Mating Fever (Interstellar Brides Book 10) Read online

  That was practically my family motto, and I’d learned it well. Those three words got me through grueling hours of training, pain, and being stranded in hostile territory more than once in the last two years. I’d been cold, hot, starving, coated in sweat, blood, and every other body fluid I could imagine, and some I never dreamed of until I came out here into space. Outer fucking space. When I stopped to think about the fact that I was floating in a tin can in a galaxy far, far away, I still freaked. So, I tried not to think about it.

  The doctor clicked off the penlight and I could see again. I looked up into her face in time to see her nod with a smile. “Good. I didn’t want to have to inject you with neural stimulants.”

  She held up a small green cylinder I knew from previous experience could sting worse than any needle back home. Sure, there was no needle. But that just meant they forced the substance through your skin with something else. I didn’t know how they worked. Didn’t want to know. “No thanks. Keep that thing away from me.”

  The doctor chuckled and handed off the cylinder to an assistant who took the dosing unit and hurried away like he was intruding on a highly personal conversation. Which he was. And that thought brought me back to reality faster than anything else. I was very much awake now. No dream guy. No dream cock. No taunting or teasing or edging. No incredible orgasm.

  I was in the brides testing room in the medical wing of the Battleship Karter. Damn. I very much preferred to be back in fantasyland with a very dominant male who knew what to do with his hands, and his cock. It had been far, far too long since I had anything besides my fingers between my legs.

  “Did I scream?” I could feel my cheeks heat. “Please, tell me I didn’t scream.” I’d kill myself with my own ion blaster if the males in the medical floor heard me screaming with an orgasm based on a dream.

  “You didn’t scream.” She grinned then and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I’ve never been tested, but every bride who has always has a very arousing experience.”

  She was a few years older than me. She might not have been tested through the brides program like I just had, but with the gold cuffs about her wrists, she was obviously mated to an Atlan, so she knew quite a bit about bossy Atlan males. And big cocks. And, based on my dream, on the cuffs I’d worn, and the giant-sized man fucking my brains out, I was going to be matched to both.

  The thought of an Atlan mate made me shiver and my pussy clenched as heat flooded me. I should be surprised that my deepest self would want one of those huge, brutal warriors, but somehow I wasn’t. Over the past two years of fighting alongside the Coalition forces, I’d encountered many Atlans and they were all over the top. Dominant. Controlling. Annoying. They had nothing against females, weren’t disrespectful or chauvinistic. The opposite, in fact. They just took alpha male to the extreme. Protective. Demanding. Merciless.

  I shivered, tingles running over my skin at that one word. Merciless. They showed no mercy to their enemies. And I was shocked to discover, I wanted none in bed.

  Chapter Two

  Megan

  So, maybe my deepest, darkest desire was to have a dominant, demanding lover. Fine. But the rest of the time? The Atlans could take their overbearing, arrogant stomping around on this ship and save it for someone who jumped when they growled. In other words, not me.

  One in particular made me wish I had Atlan strength so I could just rip his head off. Warlord Nyko. If Doctor Moor’s mate was anything like the pain-in-the-ass warrior who liked to push every one of my damn buttons, it was a wonder she hadn’t killed him in his sleep. Maybe she had and that was why she was smiling and had such a pleasing disposition.

  I was in the testing chair wearing full armor. I was thankful the heavy armor hid my hardened nipples. I’d heard women who were tested on Earth had to wear a hospital gown. As if I was going to do that.

  Once done, I’d have to go back to my bunk and change my panties. They were soaked through. All because of a dream mate who liked control. Why had that made me so hot? Why had it made me come? My pussy still tingled, even though it hadn’t been real.

  I couldn’t lie to Doctor Moor. She knew the truth. Heard it. Besides, she was a woman and it felt good to talk with one sometimes. No men. No testosterone.

  “It was a dream and it was…hot.” I took a deep breath, let it out. Sat up and slapped my palms on the arms of the testing chair. “Is that it? Am I done?”

