Elite Starfighter, Game 3 by Grace Goodwin

1

Darius, Moon Base Arturri, in orbit around Planet Velerion

I stoodin 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 pairbonded 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. 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 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 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 pairbonded? 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 with shock when I appeared at her door for the first time, 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 started humming as she went about the room, organizing her things, her soft, lilting voice going straight to my hard cock.

“Is that what you desire?”

“What are you talking about?” Her movements became quick once again. Stilted.

“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.