything on Earth went into a tailspin and we learned we weren’t alone.

  Two years, and our governments were still struggling with each other like bullies on the playground fighting for territory. Nothing changed. Nothing would ever change. Human nature was…well…all too human.

  Her smile was controlled, and didn’t reach her eyes. “Well, I was not in your position. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. My mates found me before Earth was officially brought into the Coalition. I didn’t have a choice, Rachel. Not like you. I was only with them a short time before they were killed by the Hive, but I loved them and I don’t regret a moment I spent as their mate. I understand your fear of going to another planet. But you’ve been matched to a decorated Prillon commander. I have no doubt you will grow to love him. His second will, I’m sure, be just as impressive.”

  “Second?”

  She nodded. “Yes, all Prillon warriors share their mate with another. It is their way. If one of your mates should be killed in battle, you, and any children, would have the second to protect and care for you.”

  “Two men? A threesome?” Was she crazy? I didn’t want a ménage. I didn’t want one space alien, let alone two.

  My body recalled the two men filling me with their cocks just moments ago, in that damn dream, and heated instantly. No.

  No. No. No. I was not walking away from my appeal just to go have hot alien sex. Just, no.

  “No way,” I said. If I could have sliced my hand through the air, I would have. As things stood, I had to settle for rattling the chair beneath the cuffs attached to my wrists. Looking up into her eyes, I shook my head again to make sure she understood exactly what I was saying. “No, thank you. I know John said I should come down here, but no. I can’t leave. I refuse the match.”

  “Then you will go back to the maximum security prison until your appeal.”

  The idea of going back to solitary confinement was miserable. A jail cell or space. The choices were grim. The knowledge that I was innocent set my resolve.

  “I appreciate your concern, Warden. But I’m innocent. I have to believe I can win this. I can’t let them get away with lying to the FDA and all those poor patients and their families. I won’t go off-planet and ruin my career. If I run, everyone will believe what they said about me, that I lied about the risks, that I lied to protect the company. I didn’t. I gave them the real data and I can prove it. I don’t want to go to another world. I like this one. I had a good life. I want it back!”

  Tears filled my eyes, but I willed them away. I missed my house, my sports car, my freaking cat. I had never wanted to sleep in my own queen-size bed so badly in my life. But I’d cried enough. Hell, that was pretty much all I’d done the first couple months in prison. No more. I was innocent and I would prove it. Go free. Go back to my life in the lab. I would continue my research and save lives. That was the only thing I’d ever wanted. I refused to give it up.

  My dad would roll over in his grave if I walked away from this fight. He’d watched my mom die when I was just five. I barely remembered her, but I remembered the way her bald head had felt when I hugged her. I remembered the smell of sickness in my house.

  After she died, my dad had tried to hang on. He’d made it until I left for college. And then he’d drunk himself to death.

  Guilt. What a weak word for the emotions that roared through me when I thought of my father. I never should have left him alone. I knew he still missed her. I knew he fought his own demons. But I’d been eighteen, and eager to go out into the world and start a new life. I’d moved a thousand miles away for college, only returning home a couple times a year. I’d walked away, and he’d faded right under my nose. Big mistake. Huge.

  No. I was not walking away from this.

  Warden Egara sighed and I did not welcome the disappointment or resignation I saw in her eyes, as if I was making the wrong choice.

  “Very well. Please know the match has been made, recorded and filed in your record. If you change your mind, it is your legal right to contact me. Should you choose to become a bride, all charges will be dropped, your record will be cleared and you will be sent to your mates immediately.”

  As she spoke, she lifted a strange, hand-held device to the side of my head and I yelped as a sharp, biting pain struck my temple.

  “Oww!” I twisted away from her, tugging on the restraints with renewed determination. “What was that?”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel, but it was necessary.” She walked away and placed the odd, cylinder-shaped object down on the table before turning back to me with her data pad firmly in hand and a frown on her face. “And I’m sorry for the headache you’ll have for the next few hours. Normally, you would be in transport while your brain adapted to the NPU, but you won’t have that luxury.”

  “NPU? What is that?” I wanted to lift my hand to the side of my temple and rub the aching spot there. What the hell had she just done? “What did you do to me?”

  The restraints about my wrists came undone with a single swipe of the warden’s finger on her tablet. She lifted her gaze from the tablet to meet mine, and I saw no sympathy there, more like pity. “The NPU is a neural processing unit required for transport off the planet. Its neural technology will merge with your brain’s language centers, allowing you to understand and speak all known languages of the Coalition Fleet. You can’t be processed as a bride without one.”

