I’m Mateer, the first ranked enforcer in my pack of Badari genetically engineered warriors, dominant to everyone but my Alpha. We were created by a race of alien scientists to be deployed as super soldiers against the humans in the Sectors. I’m in the eighth generation of Badari and I never had any hope of being able to save my people and escape the labs. Now we’re free, thanks to the assistance of a group of kidnapped humans, and I’m committed to rescuing the other captives and fighting the ongoing battle against our mutual enemies.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Before I met Megan, my favorite way to spend an afternoon was outside by the lake in our sanctuary valley, teaching the cubs to fish. Fishing is a relaxing time to think and ponder life. Now that Megan and I are together, my happiest times are with her.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Since we were kept prisoner in the labs, we had no chance for extravagance. Occasionally when we were deployed to other worlds on combat missions, we’d go into deserted restaurants if there was any downtime and sample the food left behind. In the labs, we were fed only the most boring nutrients by our captors. I like to bring Megan wildflowers and so I guess if I had the chance to earn and spend credits, I’d want to be able to buy her huge bouquets of exotic flowers and take her to dine in fancy places on other worlds.
What is your current state of mind?
I’m happier than I ever thought I could be, now that I have a mate and my people are free of the labs. But I never let myself forget the battle isn’t over since the aliens who created us still control the rest of the planet. So my happiness is tempered with vigilance.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Dependability. If he says he can accomplish something, then I should be able to rely on that assurance. Especially in a war, you need men at your side and watching your back that you can trust, that you’d die for and know they’d do the same for you.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
(Mateer sighs and smiles.)
Before I met Megan I’d have had a hard time answering that question, as we have no Badari females. Now that I know her, I value her kind heart, her thoughtfulness and her competence. She’s a medical doctor and never panics in an emergency. I can rely on her as an equal partner, with different skills than I have but together we make a stronger whole.
Where would you most like to live?
We Badari regard this planet as our own, since we don’t know where the original DNA for our people came from. I dream of living freely on this world, once the Khagrish scientists and their allies have been defeated.
What is your most treasured possession?
It’s not my personal possession in any way, but there’s a ring of trees where we hold our most sacred ceremonies. We believe the grove was created by the Great Mother to provide us with a place that was our own, where even as captives, we could cling to faith and hope that someday we might be free. And with the arrival of the humans and Jill Garrison in particular, our prayers were granted. Jill is my Megan’s older sister and she more than any other being enabled the Badari to escape the Khagrish. I admire Jill and swore pack loyalty to her – she’s a tough soldier in her own right – but my mate is Megan. I guess I got off the topic a little bit. Sorry!
Who is your hero of fiction?
Our ancestral memory holds a legend of one early Badari male who managed to escape the labs and live freely outside, evading the Khagrish. No one knows if the tale is true but the idea that one person might have made it out always gave hope to my pack brothers and me.
What is your greatest regret?
I regret all the years my people and I lost, being prisoners, tortured and forced to do the bidding of the Khagrish. But when we escaped we took with us the next three generations of cubs and they can grow up free and experience life in a way that was denied to us. I will enjoy watching that. And I’m grateful for however much time the Great Mother gives me to live as a free man and as Megan’s mate.
Title MATEER (A BADARI WARRIOR SCIFI ROMANCE NOVEL): SECTORS NEW ALLIES SERIES BOOK TWO
Author Veronica Scott
Genre SciFi Romance
Book Blurb:
Megan Garrison, a doctor at the Sectors Amarcae 7 colony, goes to sleep one night as usual only to wake up in her nightgown, strapped to a table in an alien lab, destined to be the subject of terrifying experiments. Granted a brief reprieve, Megan and the other kidnapped humans are released in the middle of a forestlike enclosure on this unknown world and told to survive as best they can for now.
Her only hope is Mateer, the genetically engineered alien warrior imprisoned with the humans. He knows more than he’s sharing about this planet, their captors and the fate of other humans, including perhaps her own sisters. Turns out everyone from her colony has been kidnapped by the Khagrish, a ruthless race of alien scientists. Working for enemies of the human-led Sectors, the Khagrish have created the Badari to be super soldiers.
Mateer, a tough Badari enforcer, now a rebel, is captured while infiltrating the lab to help his pack bring it down. He’s also been ordered by his leaders to search for Megan and save her life at all costs. Tortured by the enemy, he’s offered one chance at survival – convince Megan to become his mate and assist the Khagrish with further experiments.
