Tamed By The Beast (Interstellar Brides Book 7) Read online

  “Um…”

  “Your bride fee will be donated to the Wisconsin Humane Society Milwaukee, is that correct?” she asked, as if she could not sense my growing concern. No longer a citizen of Earth? I wanted a mate, but maybe I’d gone too far.

  “Miss Wilson?”

  “Yes, donate the fee.” I didn’t need the money since I would no longer be a citizen of Earth, and I had no one I cared about to give it to. I lost my fifteen-year-old calico, Sofie, last year to leukemia. My parents were both dead, my cousins lived across the country in California and we were far from close. I was alone in the world with nothing to lose.

  My chair slid sideways and a large, metallic arm came toward me from where it was anchored in the wall with what looked like a giant needle on its end. I leaned sideways, trying to avoid it.

  “Don’t worry, Tiffani. That’s just going to install your NPU.”

  “What the hell is that?” I eyed the needle with a very large sense of trepidation.

  “Neural Processing Unit. It will help you learn and understand the Atlan language.”

  Okay. I held still and clenched my hands so tightly my knuckles turned white. So, a Star Trek-style universal translator thing? Whatever.

  The needle punctured my skin, just behind my temple and I bit down, trying to ignore the pain as the device swiftly withdrew, rotated to my left, and repeated the process on the other side.

  When it moved back to its place, nestled in the wall, my chair lurched and I began to sink into a warm pool of clear, blue water.

  “’Your processing will begin in three, two…”

  I closed my eyes. Adrenaline made my heart pound as I waited for her to say, “one.” Waited, and waited.

  She sighed. “Not again.”

  My chair stopped moving and I opened my eyes to see her frowning. She hurried to a panel on the wall in the exam room as I watched.

  My eyes widened in fear and confusion. “What’s wrong?”

  She glanced at me quickly, then away, not making eye contact. “There’s a problem at the Atlan transport center. I’m sorry. This has only happened once before.”

  Great. They didn’t want me. I knew it, could feel it deep down. My heart imploded in my chest, all the hope I’d just given free rein, hope that I’d finally find a man who actually wanted me, who thought me beautiful and sexy and desirable? Gone, and the remnants were sharp blades in my gut, made worse because I’d dared to hope for something different. “Fine. Get me out of this chair so I can go home.”

  She shook her head, ignoring me as she spoke to someone on the screen, someone I couldn’t see. I could hear the voice coming through. It was a woman’s voice, but I couldn’t make out her words, only the warden’s.

  “What’s going on, Sarah?” She paused, listened. “What? But that’s impossible.” Another pause. “I see. So, what does Warlord Dax want me to do about it?” I heard the growing agitation in her voice. “No, he has a mate, and she’s human. She’s strapped to the chair right now, ready for processing.” A long delay. “I can’t. The transport permissions have been automatically deactivated by the system. I’ll need new ones.” She sighed. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”

  The warden said goodbye and walked toward me with her brows drawn together, her lips in a thin line. Her shoulders were tight and her steps were short and clipped, as if her muscles were so tense she could barely move.

  “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.” I strained against the cuffs as the warden raised her hand in a motion meant to pacify me.

  “Your mate, Commander Deek, has been lost to mating fever.”

  That was not what I’d expected. I assumed she’d say that my mate had changed his mind. But mating fever? “What does that mean?”

  She sighed and dropped her hand to her side. “Atlan warriors are very big; they’re the largest, strongest warriors in the entire Coalition Fleet.”

  My pussy clenched at her words. Oh, hell yeah, I knew exactly how big they were. “So?”

  “So, as I explained, they also possess the ability to go into what they refer to as beast mode, becoming larger and stronger in the heat of battle, or when they are…”

  “Fucking?” The deep rumbling growl in my ear from the processing dream, the monosyllabic conversation, made more and more sense now. Beast mode. Damn, that was hot. “So? They’re like the Hulk when he’s angry. Got it. You already told me that. What’s the problem?”

