Prime Imperative (The Prime Chronicles Book 3) (2 page)

“Really? Now? Doesn’t that…that…”
freaking, scary, creep-a-zoid
“…man understand the meaning of the word
no
?” As in never, no way, no how, ever in the infinite future of possibilities.

Cheri paused outside the doorway and threw a commiserating grimace over her shoulder. “I’ll venture a guess and say
not
. He hasn’t seen you yet. So hide. I’ll get rid of the slime-sucking bottom-feeder. He won’t get a chance to touch you again.”

“No!” Bria grabbed the arm of her loyal and well-meaning friend, the sister Bria had never had because she’d been adopted into a family with six boys. She pulled Cheri back and whispered, “He can smell me. He knows I’m here. Go…get help. Preferably someone who isn’t susceptible to his Dornian hypnotic abilities.”

“But…but…he hurt you last time.” Cheri’s eyes filled with angry tears. “And no one did anything about it.”

The incident Cheri referred to had occurred about a standard week ago. Jotak, tired of her holding him at arm’s length, had become more aggressive in his pursuit. He’d cornered her in the research facility’s storeroom, forced a kiss on her…then attempted to rape her.

Bria shuddered and swallowed hard against the sickness threatening to erupt. She still bore bruises and claw marks from his rough handling. If a janitor hadn’t happened by, Jotak would’ve succeeded in assaulting her. Her rudimentary self-defense skills hadn’t even made a dent against Jotak’s superior strength and training.

The janitor had backed her story when she’d filed the complaint with local authorities, but then the poor man had gone missing. Using his mesmeric abilities, Jotak had persuaded the local law officers that the alleged attack had been a mere lovers' tiff. Her bruises were ignored.

So, until she had security footage of an attack or eyewitnesses who couldn’t be
persuaded
to say otherwise—or she was severely injured enough for medical treatment—no one would believe the Chief of Security was stalking and threatening her.

“If he smells you, he smells both of us,” Cheri hissed as she reversed Bria’s grip and held onto Bria’s arm. “Come with me. We can both get away.”

“No, he’ll hunt us down.” And he’d hurt Cheri, because he had no use for her. “Dornians love nothing more than to chase prey.” And to kill them. Killing and hiding a body were as easy for a Dornian as putting on clothing in the morning. “It’s me he wants.”

And he wouldn’t kill Bria. He wanted to breed with her.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Bria gave her friend an urgent shove. “Go out the back. Now.” Her friend hesitated. “Cheri, please go…and hurry! Bring back help.”

Cheri cast one last angry, fear-filled glance at the six-and-a-half-foot pseudo-reptilian stalking toward the lab and then ran out the back exit.

Bria turned and blocked the lab’s main entrance, giving Cheri extra time to make her escape. Realizing she still held a scalpel, she placed the hand holding the lethally sharp instrument alongside her leg. If he got too close, she knew just where to cut him, to force him to take the time and energy to heal himself as his kind did. She might’ve been raised by pacifists on a communal farming planet and was, by choice, a healer, but she believed in self-defense.

“Brianna! What is-s-s this-s-s-s I hear?” His low voice carried down the hallway as he decreased the space between them. His voice had an eerie, sibilant hiss due to his genetics and made the hairs on her body stand on end. She shivered and tried to ignore the primitive response of prey. “You will
not
leave Oz. This-s-s-s I will not permit.”

Jotak had no rights over her, no matter what he thought in his screwed up, alpha-dominant, narcissistic brain. She’d made the point clear many times…and would again and again until he processed the truth—she’d never be with him.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Jotak.” Despite her vow to remain calm and in control, her voice trembled from fear and all the adrenaline speeding through her system.

Of course, her subtly sarcastic reprimand on his lack of manners swept over his head like a solar wind.

“Explain, woman.” Jotak loomed over her in full alpha-male-intimidation mode with his fists on his hips and a frown on his practically lipless mouth. Some women might find his six-foot six-inch muscular body, pale green skin, dark-green, almost-black hair, and golden eyes attractive in an exotic way.

Bria found him irritating and very, very menacing.

“We had this discussion almost s-s-six weeks ago. We agreed you were not going to Cejuru Prime.”