  “I don’t want to be a bride.” As I rose to stand, a guard walked in with the all too familiar shackles, a long chain rattling between the wrist cuffs. I knew where he would take me, back to prison, back to solitary confinement where the guards would treat me like I was invisible, a rat in a cage that needed food and water, and nothing else. Still, that was better than the alternative. I didn’t want to be more to them than another inmate, another mouth to feed. I didn’t want them to notice me.

  But I was innocent. Surely my attorney and my friends on the outside would figure out the truth. I had to believe the judge sitting my case would see through the prosecution’s lies.

  “If you didn’t want to be a bride, then why did you follow your attorney’s recommendation for processing?” Her question struck a nerve, but I refused to back down. I refused to believe the justice system would fail me so completely.

  “Just in case.”

  Her nod was quick and precise. “Exactly. And now you have an NPU, just in case.”

  She threw my own words back at me, but the underlying tone made it clear she believed I would be back, sooner rather than later. And if the system failed me and I was convicted, maybe I would come back. That dream. My body still ached with lust. I wanted those big hands on my body. I felt like I was a touch starved idiot, but I wouldn’t stop thinking about the way their hands had stroked my skin, their huge cocks had stretched me open. The intense pleasure as I’d ridden them to the strongest orgasm of my pathetic life.

  A fake orgasm, from some stupid computerized highjack of my brain. If I understood the process correctly, I’d been living another woman’s actual memories, experiencing what she experienced.

  The whole thing freaked me out. And I didn’t want to leave Earth. I wanted my damn life back, and I was going to get it.

  I could survive another two months in solitary. I refused to break. But a nagging voice had begun to haunt me in the quiet silence of my existence in the prison. Even if I beat the charges and won my appeal, what would become of me? Even if I were allowed to go home, would I ever be truly free? If the charges were dropped, if my name was cleared, there would always be those who doubted, who would consider me and any data I found to be tainted. No lab would touch me. At least not in the US. I’d have to relocate, start a new life.

  And if I didn’t win, if the system failed? I’d either be shackled and jailed for decades or be sent to a new planet where I would be at the mercy of not one huge alien, but two.

  Sounded like, one way or the other, I was already doomed to serving a life sentence.

  Chapter Two

  Maxim, Governor of Base 3, Prillon Colony Planet, Sector 901

  The crush of heavy combat boots filled the narrow hallway with a loud, clomping sound. My steps were eager, too eager, and yet I could not force myself to slow my pace as I hurried to the communications center. Warden Egara, the female in charge of the Colony’s new Interstellar Brides Processing center on Earth, waited to speak to me. I had to assume she had news, news of a matched mate for one of the soul-weary soldiers under my command. News those of us condemned to live out our lives on the Colony very much needed to hear.

  “Ryston.” I nodded, my expression grim as my chosen Second, Captain Ryston Rayall, my friend and brother-in-arms for many years, fell into step beside me. Covered head to toe in the mottled black-and brown-armor of a Prillon warrior, I was both relieved and worried by his presence.

  “I hear there is news from Earth.” His expression was grim. Despite the pale golden color of his hair and eyes, his gaze was dark. Rejected by his family after his rescue, he’d become a shadow of his former self. Mean. Bitter. Reckless and unpredictable. Bad news would not improve his temperament nor his current mood.

  “I am on my way, brother. Patience. I do not yet know what Warden Egara will say.” I thumped him on the shoulder in affection. He was my most trusted friend and closest ally on this base. I would trust no other with a mate, despite his recent sullenness. He was a fierce fighter, honorable to the core. I had no doubt a female’s sweet touch could banish the darkness from his heart and bring my friend back to life.

  “She is probably going to tell you that none of you fuckers have a match and we’re all fools for hoping.” His growl was full of pain, but he could not hide his hope from me. If he did not hope, he would not have rushed to be at my side to hear the news from Earth.

  “That would imply that I am not perfect, Ryston. We both know that is not the case.”

  Ryston’s soft chuckle was his only response, but some of the tension drained from my shoulders and neck. It was good to face whatever might come with Ryston at my back. As Governor of Base 3, it was my duty to set an example for the other contaminated warriors here. All good men, the warriors on the Colony had served their planets well, fought the Hive menace and suffered at the enemies’ hands. Everyone on the Colony carried the scars of that fight, for what the Hive captured, they tried to make their own. Hive Integration Units tortured Coalition fighters, converting them into new machines for the Hive to deploy, new Hive-controlled soldiers, walking weapons. Those of us lucky enough to survive and return to our units with our minds intact were sentenced to a fate that, for some, was worse than death—banishment. For as advanced as the Interstellar Coalition’s technology had become, there were still things that could not be undone.

