Mated to the Warriors (10 page)

I imagined a scene from my favorite movie in which the small ships zipped around each other in space firing lasers and blowing each other to smithereens at lightning speed. My heart, which had barely recovered from our sexual play, began to thunder in my chest as I imagined Dare in one of those ships, being chased. Fired at. Blown up.

God, what had I done? What was I supposed to do here on this battleship? Accept these two warriors, wait a few weeks or months for one of them to die, and just get a new mate every time? I knew myself too well for that. My heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

It wasn’t just this fear of their deaths that worried me. That was more than enough, but I sensed something through the collar. There was no explanation for it, but I knew I was attuned to these men in ways I never imagined. There was this feeling, this nudging concern that Zane knew more than he was saying, as if he were keeping a secret, hiding something from me.

Did he know something about their imminent deaths he wasn’t telling me? As commander of the ship, of a fleet of ships, surely he would know the status of this war I’d transported into. What wasn’t he telling me and why did I feel that without this secret, I could never accept his claim?

Was this why he held back during our sexual play? Was this secret the darkness I felt in him? Had he brought me halfway across the universe knowing he was going to die? Or was he concealing something else? Another lover? A woman he wanted more than me? A past he feared I couldn’t accept? Did he find me lacking in some fundamental way?

I shoved at Zane’s arms, feeling like I’d just given my body to a complete stranger. I had given these men my body, gave over,
submitted
to them both. I let them shove a plug up my ass and their cocks in my pussy and mouth. I’d given in to the pleasure they knew how to wring from my body. Yet they wouldn’t give everything in return. Zane was holding back and surely Dare knew, surely he could feel it, too.

Zane let me go and I stood on shaky legs, feeling like a newborn kitten. I couldn’t live like this. Not forever. The matching program must have made a mistake. I couldn’t trust Zane with my heart if he was keeping secrets. “I think—I need to go home now.”

Chapter Seven

Hannah

Both warriors jumped to their feet at my words.

“No,” Zane barked at me.

“Why, Hannah? What have we done to upset you?”

I shook my head and wandered the edges of the room, looking for anything I could wear. The sheet that I’d dropped to the floor wouldn’t do for interplanetary travel. I needed to find one of those transporter things and tell them to send me home. I couldn’t deal with their way of life, their secrets. Bad enough that I was expected to fall in love with a warrior who could die at any moment. Zane, my match, was so sure of his impending death, in fact, he chose a second man to take care of me when it inevitably happened? And in the meantime, he kept things from me? My match. I was supposed to give him everything. Surrender myself, body and soul. Yet he was allowed to remain a mystery, to hide the deepest part of himself? What if I accepted his claim, tied myself to him for life, and then found out he was actually freaking crazy? Or insanely jealous? Or abusive.

No. I couldn’t accept Zane with his true self in shadows. I’d made that mistake before, on Earth, and knew it to be insanity. I’d just have to survive long enough to get out of this mess without falling in love with either one of them. “This is a mistake. I’m sorry. I just—I can’t do this. I have to go home.”

Dare looked at Zane, clearly at a loss, and shrugged. Zane tucked his cock back into his pants and frowned. “Hannah, you
are
home.”

“No.” I glanced around at the strangely colored brownish walls, the window where, even now, stars and galaxies raced by in a never-ending stream of what looked like shooting stars. The furniture was bolted to the floors and the art on the walls depicted landscapes that felt all wrong, with skies that weren’t blue, and two or three moons hanging above the landscape. I wanted a blue sky, and trees, and soft green grass under my bare feet. I wanted chocolate and coffee and a man to love who wasn’t going to go off and do his best to get himself killed tomorrow or the next day, or next week. “I have to go home, back to Earth.”

Zane looked over his shoulder at Dare. “Go prepare a bath for our mate.”

Dare nodded and left me alone with my matched mate, the one perfect man for me in all the universe. The warrior I was destined to lose.

I turned on my heel and picked up the sheet, but before I could put it around my body, Zane’s arms wrapped around me from behind and I was suddenly held with my back to his chest. His muscular arms surrounded me, one at my waist and one at my shoulders. I couldn’t move, and for some bizarre reason I couldn’t explain, even to myself, that calmed me enough to think. Being confined and held securely soothed me.

