Helen, Planet Everis, the Touchstone

I entered the beautiful garden, my knees weak. I followed the path as instructed and found the beautiful white stone bench exactly where he’d promised: next to a bubbling fountain and surrounded by flowers. Their sweet scent filled the air, and I felt like I was living in a fairy tale.

The most unusual fairy tale that involved a little Star Trek and a strange bit of palm tingling.

Why? This wasn’t a garden in the Virginia town I grew up in. No, I volunteered to be an Interstellar Bride and traveled light years across the galaxy to meet him, my one true match. My mate. My Marked Mate. I ran my fingers over my palm where my birthmark—no, my mark—pulsed and almost burned in reminder that he was near.

After the transport and the meetings, visiting with the other women who’d arrived at the Touchstone to find their mate, I still didn’t have any answers. But as I stared at the thick strip of black silk draped with such care over the bench, I dared to hope. Hope that he would understand. Hope that he would know exactly what I needed. Had Warden Egara—the woman who’d conducted the testing at the center in Miami—been correct and the Brides Program’s test had tapped into my subconscious needs? Things I wanted and could never say aloud? They were too…dark, too embarrassing.

I lifted the black silk into my hands, felt the cool slide of the material, and I was shocked to discover that my fingers shook. My heart pounded, fluttered so fast. I couldn’t count the beats, could barely breathe. This was it.

The moment.

What I held in my hand was everything I wanted. Strange, it being a blindfold, but he’d promised me in the dream if I put it on, he’d give me the world. No, the entire galaxy. Insane, doing what a man in a dream had told me, but it was him.

I’d been told only Marked Mates would dream share. Only Marked Mates would have the marks on their palms awaken. That it was a true gift because only a small number found their other half.

I had. A woman from Earth who somehow was an Everian descendent. The mark on my palm proved it. The other women gave me looks of envy that my mark had awakened so quickly, that he was close. Here.

I bit my lip, tried to stifle the nervous smile that turned my lips.

Unable to stand for another moment, I turned and sat down on the bench. The chill of the stone reached through the diaphanous white gown I wore. But even the cold was not enough to shock me from my nervous anticipation of what was to come. No, of who was to come.

On Earth, I was considered a broken woman. Strange. Caught in the past even. Especially in the city where I was raised, where women wore power suits, three-inch heels, and college degrees like badges of honor. I was supposed to be confident, aggressive, demanding. I was supposed to want true equality between the sexes. Demand it. But I wanted none of those things. The truth of the matter was I spent most of my life feeling afraid, vulnerable, and weak. I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted to serve. I found peace in giving to others. Comfort.

My grandmother had been like that, content in raising her four children, happily greeting my grandfather at the door when he came home from work. Making casseroles for neighbors in need. The white picket fence. Kissing booboos. She hadn’t wanted a career outside the home, outside of the life with her husband. I wanted that, too. But on Earth I was about fifty years too late in my thoughts.

I wanted to find a man strong enough to take care of me, to make me feel safe. Cherished.

My desires made me an outcast among my peers. Twenty-three and a college graduate, I was supposed to be something I simply was not. I was smart enough to know my own mind, and I had no desire to rule the world. I was a professional photographer, and a good one. I worked with fashion models and actresses, industry icons who played with men like they’d play with their dolls. Using them in a desperate attempt to rule the world before their beauty faded, their fifteen minutes of fame was over.

The only thing I wanted was a man strong enough to rule me.

Yes, rule. Maybe being light years away from Earth finally gave me the courage to even think that. I couldn’t go back—there was no returning once matched—so I could let those thoughts overwhelm me. I could be the real me, to go after what I wanted.

Shuddering now, I could feel his eyes on me. Somehow, I knew he watched me struggle to make this decision. For if I put the blindfold over my eyes, he would come for me. He would take me from this beautiful place and conquer my body. He’d already conquered my soul. My hope.

In the dreams we shared, he’d promised me pleasure. I shivered, remembering the deep gravelly tone of his voice, the dominance of his touch. It made him impossible to resist. I looked down in my lap at the thick strip of silk spread across my knees and made my decision. No, I’d already made it. I’d just needed a minute to just…breathe. I hadn’t come halfway across the galaxy to lose my courage now. I wasn’t afraid of him in the dreams, and I wasn’t afraid of him now.

All I had to do was put the blindfold on and everything I ever wanted would happen.

