I know something is wrong. Messed up. Completely off. And no one is paying attention. My BFFs went missing after beating the hottest new multi-player game on the planet, Starfighter Training Academy. They won. They celebrated. They vanished. So what's the girl left behind supposed to do? Beat the damn game, that's what. Find out the truth, even if that includes being recruited to fight in an alien war, lusting after the hottest alien I've ever seen, and marching into a battle there's little chance of winning. I will find my friends. I will learn what the heck is going on. And I will kiss the alien hunk I've been staring at for weeks. Watch me.
CHAPTER ONE
Darius, Moon Base Arturri, in orbit around Planet Velerion
I stood in the entrance to our newly assigned private quarters and watched Lily Wilson of Earth open one of the heavy cases she’d insisted we bring along. My pair-bonded female had been prepared and waiting for my arrival on Earth with five large cases stacked and waiting to go. Thinking I would need to introduce myself, explain about the training protocols, and seduce her, if necessary, to convince her to come back to Velerion with me, I’d been shocked when she’d opened her door, said my name, and shoved one of the cases toward me.
No argument. No questions. She’d simply said, “Darius. About time. Let’s go.”
Not exactly the welcome I’d been hoping for. No gasp of surprise. No inspection or questions. No touching or locked gazes. No kissing. Taking. Claiming.
Nothing to give away her thoughts or her mood. She was like a wall of ice, and I had yet to find a single crack in her composure.
“What are you doing? The general said to rest. Jamie and Mia cannot meet with you until tomorrow.” General Aryk had been the highest-ranking official on the base when I’d arrived with Lily. In fact, he was the highest ranking Velerion military officer we had and was head of the Galactic Alliance. He’d insisted we rest and informed us they were still cleaning up after a large operation to take back the planet Xenon and its moon base from Queen Raya and the Dark Fleet. They’d been successful, but there were still pockets of resistance on the surface keeping everyone busy. Including Lily’s friends, Mia and Jamie, the two additional Earth females who had earned Elite Starfighter ranks.
Lily glanced up at my question, looked from the bed to me, and hastily averted her gaze. “I’m not tired. And I want to unpack.”
Watching her now, I held back a groan as she leaned forward, the curves of her breasts taunting me where her clothing dipped low. Lily was softness and curves. Golden-brown hair, green and gold eyes. She was supposed to be mine. To fight beside me. To care about our war with the Xandraxians and Queen Raya. I hoped she would be eager to climb inside the Elite Starfighter Titan in which she would battle. Yet here she was, in the Vega Star System, twenty-five light-years from her former life, and she had not touched me. Had spoken my name only once. In fact, she only seemed to care about finding her two human friends.
To say I was confused would be an understatement. During our training simulations, Lily had been savage in battle, cursing in more languages than I could recall as she pounded enemies into dust.
I had expected Lily to be raw, fearless, her emotions and needs exposed. Instead I could not read her at all. She was like a wild animal hiding behind fortified walls. Watching me. Waiting. But for what? I had no experience with human females except her. And she was not behaving as I had expected. Perhaps I needed to try another tactic.
“What is in those cases? Stones?”
“Books.”
“What are books?” Lily’s body had successfully accepted the cipher implant injection, and we had been conversing, if awkwardly, the entire trip from Earth. Still, I did not know this term.
She opened the case, and I crouched to inspect the strange rectangular objects layered four or five deep inside. They appeared to be oddly thin sheets of parchment or canvas stacked and wrapped in thicker bits that covered the outside. They were made of many different colors and what I assumed were human names on the outside. The labels indicated topics ranging from war to philosophy to animals. One in particular caught my eye as it appeared to have a human pair bond engaged in some sort of mating ritual on the cover.
I grabbed the book, barely evading her attempt to swat my hand away. Now I was extremely interested in the contents. Holding the image this way and that to inspect it, I rose and walked over to lean my shoulder against the wall, giving her a bit of distance. She was jumpy. Nervous. Always on edge.
Her anxiety made me want to wrap my arms around her and hold her until she melted in my arms. Until she was mine.
“What are these books?” I asked again. “And why did you bring so many?”
She sighed and began removing the remaining books, placing them in stacks on the floor beside her, sorting them in some mysterious way only she understood.
“They’re stories written by people and immortalized on paper. Some of these are hundreds of years old.”
That was the most Lily had said to me since I’d stood before her and told her who I was. I thumbed through the parchment I held. “This will burn quite easily. How does this make the story immortal?”
Rubbing her palms over her blue jean–covered thighs, she then tugged the sleeve of her hoodie—which was decorated with the logo of her favorite university team—higher on her arm. Earth clothing appeared to be soft and not very functional, and those were all words I had learned in the last few hours. She looked up at me with a plea in her eyes and held out her hand. “It doesn’t matter. Just give that back, please.”
Please? Had she just said please?
Unable to deny her, I walked to her and placed the book in her outstretched hand. She took the item and twisted to place it behind her on the floor as I lifted another, similar looking book from the case, surprised to note there were six or seven more stacked beneath this one. All with the same name on the books’ sides.
“Darius!” Lily’s cheeks turned an interesting shade of pink.
“Yes?” Interesting indeed. This book had a human name at the bottom of the thick cover. “Grace Goodwin. Her Cyborg Beast? The Colony?” I turned the rectangle over and absorbed the meaning of the words that covered the back side. I considered the ideas, wondering if my cipher implant was malfunctioning. “Mated means pair bonded? For life?”
