Bad Boy Beast: Interstellar BridesĀ® Program: The Beasts - 8, page 11
More mumbling.
“I don’t care what they’re doing. No, I’m not going to be polite.” Knock. Knock. Knock. “Damn it, Lark! Put some clothes on and open this door before I kick it down.”
Low chuckling laughter from her mate.
“I can, too.”
Behind me, Kai’s chuckling joined that of the other warrior. “It would seem your sister is a handful.”
“That’s an understatement.” I snorted as I climbed off Kai’s lap and pulled the blanket off the floor. I wrapped it around myself and walked toward the door. I paused, giving Kai a chance to move into the privacy of our bedroom.
“Tell your sister we will meet them in the dining hall, mate. You said you were hungry.”
“Okay.” I opened the door, peeked at Lavender and her very big, very handsome warlord, and tugged the blanket a bit tighter around my breasts. “Kai says we’ll meet you in the dining hall in ten minutes. Okay?”
Lavender looked me over, head to toe. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You?” I inspected her as well, from the soft brown boots on her feet to the flowing, ankle length, burgundy gown. The material looked heavy and warm and the sleeves ended just below the elbow, the perfect length to make sure her mating cuffs were clearly on display.
She grabbed me in a tight hug. “I’m good. Your guy, Kai, saved me. They were in our apartment.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I pulled back, Kai’s seed running down my leg under the blanket was a bit of a distraction. I needed a quick shower and some clothes. I glanced at her new mate. “Warlord Tazo, I presume?”
“Yes, my lady. It is an honor to meet you.” He bowed slightly at the waist like I was a princess or something.
I waited for him to stand up and noticed the possessive hand he placed on the small of my baby sister’s back. Her skin was luminous, her eyes sparkled. She was glowing. Happy. Thank god. Neither one of us was going back to Earth anytime soon. What a relief. I didn’t want to be here if that meant I had to leave her to fend for herself, risk another hive attack back home. No way. Wouldn’t do it. But now she had Tazo and could live on The Colony with me. “Thank you for taking care of my little sister.”
“Caring for my mate is an honor and privilege.”
Lavender and I looked at each other. Our gazes locked. We both burst into giggles.
“Aren’t they freaking amazing?” Lavender asked.
“Yeah. They are. See you in a few. I need—”
“To stop having hot sex and put some clothes on?”
“Yeah. That.” I closed the door on my sister’s laughter.
12
Larkspur
* * *
The dining hall was not what I expected. Although, really, what was an alien cafeteria supposed to look like? The room was large and filled with tables of various sizes. The smallest round tables were surrounded by six chairs. The largest, a series of long, rectangular tables, looked like they could seat up to twenty.
Every table was full.
I came to a full stop, Kai’s presence behind me in the entrance an oddly familiar comfort. “It is lunchtime or something?” I fidgeted with the hem of the navy tunic I wore over a pair of warm, stretchy, black pants and black boots. I knew Lavender was in a dress, but I wanted to be comfortable and wearing dresses always made me feel exposed somehow, like the wind could blow me away.
“No. It is not.” Warlord of little words. Oh well, he looked fabulous in his usual armor. Although I wasn’t sure why he was wearing it, as was every other male in the room. Did they expect an attack or something? Or did they wear their military garb out of habit? There was so much I didn’t understand about my new mate.
“Then why is it so busy?” Children ran around as well, ranging in age from infants to a young man who looked like he might be ten years old. There were far more kids than I expected to see. And their mothers. I wasn’t sure how many women were in the room. Perhaps ten or twelve? I’d have to count later. They were all human, all smiling and staring at me in the doorway like I was shiny and new.
“This is a small base, mate. Everyone is curious to meet you.”
No pressure. “What about you?”
“I live here. They all know me already.”