  “If they wait too long to claim a mate, they lose control of their beast side. They transform and can’t restrain themselves. They’ve been known to kill their own friends and allies, men they’ve fought beside for years. At that point no one else can save them. They only recognize and respond to one person in the entire universe.”

  I waited, barely able to breathe as she finished.

  “Their mate.”

  I relaxed, the tension draining from my shoulders. “Okay. Great. Send me to him now. That’s what the protocol says, right? If he only recognizes his mate, he’ll know me and get his beast under control.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Atlans are linked to their mates through special neurologically binding cuffs.”

  I remembered the beautiful golden cuffs around my wrists, the strange designs. “So, I need a pair of cuffs in order to help him?”

  “You have to already be bonded to him, to already be his mate, in order to control his beast. I’m afraid he’s lost.”

  “Lost? They can’t find him?”

  “No, the beast has taken over. I’m so sorry, Tiffani, but he’s beyond saving.”

  Beyond saving? The one man in the universe who was supposed to be perfect for me, supposed to want me and love me and accept me, beyond saving? “Then what happens to him?”

  At last, she met my gaze, and I wished she hadn’t. All I saw in her eyes was a deep, dark well of pity and pain. “My contact on Atlan, a bride I sent not long ago, says he’s scheduled for execution.”

  Chapter Two

  Commander Deek, Planet Atlan, Bundar Containment Facility, Block 4, Cell 11

  I startled awake, my body slick with sweat. The cot beneath me was too small for my frame in beast mode and I shifted onto my side. Three days. I’d been in this hell for three days. When I’d witnessed Dax’s fever come upon him, it had come upon him over two weeks, slowly building. But it had been in the height of battle and his rages had been disguised at first as battle adrenaline. Understandable, considering what the warlord had witnessed and fought against.

  Most Atlan warriors had their fever build slowly, allowing them time to find their mate before their inner beast took over. But I wasn’t a normal Atlan warrior, it seemed, for I’d gone from a battle commander to a beast condemned within a day.

  I’d raged through Battleship Brekk and it had taken four warriors to pin me down. Warlord Engel, visiting from Atlan, and no doubt eager to press the issue of his unmated daughter upon me once more, had been present when I lost control, had witnessed me attacking a young Prillon warrior during my rage. I could not recall that incident, for I was too far gone with the fever, but I’d wreaked havoc on the ship. A planned attack on a nearby Hive outpost had to be postponed and the sector gain we’d made against the enemy had been reversed. In the med unit, I’d been diagnosed with Phase Three Beast Complex. It was the final phase of a warrior’s deterioration. The phase where my mind would regain control less and less often, until I went full Beast and never came back.

  There was no cure except a mating bond. I’d have to fuck my mate while in beast mode, coming deep inside her, marking her, claiming her and making her mine. Fucking in beast mode was not an issue. I could feel him within, his rage building and seeking an outlet for release. But I faced no Hive soldiers to kill, and I had no mate.

  None. I was a threat to safety if I failed to take a mate, for even now, my fever did not wane. Simply lying in the cool cell, without battle or a female nearby to provoke the beast, the monster within me raged. Sweat soaked my
skin, my clothes. Basic restraints had done nothing to contain me. I’d ripped them from the wall within the first five minutes of my confinement. Only the graviton force field was strong enough to hold a beast, and my cell had that powerful energy field hidden within every wall, the ceiling and the floor. The front of the cell appeared to be nothing but empty air, but I knew differently, had thrown myself against the grav-wall time and again while in beast mode last night. My strength could not defeat it. My beast had tried, but lost.

  And so, immediately after transport back to my home world, back to Atlan, I’d been summarily sentenced to execution. Dax had visited and had afforded me four days’ delay, hoping that the fever would diminish or a mate would appear.

  The way I felt, constantly on edge, my beast prowling inside me, ready to attack anything that came within reach, I knew the fever would not end. I would be forced to fuck. But the female before me now did not incite lust, but anger.

  I growled, letting it rumble through my body at the futility of it all. How had this come about? I was of an age for the fever, yes, but not like this! There were no signs, no history with the males in my family line of losing control like I had.