  Her dark hair looked soft, glowing in the harsh light of the medical station, her green medical uniform showed off her olive skin. “I told you it would be painless and easy. A little nap, a hot dream and then you’re matched.” She seemed pleased with the concept and even snapped her fingers at the end. “It’s fun for me, too.” She winked at me and I couldn’t help but grin back at her. “The testing is a reprieve for me from the triage bay where the wounded come in from battle.”

  I knew those horrors after seeing it firsthand for the past two years.

  “You only have two days left,” she added, upbeat. Obviously, she didn’t want to bring up what could happen to me when I went back out to fight. They didn’t taper off the combat missions even though I was so close to being done I could taste it.

  Two days. One more mission. I only had to survive the next forty-eight hours and then my service was up. I could go back to Core command, get this thing out of my head, and walk away. I’d anticipated the end of the fighting ever since that very first battle, counting off the months, weeks, days until I was done. A veteran and free to go home. But as the day of my discharge drew close, Boston didn’t seem that appealing anymore. My mother would continually remind me I wasn’t worthy or male. Yeah, I would be retired, having served my time, and faster than most, since Coalition duty was only two years. I’d have lifelong benefits and a nice salary. Still, I’d have to deal with my mother, and a planet full of people who had no idea what was really going on out here in space.

  Hell, I didn’t need to go home to enjoy my mother’s disapproval. I talked to my brother a couple of times a year, and he always brought her up, let me know how she was doing. But whenever I had comm time, her larger-than-life face on the screen always showed disappointment and I still heard the whiskey talking in her every veiled insult.

  Most days, I wondered why I still bothered trying to please her. And that was a rabbit hole of pain I had no desire to jump down right now.

  No. Going home to Earth held no appeal. My father was still dead. My brothers still served, still saved the world. But nothing I did mattered to my mother. I was never as good as her boys.

  Didn’t matter that I was saving the entire freaking universe.

  What would I do at home anyway? As a veteran, I’d receive benefits, but what good was that? They warned us about sharing what we’d seen and done with people on Earth, scared, panicked people who wouldn’t understand. So, I couldn’t even talk about anything going on out here. My mother definitely wouldn’t be interested. And what human man would want a Coalition combat veteran for a bride? Hell, a girlfriend even? What value did I bring to the society in Podunk, Texas? Nothing.

  At least during combat I’d kept my head down, stayed alive and saved a few of my fellow fighters as well. I might have been part of a large team, but I was needed. Well, my brand of crazy was needed. Not everyone was willing to have Hive tech implanted in their head.

  Stupid? Probably. But I’d just watched an entire unit of human fighters be wiped out in a strike the Hive shouldn’t have been able to organize. And I’d seen that blue bastard on the hilltop with his blue-skinned friends. I was one of the few ever to witness the Nexus in action. I’d gotten close, close enough to take a kill shot. I’d hit him, but destroyed the one thing the Core wanted, needed, to win this war. Those Nexus soldiers had some kind of processing unit that linked directly to Hive Central Command and transmitted to the rest of the Hive around them. They were like broadcast centers, commanders, if the Hive had such a thing. And the Coalition Fleet needed one of those communicators so they co
uld break the code, disrupt transmissions, spy on their enemy’s communications.

  We needed one of them, and I was going to get one. Tomorrow. And then I was going to accept my reward…a hot hunk of alien who would fuck me sideways and make me forget every damn battle I’d ever fought, every friend I’d watched die. I was going to have some happiness, damn it.

  So going back to Earth? Not going to happen. But out here, in the Coalition, I could have a mate. As a warrior for the Fleet, I could be processed as an Interstellar Bride. I’d seen females and their mates on the battleship and I’d envied their obvious connection. Each one of them, from Atlans to Prillons, were bonded in a way I’d never known, never imagined. Mated males didn’t cheat. Hell, they didn’t even look.

  I wanted that. I needed it, a connection. Roots. Something. So I’d agreed to the testing—a perk for all warriors completing their service. But that dream? I had to wonder if I even passed. Maybe the whole thing was a big mistake. I didn’t particularly like the dominant Atlan males. So, maybe, in that dream, I got off on his dominance during sex. Hell, yeah. But like? No. They were great on the battlefield, huge hulking beasts that ripped through Hive lines like knives through paper. But talking to one? Living with one for the rest of my life? Oh, no. They were arrogant, bossy…

  “Megan?”

