Mated to the Beast (2 page)

“Not until we are finished. Per protocol,” she added, as if that would make a difference.

She took a seat at the table across from me, the mouse easing into a seat beside her.

“We have some standard questions in order to proceed, Miss Mills.”

I tried not to roll my eyes, but knew the military was a stickler for paperwork and organization. I shouldn’t be surprised that a military organization made up of over two hundred member planets had some hoops I would have to jump through. My induction into the U.S. Army had taken days of paperwork, and that was for a small country, on one small blue planet out of hundreds. Hell, I’d be lucky if the aliens’ coalition process didn’t take two months.

“All right,” I replied, eager to get this done. I had a brother to find and time was wasting. Every second I was stuck here on Earth was another second my crazy, hell-raising brother might do something stupid and get himself killed.

“Your name is Sarah Mills, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You are not married.”

“No.”

“No children?”

Now I did roll my eyes. I wouldn’t volunteer for active duty military service, in outer space, battling the terrifying Hive if I had kids. I was about to sign on the dotted line for a two-year deployment and would never leave children behind. Not even for the promise I’d made my father on his deathbed.

“No. I do not have any children.”

“Very well. You’ve been matched to the planet Atlan.”

I frowned. “That’s nowhere near the front lines.” I
did
know where the fighting was happening because my two brothers, John and Chris, had died out there in space and my youngest brother, Seth, was still fighting.

“That’s correct.” She looked over my shoulder and had a vague stare of someone who was thinking. “If my geography is correct, Atlan is about three lightyears away from the closest active Hive outpost.”

“Then why am I going there?”

It was the warden’s turn to frown, her gaze focused on my face. “Because that is where your matched mate will come from.”

My mouth fell open and I stared at the woman, my eyes so heavy with shock it felt like they were about to pop out of my head. “My
mate
? Why would I want a mate?”

Chapter Two

Sarah

My surprised tone and blatantly shocked expression were clearly new to the woman. She flicked a glance at the mouse, then back at me. “Well, um… because you are here for the Interstellar Bride Program processing and testing. Sometimes a woman takes longer to recover from the testing and can wake… confused. However, no woman has ever forgotten the reason she was here. I find your line of questioning worrisome. Miss Mills, are you feeling all right?” She turned to the mouse. “Call downstairs. I think she might need a repeat on the brain scan.”

“I do not need a scan.” I sat up then and fought the restraints, but I couldn’t move. My struggles had both women sitting up straight in their chairs as I continued. “I’m feeling fine. I think she—” I opened my fist and pointed at the mouse, who was now biting her lip and clenching the edge of the table, “—made a big mistake.”

Warden Egara remained unflappable as her fingers flew over the tablet. A minute passed, then another. She looked up at me. “You are Sarah Mills and you have volunteered to be a bride in the Interstellar Bride Program.”

Laughter bubbled up and escaped. It probably
was
a good thing I was restrained. “No way. I’m the last person who needs to be matched to a man. I grew up with three brothers and an overprotective daddy who were all neck deep in my personal life. They were bossy as hell and scared off any guy who even
thought
about me in any kind of sexual way.” I did figure out how to keep
some
things secret, including men, but what my family didn’t know hadn’t hurt them. “Why on Earth would I need a mate?”

“He wouldn’t be
on
Earth,” the mouse piped up.

Whipping her head around, Warden Egara glared at the mouse and I was quite impressed. Not many civilian women I knew had the whole death stare down. The warden, however, was a pro.

“Then why are you here?” The warden returned her attention to me, her head tilted to the side as if I were a puzzle she was trying to solve.

“I’m now wondering where
here
is, but I volunteered for Earth’s contingent as a coalition fighter.”

“But you’re a woman,” the mouse countered, her eyes wide.

I glanced down my body as I replied. I was strong, not thin. My bones were heavy and I’d spent nearly as many hours in the weight room as most of the guys in my unit. Despite all the hours of training, I was still curvy, with lush hips and full breasts, and could not be mistaken for a man. “Yes, my brothers took great pleasure in pointing that out to me.”