Jotak spoke the name of the home planet of the Prime race, a recent addition to the Galactic Alliance, as if it produced a foul taste in his mouth. His Dornian race, a nomadic people that ran con games and hired out as mercenaries to the highest bidder, was a distant cousin to the Antareans, the Prime’s archenemy for millennia. The antipathy must have been bred into their pseudo-reptilian genes.

While choosing to work within the structure of the Galactic Alliance had made Jotak an outlier within his race, he was no less criminal or less dangerous. The Dornian heritage which made him a good con man and warrior were lousy for just about everything else, including his current job providing security for a bunch of brainiac research scientists.

Whoever had hired and then promoted the man should be shot.

“
You
said I wasn’t going,” Bria pointed out with a calmness she didn’t feel. The raw energy coming off the large and powerful male frame had her hominid primitive brain urging her to run—and another little used and more violent part of her congenital makeup urged her to fight.

For the moment, she chose a higher brain response and attempted to reason with him. If that tack didn’t work, she’d use the scalpel on a vital artery and then run like hell.

“If you recall, I didn’t agree.” Slowly, she moved sideways, further away from his body, toward the rear exit of the lab. Just in case diplomacy didn’t work.

During a normal encounter, Jotak had absolutely zero respect for personal space, but his current maneuver of crowding her was aimed at bullying her into submitting to his will.

Bria wouldn’t succumb, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel threatened…because she did. She’d had up close and personal experience with how quickly Jotak went from a simmering anger to a roiling rage.

For now, Jotak mirrored her movements, stalking her like the predator he was, while closing any gap she created. Then he stopped. His head swept from side to side as his split-tongue tasted the air. His slitted yellow eyes flared. He’d noted Cheri’s lingering scent.

Thank the One, her friend was long gone, out of Jotak’s reach.

“Someone is-s-s here?” He pinned her with his basilisk stare.

It didn’t work on her.

“We’re alone.” Bria placed her workstation between her and the large male. “Now, say what you have to say and then go. I have work to do before I can leave for the day.”

He flicked his tongue, quickly tasting the air once more, and then emitted an almost orgasmic guttural sound. His body seemed to grow another inch in height and breadth. His thin lips twisted upward. If she were brave enough to look, she knew she’d find evidence of his arousal. He was feeding on the smell of her fear, and like the apex predator he was, he liked it.

Why had she ever thought she could be “just friends” with this man? She must’ve been nuts.

“If you wish to leave Oz, Brianna, I will take you wherever you wish to go. We can join my parent’s space caravan.”

“I am leaving Oz to do my job. I have no desire to wander the universe—”

She left “with you” unsaid.

“Wrong ans-s-swer,” he hissed.

Her gut told her an attack was imminent. How long had it been since Cheri left? Five standard minutes or less? It seemed like hours.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Bria held her ground and watched Jotak pace back and forth, his movements sinuous and a lure to the unwary. His hungry stare never left her as he moved ever closer to her position, closer to when she’d have to use the weapon in her hand.

“You can’t mesmerize me,” she reminded him. “You tried when you attempted to rape me.”

“Yes-s-s-s. You got away…and I caught you.” He laughed. “That was fun. Run, little Brianna. Go ahead. I will catch you. Make you mine. No one will believe your stories. The local law officers
are
susceptible to my stare.”

And he was right, damn him.

Bria gripped her scalpel even more tightly. Looked as if she wouldn’t be able to avoid injuring the slime-sucking bastard.

Cut off his head and end the problem forever.

This primal, more bloodthirsty part of her had only awakened recently—right after she’d discovered and accepted she was a mated Prime female. A
gemate
. A Lost One. And a battle-mate.

Bria didn’t know the first thing on how to be a battle-mate. And even if she did, she didn’t think she could kill any creature, even Jotak. Injure to defend? Maybe. Kill? No. She was a doctor. She’d also been raised by her adoptive parents’ people to seek peaceful resolutions to conflict.

Nurture, in this instance, would trump Nature.

“Brianna…” Jotak growled, “you are mine. I have claimed you. I will not let you leave me.”

