Читать книгу Mating Fever - Grace Goodwin - Страница 9

Warlord Nyko of Atlan, Sector 437, Battlegroup Karter, Combat Infantry, Planet Latiri 4

Swarms of our enemy’s smaller Scout warriors scurried over and around the hills of Latiri 4 as they had done over the last two hours. No matter how many of the bastards we tore apart, more followed.

There were always more.

“Move out!” Our Commander Warlord Wulf’s voice was the deep rumble of a full beast, like a cannon shot across the battlefield. He stood over eight feet tall, his shoulders and arms larger than the rock column beside him. The specially designed armor that my unit wore adapted and stretched to accommodate our bodies, our fighting style and the metamorphosis that freeing our beasts created.

My feet hit the hard, rocky ground beneath my combat boots like great hammers striking stone as my unit of Atlan beasts raced toward our last intact transport platform to get the hell out of here.

We were overrun and outnumbered. The planet had a network of magnetic ravines and rocks that blocked our scanners and communication. The drones sent to scout the surface had underestimated the size of the Hive forces here by at least tenfold, or they’d transported more in since we began the assault. It didn’t matter that we were in beast mode. It didn’t matter we could—and would—rip the heads off of any Hive we came across. We were outnumbered. While our beasts fought with blind intent, the Atlans within still used their brains. The combination kept us alive to fight another day. And today, we needed to retreat, regroup, and come back with more weapons, warriors and armor. A lot more.

If we stayed down here, we were all going to die. I’d seen this play out many times before. We would leave and make new plans and be back in a matter of hours. This planet must be returned to the control of the Coalition Fleet so that it could no longer be used as a base station for Hive raids and harvesting missions on protected planets in the nearby solar systems.

The Hive Integration Units, the specialized enemies that tortured captives, injected them with Hive technology and tried to break their minds, would move on to another world. Another solar system. Another underdeveloped or helpless civilization ripe for harvest.

And we would follow. We always gave chase, as did Karter, the Prillon Commander in charge of this battlegroup. Every warrior in the Fleet was here for the same reason, to protect their home world and the people they loved. To protect all worlds from the Hive. The Hive civilization did not conquer, they devoured. They consumed everything and everyone until there was nothing left. Not even a man’s own mind.

The Warlords around me, my friends, all served for some big, noble cause. I served because I had nothing left but honor, and tearing a Hive Scout’s arms from his sockets, his head from his body, gave me a grim sort of pleasure, of purpose in an otherwise empty life.

There were other Atlan warriors here who had families, who had chosen mates waiting for them to return to Atlan and start a new life. They had sisters and brothers, parents and cousins. I had nothing, no family, no mate, no reason to keep fighting except the beasts who fought beside me. This unit was my family, had been for years, and I had no wish to leave.

But my body betrayed me. Even now, as the Hive scurried and chased us, my beast roared inside my head, growing stronger with each passing day. Desperate for a mate. That meant the fever was upon me and that soon, I’d have to find one true mate. Or I would die.

Soon, the beast within would turn against me because of this need and I would kill anything that caught my attention, be that friend or foe. The Mating Fever boiled in my blood like poison, and no amount of willpower nor stubborn pride could defeat the beast that lurked inside me like a monster. Blind to anything but the need to mate. It was perfect for the intensity of conflict, but back on the battleship, it would be dangerous.

“Hive!” Beside me, my friend Anghar shoved me with his shoulder as he rushed past to attack three Hive Soldiers that appeared around the side of a large boulder to block our way, or pick us off from behind. These were larger and stronger than the Scouts we’d been ripping apart for the past several hours.

So much harder to kill.

My beast roared a challenge as I raced after Ang, two huge Atlan Warlords riding the razor’s edge, needing to kill. His fragile—and wild—state was the reason he’d gone, just a few weeks ago, and submitted to the Interstellar Brides Program’s processing protocols. I should have gone with him, but the fever hadn’t consumed me then as it did now.

Unfortunately, since the Mating Fever was coming on stronger and more intense than ever, I feared my bride would be too late to save me. Whoever she was. Wherever she was. And based on the killing rage coming from Ang, I knew he might suffer the same fate. He would be matched and quickly mated, ensuring the fever was relinquished entirely. As for me, if I did not find a mate soon, I would be locked up and executed, a danger to myself and anyone who dared come near me.

Nothing save death could stop an Atlan beast lost to Mating Fever.