I thought of them, two now gone and one up in space fighting the Hive. I’d hated their pestering at the time, but with John and Chris now dead, I’d give anything—including fighting the Hive myself—to hear Seth tease me again. Seth was still out there, somewhere. And I was going to find him and bring him home. That’s what my dad wanted, what he’d made me promise I’d do before he died.

“But there aren’t any women who’ve volunteered.” The mouse fidgeted, her left knee bouncing up and down like a springboard.

“That’s not true,” the warden replied, her voice crisp and angry. “This is your second day in your role and therefore you are ignorant of many things. There have been Earth women who volunteered to fight the Hive, just not many. Miss Mills, I believe an apology is in order.”

“Thank you.” My shoulders slumped in relief and I felt like I could breathe again. I didn’t want or need a mate. I didn’t want to go to Atlan. I both wanted and needed to go kill the things that had killed my two brothers. My father would roll over in his grave if I walked away from this war and pretended to be a weak, scared female who needed a man to take care of her. That wasn’t how I was raised. My father and brothers made sure I knew how to take care of myself, expected more from me. “When do I leave? I’m ready to go fight the Hive.”

I knew most rational women would have thought I was insane. Who would turn down a perfect match, a mate who would be totally and completely devoted to me for the rest of my life, a strong man who could give me children and a home, for battle and most likely death?

I guess that would be me.

“You have been assigned to Atlan,” she clarified. “The testing has been done. Based on your psychological profile and testing by the matching program, your mate will be selected from available males on the planet Atlan. They do things a bit different there—”

“No. But—” I interrupted, but she wasn’t finished.

She sighed and held up her hand to stall any more argument from me. “You’ll be transported off planet without your consent. I assume I do not have it.”

“No. You do not,” I replied, very clearly. “I don’t need to have an alien man, some…
mate
telling me what to do.”

“You’re going to have a commanding officer, most likely a man, tell you exactly what to do for the next two years,” the mouse countered.

She had a point, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Besides, there was a big difference between a mate who, according to coalition laws, would be legally allowed to boss me around for the rest of my life and a commanding officer who would be out of my life in two years. “I’ll do whatever it takes to find my brother. The
only
brother I have left alive after this fight with the Hive. I made a promise to my father and
nothing
is going to stop me from keeping my word.”

Both women looked at me with wide eyes, probably surprised by my vehemence. I wasn’t fucking around. I wanted to find Seth and I wanted to kill as many Hive as I could for taking away John and Chris. The Hive hadn’t
actually
killed my dad, but the grief of my brothers’ deaths certainly helped finish him off.

“Very well,” the warden replied, swiping her finger over the tablet, which released my restraints. “Since I do not have your consent to be a bride, you are free to go to the Interstellar Battle Battalion’s testing center and begin your processing so they can get you sworn in.”

I spoke as I rubbed my wrists. “So, all of this was a waste? I have to start over, over there?”

She sighed. “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

“As long as we’ve got the whole mate problem straightened out, it’s fine.” I felt better knowing the reason behind the sex dream. For a minute, I’d wondered if I had some repressed, kinky woman I didn’t recognize hiding inside my head. I was relieved to discover that it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t done anything to make that sexual imagery bubble to the surface.

I swiveled in the chair and put my bare feet on the cold floor. My legs were shaking but I refused to think about the reason. Why was having a bossy mate more frightening to me than battling pitiless, inhuman, alien cyborgs?

Well, for starters, if a cyborg pissed me off, I could blow his head off and walk away. But a mate? Well, he’d make me angry and I’d be stuck with him forever, festering like a volcano, never able to blow… And, God knew, I had a temper. It had gotten me into trouble more than once. But it had also saved my life. Seth used to tease me about it, saying I would end up immortal because I was just too stubborn to die.

