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PRINCE DOMAN

“ B y the Gods, I feel like I just went twelve rounds with a Bullfrog. Bare-knuckle,” growls Titus, shaking his head in admiration, his thick black hair cascading with the movement. He traces his fingers over the huge diamond hanging from his neck.

“She planned for us taking her prisoner. The two Administrators she brought are from Magnar and Terosa—neutrality be damned, they are votes to accept our plan. She was willing to sacrifice herself, stuck in a jail cell because she knew the trio voted to replace them would be hardliners.”

“A woman willing to give up her freedom for her people.” I stare at the door where she left, every instinct in me telling me to go after her. I breathe in the air, and her scent is still there—light floral shampoo, no perfume, her own clean, natural scent.

It enrages me. She should be thick with the scent of a potential mate. The ring around my finger cuts me from my true nature, from my deepest self.

Adriana Hart. A beautiful, willowy creature, pure femininity despite her bland, gray drab.

I picture her in a pleasure dress, light green, so thin her body would be on display, every curve of her perfection revealed, enticing me.

There is a spike in my being, an urge stronger than I have ever had before. My heart pounds.

My battle-brothers feel the change in my aura, looking over at me in consternation.

I’ve led them into battle a thousand times, and they feel the anticipation flowing through me as if I am about to draw my blade and charge.

I groan, pressing my hands against my forehead, trying to get control of myself.

“What is it, Doman?” Gallien fixes me with a hard glance, while Titus scans the room, his hand on the hilt of his blade, searching for a threat.

My hand shakes. I run it through my hair.

My hundred years of Academy forged me, my time in the Aurelian army honed me, and I pride myself on my total control. I’ve bit down fear before charging into Scorp nests, I’ve kept my nerve with missiles turning the ground where I was a moment before into a pit of fire.

My lips curl back as I lose the war against myself.

In a sudden movement, I rip the Bond-disruptor ring from my finger, throwing it to the ground, and breathe in.

Her scent fills my nostrils. It comes at me in a wave, slamming into the core of my being, controlling me.

The Mating Rage boils up, fiercer than ever before, and I am starving for her, my cock throbbing as it thickens into an iron rod that tents my robe.

My heart pounds, and my manhood aches, so hard it is painful, every muscle in my body tensing and screaming for release.

Every instinct in me roars to life, to grab her, rip her clothes from her body, spread her legs and claim her, binding her to me for eternity.

I throw back my head, the primal roar echoing in the throne hall, and I sprint before I know what I am doing, my legs eating up the marble ground as I charge towards the doors like I am going into combat.

My boots slam, my hands clenched into fists as my nostrils flare, breathing in, desperate for every taste of her scent.

My hand wraps around the door handle when Titus and Gallien tackle me, their huge bulks pressing me down.

I fight against them, enraged, but I lose all technique, struggling like a beast until Gallien gets me into a chokehold, squeezing his bicep around my throat.

I reach my hands up to fight him off, and Titus grabs my finger, forcing the blue-black ring over my digit.

My mind clears, instantly. The Mating Rage dissipates as I breathe in and taste her scent, devoid of the essence of my Fated Mate that drove me mad with need.

It still tastes right, and good, despite being blackened with hatred and anger, but it is missing its most essential essence, the essence that means we are bound together.

It is like a painting in black and white, but I’ve seen it in full color, just for a moment, and now my world is gray and empty, colors muted, the cold white marble of my throne room sterile and bland.

Just a moment ago, the walls seemed to gleam and glow, everything brighter in my eyes when I was mad with my desire for her.

My cock aches, the throb slowing as it softens. It was harder than ever before, filled with blood until it was a thick, pulsing rod that guided me towards her. My white ceremonial robes are darkened by wet seed, stained by the thick globs of pre-cum designed for us to breed tight human slits.

She is so small, so perfect, and when we are Bonded together, her body will change. She will be molded to take every inch of me deep inside of her, and when she is fat with my child, her…

I growl in anger, directed at myself for my weakness, panting in exertion as Gallien’s arm is tight around my throat. Titus states down at me with hard, gray eyes as he searches my aura and feels my emotions that I cannot contain.

“You good?” Gallien grunts out from behind me. I can barely breathe, and I nod my head ever so slightly. He releases me, slowly, and Titus extends his hand, lifting me to my feet. I run my hand through my hair, slick with sweat.

“Forgive me, my triad,” I say, wracked with emotion.

I am not only the leader of the triad. I am crown prince of my empire, and my every action represents more than myself. I cannot be only a man, weak to a man’s desire. I need to transcend myself to lead my troops.

And for the first time in my memory since I was in Academy, when the dull blades rained down on me and I tried to keep my mouth shut and could not halt the word stop from escaping my lips to end the drills, I lost control of my discipline. I needed to taste her scent, more than I needed to breathe.

