Mastered by Her Mates (Interstellar Bride Book 0) (11 page)

And still, I’d waited, more focused on the possibility of dying than of living, of having a life, a family. I didn’t want him to mourn my death. I didn’t want a mate to mourn my death. I didn’t want—

Amanda.
She sighed softly and shifted on the bed, reached for me in her sleep. When her arms came up empty, she turned instead to Rav, rolling so that her forehead and nose were pressed to his chest, his arms around her in a protective cage as she snuggled deeper and went back to her dreams.

She was unexpected, as was my reaction to her. Everything about her was perfect. I couldn’t stop admiring her strange dark hair or her softly rounded hips and thighs. The lush cushion of her abdomen and full breasts. Her lips, pink and kissable, just like her pussy. I’d nearly lost myself in her dark eyes as Rav made her come, as her pleasure rolled through her and they both surrendered to me, to my control. The more I demanded, the faster she melted, so submissive. I’d sensed it in her, knew through the collar that she wanted it. No,
needed
it, just as strongly as I needed to dominate. So fucking perfect for me.

Even more of a shock was the fierce need I had to control Rav, to direct him, to own him as completely as I owned my mate. I did not want to fuck him, but I needed to own him, control him, protect him and take care of him. The need roared to life from nowhere the moment our mate was between us.

He was mine and I couldn’t understand the ferocity of my instinctive need to make sure he understood and accepted my dominance, my protection just as clearly as Amanda. Suddenly I was irritated that Rav’s belongings were still in his private quarters, and not here, with me and our mate, where they were supposed to be. I fought the odd urge to wake Amanda and talk to her, to ask her about her life and give her a tour of my ship, to show off like a young upstart trying to impress a woman, not a commander who needed impress no one.

Instead of worrying about my command, the scout missions, battle strategy, I sat in the dark like a fool staring her beauty. I counted her breaths, fighting the urge to wake her and take her again, slowly. I imagined kissing her lips, tracing her flesh, learning every curve and dip and hollow, the sensitive places on her skin that would make her melt, or pant, or come. I sat alone in the dark wondering if my mates had what they needed to be settled, content, happy. Wondering if I would be enough for them. I needed to be enough.

And I never fucking needed anything. I didn’t do entanglements. I battled Hive cyborgs. I fucked for pleasure. I fought next to my warriors to quiet the rage in my blood, to fight back the abyss of anger that threatened to drown me every time I spoke to my father or watched another warrior die in battle. And yet that all quieted when I was deep inside Amanda, when I made her come, when I filled her with my seed.

Staring at my mates, something raw and ravenous stirred to life within me and I feared nothing would calm me now.

I felt like an alien in my own skin, a stranger with thoughts and desires I did not recognize and could not control.

Brooding in the dark was not something I enjoyed, so I rose and quietly cleansed my body in the MG unit. As I settled a fresh uniform on my shoulders, I felt the weight of command, the responsibility settling me in a way nothing else ever had, in a way completely different than I found with my mate. This was familiar, normal. Comfortable.

I was on the command deck five minutes later, my mind blissfully empty of longing, need, desire and confusion as I poured over scouting reports, talked to my best flight captains about imminent battles. They noticed the collar about my neck, but were wise not to mention it. Not when we knew there were more pressing matters than my taking a mate.

The Hive would come. The Hive hunger for more bodies to convert, for more raw material for their Integration Centers, was insatiable. They consumed all life, it was their means of existence. And my battle group was on the front lines, so close to the Hive central command that we often fought two or three times as many battles per week as other sectors.

Always before, that thought filled me with self-importance. We were in one of the oldest and deadliest sectors of the war. My father had seen to that, his expectations for his son the only thing bigger than his pride in the Zakar clan’s warriors. Battle Group Zakar would never relocate, never back down. Our clan had fought here for hundreds of years.

“Commander, the comm.” My communications officer spoke from her position at the comm panel.

“My father?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Great. Just what I didn’t fucking need right now. “Patch it through to the Core.” The Core was my personal nickname for the standard-size meeting room found on every ship. The private space was designed for meeting with top officers to discuss strategy or ship’s business. It was where I met with my captains, disciplined my warriors and made battle plans.

