Warlord Anghar, The Colony

My beast was raging. The Prillon standing across from me in the fighting pit had not chosen a second to fight beside him. Either the poor bastard was an idiot, or this stubborn Prillon hadn’t been in The Colony long enough to choose one.

I would place a wager on the second. I saw the need in his eyes. The need to rage.

To hurt.

He wanted to come at me. To fight. To hold nothing back. I knew that feeling, that desperate, clawing need to punch, kick. Beat.

To hurt. To bleed. To feel something real.

I missed the rush of battle, the elation of victory. When we fought the Hive, we were important to the Coalition. Protecting others. Doing important work.

Now? We mined for the transport system. We counted the days and fought off boredom with every waking breath. Irrelevance. We were nothing now, and that was like swallowing a blade. It hurt, all the way through.

“I’m going to make you bleed, Warlord.” The Prillon was panting, eager to get the fight started. His hands were in fists at his sides, his chest thick and well-muscled. Anger and anticipation simmered.

I welcomed the challenge. The distraction. The only thing I wanted more than to spend a couple hours in this fighting pit was a warm, wet pussy. A mate begging me to fuck her. Taste her. Fill her with my seed. My beast prowled within me at that thought.

But there was no bride for me. Never would be. I’d taken the bride testing more than three years ago with no success. I happened to believe the ban on brides for contaminated warriors was a valid one. We were not whole. Never would be. Not that my opinion mattered. Most of the warriors here had submitted to the Interstellar Brides Program testing protocols when Prime Nial lifted the ban for Colony exiles more than a year ago. And we could count the brides that had arrived at Base 3 on one hand.

Just because he’d allowed the contaminated to be matched didn’t mean there was hope for any of us.

Brides were few and far between here. Some said their presence gave the other warriors hope. But I’d always been a realist. There would be no saving me. No soft, beautiful female deserved the monster I carried within. He was too feral. I doubted even the legendary Atlan mating cuffs would affect him, would soothe the animal within.

The Hive had taken too much. Forced me into beast mode and tortured me for days. In the end, they had broken me, and my beast, and I still carried the shame.

I should have made them kill me. And when Seth Mills had the chance, he hadn’t done it either, taking away the quiet of death. And now I lived. And fought. Not for life or death, not against the Hive that still stalked us all, but in a round pit on a desolate world with other fucked-up and exiled warriors. Not to save people, but for a break from the monotony of this new existence.

If I wasn’t such a bastard, I’d end it. But despite all the rambling that went on in my head, I was a survivor. Always had been. Hope or no hope, I’d hold on until the bitter end, until my beast raged and they were forced to execute me. I was too stubborn to die.

“Fucking Atlan. What are you waiting for?” The Prillon was pacing me. Circling. His gaze filled with horror and rage and hatred, all directed at himself. We were one in that moment, and I knew my gaze matched his. Broken. We were both broken.

“You can’t beat me, Prillon. But you already know that, don’t you? That’s not why you’re here.” I threw the taunt, knowing it for truth. He wanted to feel the pain. To attack with nothing held back. He couldn’t kill me. Not without a second Prillon warrior to back him up. And I wouldn’t kill him. He was a warrior, an honorable soldier who’d survived the same horrors I had. Death matches were not allowed in the pit, so fighting me was the closest he could get. But I could make him hurt. Bleed.

Feel.

Two more steps. Three. Screaming voices fueled us both, but there was one sound that drew my beast’s attention away from the match and my gaze lifted to scan the crowd before I had processed the instinct. I never looked away from an opponent in the pit. It was a rookie move. A stupid one. But I had no choice. My beast forced my hand.

It was a woman’s voice. A female.

My beast awoke, practically howled as fire rolled through my veins and my cock grew hard.

I shook my head, trying to blink away the urge to hunt down that voice. To claim her.

She was probably one of the Academy cadets here for training but leaving tomorrow.

I should ignore it. Let her go. She wasn’t my matched mate. Couldn’t be.

I didn’t have one.

Another reason my beast was so edgy. There seemed little hope I’d be able to hold on long enough to discover a mate that my beast would want to claim. Of the warriors here, only Warlord Braun understood the monster inside me, raging to break free. Every moment was an act of discipline. Every step. Every breath. The beast seethed, and I held him down with an iron fist, my will the only thing standing between me and execution.