Death, or a mate. And unmated females were thin on the ground in the Fleet, and the few who lived on the ships were either mated already, or soldiers so damn stubborn that I, for one, didn’t want to deal with them. One in particular had caused me more than one sleepless night lost to anger.

Megan Simmons. She was a human and a Coalition soldier who had been with the battlegroup for the last two years. Her rank was Captain, but she bounced around between units, always moving. She was unruly and unstable and seemed to have a thousand secrets. Lately, she’d been going out with Captain Seth Mills, the newly assigned commanding officer of ReCon Unit 3.We’d been their escort and protection on more than one mission the last few months. Each time, it seemed she would seek me out and purposely challenge my patience. Even Seth, a human I liked and respected, a human whose own sister was mated to one of my Atlan brothers, could not control her. He would either scowl or grin, but never try to stop her from sassing me, or anyone else on board the ship.

There were so many times I wanted to spank some sense into that small female, but she wasn’t mine and never would be. Thank the gods. That female was trouble. No doubt, even now, she and her unit were here somewhere, combing the ravines and flushing hidden enemies from their traps.

Even last week, she’d come across a trio of Hive and tried to kill them on her own. No support from an Atlan. What had she been thinking? She and her unit were little better than a suicide squad, and not one of the stubborn humans seemed to recognize this absolute fact. Nor care if they died. Especially Megan Simmons.

Both things that made me crazed with the need to turn her over my knee and make her see that she was going to get herself killed. Why her lack of caution pissed me off so much, I had no idea. Why I kept an eye on her more than any of the other Coalition fighters, male or female, I had no idea. Why I wanted to spank her ass for being reckless and no one else’s, I had no idea.

There was something wrong with me. My beast was making me lose my mind, especially where Megan Simmons was concerned. There were nights I would stare at my ceiling and think of her dark skin and black hair, the lush, ripe curve of her ass. She was tall, and muscled. Strong for a female.

I’d always wanted a mate who would submit to me, a female who was gentle and tender, whose touch would ease my mind and soothe my flesh.

Megan Simmons challenged anyone and everyone who crossed her path, Atlan, Prillon or human. She had a mouth that never quit and was absolutely fearless. Reckless. Wild.

And that thought made my cock hard as a rock, even as my mind rebelled at the thought. Atlan females did not fight. They did not challenge authority nor charge into battle. They lived to soothe the beasts within their mates, to keep us sane when killing or fucking were the only two desires our minds could process.

“Nyko?” Commander Wulf’s yell had me turning away from the Hive before me. I was nearly upon them, Ang a step ahead of me.

“Go!” My own deep voice rolled over the rest of the unit and Wulf smiled at me, his beast clearly hungry for more havoc and destruction as the unit left Ang and me to deal with the three Soldiers. The rest of our unit moved on, ever closer to that last transport platform. We needed to get the fuck off this planet. Now.

I turned back around just as the Hive Soldiers looked up at us, shock rounding their pale silver eyes as Ang grabbed the first one around the neck and lifted him from the ground with one hand. Ang’s second hand found the base of the Hive’s spine and I knew it was a matter of seconds before the Hive’s head would no longer be connected to his body. Ang specialized in tearing their bodies to pieces. He’d lost his youngest brother to the Hive last year, and his hatred added fuel to his beast’s rage, a rage already extremely difficult to control.

My target drew his weapon as I approached and fired at point-blank range. The blast seared my chest through my armor, the heat staggering as I reached him.

I did not have time for Ang’s games as the third Soldier raised his weapon and fired on me again from directly behind the first.

Pain ripped through my left shoulder and I knew I would need use of the ReGen wand in my combat pack before I would be back to full capacity. But my wounds could wait. I’d had worse. Much, much worse.

Grabbing the closer Hive’s head, I smashed it against the boulder behind him, satisfied with the crunch of collapsing bone as I dropped the limp body and raced to the third Soldier.

Fucking Hive. They always traveled in threes. Three Scouts. Three Soldiers. Three. Three. Three.

They couldn’t operate on their own. They didn’t even speak like real people. Everything they said started with the word “We”.

Reaching the third Soldier, I lifted this one from his feet and swung his body until his back was parallel to the ground. He scrambled for purchase, trying to grab me, force me to release him. Every single Hive underestimated the Atlan beast. Perhaps news didn’t return of our strength and power because every one we encountered was eliminated. This one seemed to think the same, that he was stronger than me.

Right.

Instead, I rammed his back down on the rocks before twisting his head hard enough to feel the crack-crack-crack of bone as his spine and metallic implants shattered and his body twitched and twisted in death throes.

