by Lea Linnett
She was barely aware of the crowd as they looked on in horror. Her senses had been usurped, now focused solely on the weapon-like claws caressing her skin and the rumble of the levekk’s chest as he murmured, low enough so only she could hear, “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look when you’re fighting?”
Taz couldn’t name the shiver that ran down her body at his words. She thought it should be fear, but it didn’t have the same metallic tang in the back of her throat. She knew fear, and this… wasn’t it.
But if it wasn’t fear, why was she trembling?
“Let go of her!”
Taz jumped, as if she were the one being reprimanded. The levekk’s claws still rested against her throat, hampering her movements, but her eyes snapped to Mila, who emerged from the throng of sub-species wearing a flinty expression. To Taz’s mingled relief and embarrassment, Cara was at her side, and Deeno soon followed, his filmy cicarian wings snapping angrily behind him when he laid eyes on her.
“I said, let go!” Mila barked, and the hands restricting Taz’s movement abruptly fell away, along with the cool, hard presence at her back. She whipped around, readying herself for a new attack, but her leader’s voice stilled her: “Taz, stop.”
She froze, not daring to take her eyes off the levekk. Somehow, she could still feel his hands on her, her skin remembering his touch. His pupils were dark and wide again as he stared back at her, drinking her in hungrily.
“Who started this?” asked Mila. Her tightly coiled hair, a few shades deeper than her brown skin, bounced back and forth as she looked between them, frowning.
Taz’s jaw dropped. “Who started this? He’s a levekk. In our base!”
“I asked Kamanek to come here,” Mila cut over her. “He was supposed to be getting a wristlet ID created for him.”
She looked to the levekk—Kamanek—whose lip quirked. “My apologies. I got distracted.”
“Distracted?” Taz parroted, her voice rising. “He was harassing Carol. I couldn’t let him walk around like he owns the fucking place.”
Mila sighed. “Is that right?”
To Taz’s dismay, she addressed the question to him. He shrugged. “On my planet, we call that flirting.”
Taz clenched a fist, opening her mouth to argue, but Mila silenced her with a raised hand.
“You might have heard of how different this colony is to others in your Constellation,” their leader said, her lip curling.
The levekk narrowed his eyes. “I have.”
“Well, maybe take that as a cue concerning our people’s interest in your… flirting. Or lack of interest.”
Kamanek turned his dark gaze slowly back to Taz, and just like earlier, his reply seemed to roll right through her, making her breath catch. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See that you do,” said Mila, and then her gaze hardened. “And if I find out that you’ve so much as scratched one of my people, I’ll throw you out of here myself.”
The levekk spread his hands innocently in front of him, and Mila shook her head.
“Now, both of you come with me. I have a job for you. You too, Rekel,” she added, looking past the levekk’s shoulder to a large pindar who was standing at the edge of the circle. Taz stared at the ground. Of course her teacher had to witness her failure in combat as well. This day couldn’t get any more embarrassing.
She avoided his gaze as she followed Mila from the room, and when Cara fell into step beside her, she only allowed herself the briefest shared glance. Anything else might make her crumple, and she refused to do so while the Lodestars that surrounded them were still watching.
She refused to do so with him still watching.
Kamanek’s footsteps behind her were soft and poised, but to Taz, they made the earth quake. She was hyper-aware of the scrape of his claws on the concrete, the burn of his gaze on her back. Her heart was pounding like she was still in the fight, her skin sparking with adrenaline. It was just fear, she told herself. Her fight or flight instincts being set off by the wolf that had prowled into their midst.
But when she thought of his soft touch against her throat, she shuddered. Her skin tingled where it had pressed up against a hard, perfectly chiseled chest.
She shoved the strange reactions down. They’d cost her one fight already, and she’d be damned if she let it happen again. Kamanek would be sorry he’d ever taken her less than seriously. And she was looking forward to proving it.
2
Kamanek hadn’t known what to expect when he arrived on the outer colony of CL-32.
It was well known that the planet’s Guides had isolated it soon after it was colonized, only opening it up to trade and travel after a century had passed. It had remained an outlier ever since.
On the one hand, this was good for him, since it made it one of the few colonies on this side of the Constellation where his ruined reputation hadn’t preceded him.
But it also made it one of the most mysterious. Its defining feature amongst mercenaries in the Constellation’s central sector was that it was both the best and worst place for a good time. The best, because the humans that came from there were supposedly as alluring as they were rare outside its borders. The worst, because CL-32 had made sexual relations between levekk and all sub-species illegal within its borders, despite the levekk being reproductively compatible with only humans.
Kamanek had had enough of superiors telling him who he was allowed to fuck, but he’d been prepared to do his best to respect the colony’s laws for the two short weeks he was contracted to be here.
As soon as he laid eyes on this human, however, he knew any attempt at upholding those good intentions would be futile. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she walked ahead of him through the Lodestars’ base, speaking in low tones to the human at her side.
As a mercenary, his only exposure to humans had been the occasional glimpse of one in a pleasure district and the abundant rumors that they were weak, soft, pliable.