  The doctor was staring, and I realized she’d been talking to me. I hadn’t heard a word. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “I said you only have two days left. While you went through the testing, I can’t match you because you’re still a fighter. Per protocol, I can’t match you until you either consent to it or are finished as a Coalition fighter.”

  I understood what she was saying in a very diplomatic way. If I were matched and then died in battle, it wasn’t fair to the mate. Who wanted to be matched and then have the person die in battle before even meeting?

  I frowned at the possibility. “So I’m not matched.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Unless you want to end your time now as a fighter. It is an option.”

  I held up my hand. “No. Don’t match me now. I’ve got a couple more days to keep my head attached to my body. Watch my back. Stay out of the Hive’s hands.” Even if I was allowed to know who he was, I wouldn’t be thinking about my mission. I’d be thinking about him. His body. His mouth. His hands. God, his cock…

  She tilted her head to the side, bit her lip. “As I said, you could accept the match now. I just have to push a button. Accepting a match would mean you would be removed from active duty. Brides aren’t sent into battle. No worrying about ducking or getting hit by an ion blast, or keeping your head on your shoulders. No more fighting, Megan. No more Hive.”

  Any female Coalition fighter who was matched and accepted the bride testing results would automatically be pulled from their term of service and reassigned to the Interstellar Brides Program. I saw her hand on the tablet, probably hovering over the Accept button.

  While the idea was appealing, I shook my head. I couldn’t walk away from my unit now. I’d made my choice—the constant, buzzing pain in my head proof of that. I had one more mission to complete, one blue-skinned bastard to take down. Billions of lives on hundreds of worlds might depend on me. Wouldn’t my mother just have a fucking stroke over that?

  I looked up at Doctor Moor and placed my hand over her wrist to stay her movement. “I can’t do that to my team. It can wait a couple days. Like you said, no guy is waiting for me.”

  I stood, grabbed my ion blaster from the desk and stuck it into my thigh holster. I might have just had one of the best orgasms of my life, but I was still a Coalition fighter, still a member of the Intelligence Core. My mate would have to understand that my duty had to come first. Hell, if the match was so perfect, he would understand.

  Her smile slipped a little. “Very well. I will note in your record that you have rejected an immediate match—”

  I opened my mouth to protest. Hell no. I wanted the match. Just not—

  “For now, Megan. Just for now. Do what you need to do. You will not be matched until you return. You have no commitments, no worries for a mate.”

  “I’m still single,” I said.

  She smiled. “An apt Earth term. Yes, you are single. Carefree. Except for the Hive and battle. Stay safe and I’ll see you back here in two days when your service is up.”

  Chapter Three

  Warlord Nyko of Atlan, Sector 437, Battlegroup Karter, Combat Infantry, Planet Latiri 4

  Swarms of our enemy’s smaller Scout warriors scurried over and around the hills of Latiri 4 as they had done over the last two hours. No matter how many of the bastards we tore apart, more followed.

  There were always more.

  “Move out!” Our Commander Warlord Wulf’s voice was the deep rumble of a full beast, like a cannon shot across the battlefield. He stood over eight feet tall, his shoulders and arms larger than the rock column beside him. The specially designed armor that my unit wore adapted and stretched to accommodate our bodies, our fighting style and the metamorphosis that freeing our beasts created.

  My feet hit the hard, rocky ground beneath my combat boots like great hammers striking stone as my unit of Atlan Beasts raced toward our last intact transport platform to get the hell out of here.

  We were overrun and outnumbered. The planet had a network of magnetic ravines and rocks that blocked our scanners and communication. The drones sent to scout the surface had underestimated the size of the Hive forces here by at least tenfold, or they’d transported more in since we began the assault. It didn’t matter that we were in beast mode. It didn’t matter we could—and would—rip the heads off of any Hive we came across. We were outnumbered. While our beasts fought with blind intent, the Atlans within still used their brains. The combination kept us alive to fight another day. And today, we needed to retreat, regroup, and come back with more weapons, warriors and armor. A lot more.