“I will escort you personally to ensure you are indeed in the right place this time.” The warden spoke to me, but she was looking at the cringing mouse. “And that
all
protocols have been followed to the letter.”

I offered the mouse a small smile. “Don’t be too hard on her,” I replied. “She’s new. And I had an amazing dream.”

Shit, had I ever. If the guy I would have been matched to was anything like the big, aggressive lover in the dream… the thought made my nipples harden.

The warden lifted a brow. “It’s not too late to change your mind, Miss Mills. You should know that was not a dream, it was processing center data experienced by another bride during her claiming ceremony with a male from Atlan.”

“Processing data?”

The warden flushed, her cheeks turning a bright pink as I tried to wrap my mind about what that meant,
exactly.

“Yes. When she is sent off world, a bride is implanted with a Neurostim Unit right here. The same for coalition fighters.” She lifted her finger and tapped the bony protrusion of her skull just above her temple. “It will help you learn and adapt to all the languages in the Interstellar Coalition.”

“I’d be able to talk to anyone?”

“Yes. But that’s not all.” Her eyes darted away, then back to mine. “When a bride is claimed by her mate, the sensory data, what she sees, hears, and… feels,” the warden cleared her throat, “is recorded and used to mentally stimulate and process future brides to determine their suitability for that planet’s men and customs.”

Holy shit. “So, it wasn’t a dream. I was reliving someone else’s
memory
? That really happened?”

The warden smiled. “Oh, yes. Exactly as you experienced it.”

“To another woman?”

“Yes.”

Wow. I had no idea what to do with that knowledge. Did that mean that all men from Atlan were as dominant as the one in the dream? He’d spoken of a fever, a rage that only I—the woman in the dream—could tame. Did he mean he was hot for her? If that was what a dream felt like, I could only imagine how amazing it would have been if it had been real. God, that man, he was unlike any guy I’d ever met on Earth. That dream had been hotter than any experience I’d had actually taking a man to bed.

But it
was
a dream, at least for me. I shouldn’t linger on it. It was a mistake. I was going to fight for the coalition. I was going to find Seth. I didn’t have time to be distracted by lust. It was pure, mindless lust. I was thinking about killing cyborgs, and yet my nipples were still hard. Totally unacceptable. Duty first. My bottled-up libido would have to wait until after my brother was home safe. I had to find him, fight with him, and finish up our terms of service.
Then
we could go home.

I looked up to find the warden watching me closely. “You can still change your mind, Miss Mills. You will be matched to a warrior from Atlan. He’ll be yours completely, your psychological profiles and preferences aligned. He will be totally devoted, loyal, and perfect for you in every way.”

I remembered the hard thrust of the man’s cock, the way I’d moaned and squirmed against the wall as he took me. The powerful lure of being wanted, desired to a point of mindless fucking flooded me with longing. I could have that. I could have one of those big, rough lovers all to myself—

No. No way. I wouldn’t let my hormones turn me into an idiot. I had a plan, a purpose. I needed to find Seth. I did not
need
a hot man with a huge cock that could make me come just from taking me hard and deep. I sighed. Need? No. But
want
…

Damn. Focus!
Duty first.
I would not be weak
.
I had one brother left. One.

“I don’t want a mate, warden. I simply need to get to the front lines and fight beside my brother. I promised my father I’d watch over him and make sure he comes home.”

She sighed, clearly disappointed. “Very well.”

* * *

Dax, Battleship Brekk, Sector 592, The Front

“Get this soldier matched and mated,” my commanding officer bellowed, shoving me into the medical station onboard the Battleship Brekk the moment the doors to the room slid open.

All workers spun around as the booming order echoed off the hard, sterile surfaces of medical exam tables and smooth, glass screens that covered nearly every square inch of the walls. Across their glossy surfaces flowed an unending stream of medical data, bioscans, and testing results of the patients on display.

A man in the gray uniform worn by the medical support staff dashed forward. “We will need you to schedule an appointment—”