The fighting pits helped release some of the beast’s restlessness, the hunger. But my time as a Hive drone hadn’t dimmed the beast’s fury, as it had with Warlord Rezzer.

Feeling helpless to resist the Hive’s commands, the constant buzzing in my head that never completely went away, that just made me edgier. The battle against the internal enemy was constant. This Prillon before me was the latest outlet available, and I planned to make him miserable. Beat him bloody. Let the beast have some fun. Give him what he wanted.

I saw the hopeless rage in the Prillon warrior’s golden eyes. He was new here, having just arrived today. I didn’t know his name, but I didn’t need to. I recognized the wrath, the trapped feeling. We all did. Every single warrior banished was here on The Colony, not by choice, but because we’d been contaminated with Hive technology. Captured. Tortured. Modified.

We were no longer wanted by the people on our home planets, the people we’d sacrificed for. We were too dangerous.

Me, especially.

I wanted to hate the policy that required all contaminated warriors to live out the rest of their lives here, either working in the mines or protecting those who did, but I couldn’t. The truth was that we were dangerous. Unstable. The Hive implants had strange effects on some warriors. And some, like me, never quite got them out of our heads. For me, the constant hum never left. Not even here, where the planet’s defense systems were designed to keep out Hive communication frequencies.

But then, from what I’d been told, the Hive were here, hiding in the caves below the surface. Someday, there would be a reckoning, and then I’d hunt them, kill them. Tearing drones in half with my bare hands would bring me nothing but pleasure. Other than a mate’s warm, wet pussy—which I had no hope of enjoying—killing the Hive was all I could think about.

Unfortunately, Governor Rone, the hard-ass Prillon warrior who ran Base 3, didn’t feel turning me loose in the caves was a good idea. Not even during simple training runs for a new batch of Coalition Academy cadets. The training program was experimental, the caves below the surface a perfect simulation of several planets that were battle zones, hotbeds of Hive activity.

The Governor was right. First sight of a Hive here on The Colony, or of their leader, the Prillon warrior, Krael—the fucking traitor—and the beast would own me. There would be no coming back, no control.

By the gods, I wouldn’t even try. I’d eviscerate them with my bare hands and howl with joy while doing it.

Fueled by my thoughts and the coming fight, the beast rose within me, eager and strong. I pushed back. Fought for control. Focused on the threat before me. His face. His fists. The lightness of his steps in the soft dirt. He was not a young, inexperienced fighter. He was a Prillon warrior in his prime. Strong. Fast. Deadly. And he’d just arrived after his own personal hell with the Hive.

Not that it would save him from a solid beating, but it would at least make the fight interesting.

We paced. Ready.

I heard her again. My cock, already hard, throbbed painfully.

The beast clawed at my insides, fighting to break free. Not to fight the Prillon. For her.

It wanted her.

Fuck.

Gods help me if she was the mate of a Colony warrior, or some innocent young cadet barely more than a child.

Keeping the Prillon on the edge of my vision, I scanned the crowd again. Found her.

Stilled. Stopped breathing.

By the gods, she was beautiful. Golden hair was pulled back from her face, and my first instinct was to break it free from whatever held it. Her eyes were like glaciers, too blue to be real. And she was human. I recognized her species from meeting Governor Rone’s mate, Rachel, and because the warrior who had saved my life before coming here, one of the bravest fighters I’d ever met, was a female from Earth. A female who had earned my loyalty and respect. Commander Chloe Phan.

But her eyes had been dark. Her hair black. And she’d been small and mated to a Prillon warrior and a human I respected, the human who’d saved my life, Captain Seth Mills. I’d known the fearless commander wasn’t mine. But the knowing had been easy. My beast hadn’t been interested in her as a potential mate.

This human was completely different.

Fascinating.

Every curve was outlined to perfection by a tight black uniform, and I recognized the design as belonging to one of the instructors from the Coalition Academy on Zioria. Her hair was golden, her eyes a liquid blue that made me feel like I was falling. Her lips were a pale pink, and she was tall. Curvy. Her breasts were large and would be paradise in my hands. My mouth. I wondered what she tasted like. Her skin. Her kiss. Her hot, wet pussy juices flowing over my tongue as I made her scream.

She was not a child but a woman who knew what she wanted.