“Hannah, tell me what’s bothering you. Were we too rough with you? Did we take you too hard?”

I could feel the heat rushing to my face at his question. The answer was no. Not too hard. Not too fast. I’d loved it. It hadn’t been as aggressive as the processing dream, the recorded claiming I’d witnessed, but it had been… amazing.

“No, Zane. You didn’t hurt me.” In fact, I wanted more. I wanted my warriors to dominate my body and make me come over and over. I wanted to give them everything—but I was afraid. That annoying weakness I had for dominant, alpha males was rearing its ugly head. And Zane was truly my match. I could feel the connection between us—and Dare as well—as easily as I could feel his touch on my skin. It was real and solid and so strong already that it felt like a tangible thing between us. I wanted to know everything about my men. I wanted to truly belong to them. I wanted to claim them as mine forever and trust in the matching program, or God, or whatever bizarre twist of fate had brought me to this place, to this warrior. I wanted to fall head over heels in love with both of them and hold nothing back. Nothing. And
that
was the problem. I would give them everything, heart, mind and soul, and it wasn’t going to be enough. Zane’s darkness spread, his discontent coming through my collar as clearly as a bell ringing inside my head. I wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t enough, and he just couldn’t bring himself to tell me.

“Hannah, talk to me, or I will have you over my knee.”

I squirmed at his threat, my bottom still sore from its earlier spanking and the plug still filling me. I knew he wasn’t making idle threats. I sighed, and decided I might as well tell him the truth, or at least as much of it as I could. His darkness and the hurt it caused me? I had some pride. That I would keep to myself. “I can’t be your mate, Zane. I’m sorry. I know the computer or whatever matched us, but I can’t do this.”

“You fear our deaths. I can sense your sadness, Hannah, your fear. We’re all going to die, Hannah. Death is part of life. Is it our death you fear, or is it me? Do you wish to test another? Are you invoking your right to claim a new mate?” His voice was soft, deathly quiet, and I heard Dare’s quiet footsteps as he approached from behind, listening to our conversation.

“No. I don’t want another warrior.” His grip loosened slightly and I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be a bride. I want to go home.” I spoke from the heart, and I knew he’d hear the sincerity of my words. I couldn’t allow myself to fall in love with him. It would be a complete disaster. The idea of a perfect love, of an intense, all-consuming love, was exciting and fun and something every woman on Earth dreamed about. The reality of knowing I’d lose one of them, or both, was too intense, too much for me, especially when I knew Zane was hiding from me, that he wasn’t going to love me in return. I was scared. A chicken. I admitted it, didn’t try to deny it.

The silence grew heavy and thick in the air as I waited for his response. If I gave them everything, and one of them died, I wouldn’t survive it. I’d crumble into a million tiny pieces of dust and drift away on the wind. Faced with the very real possibility of having the kind of man I’d always wanted, the kind I could completely lose myself in, I was terrified. They would own me. Body and soul. I would belong to them, but Zane? I could sense the shadow in him, and it was growing stronger. He would hide forever. I could feel his determination through our link. And he was the commander, the most disciplined warrior in the entire interstellar fleet. If he decided to hold himself apart, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. He would never truly belong to me. I couldn’t live with that.

Two beeps filled the air. “Commander.”

Zane stiffened behind me. “Yes,” he said to the room at large.

“You are needed on the command deck.” The room had some kind of ship-wide communication system.

“On my way. Deston out.”

Dare cleared his throat. “Her bath is ready.”

Zane sighed. “We’ll discuss this later, Hannah.” His arms tightened for a brief moment before he turned with me in his arms and handed me off to Dare.

Dare nodded and Zane left the room without another word. I knew I’d hurt him somehow, wounded the most formidable commander in the Prillon fleet. But he’d asked for the truth. The truth that I was petrified to be permanently tied to him and then have him die on me, or live, but never be mine. Either possibility brought me nothing but heartbreak.