Right. This was his planet, his people. I took a step inside and my sister ran to me. Now that we were clothed, functional, and safe, we grabbed one another and burst into tears. We clung. My relief at seeing her safe and happy, at the fact that I could keep Kai and not leave her behind on Earth? Huge. Knee buckling, tear streaked face, out of control emotions level huge.
Intense silence surrounded us as if everyone was in shock. Then… cheers. Clapping. Whistles.
How embarrassing, but in a good way. I pulled back and wiped the wetness off my cheeks. “God, Lav. Can you believe this shit?”
“No.” She wiped her own tears away, her smile bright and happy. “You have to tell me everything.”
I glanced at Warlord Tazo, who stood slightly behind her looking unsure of what to do in the face of two emotional, sobbing females. “You, too. How did you end up with Tazo? How did you get here in the first place? You said the Hive were at our apartment?”
“Yes.” Lavender hooked her arm with mine and led me to a table where four seats had been left open for us and our mates. A lovely woman named Rachel, who introduced herself as the Governor’s mate, asked me what I wanted to eat and brought back a steaming plate of chicken tacos with spicy, chipotle salsa. Heaven.
Kai took a bite and reappeared a few minutes later with an even larger plate as Lavender told me everything that happened to her when the Hive showed up at the apartment, when Kai broke in, when the last one put a gun to her head and she thought she was going to die.
Tazo grumbled unhappily at that part of the story and I noticed my sister reached out and placed her hand over his knee to calm him. Adorable. The mating cuffs she wore were beautiful as well, but the design was definitely different. I would have to ask Kai about that later.
I burst out laughing when I heard about Tazo busting into the medical clinic—where Lavender had, apparently, been trying for several hours to convince them to let her come back to Earth for me while Kai was healing in something called a ReGen pod.
When she went back over how upset Kai was when he learned the truth—that his mate was still on Earth unprotected—it was my turn to touch Kai when his beast rumbled to the surface. And yes… adorable. Although, if I stopped to really think about how powerful these Atlan warlords truly were, it was frightening. All that power, all that strength now completely focused on their mates? Wonderful and terrifying at the same time.
When we were all caught up, Lavender looked at me. “What the hell is in those pictures, Lark?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” The unfamiliar voice caused both of us to turn our heads.
“Commander Helion.” Kai stood up and offered him a warrior’s greeting, but I was half convinced the move was more to place himself between me and the big Prillon, than to be polite.
“Warlord. Now that you and your mate are settled, I’d like to speak to Larkspur in ops. I have some questions about the night you captured those images.”
“Okay.” I gave my sister a quick hug and promised we’d talk more later. Helion was already walking out the door. Kai and I followed.
Kai
* * *
I escorted my mate to the operations center for Base 3 and stopped in my tracks once Commander Helion cleared the entry. I don’t know what I expected. Not this. Every monitor in the room was covered in images of the night we’d almost lost Warlord Maxus. I knew Larkspur had been hiding in a hollowed out, crumbling section of the parking garage’s ceiling, but I didn’t realize exactly how clear her view had been.
I was there that night. The chaos on the ground as we battled the Hive Soldiers sent to retrieve Maxus—and the Nexus unit’s mind control attack that nearly killed him—appeared somewhat tame and organized when observed through my mate’s camera lens. I had no idea how many images filled the screens, but there wasn’t a bare space.
Too many. Dangerous.
My beast didn’t like the situation either. It’s fine. They’re friends. They aren’t going to attack our mate.
Me protect. Scare them.
No. I fought off a burst of laughter. So unlike me, but I was hardly myself since meeting the female who meant everything. Thank the gods. I’d been a miserable fucking wretch, and so had my beast. They’re warriors. They won’t be afraid of you.
Yes. They will. The beast showed me exactly what he wanted to do, transform, smash some stuff. Roar.
You’ll scare our mate.
She loves us. Not afraid.
Did she? Love us? Love me? I did not know and I refused to dwell on the question. Even if she didn’t love us yet, we had time. Shut up and don’t cause any problems.
