chuckled then. “Not so fast. First we have to go through some standard protocols. For the record, please state your name.”
“Tiffani Wilson.”
She nodded. “Are you currently, or have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“Have you produced any biological offspring?”
“No.”
Her fingers moved swiftly as she continued, her voice monotone and robotic, as if she’d recited the exact same words hundreds of times. “As a bride, you will never return to Earth as you’ve been matched to Atlan, as all travel will be determined and controlled by your new planet’s laws and customs. You will surrender your citizenship of Earth and become an official citizen of your new world.”
Holy crap. Her words hit me like a blast of cold air, and the enormity of my decision struck home. No longer a citizen of Earth? How was that even possible?
I felt cold, hard panic creep up my spine with icy fingers as the wall to my left shifted, opening to reveal a small enclosure lit with bright blue light.
“Um…”
“Your bride fee will be donated to the Wisconsin Humane Society Milwaukee, is that correct?” she asked, as if she could not sense my growing concern. No longer a citizen of Earth? I wanted a mate, but maybe I’d gone too far.
“Miss Wilson?”
“Yes, donate the fee.” I didn’t need the money since I would no longer be a citizen of Earth, and I had no one I cared about to give it to. I lost my fifteen-year-old calico, Sofie, last year to leukemia. My parents were both dead, my cousins lived across the country in California and we were far from close. I was alone in the world with nothing to lose.
My chair slid sideways and a large, metallic arm came toward me from where it was anchored in the wall with what looked like a giant needle on its end. I leaned sideways, trying to avoid it.
“Don’t worry, Tiffani. That’s just going to install your NPU.”
“What the hell is that?” I eyed the needle with a very large sense of trepidation.
“Neural Processing Unit. It will help you learn and understand the Atlan language.”
Okay. I held still and clenched my hands so tightly my knuckles turned white. So, a Star Trek-style universal translator thing? Whatever.
The needle punctured my skin, just behind my temple and I bit down, trying to ignore the pain as the device swiftly withdrew, rotated to my left, and repeated the process on the other side.
When it moved back to its place, nestled in the wall, my chair lurched and I began to sink into a warm pool of clear, blue water.
“’Your processing will begin in three, two…”
I closed my eyes. Adrenaline made my heart pound as I waited for her to say, “one.” Waited, and waited.
She sighed. “Not again.”
My chair stopped moving and I opened my eyes to see her frowning. She hurried to a panel on the wall in the exam room as I watched.
My eyes widened in fear and confusion. “What’s wrong?”
She glanced at me quickly, then away, not making eye contact. “There’s a problem at the Atlan transport center. I’m sorry. This has only happened once before.”
Great. They didn’t want me. I knew it, could feel it deep down. My heart imploded in my chest, all the hope I’d just given free rein, hope that I’d finally find a man who actually wanted me, who thought me beautiful and sexy and desirable? Gone, and the remnants were sharp blades in my gut, made worse because I’d dared to hope for something different. “Fine. Get me out of this chair so I can go home.”
She shook her head, ignoring me as she spoke to someone on the screen, someone I couldn’t see. I could hear the voice coming through. It was a woman’s voice, but I couldn’t make out her words, only the warden’s.
“What’s going on, Sarah?” She paused, listened. “What? But that’s impossible.” Another pause. “I see. So, what does Warlord Dax want me to do about it?” I heard the growing agitation in her voice. “No, he has a mate, and she’s human. She’s strapped to the chair right now, ready for processing.” A long delay. “I can’t. The transport permissions have been automatically deactivated by the system. I’ll need new ones.” She sighed. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”
The warden said goodbye and walked toward me with her brows drawn together, her lips in a thin line. Her shoulders were tight and her steps were short and clipped, as if her muscles were so tense she could barely move.
“What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.” I strained against the cuffs as the warden raised her hand in a motion meant to pacify me.
“Your mate, Commander Deek, has been lost to mating fever.”
That was not what I’d expected. I assumed she’d say that my mate had changed his mind. But mating fever? “What does that mean?”
She sighed and dropped her hand to her side. “Atlan warriors are very big; they’re the largest, strongest warriors in the entire Coalition Fleet.”
My pussy clenched at her words. Oh, hell yeah, I knew exactly how big they were. “So?”
“So, as I explained, they also possess the ability to go into what they refer to as beast mode, becoming larger and stronger in the heat of battle, or when they are…”
“Fucking?” The deep rumbling growl in my ear from the processing dream, the monosyllabic conversation, made more and more sense now. Beast mode. Damn, that was hot. “So? They’re like the Hulk when he’s angry. Got it. You already told me that. What’s the problem?”
“If they wait too long to claim a mate, they lose control of their beast side. They transform and can’t restrain themselves. They’ve been known to kill their own friends and allies, men they’ve fought beside for years. At that point no one else can save them. They only recognize and respond to one person in the entire universe.”
I waited, barely able to breathe as she finished.
“Their mate.”
I relaxed, the tension draining from my shoulders. “Okay. Great. Send me to him now. That’s what the protocol says, right? If he only recognizes his mate, he’ll know me and get his beast under control.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Atlans are linked to their mates through special binding cuffs.”
I remembered the beautiful golden cuffs around my wrists, the strange designs. “So, I need a pair of cuffs in order to help him?”
“You have to already be bonded to him, to already be his mate, in order to control his beast. I’m afraid he’s lost.”
“Lost? They can’t find him?”
“No,
