It would not be me. My enhanced cyborg sense of smell had already cataloged and dismissed every single female participant, and I hadn’t even met them yet. Still, the others did not have the unusual integrations Dr. Helion reserved for those in his service with the Coalition Fleet’s Intelligence Core. I was not a typical Atlan warlord. Hadn’t been for a long time.
“Agreed.” Iven ran his hand over his head in agitation. He’d lived on The Colony for more than a year, and Maxim had added him to this Bachelor Beast group when he still had not heard of a match from the Brides Program. “Where are the items that carry the females’ scents?”
“I have them here.” Tane reached into a small case and withdrew clear sealed bags of some type, colored pieces of cloth in each of them. Tane and I had worked together in the past, although he was not part of the IC. He and I were the closest among the five. A friend.
“Bahre?” Tane held out one of the sealed bags to me, but I shook my head.
“My mate is not among them,” I replied.
“How do you know?” Kai asked. He was the youngest of us and the latest to have escaped the Hive.
“I have already caught their scents, and my beast is not interested.” I wasn’t sure if my words sounded bitter because I was disappointed or bored.
“Fuck. I’m sorry.” Tane shook his head and offered the colorful red item to one of the others as I paced the small space between cameras and other equipment, feeling more and more trapped with each passing second.
“How the fuck did you manage that? They’ve been keeping us separated from the females. You sneak out of here and not tell us?” Iven asked. The corner of his mouth tipped up in what would be considered a smile on a warlord.
“No.” My neck ached, so I leaned my head to the side and stretched the scarred tissue there. “The female scents have lingered on the set from Wulf’s time here.”
Iven stared at me in surprise. “That was weeks ago. How the hell are you picking up their scents now?”
Tane shoved Iven in the shoulder. “He was IC. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
Iven tipped his head. No one questioned what happened within the IC. “Apologies, Bahre.”
I nodded so he would know I held no grudge. All the others here had been captured by the Hive, integrated, and banished to The Colony. I had not. My integrations had been done deliberately by Dr. Helion to help me track, hunt, and kill Hive as well as other dangerous criminals and killers that tried to prey upon the Coalition worlds. They knew everyone who had cyborg parts held different extra abilities. None of them knew what the IC was capable of. I did. All too well.
We all had scars, but mine were extensive and had never been healed. Most who’d been captured by the Hive had integrations, many of them visible on their body. Head, neck, hands, eyes. Silver all over. Mine were not on the surface, but the poorly healed wounds were. I’d been trapped with the Prillon ambassador, Lord Niklas Lorvar and his second, Sambor Treval, on an asteroid for days, fighting off Hive attackers before the ReCon teams found us. The scars had been set by then. Too late to repair with a ReGen pod unless I chose to have reconstructive surgery. I did not. The scars reminded me of those we’d lost that day, of how close we’d come to losing the Prillon ambassador, a very important male in Prime Nial’s service. The scars reminded me to be vigilant. To never relax my guard. I was a protector and a killer, in that order, and I welcomed the reminder of my failure on that cargo ship. It would not happen again.
My beast did not operate on emotion or fear. Most of the time I felt nothing. But right now I felt… restless. Anxious. I did not have mating fever like Wulf and Braun had when they arrived on Earth, yet my heart beat too fast. The pressure in my veins was too high. My beast prowled within as he did before a battle, but there were no enemies before us. Chet, the male with the human ailment of pink eye, had been like a spoiled child every time we saw him, which was more than once a day.
There was no threat here. No danger. Florida was safer than the Prime’s palace.
And yet—
“Bahre. What’s with you?” Tane set aside the female item he’d been holding and walked to me, slapped me on the shoulder. “Are you well?”
“I do not know.” I curled my hands into fists and fought to control my breathing. Slow. Steady. I did not have this type of reaction. Ever. And yet here I was. Something was affecting me.
“Is it mating fever coming upon you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.” This was not a fire in my blood. There was no rampaging beast clawing to break free and kill anything and everything we encountered. I was mentally calm. As always. But my body was behaving strangely, like it had a mind of its own. “Something is… off. I can feel it.”
Tane and the others reacted at once, putting the silly female garments aside. We might not be in a Hive-controlled sector of space, but we were warlords first and foremost. They fanned out around the room and searched for threats.
I did the same, heading for a doorway not already covered by the others.
Inhaling, I caught a scent. The smallest hint of sweetness I had not experienced before.
Delicate.
Mysterious.
Female.
Mine.
I groaned low and deep.
My female—my mate—was in this building, or had been a few hours ago.
The knowledge settled over