  My father died in the Hive wars when I was still a boy, but he fought for many years and died with honor. My grandfather fought for nearly a decade and come home, took a mate and still served on the other side of the planet as an advisor to top council members. None of my cousins had ever succumbed to the fever. The fact that I had, made me a blight on the family name.

  And I still didn’t understand what had happened.

  The nearly uncontrollable rage had come on so unexpectedly and intensely that I lost focus, my mind solely on soothing the beast. I could not think clearly, could not speak coherently or with any logic to defend myself or my death sentence after I attacked the Prillon warrior. My beast, restless and edgy my entire life, had become wild and inconsolable.

  For the first time in my life, I was out of control. And I did not like the feeling.

  The only avenue left to me was a mate. Somehow, the Atlan females who walked past my cell did nothing for my beast. Unmated themselves, they volunteered to soothe the beasts within the warriors who were locked up, their last chance to mate and end the fever. It worked frequently, but the beast within the warrior had to be receptive, had to want the female. Fucking for release with a female that was appealing enough was well and good for an Atlan male, but not enough during mating fever.

  Only taking a mate would do. The warrior in the cell to the left of mine had found a worthy mate, for I could hear the rough sounds of fucking. Wild cries of pleasure, wet slaps of skin against skin, and the growls of the beast were loud in the cavernous corridors. This cellblock was nearly empty, just three of us locked up, and all from wealthy, highly respected families.

  While my cock pulsed and throbbed, I tore open the front of my pants and stroked the thick length, trying to ease the discomfort. The sounds of fucking helped me stroke my cock to release, thinking of a mate beneath me, spread open for my cock, eager to have me take her hard and make her mine. I could see her cuffs about her wrists, the connection that was formed when my seed spilled inside her. But I could not see her face. And when my seed spurted over my hand and onto the floor, the fever did not taper. Nor did my need for the faceless mate that I knew would not—could not—save me.

  Ripping my shirt over my head, I used it to wipe the seed from my fingers, dropped it onto the floor and put my foot on it to wipe up the spilled pool. Tucking my still erect cock back into my pants, I took a deep breath, then another.

  The fire in my blood, the wild rage did not lessen its hold. Fuck. If I couldn’t get past this, I was going to be executed. And maybe that was a good thing. My beast was a fury in my head, a wild animal clawing at its cage, willing to die to be free.

  “You look… well, Commander.”

  My head whipped about at the apprehensive greeting. He was right to be afraid. Beyond the grav-wall stood Warlord Engel Steen and his daughter, the Atlan beauty I’d been they’d expected I mate from the age of five, the stunning Tia. My beast had yet to find interest in her and I had long ago assumed it was not a match. They both looked at me as if I were an exotic animal in a zoo. Perhaps I was one, trapped behind the grav-wall and ogled by strangers, constantly under surveillance. The sound of a mating bond being formed continued from the next cell and Tia’s cheeks turned an embarrassed shade of pink, her arousal scenting the air as I watched her, inspected her yellow gown and the swell of her ample breasts, hoping my beast would calm, would show the smallest interest in a female.

  In the nearby cell, the newly mated female screamed her release as the warrior in beast mode growled. When the growling ceased, I knew that warrior’s fever had been instantly soothed. He would walk out of his cell soon, soothed and mated. A free warrior once again.

  I didn’t care that the Atlan had fucked a willing female, felt her lush body beneath his, enjoyed the hot, wet heat of her pussy, but I was damn jealous that the beast within him was finally appeased. It seemed nothing would please mine. He pushed at my control every moment of every day, as if he were already rabid, beyond saving. And even now, with a willing female standing before him, he prowled the cage of my mind, unsatisfied with what she offered. My logical mind knew I should take what had been offered dozens of times, throw Tia up against the wall and fuck her, allow her to cuff me and do her best to control me when the beast raged against the restraints.

  But even as I thought of the possibility, my beast growled a warning. He was not interested. He would not acknowledge this woman as his mate, would not be tamed by her presence.