Our gazes met. Held. Locked.

The Prillon warrior paced. I ignored him. He was irrelevant now. My beast had other priorities. If my opponent wanted to bleed, he’d have to find another to entertain him.

I wanted the female. And from the way her gaze lingered on me, held mine, I knew she wouldn’t resist.

She was mine.

The Prillon charged but I was no longer in the mood to fight. I wanted to fuck. Taste.

Claim.

I had planned to toy with the warrior, let him hit me a few times, draw some blood, let him bleed off some of his angst and wear himself out before I ended him. But I no longer felt accommodating.

Allowing the beast to surge for a moment, I swung hard, taking the glancing punch the Prillon landed on my chest. I connected with his jaw, felt the bone crack, knew they would rush a ReGen wand into the pit to stabilize him before shutting him down in a ReGen pod for a few hours to make sure I hadn’t damaged his brain.

He hit the ground, unconscious, and I glanced at the medical crew to make sure they were coming. They had been waiting, ready. They’d seen it all before, knowing how this would end, but expecting me to play with my prey before I took him down.

The crowd was divided, half of the warriors cheering, a fair number booing the lack of a show. They were irrelevant. I only cared about one of them. Lifting my gaze, I found her in the crowd once more.

She had another female with her, and from the looks of things, they were talking about me.

Good.

I didn’t want her thinking about anyone else. Seeing anyone else.

The Prillon rolled on the ground, groaning as they worked on his jaw. I walked past him toward the female. He was no longer a concern. He was out of my way. And what I wanted was right in front of me.

I got closer, my beast cooperating, for once in perfect accord with what I wanted. We both wanted her. Hot. Naked. Open. Taking what we wanted to give her. Fucking hard and fast. Slow. Making her lose control. Making her give us everything.

I reached the edge of the arena and looked up to where she sat in the stands. Her blue eyes remained glued to me and I crooked my finger at her. She knew. She knew what I wanted. Her. We both knew how this was going to go. I could see an equal lust in her blue eyes.

She glanced at her friend, her delicate skin turning an intriguing shade of pink. She bit her lip as she turned back to me. I held out my hand and waited. Patient. She would come to me. The pull between us was elemental. Too strong for her to resist. My cock was so hard it was a constant ache. For her. Only for her.

Thank the gods she didn’t make me wait long. The crowd was hushed, the other warriors and cadets watching with fascination as she walked down the steps and stopped before me, close enough to touch.

Gently, slowly, with a reverence I had no idea I could feel, I reached up and traced the softness of her cheek with my fingers.

The first contact jolted me, the rush better than any fight, any victory. The beast was frenzied, pushing at my skin, my mind, demanding to taste her. Touch her. Fill her with his seed. My thoughts went to the mating cuffs in my rooms and I knew what he wanted. What we both wanted. The miracle I had just found.

My mate.

“Mine.” The word burst from me, beast and man both making sure every warrior heard my vow. Mine. I had staked my claim. If anyone touched her, hurt her, tried to take her from me, I would destroy them. Harder and more ruthlessly than I had with the Prillon in the middle of the pit.

Reaching over the barrier, I lifted her. She cooperated, swinging her legs over the waist high wall. When she would have put her feet on the ground, I swooped her up and carried her cradled against my chest.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The thought consumed me until I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think. Gods help me, if she resisted, I wasn’t sure I could control the beast inside me. He was gone, so far gone. I knew if she denied me, walking away from her would be the last thing I remembered.

She should refuse me. I wasn’t worthy of being a mate, but my beast disagreed, especially now with her in my hold. I would do it, let her go. For her. And then the others would have to put me down. Execute me. End my fucking misery, because now that I held her, I knew I could never walk away from her. Not and stay sane.

The beast was tired of waiting, and I was tired of fighting him.

Stretching my legs, I quickened my steps. The corridors were empty, everyone either in the fighting pits ready for the next face-off or in the new garden where most of us took our meals so we could watch the mated couples’ children and feel normal again. Like maybe we weren’t monsters.

“Where are you taking me?” Her soft question calmed some of the madness and I cleared my throat so I could answer her. I didn’t want to scare her. She hadn’t changed her mind. In fact, she was resting in my arms, her cheek pressed to my chest, her arms around my neck like she belonged there.

She did.