I left the command deck and walked to the meeting room. Seconds after the door slid closed behind me, my father’s dark orange face filled the screen near the far wall. I had inherited his eyes, but the rest of me, the golden shade of my skin, was due to my mother. His coloring was passed down from the ancient lines, and he’d always believed me less for not carrying his much darker hue.

“Commander.” He never called me by my name, only my rank, as if I weren’t his son. Only a soldier. “I read the most recent report.”

“Yes, Father. The Hive has been eliminated from that solar system.”

“And you nearly killed.”

And, here we went again… “I’m fine.”

“Damn it, boy. You were weak today. An embarrassment. I’d advise you to spend some time in a basic flight simulator before you fly with another battle wing. You can do better than that. You are a Zakar. I won’t have women giggling and twittering on about how you got shot out of your ship and floated in space like so much garbage.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” His father’s rant continued for several minutes as he described, in great detail, the sympathetic looks and concerned questioning he’d been forced to endure at the Prime’s palace this evening. I rubbed the back of my neck, doing my best to ignore the tight ball of rage that spun and whirred in my gut every time I was forced to look at the man who had sired me.

“Don’t let it happen again. You are a Zakar.”

He didn’t bother saying goodbye, or asking how I felt. He didn’t care. He expected me to survive, to do better, to live up to the family name.

For years I’d listened to his tirades. They hadn’t made my pulse race or my heart ache for a very long time. Not since I was still in the academy had I allowed my father to upset my emotional equilibrium. But tonight I sank into the nearest empty chair at the conference table and placed my head in my hands.

Hate. Rage. Anger. Shame. Love. They twisted and churned in my chest until I couldn’t breathe.

* * *

Conrav

Amanda lay in my arms, her breath a caress of heat across my chest. Her head was tucked under my chin, her naked body pressed to mine as I held her.

My mate.

I’d waited for her for years, prayed to the gods that Grigg would one day be ready to summon her, to claim her.

I was a senior officer. I was eligible for a bride of my own, but every time I considered the option all I could see was Grigg lost and truly alone. He was not my brother by blood, but he was a brother by choice and I could not abandon him in this any more than he was able to walk away from a wounded warrior on the field of battle.

The agony racing through my body was his, the new connection with our mate, the emotional ties of our collars, broadcast Grigg’s pain as clearly as if he stood next to me, breaking into pieces.

In seconds our mate stirred as well, her quick intake of breath and the hand that fluttered to cover her heart proof that she felt his pain as well. Our bond was strong, stronger than I would have believed possible after just one claiming.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was a whisper and she tensed, but did not pull free of my embrace. “Grigg.”

“Yes, Grigg.” I sighed, kissing our mate on the forehead and reluctantly releasing her to roll out of bed. “If I had one guess, I’d say he just spoke to his father.”

She sat up in bed, gloriously naked and so beautiful I couldn’t tear my gaze from her flesh even as I stumbled to pull on my discarded uniform.

“His father?” Amanda pulled the blanket up to cover her breasts, her dark hair a wild tumble falling past her shoulders. Even Grigg’s pain was not enough to prevent my cock from rising to attention at the sight.

“General Zakar. He’s on the Prime council.”

“But—” She rubbed at her chest, as if she were truly in pain. “I don’t understand.”

Dressed now, I walked back to the bed and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her soft, pink lips. Gods, she was so exquisite, and mine. Mine and Grigg’s, and right now that asshole needed me. “Go back to sleep, mate. I’ll take care of it.”

She watched me leave with a bite of anger in her eyes, fire that I welcomed. She was going to need it if she were to survive this mating between us. Grigg had become volatile, his need to control both excited and terrified me. I had no qualms fucking our mate to Grigg’s exact specifications. The fact that he’d ordered me to fuck her, to fill her with my seed—and first—had been a shock, an honor so great that I’d never once ever even imagined a scenario where our firstborn child would truly belong to both of us. We would have no way to know, now or ever, who truly fathered any of our children. The honor and generosity of that act humbled me, even as Grigg’s dominant behavior toward me caused a jumbled mixture of acceptance and confusion in my mind.