“Yes.” Lily lifted her hand to her face and covered her eyes. “Just give that back. Don’t worry about it.”
“Interstellar Brides? A colony? I did not know Earth had entered into any treaties or trade agreements with other worlds.” Was Velerion intelligence wrong about the small blue planet? Had Earth’s people made pacts we were unaware of?
“We haven’t. It’s fiction, okay? Make-believe.”
“Make me believe what, exactly?”
“It’s just a story. Imagination. None of it is true. It’s for entertainment. That’s all.”
“Interesting.”
“Not really. Just give it back.”
“Not yet.” I very much wanted to open this book and discover what human stories said of pair bonds and mating rituals.
With an irritated grumble, Lily apparently decided her best course of action was to ignore me and devote her undivided attention to unpacking her cases and cases of books.
Which left me time to wonder at the entertainment I held in my hand. Lily appeared to be entertained by large males with bulging muscles and biosynthetic implants just below the skin. On the outside covering of the book, the male’s expression was serious and the words on the back spoke of war and torture. A beast of some kind.
Hoping to understand Lily a bit, I opened the book to a random page and began to read. The time I had spent in training simulations with Lily had accustomed my cipher implant to reading in her language. However, the words shocked me. Made my body react with need. Lust. Desire. Everything I’d been fighting diligently to control since the moment I met Lily came roaring to life as the Beast man in the story boldly told his human female exactly what he would do to her body. The ways he would claim her. Fill her with his seed. Make her body writhe with pleasure. Pound his hard cock into her wet heat and make her come over and over…
The book fell from my hands and landed with a soft thud on the floor.
Fuck. This was what Lily had brought with her from Earth? Not clothing. Sentimental items. Jewelry. No.
Lily had books full of hot, naked sex? Dominant males seducing their pair-bonded females? Fucking. Tasting. Claiming them for all time. The story had been told in the female’s perspective as her mate had filled her body with his cock. Pumped into her. Touched her. Kissed her. The lust burning from the pages had me struggling to breathe.
“Lily?”
“Yes?” Her clipped tone held little to no interest in my presence. She had moved on from organizing her books on the floor to placing them in groups inside the cabinets along the bedroom wall. As she’d done from the moment her wide eyes had landed on me back on Earth, when I’d arrived at her living quarters, she appeared to be doing anything and everything she could to ignore me.
This human female had already wrecked my carefully laid plan. Ruined everything. Nothing she did was expected. I had no idea what to say to her or how to approach her.
How to get her naked.
She’d barely spoken to me, but fuck all that was holy, she was humming, her soft, lilting voice going straight to my hard cock.
“Is that what you desire?”
“What are you talking about?” Her movements were quick. Stilted. The humming became louder, as if she intended to drown out any answer I might give.
“The beast man in that story of yours. He took his female and held her against the wall, filled her with his cock. Made her scream with release.”
“Oh, bloody hell,” she whispered under her breath but would not look at me.
“Lily? Answer me. Is. That. What. You. Want?” Because I was fully capable, eager, to take her against the wall and make her scream. But the only name she would be calling out would be mine.
My name. Over and over. Until she knew exactly who had claimed her.
Starfighter Training Academy. It was just a game. The newest, hottest video game release of the year. Choose a role. Build the perfect hero who joins you on missions to save the Vega star system from the evil Queen Raya and her merciless Dark Fleet. Play for hours? Check.
Obsess over the in-game romance between your avatar and the sexiest alien you've ever seen? Check.
Win? Beat the heck out of the game? Check and check.
Open your door at 3:00 in the morning to find that smoking hot alien you thought you made up in your head standing there? Um... okay.
Wake up on the other side of the galaxy with that same alien insisting you're his... and that you haven't been playing a video game, but completed the training program to become the first Starfighter from Earth? Holy sh$t.
I spend so many hours playing that I dream about dangerous missions on other worlds...and my gorgeous, in-game training partner, Kassius. That is, until I win. I beat the Starfighter Training Academy.
But is it a game? Or alien software designed to recruit new, unsuspecting soldiers for a war in another star system? Because when my hot as heck alien shows up at my workplace demanding I leave Earth and travel to the Vega system? What? When he informs me it's my duty to fight Queen Raya and the Dark Fleet? Claims he wants me as much as I've craved him? Let's just say things get crazy.
Facing the truth is never easy, but when I arrive at the Elite Starfighter base I learn that Kassius cheated the system, hacked into the game, and lied to everyone on two worlds to make me his.
Now who's obsessed?
Maxim of Prillon Prime fought ten long years in the Hive wars. Captured and tortured with his second, Ryston, they escaped only to be rejected by their own people and condemned to life on the Colony with the other "contaminated" cyborg warriors. As leader of Sector 3, it's Maxim's duty to set an example for his warriors and summon a bride. When she refuses transport, he can't allow her rejection to demoralize an entire planet of battle hardened but jaded warriors. Maxim and Ryston transport to Earth where they decide she's theirs and a maximum security human prison will not keep them apart.
Getting Rachel to the Colony is only the first challenge they will face. Convincing their beautiful mate to surrender to not one, but two dominant warriors is another. Even if they can win her love, a new evil is rising on the Colony and someone close to Maxim will be its first victim. Maxim will be its second, unless Rachel's love and relentless pursuit of the truth proves strong enough to save him.
Goodreads Giveaway
♥ Ends August 17
♥ 10 winnes
♥ Open to USA and Canada
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"Well, you're a lot more elite than the last starfighter we had in here."
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