  If we stayed down here, we were all going to die. I’d seen this play out many times before. We would leave and make new plans and be back in a matter of hours. This planet must be returned to the control of the Coalition Fleet so that it could no longer be used as a base station for Hive raids and harvesting missions on protected planets in the nearby solar systems.

  The Hive Integration Units, the specialized enemies that tortured captives, injected them with Hive technology and tried to break their minds, would move on to another world. Another solar system. Another underdeveloped or helpless civilization ripe for harvest.

  And we would follow. We always gave chase, as did Karter, the Prillon Commander in charge of this battlegroup. Every warrior in the Fleet was here for the same reason, to protect their home world and the people they loved. To protect all worlds from the Hive. The Hive civilization did not conquer, they devoured. They consumed everything and everyone until there was nothing left. Not even a man’s own mind.

  The Warlords around me, my friends, all served for some big, noble cause. I served because I had nothing left but honor, and tearing a Hive Scout’s arms from his sockets, his head from his body, gave me a grim sort of pleasure, of purpose in an otherwise empty life.

  There were other Atlan warriors here who had families, who had chosen mates waiting for them to return to Atlan and start a new life. They had sisters and brothers, parents and cousins. I had nothing, no family, no mate, no reason to keep fighting except the beasts who fought beside me. This unit was my family, had been for years, and I had no wish to leave.

  But my body betrayed me. Even now, as the Hive scurried and chased us, my beast roared inside my head, growing stronger with each passing day. Desperate for a mate. That meant the fever was upon me and that soon, I’d have to find one true mate. Or I would die.

  Soon, the beast within would turn against me because of this need and I would kill anything that caught my attention, be that friend or foe. The Mating Fever boiled in my blood like poison, and no amount of willpower nor stubborn pride could defeat the beas
t that lurked inside me like a monster. Blind to anything but the need to mate. It was perfect for the intensity of conflict, but back on the battleship, it would be dangerous.

  “Hive!” Beside me, my friend Angher shoved me with his shoulder as he rushed past to attack three Hive Soldiers that appeared around the side of a large boulder to block our way, or pick us off from behind. These were larger and stronger than the Scouts we’d been ripping apart for the past several hours.

  So much harder to kill.

  My beast roared a challenge as I raced after Ang, two huge Atlan Warlords riding the razor’s edge, needing to kill. His fragile—and wild—state was the reason he’d gone, just a few weeks ago, and submitted to the Interstellar Brides Program’s processing protocols. I should have gone with him, but the fever hadn’t consumed me then as it did now.

  Unfortunately, since the Mating Fever was coming on stronger and more intense than ever, I feared my bride would be too late to save me. Whoever she was. Wherever she was. And based on the killing rage coming from Ang, I knew he might suffer the same fate. He would be matched and quickly mated, ensuring the fever was relinquished entirely. As for me, if I did not find a mate soon, I would be locked up and executed, a danger to myself and anyone who dared come near me.

  Nothing save death could stop an Atlan Beast lost to Mating Fever.

  Death, or a mate. And unmated females were thin on the ground in the Fleet, and the few who lived on the ships were either mated already, or soldiers so damn stubborn that I, for one, didn’t want to deal with them. One in particular had caused me more than one sleepless night lost to anger.

  Megan Simmons. She was a human and a Coalition soldier who had been with the battlegroup for the last two years. Her rank was Captain, but she bounced around between units, always moving. She was unruly and unstable and seemed to have a thousand secrets. Lately, she’d been going out with Captain Seth Mills in ReCon Unit 3.We’d been their escort and protection on more than one mission the last few months. Each time, it seemed she would seek me out and purposely challenge my patience. Even Seth, a human I liked and respected, a human whose own sister was mated to one of my Atlan brothers, could not control her. He would either scowl or grin, but never try to stop her from sassing me, or anyone else on board the ship.