The beast grumbled but retreated. He would remain watchful, as would I. Helion had a mate now, that was true. However, he’d been an unpredictable ass for so long, I didn’t trust him in general. I sure as fuck didn’t trust him with my female.
“Come in.” A Prillon I did not know waved Larkspur in his direction.
She looked over her shoulder at me—a fact which made my beast preen—and waited until I took her hand to approach the massive male.
“Greetings, my lady. I am Thomar Arcas. This is Sebastion Arcas, my cousin.” The two Prillons stood shoulder to shoulder, both obviously integrated by the Hive. I knew the Arcas name. They were as close to royalty as Prillon Prime got, descended from one of the original ruling families.
“Thank you for coming. I’d like you to meet my mate, Willow. She is also from Earth.” Commander Helion held out his hand and a small human female with golden hair rose from a chair and walked toward my mate.
“Hi. I’m Willow. I’m from Las Vegas.” She held out her hand and Larkspur took it in her own and squeezed in the human way of greeting.
“Larkspur. Miami.”
“Yes. It’s lovely to meet you.” Willow released my mate and moved in front of Commander Helion, who wrapped his arms around her as if she needed comfort. She seemed perfectly fine until she resumed speaking. “I was a Hive prisoner for a long time. Thomar, Varin and a few others rescued me and some other women from a Hive lab where a handful of Integration units and Nexus 5 were working on an experimental breeding program.”
Larkspur gasped and lifted a hand to cover her mouth, clearly distressed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. It was horrible, but it’s over. I’m free now and I have my mates.”
Sebastion Arcas moved to claim the hand Willow held out to him and I got my first look at what was rumored to be Prillon Prime’s newest, powerful, political trio. Both Arcas males now served on Prime Nial’s war council and Helion, as always, was neck deep in everything. Willow, bolstered by her mates, continued. “I’m glad you and your sister escaped.”
Larkspur shuddered. “So am I.” The distress in her tone made me regret that the Hive who’d threatened her were already dead. I wanted to kill them again. As a point of fact, I didn’t like this situation. They upset my mate for no apparent reason.
“Why is my mate here? The Hive nearly killed her. You have her images. Have you not found what you were looking for?” I spoke to Commander Helion. He was clearly in charge, despite the fact that Governor Maxim, Ryston and their mate, Rachel, sat quietly along the far wall observing the chaos that had descended upon their home base.
“Not exactly.” In addition to Commander Helion, Sebastion Arcas and their mate, Willow, Thomar Arcas had also brought his second, Varin, and their mate Danika, who sat next to Rachel, who must have left the dining hall while we were eating. The two women had their heads close and spoke quietly to one another. Two royals from Prillon Prime, the former head of the Coalition Fleet’s Intelligence Core, two fragile females and Varin, an integrated Prillon warrior who looked like he could handle himself in a fight.
“This is a lot of resources and people from Prillon Prime just to analyze a few images from Earth.”
Commander Helion cleared his throat. “Yes, we have the images. However, we cannot find anything that explains why the Hive repeatedly tried to capture you, Larkspur. Did they say anything to you? Did they demand to see the images? Ask for copies?”
“No. But they did ask my sister if she was the one who took the pictures, when they were in our apartment.”
“Oh, god. On Earth? They broke into your apartment?” Willow’s already fair skin paled further.
“Don’t worry, Willow. Kai took care of it.” The pride in Larkspur’s tone made me straighten my spine. Yes, I fucking took care of them.
I killed. Fuckers. Fucking Hive. Kill more…
There are no Hive here. Be calm. You took care of our female and her sister. You did well.
My beast settled once more as our mate sighed. “What can I do to help?” Larkspur kept hold of my hand as she did a slow spin, inspecting the images lining the walls.
“Do you have any idea what the Hive were looking for?” Helion asked. “Did you see anything unusual that night? Notice anything when you looked at the images prior to now? There are thousands of images stored on your data device. We have looked at them all, had our systems analyze every image and found nothing. We have no idea why the Hive are interested in you or your photographs.”