I looked up from where I knelt on the ground to find Ang already running to catch up with our unit on the way to the transport platform.

Leaping to my feet, I tensed and shifted to follow when a scream reached me.

Human. I knew that sound. Someone was in trouble.

The noise came from a narrow ravine behind the boulder, from the same direction the now dead Hive Soldiers must have come from before falling into our hands.

A quick glance at my unit showed them well ahead of me. Commander Wulf stood atop the hill now, the transport platform behind him, throwing Hive Scouts and Soldiers over his head like a battering ram hitting a wall of children’s dolls. Bodies flew before him, and the rest of the Warlords, almost all in beast form, were nearly to the transport platform. Warriors fell into line behind them, Prillon and human, warriors from Trion and every other race and species in the Fleet as the Atlans cleared the path so all could transport back aboard the ship.

“Hurry.” I spoke to no one, but my beast was agitated. We watched hundreds of Hive flooding the narrow gaps not more than a mile from the transport platform. If they reached it before our soldiers got off world, anyone still on the ground would be lost.

We were losing this battle, the Hive swarming in numbers far greater than anticipated. Commander Karter wasn’t a stupid man. He would pull his warriors, regroup, and strike again in a few days.

I could either join my unit and transport off this blood-soaked rock, or I could go try to help the human in the ravine and lay low until tomorrow. The designated extraction point wasn’t far. I could hide through the night and signal for transport tomorrow, frightened little human soldier in tow. The Hive didn’t have sensors capable of penetrating the metallic rock barriers any more than we did. With the rocks and ravines to hide in, they would have no way to find us, to root us out and kill us. They would only attack if they saw us. If we weren’t in their path, we would be safe enough.

Another scream from the ravine, this one of rage, and I made my decision. Or rather, the beast made it for me and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. I couldn’t. I was too far gone.

Racing around the boulder, I dashed into the ravine, dark gray and black rock formations made a long, narrow corridor that looked to be about a mile in length. I could see the opening on the other end, as if the ground had decided to split open, just a bit, and only here.

Behind me, and everywhere else I’d been on this gods’ forsaken planet, the rocks were red or brown, a sea of monochromatic color as far as I could see in any direction, a desert of stone.

Here, the rocks were black, gray and silver, the planet’s inner depths exposed like muscle beneath skin in a deep cut. As if the planet had cleaved open and the insides burst forth.

Ahead of me, three Hive stood. They had someone trapped halfway up the side of the ravine. I recognized the smaller body and armor of a human climbing the rock face to get away from them, the uniform from one of the human ReCon Units. Scattered along the ground were the dead bodies of at least a dozen Hive Soldiers and four other humans.

None moved.

The human scrambled up the side of the rock cliffs, clinging like an insect to the uneven walls. The opening of a cave stood out on the side of that cliff, the entrance sparkling like a diamond necklace around a woman’s throat when the light from the planet’s star shined down upon it. The human was clearly heading for that cave. A smart tactic as it offered safety, at least temporarily. High ground. Perhaps the human planned to make a last stand there.

But why weren’t the Hive shooting the human off the cliff wall? Why were they climbing? Why not…

I squinted, the growl of my beast a low rumble in my chest. What was going on here? I stalked closer, not charging this time. Even my beast was cautious. I’d never seen anything like these Hive before, and I’d been fighting for nearly a decade. They weren’t Hive Scouts or Hive Soldiers. They were something else altogether. One of them was blue. The others were integrated, but not one of the Coalition races.

Not only were they all strange, but they weren’t firing on the human, they were…stalking—

“Come on!” The human yelled down, taunting them, the challenge issued by a woman’s voice. My beast stilled within me as the voice went through my body and straight to my cock.

Mine!

The beast didn’t bellow, but whispered the word, rolling it around on my tongue like we were sampling a fine Atlan wine. He wasn’t asking me, nor requesting permission or approval. He was simply informing me of the facts.

I ignored him, for now. For years I’d dreamed of finding a soft, willing female to claim. Clearly the Fever was clouding my judgment, but now was not the time to argue with my beast.

I was too far away to recognize her voice. I had no idea who she was, but my beast apparently did. He wanted her, the Mating Fever boiling through me with renewed vigor as my cock grew hard and uncomfortable beneath my armor.

And she was taunting them, drawing one of them up to her. Why? Had she hit her head? Was she delusional? Hallucinating? Just plain insane?

