Chapter 1
1
Vice Admiral Niobe, Interstellar Brides Testing Center, The Colony
“Run. You know I like the chase. I will catch you and then…”
The male’s deep voice was a rough whisper, but I heard it across the vast space between us like he was right beside me. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. I knew what he would do when he caught me. It made my skin prickle with awareness, my p***y clench with need.
I was fast.
He was faster.
I was cunning.
He was ruthless.
I was a Hunter.
I was also the hunted.
I was his prey. His desire. His mate.
And when he found me, he’d take me. Command me. Fill me. f**k me and make me his. Completely.
I wasn’t running from him because I didn’t want him.
I was running because I did.
My heart pounded not because I was tired, but because I was excited. Eager.
And so I ran faster, for the hunt was part of the mating. I would not allow a male to claim me who was not worthy. And he would not claim me if I didn’t test him.
The terrain was steep, the trees thick, the canopy of leaves overhead blocked out much of the sunlight. The air was damp, warm. Almost sultry.
I smiled as I quickly pivoted around a large tree, leaped over a fallen log.
“You’re wet for me. I scent your p***y from here.”
I whimpered because it was true. I was slick and needy. I wasn’t just overheated from the chase, from the miles we’d covered. I was desperate for his c**k. He moved so quickly, his footsteps were light upon the ground. Yet I heard him as easily as he did me. His breathing was shallow, sweat dampened his skin. I breathed him in, would recognize the dark scent anywhere. Anytime, for the rest of my life.
Most females would stop. Wait. Let her mate catch her. Gods, most females wouldn’t run to begin with. But I wasn’t most females. I was Everian. A Hunter in my own right. A warrior. And so I moved even faster. The ground was a blur beneath my feet, my hair blew back from my face from the pace.
“When I get you beneath me, mate,” he growled, “you will know who you belong to. Who owns your p***y. You’ll come when I say. On my c**k. Beneath my mouth.”
The thought of his head between my thighs, his tongue on my clit, swirling and teasing that swollen bud, distracted me. I stumbled but didn’t fall.
“Ah, mate. You want my mouth on you?” He’d heard the falter in my steps. “Then let me catch you.”
I laughed, narrowed my eyes as I burst into a clearing. “Never.”
When I heard him groan, my heart leapt with joy. He wanted my fight. My spirit. My need to prove my strength before I submitted. Because I would. I would revel beneath his dominance. His strength. For while I might give over to him, I held the power over him.
My thoughts had distracted me, for all was silent. No footfall, no chase. Only the animals of the forest, the wind. He was no longer chasing.
His tactic changed. I slowed, then stopped when all remained silent.
Turning on my heel, I looked in all directions. Searched. Listened. Felt.
I heard it again.
Heartbeat.
Breath.
Inhaled what belonged to only him.
Dark scent.
I spun on my heel and there he was. Before me. I had to tilt my head back to meet his heated gaze.
“How—”
He grinned, the smile feral and yet sweet.
“It matters not, mate.” His chest expanded as he took a deep breath.
That rankled. I would not be bested so easily. I fled.
He laughed.
He caught me again. I had no idea how he did it, but I couldn’t discern his location until he was upon me. Like a cloak, shielding him. Hiding his movements.
I didn’t know this skill. It showed, for all at once I was grabbed, spun about and pressed into a tree. He touched me as if I were made of glass, even with the aggression that pumped through our veins.
“Submit,” he growled.
His hand was on my waist, the other on the tree beside my head. His full length pressed into me. Every hard inch of him. I felt his c**k, the thick length against my belly.
I was torn. The power of the mating was dividing my focus. I wanted to bolt. To run. To be chased once again. More. I needed the exhilaration of it. But I craved the feel of him. His heat. His hardness.
I wanted to fall to my knees before him. I wanted to strip myself bare, lie back on the grass and part my thighs.
I wanted to get upon all fours, look over my shoulder and watch as he mounted me. Claimed me. Took me roughly, just as I needed.
A large hand came to my chin, tipping my face up to his. “Say it. Say the one word that will make you mine.”
I swallowed, then licked my lips. He was here. He’d found me. Hunted me. There was nothing else I could do, wanted to do.
“Yes.”
