My heart sank as my fellow rejected brides filed into the shuttle that would take them home.
What to do? Stay here and deal with whatever had just happened? Or try to fight my way onto the shuttle and get back to Earth?
I had to go home.
I reached up and grabbed the commander’s wrist. “Please, you don’t understand. I have to get home. It’s…”
I was about to say it was a matter of life or death. But I was interrupted by Vos Klavoii, appearing at the end of the hall and hurrying our direction.
“Commander Gendovi!” he exclaimed. “I am thrilled to see that you have found a mate—even if it was at the very last minute.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then realized Vos had been followed by several vidglobes, every single one of them focused on me.
All of them sending images of my face back to Earth.
So much for not getting noticed.
I am so screwed.
Chapter Eight
Eldron
“Are you sure you don’t want to simply join the current Bride Games?”
Vos sat behind his desk, his elbows resting on the broad expanse of Earth wood in front of him as he tapped his forefingers together. He had not asked me to sit, but I’d pulled a chair away from the wall, anyway. Station 21 might be Vos’s domain, but I outranked him. At worst, we were equals, and I was going to do everything I could to make sure he remembered that.
“I’m positive,” I finally replied after staring at him for a few long, silent moments. “I have several tech teams at work scanning nearby areas, particularly the Alveron Horde quadrants, for any new intel. I need to check in with them. Mia and I will simply have a mating ceremony and be done.”
I hoped that getting the ceremony over with quickly would help eliminate the expression of sheer terror I had seen on my mate’s face when she realized that rather than going home to Earth, she would be participating in the Bride Games with me.
As for whatever reason she had for wanting to go back to Earth? We could deal with that later. I would make sure she had everything she wanted.
There would be no reason for her to ever need to go back to Earth.
Of course, if she were homesick, we could visit occasionally.
Vos narrowed his eyes at me. “I agreed to allow you to join the grooms in this year’s games on the condition that if you actually found a mate, you would participate in the Bride Games.”
We held one another’s gazes for another long moment as I considered whether this was a battle I truly wanted to fight.
Finally, I gave a curt nod. “How would you feel about extending this year’s games? Let me finish my work, and then Mia and I can go through the Games separately.”
Vos flashed that signature grin of his. “Draw the Bride Games out longer? Fine by me. It ought to bring up the ratings.” He paused, an almost evil gleam in his eye. “But we will have a completely different set of games for you and your bride. I’ll put a team on it and see what we can find out about her background. We should be able to come up with something… suitably interesting for the two of you.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that—but having seen the spanking ceremony that Cav and Natalie had engaged in, I knew I didn’t want to participate in the same games they had. Those sorts of foreplay games were far too intimate to be shown to the entire galaxy.
With any luck, Vos and his team would be forced to come up with something a little less revealing.
“In the meantime,” Vos continued, “we had to reassign one of your team members. Wex Banstinad, a communications officer, was assigned to Zont Lanov, the Khanavai warrior who has headed to Earth to track down Amelia Rivers.”
I ran the names through my memory, finally coming up with a connection. “The bride who ran? A warrior has decided to try to gain her as his mate?”
“Indeed, the bride who ran.” Vos’s smile seemed genuine, for once. “This is going to be the most exciting set of Bride Games ever.”
I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t wrong. But having found my mate, I wasn’t terribly interested in playing any of Vos’s ridiculous games.
Still, I had agreed to participate, and that agreement had gotten me access to Station 21’s equipment for my project.
“I’m going to check in with my team,” I announced as I stood. “I’ll see if I can find another technician to replace Wex Banstinad.”
Vos gave a little two-fingered salute and went back to plotting whatever it was he had in mind.
I was not certain he even noticed as I left his office.
Chapter Nine
Mia
In my dream, I stood at my kitchen counter, chopping onions as I prepared dinner.
I could tell Frank was angry the moment he strode through the front door, the dark cloud that hovered around him on days like this making my stomach twist and turn with a dread I couldn’t even put into words.
Josiah, not even a year old yet, played on the floor at my feet, banging pots and pans together happily, a cheerful sound, but one I knew I needed to silence.
Bending over, I spoke softly to him. “Baby, let’s go find another toy for you to play with.”
I took the pan lid away from him, and Josiah began crying. I tried to shush him, turning to look for something else he could play with.
But as I stood up, Frank was there, fist raised. “How many times do I have to tell you to make the baby shut up?” he snarled.
His fist came down with a sickening crunch against the side of my face. I heard the sound before I felt it, and even as I landed on the ground, I was thinking, “I have to get the baby to stop crying.” The first words out of my mouth
