Bred by the Scarred Alien (Hunt-Born Bonds #2)

PROLOGUE THE SECOND SIGNAL

SHAARR

The human touched the scar beneath my dead eye.

Something inside my chest opened. I shattered the examination table.

The crack split through the medical chamber before I understood that my claws had moved.

Hunt-Born voices stopped. Human equipment continued its useless chirping. Rowan Vale stepped back.

Not far. That irritated me first. A sensible human would have put half the room between himself and a Hunt-Born guardian who had just destroyed furniture. Rowan lowered the scanner instead.

"Did that hurt?"

My receptor burned beneath my breastplate. It had been silent for twenty-six rotations. Not weak. Not damaged enough to whisper. Silent.

Now it recognized him. Antiseptic clung to Rowan's hands. Metal lingered beneath his skin from an old military neural interface. His pulse had accelerated, but fear did not dominate his scent. There was anger too. Human stubbornness.

Warm skin. Life. Compatibility. The ancient response arrived without permission. Take notice.

My claws tightened against broken wood. No. The signal strengthened. I knew what came after recognition. I had lived it once.

I would not live it again.

"Do not touch me."

Rowan's eyebrows rose.

"All right."

No argument. No apology he did not owe. He took another step back and examined the snapped table as if calculating whether the clinic intended to bill me for it. That ordinary reaction made the situation worse. I wanted him terrified.

Fear would have made distance easy. Instead, he looked annoyed. My body approved. I hated it for that.

Behind the partition, a child clicked softly. Renn. Vorrn's son. The first human-Hunt-Born child born under treaty protection. Proof that receptor recognition did not have to become captivity. Proof that a human body could survive reproductive adaptation.

Proof that the thing happening inside me could lead somewhere other than ruin. I wanted none of those proofs. Rowan glanced toward the partition.

"What just happened?"

No one answered. Juno Cole emerged first. His son rested against his chest in a fabric sling. Renn's four eyes were closed, his small face tucked beneath Juno's chin. Vorrn followed.

One look at my chest was enough. His lateral eyes brightened. He understood. Of course he did.

"Shaarr."

"Do not."

Vorrn stopped. Good. Juno's gaze moved from me to Rowan. Then back.

He knew too. Humans had spent generations building machines to detect what Hunt-Born bodies understood instantly. Apparently they still required someone else to explain the results. Rowan folded his arms.

"I am standing in a clinic where everyone except me suddenly understands what happened to my body."

Juno opened his mouth. I cut him off.

"Nothing happened to your body."

Rowan turned those pale human eyes on me.

"Then why did you break the furniture?"

"It was weak."

Juno made a sound. I looked at him. He wisely transformed it into a cough. Rowan did not seem amused.

"Try again."

Command from a human. My receptor gave a low pulse of approval. Humiliating. I walked toward the outer platform.

"Shaarr," Juno said.

I kept moving.

"He's entitled to know."

My claws struck the living floor harder than necessary. Juno had learned too much from us and remained irritatingly human. I stopped. The treaty mattered.

Choice mattered. Information mattered because no choice was real without it. I had helped insist upon those principles. Apparently principles were easier to defend when they did not cut into your own flesh. I turned.

Rowan had not followed. That pleased me. It also did not.

"The organ beneath my chest armor is a compatibility receptor."

His expression barely changed.

"It identifies mates?"

"Potential reproductive partners."

"That sounds less romantic."

"It is biology."

"Better."

His answer surprised me. I expected questions. Humans always wanted questions answered until answers frightened them. Rowan simply waited.

"The receptor activated when you touched me."

His gaze dropped once to my chest.

"So it identified me."

"Yes."

"That happen often?"

"No."

"How rarely?"

Juno shifted Renn. I answered before he could.

"Once per lifetime."

Vorrn's attention snapped toward me. He knew the archive rule. He did not know my history. Not yet.

Rowan considered the information. Then shrugged one shoulder.

"That's inconvenient."

Juno laughed. Actually laughed. Renn stirred. Juno immediately lowered his voice.

"Sorry."

I stared at Rowan.

"Inconvenient."

"What response would you prefer?"

None. I wanted no response because I wanted no signal. He picked up the scanner from where he had set it down.

"What happens now?"

"Nothing."

Vorrn's head turned. Juno looked ready to interfere again. I ignored both. Rowan nodded.

"Works for me."

Then he walked away. The receptor hit my ribs like a second heart. Stop him. I did not.

He reached the doorway. Every instinct I possessed catalogued distance. Five body lengths. Six.

Seven. The predator wanted movement. Follow. Close.

Know. My feet remained where they were. Rowan disappeared into the corridor. Only then did I breathe properly. Juno came beside me.

"You know refusing him isn't the same thing as giving him choice."

"I gave him exactly what he asked for."

"He didn't ask for anything."

"Good."

"That isn't what I meant."

"I know what you meant."

Vorrn stood several paces away, silent in the irritating manner he had developed since bonding. I looked at him.

"If you have something to say, say it."

"Why did you tell him activation occurs once per lifetime?"

Because it did. Except apparently it did not. My receptor continued burning for the human who had just walked away. Vorrn saw the answer before I gave it. His posture changed.

"Shaarr."

"No."

His eyes narrowed.

"You had another activation."

Juno went still. I looked toward the western canopy.

The forest beyond the outpost moved under morning wind.

Twenty-six rotations ago, another male had run through those branches laughing because he wanted me to catch him.

Three days later, he was dead. The receptor had called for him for seven days after burial. Then silence.

Permanent, the healers had said. I had believed them. Apparently my body had chosen today to make fools of all of us.

"I am returning west."

Juno's voice softened.

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only one you are getting."

Vorrn shifted Renn's blanket where it had slipped against the child's face. That small movement angered me more than anything. He had everything I had once failed to reach. Bond.

Mate. Child. Future. And he had not received any of it by refusing fear. I stepped onto the branch.

Behind me, Juno said, "Don't confuse restraint with self-punishment." I looked back.

"You think I am punishing myself?"

"I think you're very good at surviving things you never actually healed from."

Human arrogance. Human accuracy. Worst combination. I turned away.

The western canopy accepted my weight. One branch. Then another. The outpost vanished behind me. The signal did not.

For the second time in my life, my body had found someone it could not mistake. For the first time, I wished it had remained silent.