He’d always been brash, impulsive, arrogant and a bit wild. I’d loved that about him, been on many adventures, fought beside him in many battles. But I’d never shared his bed, never shared a woman and felt his absolute need for control. He’d never extended his iron control to me, and I was shocked to discover that I found it—stimulating. Fuck, our mate certainly enjoyed it as well.

I found Grigg exactly where I expected him to be, in the Core, his one true sanctuary. Alone.

Motherfucker was always alone.

He didn’t look in my direction as I entered. A work pad lay flat and untouched on the table before him, filled, I was sure, with a hundred reports, requests and items that required his approval. He sat at the round table and looked at none of it, his gaze cold and empty as he stared at a monitor filled with the deep emptiness of space just outside our ship. If I couldn’t still feel the pain and anger coming through my collar, I might have believed his façade. He’d become very good at hiding his true self.

“I’m guessing your father was his usual charming self?” I took the seat to Grigg’s right and waited. “How is he today?”

The silence stretched for long minutes, but I didn’t push, just put my feet up on the table, my hands behind my head and waited for the explosion.

“Get your fucking feet off my table.”

“That good, huh?”

“Rav.”

“Let me guess? He broke down into tears, so worried about your wellbeing that he couldn’t speak over his sobs.”

Grigg snorted. “You’re an asshole.”

I stretched, feeling both exhausted and exhilarated by our time spent with Amanda. After what we’d done with her, I was surprised at how quickly he’d returned to his tense old self. Maybe if I could get Grigg to calm the fuck down, we could go back to our room and pull the blanket from her soft, warm body and—

“Stop thinking about our mate. You’re fucking up my rage.”

“So, your father. Let me guess? Your near-death experience was a blight on the Zakar name and the women at the palace are fawning all over him with their concern for the infamous Commander Zakar.”

“That about sums it up.”

“You tell him about our mate?”

“No.”

“What? He didn’t notice the collar?”

Grigg shook his head. “He only sees what he wants. The rest…”

“So you didn’t tell him. Why not? Maybe the women would leave him alone if they knew they had no chance of claiming you.”

“They never had a chance.”

“They didn’t know that. I’m sure you’re number one on so many mothers’ potential mating lists for their daughters that you are practically a household name back on Prime.”

His silence stretched and I let it ride, giving him time to come to grips with what I’d just told him. He was a brilliant warrior, but when it came to politics or women, he had about as much finesse as his father. A fact to which I would never enlighten him.

“I’m not going to tell him about her.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

He finally looked at me, and I was relieved to feel the tension coiling through our link calm as well. “I like the idea of him suffering their attentions. I might never tell him.”

“Fine. I don’t care about your asshole father. I care about Amanda. What are we going to do about her?”

That narrowed his attention. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you feel it when we were finished with her?”

“Feel what?”

“Her guilt.”

Grigg shook his head and returned his gaze to the view of the solar cluster on his monitor. “No. I’m sorry. I was—”

“Feeling fucked up and weird about your feelings toward me?”

Chapter Nine

Conrav

“Fuck, Rav. Why do you do that?” Grigg’s mouth thinned into a fine line and he refused to look at me. I’d never seen Grigg look embarrassed, not in all the years I’d known him.

I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, hard. I squeezed when he tried to shrug me off. This was something we had to talk about. If our mating with Amanda was going to work, we needed to work this out. “Look, I don’t mind. I don’t want to fuck you, Grigg, but if allowing you to be a bossy asshole in bed gets Amanda that hot and bothered every time we’re together, I am yours to command. She was so fucking wet, so desperate for us, I couldn’t think. She loved it.”

“I know.”

“And the rest of it?”

He looked at me now, and I knew he’d already buried the rest of his emotions so deep I’d have to force them back to the surface. “Look, I felt it all, Grigg. These fucking collars don’t let us hide anything. You were feeling territorial, and it wasn’t just about Amanda.”