He could see where the description came from. They were short like cicarians, soft like pindar children, and they lacked any of the secondary defenses that other species used to protect themselves. They had no wings, their claws were blunt, their skin looked positively fragile when compared to the thick hides of the kel-kor or a xylidian’s carapace. They looked defenseless, and from the way many of them ducked out of sight or huddled into groups when they saw him coming, many of them felt defenseless, too.
But this human—Taz, Mila had called her—wasn’t like the rest. She hadn’t hesitated to rush at him with nothing to defend herself but her knife. Her short, black hair had turned wild. Her thighs had seared hot against his shoulders even through layers of clothing. She looked soft like the others, and she’d felt that way at first, especially when the soft curve of her ass met his thighs. But he’d soon felt the muscle lurking beneath, and the surprising strength with which she’d wrestled against him.
He liked that she wouldn’t break beneath him almost as much as he loved the fire blazing in her eyes when she turned to look over her shoulder at him. Her jaw tightened when she caught him watching her, and she brought her recovered knife to her throat, pantomiming slicing it. Her dark eyes—almost black in the shadowy corridors—scorched him, but he felt nothing but a thrill of excitement.
For a moment, he forgot about the job and the unfortunate circumstances that had driven him to this planet. All he wanted was to wrap her in his arms, feel that hot skin against his scales again. Her body was so alien, but he loved the alien. He would learn her body like he’d learned so many already. He would bring her the ecstasy that such a perfectly-honed body deserved.
She was still watching him, the angry heat in her eyes burning down to something more—dare he say it?—curious. But she soon tossed her head, turning away. The move dislodged the hair she kept plastered to her cheek, and now that he was outside of the heat of battle, Kamanek noticed three ragged scars running horizontally beneath her left eye. He wanted to learn those, t
oo.
The ceilings were growing low enough now that Kamanek had to duck to get through the doorways, and it was both a relief and a shame when they finally reached Mila’s office.
It was a wide space, probably once a foreman’s office before the Lodestars apprehended it, but it felt more cramped with himself and five sub-species crowding inside it, compared to when he’d been briefed here earlier.
Mila moved to lean against her desk while the pindar took up a spot on the left wall. The other two humans seemed unsure how to position themselves, throwing suspicious looks in Kamanek’s direction. Part of him wanted to toy with them more, but after a sharp look from Mila he crossed to a sofa by the wall, stretching out along it lazily. Taz’s gaze caught on him as he did so, but she turned away when he grinned at her, the slips of short hair above her eyes—eyebrows, they were apparently called—furrowing.
“Why is he here?” she asked Mila, gesturing roughly at him with her arms crossed.
Mila sighed. “Like I said, I hired him.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a job for him. For all of you, minus Cara,” she said, sending the third human a significant look.
Cara bristled. “I don’t want him working with her.”
“At least let me explain the plan before—”
“No. I’ve heard your explanation, and I don’t like it. That lizard shouldn’t be working with any of us.”
Mila sighed, running a hand through her tightly-coiled hair, but Cara wasn’t finished.
“How can you bring one of them here? How can you trust them to work with us, after everything they’ve done?”
“Doesn’t that go against everything we stand for?” Taz added, and she pushed out the words with an angry intensity that caught his attention.
The humans all spoke Levekk Trade—the common language that all species in the Constellation used to communicate—in a rapid staccato, but hers was even more pronounced. Every word she spoke was laced with fire, like her anger was constantly bubbling beneath the surface.
It was fascinating.
“I don’t think it does,” Mila said after a long silence, jarring him from his thoughts. She glanced over at him, and he dared to give her a little wave that made her lips thin. “The levekk have wronged us in a lot of ways, but we’re thinking too small if we blame them as individuals for what they’ve done. It’s the Constellation as a whole that’s put us here. So, I’m prepared to use whoever we can get to fight them, and if that means using people like him, I’ll do it.”
“Do you really believe that?” Taz said in a quiet voice. “That he shouldn’t have to take responsibility?”
“Trust me, if he does anything to harm us or our people, I’ll hold him responsible. But can you honestly say that we’re all the same? Do we want the same things as those humans you encountered in the Senekkar four months ago? Do you?”
Taz glanced at Kamanek, her lip curling, but something in her expression seemed uncertain. None of the others noticed, all eyes turning to Cara as she made a sound in the back of her throat, and said, “It’s pathetic. Allying ourselves with someone like him.”
Mila’s face fell into well-worn lines of irritation. “Cara, this isn’t your mission. I’m allowing you to be present for this, so I could do without the commentary. Especially after that shit the two of you pulled in the Senekkar. And the fighting.”
Her gaze cut from Kamanek to Taz, who ducked her wild head of hair.
“I’m giving you a chance, Taz,” she continued, voice softening. “Prove to me that you can follow orders, and that what happened in the Senekkar won’t ever happen again.”
Taz looked at the floor for a moment longer, before straightening, her arms dropping to her sides. “Yes, ma’am,” she said with a nod. Cara was silent, her pink skin flushing with anger.
“What’s the job?” the pindar asked, finally speaking up from his spot on the wall.