“Come, Hannah. There is nowhere for you to go. Let’s set your fears aside for now. Let me help you in the bath.” Dare held out his hand and I took it, allowing him to lead me through the small door I’d glimpsed off to the side of the main room. He was right. Where was I to go? I had no clothes, no way to get home. I could tell Dare was trying to soothe me; I was overwhelmed. The conversation wasn’t over. My concerns hadn’t been resolved, but I would wait. A bath did sound good. I was sticky and sore.

It was odd to walk with the plug deep inside me. “Dare,” I said, looking anywhere but at him. “What about… um, well…”

Perhaps he had an idea as to my problem or perhaps he could sense it through the collars.

“The plug stays in. It is a training plug, not a pleasure plug.”

I frowned, for I didn’t know the difference between the two, but I could tell by the look on his face that he would not be swayed. I sighed and took in the bathroom. It wasn’t huge, but it was luxurious, with glowing white fixtures that looked like they were made of fire opals lit from within. A full tub of water awaited me. The bath was huge, large enough to easily fit two, if not all three of us. Dare tugged the sheet from my body and stripped off his uniform to reveal a chest lined with muscles, a broad strong back that tapered to thin hips and powerful legs. His cock hung, still semi-hard between his legs, the sight reminding me of his taste, of the flavor of his cum as it spilled down my throat.

“Stop looking at me like that, Hannah, or I’ll fuck that sweet mouth again.” In one fast motion, he lifted me off my feet and stepped into the warm water, immersing us both up to our shoulders in the scented bath.

Pressed to his naked chest, I could smell him, his scent rising from his skin to soothe me. I’d known him such a short time, but already my body recognized his. I knew the taste of his cock and the scent of his flesh. I craved the taste of his cum, like a drug addict on Earth and the next fix. I was losing it. That was the only explanation.

Dare settled me in front of him in the bath and bathed my entire body with a strange soap that smelled like some exotic fruit as soon as it made contact with my skin. On his hand, it smelled like him, a dark, musky fragrance that made me want to press my face to his chest and just breathe him in and out of my body.

“Lean back, Hannah. I want to wash your hair.” His voice seemed to invade my senses and give me a sense of comfort and safety.

I felt like a child in the swimming pool as he pulled my head back with his hands and pushed my bottom away from him so that I floated on my back in the water. He held me gently as he soaked my hair, then sat me up to massage my scalp. It felt so good I let myself go limp in his arms. I was tired and overwhelmed, and his gentle touch soothed something inside me that I hadn’t realized needing soothing.

I was still trying to wrestle with the idea of two mates, but the idea was not as out of bounds as I’d once thought. Not if my mates were Zane and Dare. However, it wasn’t loving them that scared the hell out of me. No, I was afraid of losing them. But even if I could force myself to face that fear, I had another fear, a darker, much more frightening one—not being loved back, not being enough for my matched mate. It wouldn’t be the first time a man found me lacking.

Dare finished with me and lifted me from the tub to wrap me in a plush gray towel. He dried himself, then tended to my hair with another, squeezing the wet ends until I stopped dripping on the floor.

“Come, Hannah.” He looked like a sexual god with his towel hung low over his waist and I couldn’t stop staring as I placed my small hand in his much larger one. “Are you hungry? We’ll get dressed and I’ll take you to the dining hall.”

“I don’t have any clothes.” I’d worn nothing but a sheet since my arrival. How was I supposed to go out in public like this?

“Trust me.”

I followed him back into the main living quarters and he led me to a small black platform in the far corner. The base was covered with a grid made of green lines. Dare walked to me and leaned down to give me a soft, sweet kiss.

“Take off the towel and stand in the center. The ship will measure you and create whatever you need.”

His soft voice and gentle kiss settled me and I felt like a contented kitten as I allowed him to remove my towel. I stepped naked onto the platform and held still as an array of soft green lights scanned every inch of my body. My collar tingled and buzzed and I froze at the strange sensation. When the lights disappeared, Dare held out his hand and I stepped down with my fingers on my collar. “What was that? It buzzed.”

“That was the collar communicating directly with the ship’s systems. Your identification and measurements have been updated in the ship’s S-Gen.”