Larkspur released my hand and walked toward a set of images to her left. “I only sent out half a dozen images. It has to be something on one of those. No one ever saw the rest of the pictures from that night.”
“Sent them out?” Willow asked.
“Yeah. I have a set of buyers who are usually interested in my work. I sent the images from that night to the people I normally sell my pictures to. I assume that’s how the Hive found them. Although, that seems crazy. I sent low resolution images over email, and they were cropped. How did they find a handful of emails in all the junk email and digital mess on our internet?” She walked toward an image and stared at it. “There should be a folder on the flash drive called Fight Club with the date.”
Willow walked over to a control panel and displayed the folder in question on the screen in front of Larkspur.
“Yes. That’s it. Open it.”
A list of files with long, scrambled names appeared.
“Open the large files and leave the others. There should be six large files.”
As I watched, the screens flashed, old images replaced by six clear scenes from that night at the fight club. Judging by the positions of everyone, the images were all taken within a couple minutes of each other.
We all waited in silence as Larkspur walked from screen to screen and inspected each image as if seeing it for the first time. I searched the images as well and saw nothing I did not already know I would see. I was there that night, thank the gods. If I hadn’t been, I never would have caught Larkspur’s scent, never would have known she existed. Without these images, I would have most likely been sent back to Atlan months ago and executed. My beast would not have survived this long without hope. Without her.
An extreme sense of contentment flooded me as I admired the tilt of her head, the curve of her hips and breasts in the tunic she’d chosen. I wanted to pull the tiny boots off her feet and kiss my way from toes to lips and back down, stopping each way to feast on her wet heat and make her come all over my tongue. I wanted to drag her out of this room and back to bed. She’d said she wasn’t on birth control. Right now my child could already be growing in her body, safe and warm and perfect.
Mate. Perfect. The beast agreed with me as my cock became a hard, painful distraction. We would never tire of her, never want another. She was our reason for breathing, for fighting, for living.
I ignored the impatient tapping of Commander Helion’s fingers as he, too, waited and watched Larkspur move along the screens. She was about to step toward the last when she froze in place and stared. “Oh my god. Do you see him? Do you see his eyes?”
13
Larkspur
* * *
Eyes stared out at me from the picture. Black eyes, not brown, not bright or intelligent. There was no happiness in those eyes, no spirit. No, these eyes were black and dull, like dried tar. Shark’s eyes. The rest of the face was obscured by shadow. In fact, the entire face was barely more than dark edges and a blurred background. Except those freaky, staring eyeballs that felt like they could look right through me despite the fact that I’d taken the picture months ago, on another planet.
“Where? What do you see?” Willow’s mate, the big Prillon warrior everyone seemed to be deferring to, came to stand next to me. “I see nothing. Show me.”
I didn’t want to acknowledge the bizarre creature staring out at me from the screen, but I lifted my arm and stopped just short of touching the outline of those dull, black eyes. “Two eyes, right there. They’re black.”
Helion leaned closer to the screen and squinted. “I don’t see anything. Fuck.” He slammed his fist down on one of the control panels. I jumped.
“Watch it, Prillon.” Kai’s gravelly warning caused Helion to shake his head.
“I meant no offense, my lady. I am simply tired of chasing ghosts.”
I stared into the abyss of those eyes as a shiver raced through me. They were staring back at me. I could feel it. I’d seen them once before and blown it off as paranoia and lack of sleep. I did have a vivid imagination. I’d cropped out the eyes and sent the images to my buyers. As soon as I hit ‘send’ on the emails, I’d wiped the bad feeling from memory and convinced myself the feeling of dread was nothing.
I am something, Larkspur. At last I have found you again.
Again? “Did you all hear that?” What did he mean, he found me? Was he looking for me? Through a picture? That didn’t make sense.