Taking a deep breath, I lifted the strip of silk and covered my eyes completely, tied a firm knot at the back of my head. I could see nothing, the fabric blocking out almost all light except for a thin sliver at the bottom. As instructed, I folded my hands together demurely and sat with my spine straight and my head bent, waiting for my master to come claim me.

A little nervous laugh escaped my lips. My heart fluttered like the wings of a butterfly.

Yes, master. He would be in charge. In control. He would love me with a guiding hand—and perhaps a firm one, too. I ached for that. For him. If he watched, he’d see my nipples hard against my thin gown. They ached with the need to be touched, suckled.

I wanted this.

I wanted him.

He didn’t make me wait long. It was as if I could feel him, his body, his desire coming closer. I held my breath when I heard the slightest scruff of footsteps on the path.

“You are so beautiful.”

I knew that voice, felt it all the way to my bones. The rough timbre of it was even more seductive in person than in the dreams we shared, and my entire body shivered in response. Goose bumps rose on my arms, yet I wasn’t the least bit cold. I bit my lip and didn’t respond as he’d not asked me to. I waited impatiently for him to touch me, and when it finally came, my entire body melted. I gasped as his huge, warm hand came to rest at the back base of my neck. I startled, then calmed as his thumb gently massaged the knots he found there.

All at once, I felt his power in the gentle, yet firm, grasp.

The other brides at the Touchstone—the meeting place for those interested in finding a mate from the new arrivals through the testing program—had fussed over me this morning, when I had finally told them about the dreams. They’d been excited—and envious—for me that my match was here, the dreams the first sign of his proximity. They’d spent hours putting my hair up in an elaborate braid that left my neck and shoulders bare. The dress I wore covered one shoulder and dipped low off the other, leaving it exposed. The material was thin and clung to every curve. I had plenty, perhaps too many. I wasn’t a waif like the models I photographed. Far from it. But this dress was lovely, even on me. The color, the pale white of freshly fallen snow, I wore at his request. It was easy to do as he wished, for his pleasure was my pleasure. The lack of undergarments was my choice though. I wanted him to see how badly I needed him, that I offered myself to him completely. I didn’t want to hide.

I wanted him to know when my nipples hardened, when my breath caught in my throat. That when my dress was pooled at my feet, there was only me and every inch of me belonged to him. And I wanted something else.

“What is your name?” I asked, my curiosity winning out on protocol.

He’d come to me three nights in a row, in my dreams. Every night I’d been at the Touchstone, on Everis. And all three times, he’d asked me to close my eyes. To trust.

His fingers squeezed slightly, prompting me to his dominance. “You will call me Master and nothing else.”

The words made me shiver, made my pussy clench, made me wet, my body drowning in heat.

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Yes, Master.”

“Good little mate.”

While he kept one hand at my nape, the touch of his fingers of the other was featherlight as he traced the intricate lines of my braids, the seam of my gown. The curve of my lips, exploring me as if I were the finest china and might break at the softest touch. I barely breathed as he took his time.

“Are you ready to come with me?”

Was I ready? “Yes,” I replied, almost a groan. Yes to everything. I wanted it all.

“Never lie to me. Never deceive me. You must always be honest about what you feel and what you need. Do you understand?” He moved and I heard him settle before me. I could hear his breathing, knew his face was directly before mine which meant he was kneeling. He took hold of both of my hands in his much larger ones. My mark pulsed and throbbed, seemingly knowing its match had finally made contact. I couldn’t see him, but I felt his breath. And even though we’d never been this close physically before, I breathed in his familiar scent. How was it possible it was familiar and yet we’d never met? I wished in that moment to rip the blindfold from my eyes and see the Hunter before me. To leap into his arms, to tuck my face into his neck, breathe him in, kiss him there. Lick him.

I could do it. Just lift my hands, tug down the silk. Others would do so, but I wouldn’t give in to temptation. I’d chosen this path. Him. And this was how we both wanted it. Seeing him was not my choice, but his. I had to hope that one day he would trust me enough to let me see him, deem me worthy. For now, I was content to be what he wanted. To obey. To trust.

“Yes, I am ready.”

“You must understand completely,” he replied. “If you are mine, and you disobey me in this, you will be punished, mate.”

The thought sent a thrill down my spine. “What do you mean? How will you punish me?” My mind raced with possibilities, but I could settle on none of them. I wasn’t a child to be punished. And if he got too weird or overbearing, well, there were other fish in the sea. Lots of other fish. The problem was, I didn’t want them. I wanted him. My master.

