The switch in thinking was extreme, and hard to accept. A mate. Could it be true?
“Get your ass down here, Doc. We received word of your match and your mate’s imminent arrival. Trax looks like he’s about to lose his shit.”
Those blunt, crass words could only have come from Kristin—mated to Tyran and Hunt—who had been a law enforcement officer on Earth and still worked with the scouting teams here on the planet. How those two males allowed their mate to place her life in danger on a daily basis, I could neither understand nor condone, but she was not my female to protect. Not my problem, at least until she got herself hurt.
If my female spoke to me in such a tone, I would turn her ass red right before I filled her with my cock.
“Doc? You there?” Kristin asked.
“Yes.”
“Your mate. Did you hear those two words come out of my mouth?”
“Yes.” I had, but I still didn’t believe them. I didn’t dare. The only thing that had kept me sane all these years on this wasteland of a planet was resignation. I would serve my purpose and die on this rock. That was my fate.
A mate meant hope. And hope would fucking kill me.
I stood, but my feet remained frozen in place as an explosion of noise, of voices and excited females became a jumble of sound through the comm.
“Dr. Surnen, this is Maxim.”
My entire body flooded with relief at the deep, authoritative voice. Finally, an end to this madness. “Yes, Governor.”
“This is not a joke,” he snapped. “Your mate, Umiki Tanaka from Earth, is listed as being the next inbound transport. Trax is standing here with a blue blanket awaiting her arrival.”
Fuck.
Blue was Trax’s family color, not mine. Not fucking mine. He’d been serious.
“I received notification, Doctor, that Trax sent a request to Prillon Prime to be assigned Primary Male. Do you wish me to support his claim?”
Fuck that.
“He is my chosen second, and she’s mine,” I said, walking toward the door… and closer to my mate.
His chuckle would have made me furious if I hadn’t been such a stupid ass for the last few minutes. “I thought you might say that.”
Mikki, Interstellar Brides Processing Center, Earth
The corner of Warden Bisset’s mouth tipped up at my question. “All it means, Ms. Tanaka, is that the testing took twice as long as usual. I had to initiate a second simulation, one you would accept, but the data was finally gathered. You have been successfully matched.”
I frowned. “I have?” I tried to raise my hand to scratch my head, but I was restrained. “Can you open these up?”
“No. Per protocol, all felons are to remain confined for the duration of the testing and transport. I’m sorry, Ms. Tanaka.”
“Call me Mikki. And I’m not going to hurt you.” I tipped my chin up. “I’m an environmental biologist. I’m sure that tablet has all my information in it.” Sighing, I went on. “Fine, I was sent to prison, but for destruction of property, not murder.”
I’d blown huge holes in a couple of boats. Empty boats. Commercial whaling ships that were breaking the international ban. Scientific research, my ass. They gave real scientists like me a bad name. Yet that was the excuse they’d used. So what? It was okay for them to go out and kill whales, but putting a hole in the side of an empty boat was worse?
I’d do it again. That was why my parents had let me rot in jail and forced me to make do with a public defender when they had more than enough money to hire an attorney who could have gotten me out on probation.
My parents were big on the law. On rules. Protocol. Duty and family honor. I’d had that lecture so many times I could recite every word both parents would say before they even opened their mouths. They’d been immigrants, afraid to do anything that might rock the boat until they became full citizens. Even after that, the culture they’d grown up in did not approve of rebellious behavior. Family. Honor. Duty. That was everything to them.
I’d refused to back down. In that one way I was very much my father’s daughter. What the whaling ships were doing was wrong. The animals they were harming, defenseless. The ocean needed to remain in balance. Even before I got my degree, I’d fought the water itself in surfing competitions, the waves my ultimate competitor. I respected the ocean and everything living in it. Others didn’t. Others were destroying our planet, and I was the one in jail for crimes against humanity? What a joke.
Yes, I’d been called every name in the book from tree hugger to hippie to freak. I wasn’t any of those things. The corporations dumping chemicals and trash into the ocean, the illegal fishing and whaling operations had done their best to turn my love of the ocean and everything in it into something shameful.
“Regardless of the crime, she must follow protocol, Umiko. My apologies.” Warden Egara interjected on the other warden’s behalf, as if apologizing was going to make this all right somehow. Again, why was she using my proper name? I wasn’t sure if she was purposely being obtuse or just so uptight she didn’t know how to talk to people. Judging by the tight bun on her head and the severe expression, I was betting on the latter.
Umiko. Child of the sea.
I sighed. “Mikki.”
“All right, Ms. Tanaka,” Warden Egara agreed but still didn’t use my nickname. Cue the eye roll. This woman needed to get a mate of her own and have some hot, freaky, sweaty sex. Speaking of…
“You said I’ve been matched?” I asked.
Warden Bisset nodded with enthusiasm. “You’ve been matched to a warrior on The Colony. A male from Prillon Prime. It explains your dream and your sexual preference for two males.”
My mouth fell open, and I could feel my cheeks heat. I assumed they knew about the test since she’d been observing, but I thought maybe they were just staring at me lying in the chair. They’d seen me having an orgasm at the end, but having her say it aloud only proved everything I’d done in the dream, everything I thought I’d hate, had been witnessed. “How do you know there were two of them? Could you see the dream?” Because that felt like a massive invasion of privacy.
“No. Of course not.” Was the lovely Miss Yvonne embarrassed now? Good. “It’s simply that to be matched to a warrior from Prillon Prime, you would need to show a desire and a psychological preference for having two mates to protect and care for you.”
Okay. This was hard enough. “So, Prillon Prime? That’s where I’m going?”
“Brides are matched to a planet first. Then to a specific male. Yours is on The Colony.”
“I thought you said two.”
She folded her hands in front of her on the table. “You are matched to one, but the Prillon