I knew since the vision that Adriana was my Fated Mate, but I needed to know, to confirm it with a taste of her being, and now it drives me mad.

“Nothing to forgive,” says Titus. “She is an incredible creature. There is not a more worthy mate in the universe.”

“And her scent is full of hate. This fake marriage will only entrench her hatred,” says Gallien, his mind rushing with calculations, but there is a note of sorrow as he stands.

“Her hate will grow each day. She was ready to be a prisoner, but she was to be a martyr, not this. It will be a public humiliation, each day that she stands by our side. It will be a caricature of marriage that will drive her farther from us.”

I crack my knuckles, longing for battle, where I ascend into pure instinct, directing my troops as I wield my blade. “We will lose her. We knew this when we made our plan. That it would drive her from us. But we will end this war.”

Titus paces the room, his boots clicking against the marble as he walks to the thrones and back.

Gallien’s eyes narrow slightly as he focuses.

“Mark-10 production has increased six thousand percent. Princess Evelyn Surkao turned the Mark-10s from a conception into reality. We’re building new factories every day.

With this marriage, we will have the route to the battle-lines to ship in thousands of the Cyborgs, led by triads of Aurelians into Obsidian’s flank.

He’s stretched too thin in his conquest, and we’re pushing him back.

Even when Obsidian learns of the alliance between Pentaris and the Empire, it will be too late for him. ”

“He will retreat. Even that battle-mad beast will not throw lives away for nothing. He will sue for peace. Once he accepts he cannot win the war, he will give up. We still have his pregnant Mate. Doman, convince your Queen Mother to negotiate using her. The carrot and the stick.” Gallien is cold and rational—but he too wants that poor woman freed.

Titus’ lips curl back in distaste. He hates the necessity of the captive. It sours all three of our minds every time we think of Fay, locked deep under the palace, pregnant to the point of bursting, her breasts swollen up and leaking milk.

“He will not retreat.” I look from Titus to Gallien, and Titus stops pacing, leaning against the marble throne.

“I just tasted our Fated Mate. One taste, and I understand Obsidian in a deeper way. He will not trust Queen Jasmine to release her, even if he surrenders.” I speak of my own mother in the abstract way, because the woman who raised me, who played with me, whose laughter I grew up hearing is gone whenever she puts on the mask of Queen.

Wear a mask too long and it molds to your face.

“Obsidian will make one last attempt. He will charge on Colossus itself. He will draw his forces too thin, and he will be eradicated forever. The scourge of the Priests and the Old Ways will be ripped from the universe forever. But we will not underestimate the War-God. He’s strong, and his followers would go into hell itself if he commanded it.

And he has everything to lose. We must stamp him out…

before some other one of their prophecies comes true. ”

Gallien runs his hand over his buzzed scalp.

“The wedding proposal will be voted on by her government. And she will accept, because she does not trust any other to lead for her entire sector, and not just for their own home planet. Three years will feel like nothing to us. But it is a long time for a human. Perhaps, in these three years… perhaps she will soften to us. Perhaps she will see something in us she does not hate.”

He clings on to hope of his mate. He felt my aura change with a single inhale of her scent, and he aches to feel the same.

Titus paces the room once more, faster, striding up and down with rhythmic, metallic thuds of his combat boots against the polished floor.

“Lose all false hope, Gallien. She hates us to the core. She hates our essence, and the more she knows us, the more she will find to hate,” he snarls.

“This is how she views us. Aliens who would force her into marriage, to bend her to our will. She will view this marriage as a personal sacrifice. It will harden her, until there is no way in.” He runs his fingers over the diamond at his neck, and his hand forms a fist around it, squeezing tight.

I shake my head. “Do not underestimate her. Her one goal is to stop alien boots from ever setting foot on her planets. We must use caution. She may try to wriggle out of this yet.”

Gods, but it’s hard to think. The memory of her scent is driving me wild, clouding my thoughts when I need them to be precise.

It takes every ounce of my will to stop myself from pulling the ring off my finger once more, just for a singular moment of tasting her scent.

A shiver runs through my body as I imagine my tongue over her body. Kissing her, from her lips down her neck, laving her breasts, sucking on her nipples as they harden under my mouth and she moans in pleasure she cannot suppress. Sliding my tongue down her body, between her legs, tasting her.

The ring on my finger blunts the scent of my mate, but the rage boils up in my again, as I imagine pressing myself into her, sliding every inch of my cock deep inside, her body unable to resist me as she screams out my name.

That would be a conquest sweeter than slaying the War-God. That would be my purest ecstasy. To bind her to me, to hear her anger turned to lust and love as she gasps out my name, to make her my queen.

I stomp up and down the throne room like Titus as my cock swells up once more, maddeningly hard, as the image that drives me insane fills my mind.

Adriana, her belly swollen up with my son, as she gives herself to me fully, her body the vessel for my heirs to grow, her bondage to me fully complete.