He dropped to his knees before me, tugged the boots from my feet, the pants from my body so I was bare from the waist down. He was as swift in this as he was in chasing me. In an instant, my legs were over his shoulders and his mouth was on me. There.
His body pressed me into the tree. I was elevated, off the ground with no purchase, nothing to grip but his head, my fingers tangling in his hair. He licked into me, parting me. Finding my clit, circling it.
A primitive sound rumbled from his chest as he pushed me into orgasm. I knew I dripped onto his face, I was so eager, the climax so intense.
“Why?” I asked when I could catch my breath. He didn’t move his head as he kissed the inside of my thigh, but only lifted his eyes to meet mine.
“Why am I kneeling before you when it is you who will submit?”
I nodded, my back bumping against the rough bark.
“Your body, your pleasure, is mine. You are mine. While I might be the one on my knees, you’re giving me everything.”
I couldn’t see the thick outline of his c**k, but I knew it was hard. Eager to f**k.
“What about you?”
In a flash, I was laid upon the soft ground, my legs still thrown over his shoulders.
He shifted to open his pants, pull out his c**k, to align himself to my entrance and thrust deep.
“Yes!” I cried at the fullness. The feel of him in me. Stretching me. Claiming me.
“There’s the word again. Your consent. Your submission.”
He pulled out and I whimpered, but I was upon my hands and knees with him mounting me from one blink to the next. He took me then. Deep. Hard.
His strong body curved over my back, his mouth at my neck, nipping at my racing pulse, biting at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. “Mine.”
I gripped the damp ground for purchase, but there was none. He moved us across the forest floor, the sounds of our skin slapping together, the wet slide of his c**k in and out of my p***y all that could be heard. We’d scared the animals away.
We were the animals. Wild and frantic. He rutted into me and I cried out, ready to come again.
“Such a greedy p***y. So wet. Perfect for me. You’re perfect for me. Mine.”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
I knew what he was talking about. Not just my orgasm, but my body. My soul.
My inner walls clenched him like a fist, pulling him in, wanting him, needing every thick inch of him.
I screamed as I came, the sound echoing across the forest, over the land where he’d hunted me.
He thrust deep. Tensed. Groaned. Came. I felt the heat of his seed as it filled me, as it made me his.
And he was mine, for while he was the dominant one, I had given him the ultimate pleasure. He would not be complete without me.
And I… I submitted to it all. Willingly. Happily. Completely.
My eyes flew open and I gasped.
“No!” I shouted, the single word echoing off the walls of the bare room.
“That good, huh?”
I blinked, looking up at Kira’s smug face. My friend leaned over me, but hopped back when I sat up abruptly.
I rubbed my hand over my eyes. Gods, that had been intense. So real. But it had all been a dream. A stupid bride testing dream.
Rachel, another Earth woman who’d been mated to the governor of The Colony, remained silent, but the corner of her mouth was tipped up. Yeah, she was internally laughing.
Doctor Surnen, who was in charge of all testing on the planet, held his tablet from the other side of the testing chair. I wasn’t sure if he was quiet because he knew the testing involved intense s*x dreams or because I was the first female he’d tested and he wasn’t sure what to say to me. From what I’d been told, I was currently the only unmated female on the planet besides the mother of another Earth mate, Kristin. This doctor did not normally test females. He only tested integrated fighters who were transferred here after they’d escaped captivity.
I knew my n*****s were hard, but I definitely wasn’t sharing that with the doctor. I didn’t have a hard on because I didn’t have a c**k, but my p***y ached for the s*x I’d vividly imagined… but hadn’t had.
I was horny. Hornier than I’d ever been in my life. Was the testing supposed to be cruel, to get you all hot and bothered with no chance of relief? Was it so that the person being tested would be so desperate to come that they always approved the match just to get guaranteed s*x?
At this point, with those traitorous n*****s and my p***y clenching for a c**k to fill it, I’d probably approve a match to a planet whose males were blue and had two p*****s.
“I came here to visit you and Angh, not to be tested,” I reminded, not for the first time.
She rolled her eyes. “You did both. A very successful trip.”
I climbed from the testing chair and stretched. Bad idea since it only rubbed my n*****s across my Academy uniform. I whimpered.
Rachel laughed.
“I don’t like you,” I grumbled and gave her my head-of-the-Academy evil eye which usually had cadets peeing in their paints. She only laughed harder.