As the situation at the lab grows worse, Megan struggles against her deep attraction to Mateer, while she does her best to shield the other humans from the terrible Khagrish experiments. For his part, Mateer knows she really is his fated mate and despairs of being able to keep her safe, as the rebel attack is delayed and she fights the truth of their bond.
Will they be able to work together to defeat Khagrish plans and preserve human lives until the promised rescue happens? And what of their future together – will Megan accept Mateer as her true mate, or walk away if she’s freed?
Excerpt –
What in the seven hells did I eat for dinner? Drowsy as if waking from a deep dream, stomach churning, Megan Garrison attempted to sit up and found herself lying on a metal table, restrained at the ankles and wrists. She was in her nightgown and robe, and she vaguely remembered curling up with a good book and falling asleep. Next came jumbled memories of floating in the air, paralyzed – a terrifying nightmare she’d assured herself. And now this. “Please, someone help me,” she said, turning her head from one side to the other. “I’m going to throw up.”
She stifled a scream as a bright yellow alien with pink hair, wearing a drab green coat that made him look like a lab tech to her, stepped to the table. He was shadowed by a guard in full black battle garb, face concealed by the visor of his helmet, weapon drawn and aimed at her.
“Eat this,” the tech said in passable Basic, thrusting an open packet toward her lips while activating the table to tilt up at the head. Clenching her jaw, she twisted to avoid the forced nutrition until a second guard intervened to make her hold still while the tech broke off a chunk of the energy bar and forced it between her teeth.
Megan had no choice but to chew, the taste reminding her of spinach mixed with moldy cheese, but her stomach began calming down immediately. As soon as she could swallow the last bites, she said, “Who the hell are you people? I demand you let me out of these restraints.”
The tech put a water bottle to her lips. “Drink. You’re dehydrated.”
She glared at him and refused.
“Have it your way.” He shrugged. “You don’t get off the table until you’re in nominal condition. I have other subjects to monitor.” Turning his back, he walked away, the guards following.
“Wait. Wait!” She wanted out of the restraints desperately. “I’ll drink the fluids.”
“Good.” The alien strolled to the tableside with a broad grin of triumph, extending the bottle to her mouth.
Megan took several long swallows and clamped her lips together before saying, “I can’t take any more right now.
Without a word, the tech left her and his guard followed.
“Hey!” she yelled, “You said you’d let me out of these restraints if I drank enough water.”
The tech ignored her. Megan decided he must know as well as she did that a few swallows of water weren’t truly enough to relieve dehydration.
Feeling a bit revived, although with annoying droplets dribbling down her chin, Megan glanced around to find there were five other people bound to tables arrayed close by, each in various stages of the nausea and recovery cycle, as she was. Stasis syndrome most likely. But why? This was nowhere on her colony world, and she’d never seen aliens like the ones moving now among the other patients. Or prisoners, to be more exact. Mounting terror thickened her throat and she had to take a deep breath, close her eyes, and center her mind. Now was not the time to give in to hysterics.
Moans sounded behind her and the noise of someone throwing up. Turning her head as far as she could, she counted six more humans strapped to tables behind a clear barrier running floor to ceiling the length of the room. No one was attending to them although a bored tech sat at a console, playing a game from the looks of his hand-eye motions. Megan yelled. “Hey!”
The tech who’d force fed her strolled to the table, another water bottle in his hand. As he tipped it to her lips, he said, “What?”
“You have to take care of those people,” she said, recoiling from the proffered drink and jerking her head toward the other side of the room. “They need the special energy bar, the water—”
“Experiment.” The tech gestured first at her and then waved his hand to indicate the prisoners on the other tables. “Half the subjects get the revival pack.” He pointed at the closed off side of the chamber. “Half don’t. Dr. Lampergg’s order.”
“You can’t just let them die. What kind of people are you?” Her gut in knots, she fought to keep herself from screaming. She and her fellow humans were completely in the power of these mysterious aliens and the more she saw and heard, the more she feared for their lives. Being entangled in a mysterious experiment was a heart stopping development.
He leaned close. “The kind who keep our mouths shut and do what the boss orders.”
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Author Biography
USA Today Best Selling Author
“SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happy Ever After blog
Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!
She read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of Forever.”
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