His big hands stroked the outside of my thighs, the large palms firm and hot through the thin material of my gown. “I will lay you over my lap and spank your bare bottom until you beg for forgiveness. Until every touch of my palm spreads like fire. Until you are consumed with it.”

Holy shit. I should be freaking out at the idea of being spanked. Spanked! But no, I was definitely broken because my pussy clenched and I imagined myself naked, spread over his lap, both my ass and pussy on display for him to…master. Spank. Fuck.

“Yes, Master.”

Gods, yes. Maybe I could start with a little white lie right now and see what happened…No. No. No! What was wrong with me? This man had me twisted up in knots. In the possibility of what we would be together.

“I may be the one in control, but you have all the power. One word, Helen, one word from those full lips of yours and everything will stop. Do you understand?”

He reminded me of the conversation we’d had in the dream the night before, when I agreed to meet him. I knew what he was talking about, this one word. On Earth, it was a safe word. But I didn’t want to be safe. I just wanted him and so I nodded.

His large hands cradled mine in my lap once again, his thumbs gently rubbed the palms, sending tingles in a hundred different directions at once. Scattering my thoughts as well.

“What is this word? What is the one utterance that always makes everything stop? What is the word that makes you the master and me your willing slave?”

I didn’t want anything to stop. Not now that we’d just begun. Not now that he was before me. Finally. I wanted everything he would give me. While I was nervous, I was confident he knew exactly what I needed, perhaps better than I did myself. The flare of heat from the mark was my belief in that. We’d been destined for just this moment.

But I gave him this, because he asked. Because it was all I had to give him at the moment. I licked my lips and said, “Butterfly.”

I chose the word because it was one I would never utter accidentally—were there even butterflies on Everis?—and because it represented this journey I was on, my transformation from scared and alone to being claimed. Useful. Protected. I felt like I was about to emerge from my chrysalis and become something more, something I never dared let myself be on Earth. Butterfly represented the risk I took traveling halfway across the galaxy. For him. For myself.

Warden Egara had promised me, when she’d processed me back on Earth, this match would be perfect. That the Coalition had been doing this for hundreds of years, even though Earth matches had been happening for only a short time. That the test never failed.

I chose to believe her, and my mark.

“Butterfly. Come then.” He stirred and took my hands, gently leading me I knew not where, but I had only taken a few steps when he swept me up into his arms. I gasped at the ease with which he held me as he carried me the rest of the way to…somewhere. He was so warm, so hard. So big. I relaxed in his hold, unknowing and uncaring where we might be going. Perhaps it was insanity. I could hear the voices from my past yelling at me, advising caution. To go off with a stranger, blindfolded. But I was beyond all that. This wasn’t Earth. The rules here were different. None of my friends at home had been tested. None of my friends back home had a mark that led them to their one true match. I wasn’t afraid, not with him. He was mine. I knew it, I knew it in the depths of my soul. And when we touched, when we shared dreams, this strange mark that I had believed a birthmark all these years heated on my palm as if I’d been burned by an iron. It proved it all. And so I smiled. Ready.

According to Officiate Treva, who was in charge of all the brides who arrived on Everis, the burning and dream sharing meant he was my Marked Mate, my perfect match, a one in a hundred chance. Hunters who’d served honorably in the Coalition Fleet and had earned an Interstellar Bride sometimes didn’t find their Marked Mate. But mine had. I had. I’d dream shared starting the first night and my mark had heated as soon as I woke up from transport.

Warden Egara’s testing seemed irrelevant if the mark on my palm matched me to him, if it proved he was nearby. But it had led me here, to him. Without the testing, I’d never have known it wasn’t a birthmark, that it was so much more.

He’d found me. Come to me in my dreams and now in person. He carried me away to claim me.

He held me as if I weighed nothing, the steel-like strength of his arms and chest seductive in their own right as I rested my head against his shoulder.

After a time, he settled me on my feet and stepped away, leaving me standing alone and unsure. I heard a door slide closed behind us, a lock click, and I hoped we were somewhere I would not have to hold back my cries of pleasure, for I knew they were to come. I had never done anything with a man before—I was completely untouched, but I knew he would pull them from me. I would give myself to him and he would give everything in return.

He let the tension build, made me wait and wonder and worry. Anticipation built as I followed the sound of his feet as he paced in a circle around me.

I could feel his eyes on me once again. This time, I knew exactly how close he was. Hear the rustle of his clothing, breathe in his scent.

“Step out of your dress and kneel.”