  Microscopic cybernetic implants, living cyborg flesh, optical implants, brain stem filaments, enhanced muscle fibers, artificial intelligence that merged with our bodies on a cellular level, with our very DNA. For centuries, Coalition fighters rescued from Hive Integration Units were simply executed. But nearly sixty years ago, Prime Nial’s father had established the Colony, where contaminated warriors could live out their lives safely and away from potential Hive interference or control. Away from those untainted.

  Safety was highly overrated. The Colony became more a prison than a mercy, warriors doomed to live out their lives without hope of a home or a mate, fighting a never-ending battle to live a life filled with purpose, with honor. Few women fought in the Fleet. Fewer still were captured by the hive. For those females who were captured and survived, they ended up here as well. But they were so few, so very rare, that a man could go months or years without ever setting eyes on female flesh. We were feared by our own people, and forgotten by the other planets, by those we sacrificed so much to protect. Forgotten until the other worlds began sending their warriors here as well.

  Now the contaminated fighters banished to the Colony world included Atlans and Trionites, Everians, Viken and Prillon warriors, and, recently a handful of human warriors from Earth. Divided into eight bases, the Colony was ruled by eight Governors and one Prime. Governors were chosen, as all Prillon leaders were, by battle and blood. The strongest ruled. The strongest led by example.

  As I must now. As Governor of Base 3, it was my mate testing that everyone was eagerly, and warily, watching. If there were no mates for the strongest of us, then there was no hope for the others.

  And so, when Prince Nial became Prime, the Colony buzzed with renewed life, with hope. For the new Prime of our home world was contaminated himself. Despite his imperfections, he’d found a beautiful and submissive mate, a mate strong enough to accept his claim in the battle arena on Prillon Prime, witnessed by millions. Like the others, I’d watched on a live vid broadcast as Prime Nial and his second, Ander, claimed her body on the bloodied battlefield like warriors of old.

  My cock stirred at the memory. For Prince Nial and his bride, Lady Jessica Deston, had visited the Colony shortly before that final battle. Lady Deston was a warrior herself, and had spoken harshly of Prillon’s policies. She’d vowed to help the contaminated find mates. She’d given us a new name—veterans—and claimed we deserved honor and respect. She’d given all of us courage. And she’d followed through on her vows, accepting her contaminated mate in front of millions.

  Warden Egara from Earth contacted the Colony just days later about beginning the Interstellar Brides Program protocols for our warriors. I’d been the third warrior processed, an experience I remembered little of other than waking with a sense of loss and a cock so hard it felt like iron in my hands.

  Like the other governors and a handful of highly respected warriors here, I had submitted to the program’s testing several weeks ago. Though I could not believe any female would accept a damaged warrior such as myself for a mate, I could not stop my heart from racing in my chest at the summons I answered now.

  If any Colony warrior had been matched, then there would be hope for matches for all of us. The battle-scarred warriors banished to live out their lives here desperately needed a bit of hope.

  We rounded the corner to find everyone in the comm station waiting with a suffocating silence. The warden’s words could either save us, or doom everyone on the planet.

  On the large screen at the front of the room Warden Egara’s lovely face filled the entire space. But there were deep creases beneath her eyes and a darkness in the gray depths I’d not seen before. “Warden Egara. Greetings. It is our pleasure to see you again.” The Warden had recently traveled to the Colony to complete the initial rounds of testing and we’d had to keep her under lock and key, practically a prisoner. Her presence made the unmated males on the planet eager to claim her.

  “Governor Rone. I wish I could say the same.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if bracing herself before she spoke. “Maxim, I need your help.”

  My hands were in fists at my sides before I could control my reaction. “Anything, my lady.” Beside me, Ryston’s shoulders were tense, his hand resting on the ion blaster at his side. The room was blanketed in silence. A female in distress—even light years away across the universe—made every man in the room remember instincts so basic and primal that we would have been growling had we not wanted to frighten her.

  But then, she’d been mated to two Prillon warriors. Perhaps our aggression would comfort rather than scare her.

  “It’s not for me.” Her eyes darted from me to Rytson and back again. “It’s for someone else. A bride. A Colony bride.”

  The news made my heart race. “A match has been made then?”

  “Yes. But she has refused transport.” Warden Egara rose from her seat in front of her comm device and paced on the screen before us. Behind her, I recognized the setting of a processing center, the medical equipment, the sterile utility of the white walls and exam table.

  Ryston stepped forward, a frown on his face. “How can she refuse transport? I don’t understand.”

  Warden Egara rolled her eyes. “Earth laws don’t always make sense. And they have not adapted to being part of the Interstellar Coalition. They do not understand what’s at stake…” Her voice trailed off and she crossed her arms over her chest.

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