“To my room.”

Her soft laugh was sexy as hell and my cock pulsed like an ion blaster. There was no question she could feel the hard length against the side of her hip. Good. She knew what was coming, how she affected me. I wondered if I affected her in the same way, if her nipples were hard points, her pussy a sticky, hot mess.

“Is it far, your room?” she asked breathlessly. “Because you are sex on a stick and I really don’t want to wait.” Her nails clawed into my shoulders.

Sex on a stick? I had no idea what the strange Earth term meant, even with the NPU, but it sounded like it was in my favor. As to the rest of what she’d said…

The beast roared and I had no hope of holding him back.

She wanted me.

Now.

My rooms were too far.

Yes. Too Far.

The next thing I knew I had her standing before me, pressed against the wall, her wrists held over her head with my left hand as I cradled her ass with my right. The soft feel of it in my palm made me groan. The beast took over, my muscles grew, my body exploded into more. Bigger. Stronger. Faster. I pressed the heat of her core to my hard cock. There could be no mistake. No question about what I wanted. What I needed.

Now.

Hungry. Gods, I was hungry. For her.

Her eyes were huge as she looked me over. Watched as I changed because of her. The extra foot of height. The enlarged jaw. Shoulders more than double the width of hers. We were both breathing hard, our lips so close I could taste her sweet breath on my tongue. The scent of her skin invaded my lungs and I knew I would never get her out of my system, never forget this moment.

“What’s your name?” she asked, her head angled up so she could look at me. In beast mode, she was so much smaller.

“Angh,” I said, lifting her up with the one hand on her ass, my one leg inserted between hers so we were almost eye level. I felt the heat of her pussy on my thigh.

“I’m Kira.”

Her name was simple. Straightforward. Feminine. It suited. Kira. My mate’s name was Kira. I blinked, holding her gaze, waiting for her to adjust to the presence of not the Atlan warrior, but my beast. For her eyes to shift from hungry and eager to fearful. Repulsed. I waited for her to push against me, to force me to put her down so she could run, scream. I anticipated the one word that would condemn me—no.

And yet, as the seconds ticked by, I didn’t see any of that. She was panting. Her eyes became darker, like the wildest of storms over my home planet. Her cheeks flushed a glorious pink—the color I imagined her pussy to be. I took in every detail. Growled when her tongue flicked out and she licked her full lips.

“So, this is beast mode?”

Her gaze roamed over me with blatant appreciation, lingered on my bare chest. My neck. My lips. “I’ve heard about it. Read about it. God. It’s—you’re—wow.” She smiled, her first smile, and everything within me stilled. My balls ached, my cock dripped the pre-cum that could no longer be contained. I was hers. Just like that, she owned me.

“Want you.”

Two words. It was all I could manage, and on a growl. My room was on the other side of the base, two floors and a half mile of long hallways away. It might as well have been on another planet. I’d never make it. Not now. Impossible. I wasn’t sure if it was even possible to walk with my cock this hard, the way it continued to thicken and swell down my inner thigh.

“Here?”

“Now.” I shifted my leg, pressed my thigh against where I knew her clit was hidden by her uniform. She gasped, her head tilted back against the wall as she moved in sync with me, her hips gyrating and humping my leg, taking her pleasure as she wanted.

I’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Okay. Now. God, you’re hot. So hot. Yes. I want you.” She lifted her legs, wrapped them around my hips, then froze. I held still, a predator, waiting, my cock now perfectly aligned to slip into her pussy, if only our clothes weren’t in the way. Her whispered confession was ragged, as if she was having trouble breathing. “I don’t normally do this. God, I don’t know what the hell is happening to me. I—”

I cut her off with a kiss.

Our first kiss.

Our last first kiss.

The taste of her consumed me. I devoured her, my tongue driving deeply to savor her sweetness, to swallow her moan of satisfaction. She was exquisite. Unique. Submissive. I demanded and she gave. I hungered and she let me drown in her, melting into my arms. She kissed me back, keeping nothing of herself. She demanded as much as she gave, hungered like I did.

It was heaven. A heaven I thought I’d never sample.

Her nipples were hard peaks beneath her uniform. The wet heat of her drifted up to me, the beast scented her arousal and I released the clasp on the side of her pants, pulled them down to the tops of her thighs after she loosened her legs’ tight hold about my waist to help me do so, just enough to give me the access I wanted.