The strange Hive trio moved closer to the base of the rock wall—of course—and the beast followed silently, stalking the nearest of them like a true predator. I forced my mind to think, to work past the protective instinct raging in my beast’s form. I’d never dealt with this kind of lust or protective instinct in battle before. Yes, I wanted to keep my unit, and those we’d been sent in to protect, safe, but this was different. A rage so hot it moved through me like slow boiling tar. This was my beast staking a claim, eliminating any threat to his mate.

She was mine.

Something darker, deeper, and much stronger than I’d ever known settled around me like a blanket of solid ice. Rage and bluster were mindless emotions. This need to kill the Hive before me was not mindless, it was cold, calculating and very deliberate. They had to die. They wanted her and I would not let them touch her. She was mine. Covered head to toe in full body armor, clinging like an insect to the side of the cliffs. Strong. Brave. Aggressive. Mine. Still mine.

Above me, the human had nearly reached the cave entrance, and safety from the Hive weapons. Although, they simply stood staring up at her as if she were a curiosity. They weren’t firing, and I had no explanation as to why they would spare this human. Why they would not fire and force their enemy to fall? They could heal and regenerate almost any wound from their captives. No doubt they could heal injuries from a fall, even from such a height to hard rock. They’d simply transport her to a ReGen Pod and heal her fragile human body before integration would begin. So, why allow this human to run? Why stalk her and hunt her as if they wanted her alive and well?

The Hive only ever cared about alive.

I studied the Hive as I drew nearer, my curiosity growing with each silent step. There were three, as always, but I’d never seen three such as these.

The leader stood in the center, nearly two feet taller than his companions, nearly as large as me, and his skin was a deep blue. All three were covered completely in a strange silver-and-graphite armor unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The trio faced away from me, so I could not see if their eyes were silver. On all three of their heads were strange helmets, the geometry and design like I’d never seen before. But the oddest of all, the devices had a peculiar extension protruding from the back, near the base of their skulls, a curved device that looked like—no.

That wasn’t possible.

The blue leader leapt, his body covering half the distance to the cave with one jump as his hands and feet found purchase in the side of the rocks. He began to climb.

The woman disappeared inside the cave and the Hive leader scrambled toward her with renewed vigor, as if afraid she might get away.

When the second oddly armored Hive leapt after her as well, I could not afford to wait.

Rushing forward, my beast roared as I ripped the head from the shoulders of the Hive still standing on the ground. His blood coated my hands, a thick, sticky, black sludge I’d never encountered before.

The Hive were, for the most part, integrated biological units from the known worlds. Prillon Prime. Everis. Trion and hundreds of other worlds.

None bled black. No race bled black that I knew of.

When the first Hive slumped to the ground, the second, alerted by some odd connection between them, stopped his climb to look down at me.

The leader halted as well and they looked at one another before the leader nodded his head, as if giving a command—or permission—and the closer Hive jumped to the ground to confront me.

Another oddity. The Hive did not follow orders in such a manner and none of them were ever in command. Their orders came from their centralized intelligence and decision-making centers, and those were never risked on the battlefield.

He landed before me, light on his feet, and stood. “Leave us, Warlord.”

What the fuck was going on here? The Hive’s voice sounded…normal. Like any other man’s I knew. No stilted language. No odd cadence nor computerized monotone. He sounded…unique. Individual.

And that was not Hive.

My beast didn’t give a fuck what this strange male in his silver armor was or was not as the leader moved once more, drawing nearer and nearer to the cave’s entrance, and the female he chased. The beast wanted to rip this male to shreds and get on with it.

But the man within me was still in charge, barely, and I recognized that this was something extremely rare, and strange. Commander Karter would need to know what was happening here, what these things were.

“What are you?” My beast’s voice was barely more than a growl, but the Hive understood.

“I serve Nexus 9.”

What the fuck was a Nexus? And why had he answered that way? He’s said ‘I serve.’ Not we. I. My question had been rhetorical because they had no need to respond. They expected domination and then integration. Or, he replied because he didn’t expect me to survive long enough to do something with the answer.

An ion blast sounded from above, from inside the cave, and the beast’s patience snapped.

I moved in a blur, grabbing the strange Hive and twisting his neck until he went limp in my grasp, but not before his weapon fired. I dropped the dead weight to the rocks, already forgotten. The blast of his ionic weapon must have hit my armor. Heat from the shot burned my body once more, from my hip this time, but the pain was nothing more than a small sting.

Rarely did I use my beast’s full strength, but as I crouched low for my leap, power flowed through me, the power of the beast unleashed, and for once I was glad for it. We leapt to the mouth of the cave in one mighty thrust off the ground ready to defend her.