I did have twelve hours free and clear of my duties. No teaching, no missions for the I.C. Nothing but downtime where I could relieve this ache that was growing by the second. And I wanted the Atlan to take care of it for me.
If he didn’t end up in the med unit first.
The Prillon let out a bellow and attacked. I sucked in a breath as he charged, fists at the ready. The Atlan didn’t look away from me until the Prillon landed a punch. I grimaced at the sound of the two brutes colliding, but the Atlan barely seemed to notice the attack. Lightning fast, he retaliated.
The crunching sound of bone breaking could be heard over the din of the crowd. Blood spurted from the Prillon’s nose as he fell, like a redwood in the forest, to the ground. His arms didn’t go up to stop his fall, indicating he’d been knocked unconscious immediately.
One punch. That was all it took. The fight was over.
The Atlan took a deep breath, let it out, and I watched the ripple of his eight-pack abs as he did so. He gave the Prillon a quick look, glanced at the medical team, who was already running toward the fallen warrior, then looked back at me.
He strode across the pit and to the edge of the stands, straight toward me, like we were connected by a wire.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses and they turned to see what held the Atlan’s attention. Behind him, the Prillon was being assisted and I could see he was coming to, his blood staining the dirt. His jaw at an awkward angle, obviously broken.
Ouch.
“Um, Dahl, he’s really staring at you.”
I glanced at the others who had come to watch the fights and they were all looking at me, too.
When I looked back at the Atlan, he had his hand up and he curled his finger. Beckoning me.
I gulped. Swallowed. Was he really talking to me?
I looked around. Everyone was watching me, waiting to see what I would do.
Oh, shit. All me. I wasn’t imagining things.
Melody pushed me and I stumbled forward. “Go, woman!”
I stepped down a row, closer to him, glanced back at Melody. She had a sly smile on her face. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Well, no, do a whole bunch of things I wouldn’t do.” She nodded her head, giving me some kind of reassurance for going after the Atlan.
I licked my lips, looked at the Atlan again. Oh yeah, I wanted him and he obviously wanted me.
His skin had a slick sheen of sweat that only highlighted each and every one of his rippling muscles. He turned his hand over, palm up, saying without words that I should take it.
I went down the rows, one after the other until I stood before him. He was so damned big, well over a foot taller than I was, closer to two.
Pheromones must be pumping from him because all I wanted to do was lick his neck and taste his salty skin. Run my palms over his torso and lower to the button on his pants. To grip his cock, stroke it. Rule him.
I wanted to own him. Pet him. Ride him. I wanted him, all of him, just for me. Filling me up. Making me beg. Making me come all over his huge—
His fingers came up, stroked over my cheek and I held my breath. The feel of the gentle caress was unnerving and surprising considering his size.
“Mine,” he said, his voice loud, as if he were telling everyone who could hear that I was off the market. I thought of the crestfallen looks that were probably gracing the faces of the two Prillon warriors behind me and stifled a smile.
For now, for tonight, he was all mine.
So I put my hand in his, ready to spend a wild night with an Atlan—and hopefully, his beast.
2
Warlord Anghar, The Colony
My beast was raging. The Prillon standing across from me in the fighting pit had not chosen a second to fight beside him. Either the poor bastard was an idiot, or this stubborn Prillon hadn’t been in The Colony long enough to choose one.
I would place a wager on the second. I saw the need in his eyes. The need to rage.
To hurt.
He wanted to come at me. To fight. To hold nothing back. I knew that feeling, that desperate, clawing need to punch, kick. Beat.
To hurt. To bleed. To feel something real.
I missed the rush of battle, the elation of victory. When we fought the Hive, we were important to the Coalition. Protecting others. Doing important work.
Now? We mined for the transport system. We counted the days and fought off boredom with every waking breath. Irrelevance. We were nothing now, and that was like swallowing a blade. It hurt, all the way through.
“I’m going to make you bleed, Warlord.” The Prillon was panting, eager to get the fight started. His hands were in fists at his sides, his chest thick and well-muscled. Anger and anticipation simmered.
I welcomed the challenge. The distraction. The only thing I wanted more than to spend a couple hours in this fighting pit was a warm, wet pussy. A mate begging me to fuck her. Taste her. Fill her with my seed. My beast prowled within me at that thought.
But there was no bride for me. Never would be. I’d taken the bride testing more than long ago with no success. I happened to believe the ban on brides for contaminated warriors was a valid one. We were not whole. Never would be. Not that my opinion mattered. Most of the warriors here had submitted to the Interstellar Brides Program testing protocols when Prime Nial lifted the ban for Colony exiles more than a year ago. And we could count the brides that had arrived at Base 3 on one hand.
Just because he’d allowed the contaminated to be matched didn’t mean there was hope for any of us.
Brides were few and far between here. Some said their presence gave the other warriors hope. But I’d always been a realist. There would be no saving me. No soft, beautiful female deserved the monster I carried within. He was too feral. I doubted even the legendary Atlan mating cuffs would affect him, would soothe the animal within.
The Hive had taken too much. Forced me into beast mode and tortured me for days. In the end, they had broken me, and my beast, and I still carried the shame.
I should have made them kill me. And when Seth Mills had the chance, he hadn’t done it either, taking away the quiet of death. And now I lived. And fought. Not for life or death, not against the Hive that still stalked us all, but in a round pit on a desolate world with other fucked-up and exiled warriors. Not to save people, but for a break from the monotony of this new existence.
If I wasn’t such a bastard, I’d end it. But despite all the rambling that went on in my head, I was a survivor. Always had been. Hope or no hope, I’d hold on until the bitter end, until my beast raged and they were