  “That could be you,” Engel said, tilting his head toward the other cell, then looking down at Tia with an obvious question in his raised brows. A question I could not answer. The beast chose the mate, not I, and it did not want Tia. Fucking her would not change that. For years I’d laughed at the absurd claim of other warriors I knew who’d tried to explain this fact to me. I’d ignored them, at my peril. The beast was in charge now. All I could do was sit back and thank the gods he’d allowed me control long enough to get rid of our visitors.

  Tia took a step closer to the grav-wall and the scent of her bathing oil, spices and nerdera flower, enveloped me as the air filtration system pumped their combined scents into the cell.

  Revulsion made my beast growl. No. I had known her my entire life, and we both knew I held no desire for her. I admired and respected her, but my feelings were similar to those I held for my sister. My beast refused to become aroused by her. In fact, he became angrier each time they appeared with the same words, the same enticements. Engel wanted me to mate his daughter. My beast would not accept her. I’d told the man many, many times.

  “We’ve come to offer you a second chance,” he continued. “You will be executed in three days, Commander. Surely, we would all prefer to avoid that.”

  “Second chance?” I said, my voice rough and deep, so unfamiliar to me. It was more like twentieth, but I held my tongue.

  “You don’t remember?” Tia asked, her gaze fixated on my bare chest. I could not miss her interest or her arousal at the sight of my body. In fact, I could smell the wet welcome of her pussy, but my beast skulked, refusing to be tempted.

  She was a tall woman, statuesque. The perfect example of an Atlan bride. Her dark hair flowed long and free down her back and her floor-length yellow gown, the crisscross of gold outlining her perfect breasts showed off both her status as a wealthy Atlan elite, and her dark coloring to perfection. She was extremely beautiful, but my beast didn’t want anything to do with her. It would be so much fucking easier if he did.

  Afraid to speak, worried my beast would snap or snarl, I shook my head.

  “Your beast gains more control each day, Commander. We came yesterday. Tia offers herself to you as a mate. Let her save you.”

  “She should speak for herself then.” I couldn’t hold the words back, for Engel wouldn’t have escorted her i
f he did not have his own machinations. I just didn’t know what they were. As a member of the ruling class, he had been in charge of interplanetary shipments and supplies for more than a decade. He was a very powerful man, wealthy and well connected, a ten-year veteran of the Hive wars. Engel wouldn’t come here to pawn off his daughter, to stand by as a beast fucked her, just to get her mated. She had her choice of mates.

  “Why me?”

  Tia’s cheeks blushed red and she bit her plump lower lip in a move practiced and well perfected. I knew. I’d watched her tempt warriors with that look many times before I’d joined the Coalition Fleet. “I’m willing, Deek. You know I’ve cared for you since I was a girl. We have known each other for years, and I wish for this union. I find you… attractive. We could be good together.”

  Tia’s admittance surprised me, and my beast. While she may have been interested, my beast had never once found significance in her. I knew the beast’s desire would flare to life when I found the right mate, yet I never had. I’d fucked females, plenty of them, but Tia didn’t want just a hard fuck with a condemned warrior. She wanted to mate me. She wanted forever. She wanted me to give her control of my beast.

  “Why me, Tia?”

  “You were my best friend. It’s always been you, ever since we were young ones in the nursery. You know I followed you around like a shadow. Always. I don’t want to see you die, Deek. Please. I want to spend the rest of my life by your side, as your mate.”

  My beast roared to life. “No,” it shouted, pushing to the fore. My skin tightened and the heat of the beast roared through my veins. The muscles bulged on my neck and arms and my back elongated, stretching to accommodate the monster straining to break free. I pushed him back, barely holding on to control as Tia gasped, backing away from the grav-wall.

  “Then you die,” Engel said, his gaze narrowed and filled with a level of hatred I’d never seen from him before. It was not my intention to hurt Tia, but the beast was in control, and the beast was tired of having the same female be thrown at him over and over, despite his rejections.