She held her weaponless hand in front of her, palm up, in the universal body language of pleading. “Jotak, please. I’m not yours. I haven’t agreed. I’ll be leaving with my team when the
Galanti
comes to pick us up.”

“No!” Jotak lunged and ripped her microscope from its locked-down position on the metal work station and threw the heavy scope against the wall as if it weighed nothing.

She gasped and jumped backwards. Then he ripped apart her station to get to her. Frozen in place from shock, she barely avoided being hit by debris. His next move was a blur.

Before she could even think about running, he grabbed her arms and shook her. “You are mine.”

She couldn’t move…couldn’t scream and could barely breathe as her mind flashed back to the last time he’d put his hands on her. The room spun around her and spots floated across her vision. As she began to fall into an infinitely dark pit, a surge of energy built within her.

Then the violence-hungry part of her screamed:
Use the scalpel
.
Cut him. Now.

Yet she couldn’t make herself do it.

“Tell me you belong to me.” His fingers dug into her arms so cruelly his sharp nails drew blood.

The pain ramped up her body’s fight-or-flight response. But she couldn’t flee.

She had to fight.

Hormones poured into her bloodstream. Her heart beat fast and loud in her ears. All her senses became hyper-alert—and her body felt stronger as it prepared to fight.

After which, she’d run like hell for the safest place she could find.

With his eyes slitted like a snake’s and his tongue flicking over her face like a small, slippery whip, he roared and shook her until she swore she could hear her bones rattling. “Say it!”

“Enough!” she screamed, shocking him, shocking her.

Then, with every bit of anger-fueled strength she could muster, she kneed him in the balls.

Jotak howled and released his hold on her to cup himself.

Her arms freed, she slashed the main artery to his brain, letting loose a spurting fountain of putrid green blood. And even while Jotak cursed and promised to make her regret her actions, he began to heal.

Bria ran out of the lab as fast as her shaky legs could handle. She’d seen enough pseudo-reptilians heal to know it wouldn’t take him long to come after her. She sprinted down the corridor. Her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. Her breathing was harsh and raspy, and she was close to hyperventilating.

When she ran into Cheri and two strangers dressed in Alliance military uniforms, she went limp with relief. The soldiers had the light blue skin of Volusians. Volusians were impervious to pseudo-reptilian mesmerism and toxins, thank the One.

“Are you okay?” Cheri placed an arm around Bria’s waist and provided much-needed support as Bria’s legs threatened to give out. “What did the bastard do to you?”

Before Bria could catch her breath to reassure her friend she was fine, the Volusians growled and placed their very large muscular bodies between the two women and a furious Jotak who sped toward them.

“Dr. Martin,” one of the Volusians spoke in a low, terse voice, “tell us. Did the split-tongued bastard harm you?”

Leaning against Cheri, Bria rasped out, “No.”

Her friend snorted. “You said that the last time. But I saw the bruises he gave you. This time, your shirt is shredded. You have claw marks on your arms. You’re bleeding. That’s called being harmed.”

The soldier who asked the question nodded his approval of Cheri’s words. “Dr. Martin, did he inject any toxins? If so, we must act quickly. My blood is an antidote.”

“No…he grabbed and shook me—and yelled. I’m fine. Really.”

Cheri didn’t look as if she believed Bria’s words. Neither did the Volusians.

“He scared me. I kneed him in the balls and followed up by using my scalpel,” she held up the bloody instrument still clutched in her shaky right hand, “to cut his main brain artery. Then I got away.”

The soldiers grunted. The sound was one of approval. Glad someone approved. She wasn’t sure she did. Violence went against everything she’d ever been taught.

But pacifism will not keep me—or my warrior-
gemat
—alive.

She understood things would be different in the future. And she was willing to learn how to defend herself and her unknown mate. But, bless the One, she hoped fighting wouldn’t be a routine activity.

Bria couldn’t imagine feeling as she did now too often. She was extremely wobbly from the flood of stress hormones. She wanted to throw up and lie down with the covers pulled over her head—at the same time. She had a feeling her
gemat
wouldn’t be pleased with a notably wussy battle-mate.

“Cursed Volusians!” Jotak’s roaring bounced off the titanium walls of the narrow corridor. The ringing sound added to her pounding headache. “Stand down. This does not concern you.”