Needed.

“Oh my god, yes.” She curved her body, bringing her knees up toward her chest to give me access to her core. Her pants were bunched and stretched tightly across her thighs, but her pussy was right there. Open. The punch of her scent hit me with more strength than anything I’d ever felt in the pit.

I slipped a finger through her soft folds. Pushed inside.

She was perfect. Hot. Dripping wet. Ready. She gasped at the intrusion, writhed, clenched her inner walls as if to pull me in deeper. As if she wanted more.

“Kira.” The beast growled her name as I held her wrists and freed my cock, my fingers slick with her desire.

“Angh.” She arched her back, pushing toward me, demanding I fill her. Fuck her.

I’d never seen anything like her. Had no idea a female so desirable existed. I could deny her nothing.

Lining up my cock, I pressed forward gently. I was so much bigger than she was. In beast mode, my cock was going to stretch her wide, fill her deep. I didn’t want to hurt her.

Her pussy clamped down on the head of my cock like a fist and she thrashed, tugging at my hold on her wrists. I froze, afraid I was hurting her. I’d rather die than hurt her.

Her eyes opened, met mine. “So good. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

Trembling now, I pushed my hips forward, stretching her. Filling her. She was so hot. So tight. So wet. Her inner walls rippled in response to being opened so wide, adjusted to a beast’s cock. The beast shuddered at the feel, calm. Content to focus on our mate. To fuck her. Fill her with our seed. Mark her. Claim her. “Mine.”

“Angh.” Her head was back, her eyes closed. Her lips glistened from my kiss.

I needed more.

Bending low, I kissed her again as I drove my cock deep and stayed there, up against her womb where I would plant my seed and my claim. I held her there with a hand at the base of her spine, supported her weight so she didn’t have to. I didn’t want her to do anything but feel. I lifted her onto my cock, grinding her small body against me as I fucked her with both cock and tongue. I was inside her. Fucking her. Tasting her. The wet sounds of our joining filled the hallway, our ragged pants the only other sound.

Mine.

I pulled back, thrust deep. I swallowed her scream as her pussy pulsed around me, her body giving me what I demanded. Surrender.

She came within a minute, bucking and arching in my arms like a wild thing. She didn’t hold back. Didn’t hide her pleasure. The sight of her was incredible, the look of bliss, of pure pleasure on her face made my beast preen, my cock pulse, my balls draw up. And knowing I’d brought her to the edge and over, that she was mine, pushed me to the razor’s edge.

The tight fist of her pussy on my cock forced me over and I lifted my head with a roar as my seed pumped into her. Half the base heard me, but I didn’t give a shit. She was mine, and I was proud for everyone to know my mate was so perfect she gave me the most exquisite of pleasure.

For long seconds I held her, my cock buried deep, still hard. Seed still spurting from me. It was as if I’d stored it all up, saving it all for her, for her womb.

I expected the beast to fade, but he remained. Demanding. Needy. He wasn’t done. A quick fuck wasn’t all the beast needed. He wanted our mating cuffs on her wrists. On ours.

I lowered my forehead to hers and fought for words.

“More.”

She laughed, the sound filled with happiness. Nodded. “Does it have to be in the hallway?”

I growled and pulled out of her wet heat, my cock not at all happy about it as I lowered her to her feet, tucked it back into my pants. I stepped back just enough so she could straighten her clothing and my beast didn’t like seeing her covered up again. But knowing my seed was deep inside her, slipping out of her as our scents mingled was enough. For now.

“Naked.”

Fuck. She was really going to think I was a crude animal. But the beast was in control now, and he was raw. There would be no controlling him until I was hers. Completely. Officially. I needed the mating cuffs on my wrists, needed the visual reminder that I belonged to her now. Needed the stinging pain of separation they caused to help me control the beast. We both needed the reminder that I had someone to protect, to love, to serve. Beast and man both needed a reason to keep on fighting.

Kira held out her hand to me, exactly as I had done to her outside, in the arena. She was ruffled now, looked well fucked. A sweaty brow, her pale hair was damp from our exertions, her cheeks flushed, her lips red and swollen, all blatant signs of my claim.

I didn’t take her hand. Instead, I lifted her into my arms once again and carried her away.