Grace Goodwin - Cyborg Fever

“You know what they say,” Melody began. “That the size of his hands is indicative of the size of his—”

I laughed as I put a hand over her mouth, stifling the rest of that sentence. She waggled her eyebrows. So much for my well-practiced intimidation face.

“Okay, enough!”

She and my pussy were telling me one thing—jump the giant—my brain, another.

She pursed her lips together, but I could tell she was dying to say more. Our friendship went far beyond instructor/cadet. We were both from Earth, the only two in this year’s academy. While she was from Germany and I was from Canada, we had so much in common. Especially being a galaxy away from home. She was almost finished with her training at the Coalition Academy and would move on to an official fighting assignment upon graduation. I was an instructor there; the youngest the Academy had ever had. Because of my age, I had more in common with the cadets than with the other teachers.

And Melody? She was a riot and I adored her. Except for right now. It wasn’t often she could poke fun at me—we didn’t have tons of downtime when I wasn’t her instructor and there were rank protocols to follow then—and she was enjoying herself. Immensely.

It was also rare that we weren’t on Zioria. Off-planet training missions occurred in the last few weeks of a term, and only with those about to graduate. It was our last chance to run full-scale battle simulations and try to prepare them for what was coming. There were a few other human instructors, most of them ex-military or CIA. Strategy. Weapons. We called the young, aggressive, naïve recruits zygotes . Babies. All of them. From every world. They had no idea what they were getting into.

We did. We knew what was out there. I’d been with the Intelligence Core for over three years now, the Coalition Academy teaching position my cover for sensitive operations. But I had a job to do with these recruits, and I took it seriously. The better we did our job training them, the fewer had to die.

That was why we were all on The Colony, doing mission simulations with this term’s graduates. But those were completed, and now we had a night for the group to relax. For me to relax.

Or fuck an Atlan.

“He is hot,” I offered, then bit my lip. When she rolled her eyes, I added, “Fine. He’s absolutely gorgeous if you like that dark, brooding giant type.” I sighed. “Which I do.” Oh, I so do.

“There are no rules against getting it on with a hot Atlan beast,” she replied.

“We’re here on The Colony for cave training,” I reminded her. My specialty was stealth training. Get in, get out, don’t get caught. As far as the warriors knew, if they were captured by the Hive, it was over. No one was coming for them. And ninety-nine percent of the time, that was true. But for the other one percent, there was the I.C.—the Intelligence Core. In teams of two or three, we went in and recovered high level targets.

It was dangerous, but important work. The Hive couldn’t be allowed to break open the mind of an I.C. team member. We knew too much. About everything.

Two fighters walked along our row and we stood to let them pass, both of them huge Prillon warriors. They looked at us like we were candy and sat not too far away, on my left.

Testosterone overload. Too many hot warriors. We were literally surrounded.

The Prillon duo stared, made sure I knew they were interested. But I only had eyes for one warrior at the moment. And he was magnificent. My entire body went into heat at the sight of him. God, that Atlan was fucking hot. I’d only run into an Atlan a couple of times. They kept to themselves at the Academy, their instructors huge Atlan warriors themselves just in case one of them lost control of his beast during training.

Their women didn’t go into beast mode and didn’t fight in the Coalition, which I refused to have an opinion on. I knew their males were big, protective, dominant—big.

The shiver that raced through my body had nothing to do with the Prillon warriors scooting closer, and everything to do with the play of shadows over the Atlan fighter’s abs. I wanted to lick him there, make my way down…

“Training’s been over for two hours,” Melody was talking. Why was she still talking?

She sat back down and prattled on, oblivious to the Prillon warriors and their obvious interest. “You’re the one who dismissed us all and told us to have some fun for our last night on the planet. Our transport back to the Academy isn’t scheduled until tomorrow. You have all night.” She leaned toward me, bumped her shoulder into mine.

More spectators filled the stands until it was practically overflowing. They all wore the uniform of their position and rank prior to arriving on The Colony. Every warrior was covered in light-weight battle armor, most camouflaged black and grey for deep space battle. Melody and I were the only ones in Academy uniforms, hers gray, mine black, indicating my role as instructor.

“I’m not looking for a mate.” Absolutely not. Men complicated everything. They were selfish. Controlling. Difficult. Assholes. At least the ones I’d tangled with on Earth. Because of that, I’d avoided the ones in space, even the alien hotties that had crossed my path working for the Academy and my side stint in the I.C. The warriors in the I.C. weren’t selfish, but they were definitely controlling, dominant and would be difficult to deal with in an intimate relationship.

I didn’t need a man telling me what I could or could not do. I was not ready to settle down and be a baby machine for an alien when there were people out there who needed me, people I could save.

The way I hadn’t been able to save my parents.

“Who said anything about a mate? I thought we were talking about hot sex here, sister. And he’s practically screaming with hotness.”

“If I wanted a mate, I’d have joined the Interstellar Brides Program,” I added, making it blatantly clear my stance.

“Okay, but you have had a fling before? Back on Earth? At least one?”

I offered her a shrug in response. Earth was behind me. What I’d done there was irrelevant to my life now. Although I could say I’d never seen such a fine specimen of the XY chromosome on display as in the fighting Atlan.

All at once the crowd cheered, many stood, some put their hands to their mouths and shouted. The two fighters in the pit began to pace back and forth. I didn’t know how this fighting thing worked here, what the rules were. There was no ring, no ropes, no corner stool. There weren’t mouth guards or headgear either. No referee.

“Well?” Melody asked, and I remembered her original question.

“Yes, I had a couple one-night stands,” I replied, as if I was weird if I hadn’t. “Nothing all that wild.”

She laughed and pointed at the Atlan who was moving to the center of the pit. “That’s because there is nothing as wild as him back on Earth.” Her hand came up and she fanned herself.

No, there wasn’t.

The two fighters kept their distance, about five feet between them, as they circled. I could see the play of muscle across the Atlan’s back, the way his shoulders bunched and relaxed as his arms moved in front of him. Even with their size and heft, their feet were quiet on the packed earth. These weren’t newbies at the Academy, fresh faced and eager to prove how brilliant and ruthless they supposedly were. No, these two had met the Hive personally, seen too much and were most likely jaded, dark edged and ruthless.

The Prillon warrior was handsome, in his own way. Big. Muscular. Focused. But I barely noticed him. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Atlan.

Based on my Coalition training, I knew they were sizing each other up, discovering their dominant stance and other tells. They spoke to one another, their low, baritone voices making my pussy clench in heat. His voice. God. I leaned forward, trying to hear their words. The threats. The challenge.