Grace Goodwin - Fighting For Their Mate

He looked at me as if I were crazy. “Of course, but that’s—”

“Agreed,” I said, cutting him off. “I will be your second. You are a warrior. You will claim your mate as a warrior should, with a second to ensure her pleasure, protection and happiness. She will be cherished by both of us, as a Prillon bride would be. The risks you speak of would no longer be a concern. Should you die, I vow to care for our mate and protect our offspring. And I assure you—” I smiled then. “—she would be filled with that baby twice as fast if she belonged to both of us.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“You would need to make the same vow to me. That if something happened to me, you would be there for our mate and children.”

That stunned Seth speechless, but I waited. He knew the ways of the Prillon warriors. He’d been in space long enough to know our custom. We always shared a bride to protect her from exactly what Seth feared. A Prillon bride was never alone, never abandoned. If one mate died, the other assured the care and protection of their mate and children. I very much had looked forward to sharing a mate with my cousin, but that was not to be. I respected Seth as a warrior. He was one of the few humans I counted a friend. And he’d saved my life more than once. I trusted him to care for a mate. To protect her, as I would.

But Seth was human, not Prillon. Humans, I had been told, were territorial, more like Atlan beasts than Prillon warriors. Perhaps the idea of sharing a mate was too difficult for him. There could be jealousy. Rivalry. Anger. Instead of making the closest of bonds with a shared bride, it would rip us apart. So I waited for him to consider my offer. I, too, knew the power of patience. Of silence.

When he raised his eyes to me, I saw hope, but also speculation. “And what if she refuses this arrangement? She was matched to me. A human. One man. She might not accept a second mate. Hell, she might be an uptight, puritanical freak who prays for forgiveness every time she has an orgasm.”

I couldn’t imagine such a female, but I had to assume there were some of such mind on Earth. Strange.

“Is this how you would describe your ideal match?” I asked.

“Hell, no.”

I nodded, pacified. I doubted a warrior as strong as Seth would be attracted to such a female. And if that was not what he wished for in one, that would not be the match that had been made. “Accept her. I will be your second. And we will seduce her together. We will convince her that two mates are better than one.”

Seth held out his hand in the odd way humans did to seal an agreement. “She will have final say. And if she doesn’t want both of us, she goes home, or to someone else. I won’t leave a widow behind crying over my grave.”

I placed my hand in his. “Agreed. But unless you don’t know how to bring a woman pleasure, I am not concerned with that possibility.”

He scoffed at my obvious insult. “You talk a big game, Prillon. You don’t know what Earth women are like.”

“Enlighten me.”

Seth shrugged. “Clingy. Needy. Soft. They don’t like to get their hands dirty.”

“I do not require my female to be dirty. I want her to need me and to be soft.” My head buzzed with confusion. “Is this how you describe Trinity? Is she not an Earth female?”

Seth chuckled. “She’s not a woman, she’s a soldier, like my sister, Sarah. Soldiers are different. Hard. Tough. They’ll lead you around by the balls and run your life. I don’t want that either.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Hell if I know. If your subconscious bride matching system works like you aliens claim it does, I guess we’re about to find out.”

Indeed.

Chloe

“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you were doing for the Coalition for the last four years? If possible, I’d like to place some basic information in your file for your mate. It will help him understand you and relate to your past.”

“No, I don’t suppose I can,” I replied. I’d been back on Earth for a year. I’d served four years with the Intelligence Core. But in the last twelve months, I was rarely asked about my time with the Coalition. Not many on Earth believed in the Hive—especially since the news services didn’t share any of the horrors the space bad guys were inflicting. As of now, Earth was insulated from the Hive by the rest of the Coalition planets. Even though there were some who volunteered to serve, like I had, the percentage was small. Earth met the volunteer quota required to retain Coalition protection and no more.

Earth’s governments were still too busy fighting each other to dedicate serious resources to space.

And returning to Earth? No one who’d been out there was allowed to talk about what they did. Even if the debriefing wasn’t so severe, and we could talk, no one understood, or believed most of it. No one within the Emergency Services department in Houston believed me. I took 911 calls fifty hours a week and helped manage the worst-of-the-worst kinds of problems. Domestic abuse. School shootings. Hurricanes. Floods. Heart attacks. Car accidents. Humans would believe a story about ghosts or television psychics predicting the future of their love lives. But the Hive threat in space? Me, working undercover in outer space? Me, fighting aliens and infiltrating enemy lines? Yeah, my co-workers would have had a good laugh at my expense.

Not that I could tell them much. Just like some personnel within the US armed services, everything was kept confidential. SEALs couldn’t say where they went on a deployment. Spouses couldn’t be told a location. Missions were kept secret. Top secret.

Especially the new technology being developed to disrupt the Hive communications frequencies. And people like me, who had a knack for listening to their chatter and deciphering what they were saying. I couldn’t explain how I did what I did, but I listened and sometimes the strange sounds just—clicked with my NPU in a unique way. There were others like me, but not many.

And one of them in particular, Bruvan, was wrong a lot. Too much. But he always managed to blame someone else. Blame the Hive for changing their plans.

Blame me.

He’d nearly gotten my entire team killed on the last mission, nearly killed me, and I’d been sent home, medical’d out, and he was out there still. Peddling his bullshit. Getting good warriors killed.

I had to bite my bottom lip to keep the anger in when the warden offered such a sympathetic ear. But I didn’t know her clearance level, and I wasn’t going to ask. “I really can’t say anything about it.”

The warden arched one dark brow and pursed her lips. “Well, it says you worked two deployments within the Intelligence Core, completing four years, before your return to Earth. You’ve been working as a 911 operator in your hometown. You’ve settled back into civilian life. Have a job. An apartment. Friends. And yet, you’ve decided to become a bride. Why?”

I frowned. “Does it matter? I’m here of my own free will.”

Glancing down at my wrists, they were restrained to the arms of the utilitarian chair by thick metal bands. “Although, being strapped to this chair doesn’t feel quite so voluntary.”

She looked at her tablet, swiped her finger and the restraints retracted into the chair. “They are for your safety during testing and to protect me from those who have been convicted of crimes. Until the testing is complete, they’ve consented to the match, and they arrive on their new home world, they are still prisoners.”