“Sorry, Rekel.” Mila squared her shoulders, immediately appearing more business-like. “There’s been some whispering in the Serise Quarter about humans disappearing.”
Taz frowned. “Just humans?”
“That’s right. It’s mostly coming from one particular brothel that’s been known to take levekk clients. Although, they try to keep it quiet, for obvious reasons.”
“So what do you think’s happening to them?” Taz asked. “You think they could have been confiscated? Maybe the brothel owner forgot a round of contraceptive shots and drew the enforcers’ attention?” Her hand clenched into a fist at her side at her own words, and Kamanek imagined that he could feel the rage rolling off her from across the room.
“If that were the case,” Mila said, “I’d just have you go rough him up. But we don’t think that’s what’s happening here.”
“Why?”
“There are too many missing. And not just women—they’re taking men, too. No chance of them getting pregnant. That’s why we need him,” she added, her gaze flickering toward Kamanek.
He smiled, and Taz’s eyes narrowed. “Why?” she asked again. “What can he possibly offer us?”
Kamanek wanted to detail all the things he’d offer her, but Mila was already replying. “I want to know what happens when a levekk walks in as a customer. I want to know what doors open, and what’s offered, because it’s very possible that’ll explain what’s happening to these humans.”
Taz spluttered, and to the side, Cara was shaking her head. “You want him to buy someone?!”
“In a fashion.”
“How can you trust one of them with that?” Taz asked, and pointed in the direction of the main hall. “After what happened out there?”
“That’s where you and Rekel come in,” Mila said firmly. “He’s the cover, a businessman from off-planet, and you will be his bodyguards. I want you to scope the place out, talk to any humans you find, and work out what’s happening.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Taz, at the same time as Cara groaned out a, “There must be some other way.”
Mila looked between them. “We’re shorthanded. Which is your fault, I might add.”
“No, it—”
“Quiet, Taz.”
She stiffened, her fists tightening at her sides until her shoulders shook, and Kamanek could have happily watched how that made the subtle musculature in her arms stand out all day if Mila hadn’t turned to examine him.
“I’m sending you two so you can keep him in line, and to make sure the info we need actually makes it back here.”
He rolled his shoulders, basking in the attention. “I’m not gonna mess with your plan,” he said, voice light. “Your credits are worth more to me than any brothel gossip.”
Because without those credits he might never make it off this planet. Desperate wasn’t something he liked to be, but he was dangerously close to it. He’d managed to make a powerful enemy on his way out of the Constellation’s central sector, and that enemy had made it rather difficult for him to get the mercenary work that he needed to survive. He didn’t have any other options—he’d been trained for violence for so long that he wasn’t good for much else.
Mila gave him a long look, her deep brown eyes studying him, and then she nodded. “I hope that’s the case.”
“So you’re just going to let him do as he pleases?” Cara asked, her brows furrowing. “What guarantee is there that he’ll actually get the info we need?”
“A levekk in a sub-species brothel can ask for anything,” Mila said quietly. “Including having his guards accompany him inside.”
“What?!” Taz whipped around, leveling him with a horrified look.
“I’ll just tell them I like it when someone watches,” Kamanek added, and he couldn’t help sliding his gaze over her, a sly grin pulling at his lips. “Wouldn’t be a lie.”
Cara’s grunt of disgust was deafening. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this. You know you’re putting Taz in danger, right?”
He watched Taz look down at her
feet as Mila said, “I’m sending her because I want a human there to reassure whoever they talk to. And she’s the best human brawler we’ve got now, after what happened in the Senekkar. I’ve seen her take down Rekel in a fight. She’ll be fine.”
Taz and Rekel exchanged a glance then, the latter nodding almost imperceptibly. But Cara stepped closer to Mila, her voice rising. “Don’t you see the risks involved in thi—”
“Cara, stop!” a voice rang out, and to Kamanek’s delight, he realized it was Taz that had interrupted the human. “I’ll do it,” she said, standing tall. “And I’ll be fine. I can look after myself. That’s what me and Rekel have been training for, right?”
“But, Taz…”
“I need to do something,” she said, and though her voice had softened, her eyes blazed. She was rubbing one fist with the palm of her other hand, and the soft brush of human skin on skin was a new sound to Kamanek’s ears. “I can’t sit around here doing nothing anymore. I wanna prove that we can be trusted again.”
Cara finally subsided, and the rest of the meeting passed quickly. He wanted to speak to Taz alone when it finally ended, but the other sub-species made it impossible. They closed like a fist around her, Cara sticking to her side and Rekel sending a wary look his way as they escorted her out. Kamanek’s gaze remained glued to her nonetheless, until Mila caught his attention.
“Kamanek,” she said, leaning back against her desk again and crossing her arms. “I’ve arranged a room for you. I’ll have someone escort you there, soon.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s less for you, and more for my people,” she said. “I doubt many of them would be comfortable having to share a tent with a levekk. I suggest you spend the rest of the afternoon either in your room, or outside the base. And try not to attract—or provide—anymore unwanted attention.”
