by Mina Carter
After training, Jay usually read anything he could understand from the base’s database. Most of it he could not since it was in Latharian, which he couldn’t make head nor tail of yet. Hence the new translation matrix.
He rubbed at his short-cropped hair as he padded into the galley, his stomach complaining that he’d missed lunch. It was about time to start making the evening meal. Given he had no other practical skills, he’d somehow found himself as their team’s chef.
“So what can we put on the menu today?” he mused, opening the cupboard.
Then froze.
Seren had indeed labeled the raw ingredients. The bag nearest to him had “bugs” written in a bold hand on the front. Several bags next to it were also “bugs.” The shelf down contained an assortment of “big bugs,” “little bugs” and “crunchy bugs” while the bottom one held “more bugs.”
He barked with laughter. “That fucking alien wanker!”
Shaking his head, he grabbed bags he recognized for his favorite pasta dish. At least, it was the nearest he’d managed to get to pasta out here. As far as he was concerned, the Lathar were utterly uncivilized for not developing any form of cheese. He reached in for a bag of “little bugs.” The Latharian script itself was still incomprehensible. Ripping open the top, he added the contents to a pan with some water. It wasn’t quite cheese sauce, but it would do.
Humming to himself, he cooked with ingredients that were almost like those from home if he squinted and looked sideways at them. Pasta in cheese sauce. He also made up a batch of field cake for the ladies. He couldn’t stand the stuff, but even he knew the power of chocolate on the female psyche.
“What is that delicious smell?”
He slid a glance sideways.
A naked woman stood next to him. Like totally, butt naked, her only covering the dark mass of her hair, and that just covered her shoulders. His eyes widened, his hand frozen over the pan of bug sauce. She was fucking gorgeous. Petite with wide, dark eyes sent a bolt of heat right through his body to his cock. And she was naked. He blinked, totally not forgetting about the nakedness.
The problem was, he had absolutely no idea who she was. Which, given they were on a secret alien base built by scary aliens without the other scary aliens knowing, was a fucking problem. He grabbed the first weapon to hand, the sauce spoon, and brandished it at her.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Sauce dripped and hit the floor.
She frowned, gaze flicking between him and the kitchen utensil. “You’re bigger than I thought you’d be.”
Fuck yeah, he was big. The urge to comment she could find out for herself how big he was stayed firmly unuttered and he narrowed his eyes at her. Miisan had done an in-depth scan of the base not long after they’d arrived. They were the only lifeforms aboard. So where the hell had she come from? The bodies from the tubes… His blood ran cold. Then he realized that none of them had been as tiny.
Her lips pursed, dragging his attention to them and taking his primal instincts on a joyride. “Or is it because I’m smaller? That must be it.”
She smiled and his higher brain functions stuttered to a stop.
“I’m sorry…” Even amid the most unconventional first contact ever, his manners auto-deployed. His mother would be so proud. Actually, no… the cold bitch had never been proud of him for a moment in his entire life. “Do I know you?”
He couldn’t know her. He didn’t know any strange wome…
“Fuck! Keris?”
She smiled and that completed the mental shutdown. His gaze wandered down her, stunned. The metal body was gone, replaced with a petite, delicate little brunette with the most kissable lips he’d ever seen. And she was naked.
A flush on his cheeks, he yanked his gaze back up to her eyes.
“You like looking at this body?” she asked, taking a step closer, a graceful hand out to push the spatula out of the way. He moved it, dropping it in the pan to avoid getting bug sauce on her. “But you are embarrassed to be caught doing so. Why?”
“What the… Sound the Intruder alert,” a deep voice growled from the doorway. “Who the draanth are you?”
“No! Don’t!” Jay sprang into action, yanking Keris closer and shielding her with his body as Seren stalked into the room, blaster leveled at the petite woman’s head. “It’s Keris! Stand down!”
His heart pounded as he looked over his shoulder. A desperate need to protect the delicate woman in his arms rolled through him as Nyek piled through the door behind Seren, weapon in hand.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, eyes narrowed as he looked at the little scene. Indra and Gracie peeked around him from the corridor, and both gasped as they spotted Keris.
“Oh my god!” Gracie squealed. “The printer worked.”
Oh. My. Goddess. Jay was utterly gorgeous.
Keris looked up at the big human male, her eyes wide. As she’d said, he was far larger than she’d thought. His features were… had been… saved to her long-term memory banks. Now it was like she was seeing them for the first time. Which, she guessed she was. And she couldn’t look away.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, brown hair cropped short with mussed up spikes on top the way it always did when he’d just woken up. Heavy stubble covered his jaw, but unlike some males, it wasn’t a scraggly mess. Instead, it was as if he’d been designed with precision, the light beard highlighting the strength of his jaw and drawing attention to the sensual line of his mouth. All she wanted to do was lift on her tiptoes and press her lips against the skin to see if it was as prickly as it looked or if it was softer.
He registered her attention and looked down. Their gazes locked and she couldn’t look away. His eyes weren’t dark, as they looked from a distance, but somewhere between blue and green that changed with his mood. She’d spent weeks watching him and noting the differences. Right now, they were switching between the two colors. As he looked at her, they warmed to green.
The dark slashes of his eyebrows snapped together.
“You’re naked,” he growled, the deep tones sending a shiver down her spine and she tried to pull away in confusion. All his physical reactions, the way he’d looked at her, said he liked looking at her unclothed body, yet now he sounded annoyed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
Realization kicked in. Biologicals preferred to be clothed when around others. She knew that. And humans seemed more conservative than Lathar. Rynn had often been naked in front of her when she was part of his ship, but she hadn’t found him half as interesting as Jay. Hadn’t needed to monitor him the same way she had Jay, noting every little thing about him… just because she wanted to. Because she had to. Unlike the Latharian warrior she considered her brother, she’d never seen Jay naked. He always covered up, dressing in the cleansing facilities even if it was just a pair of shorts.
“There were no clothes in the lab,” she finished unhappily. “I didn’t mean to offend you with my nakedness.”
“What?” His hands shot out to stop her moving away and yanked her closer against him instead. She was sheltered by his larger form… preventing the others from seeing her unclothed body.
“You haven’t offended me. Why would you think that? You’re naked…” His jaw clenched, a tiny muscle in the corner pulsing as a battle raged behind his eyes. She watched, fascinated. “And I don’t want these assholes seeing you that way. Vulnerable.”
He was protective. She wasn’t prepared for the quick rush of warmth through her chest at the realization.
“Oh…” her lips formed a small “o” in her surprise, and his gaze flicked down, latched onto it. His nostrils flared and the sudden dark heat in his eyes made her want to squirm against his chest. His arm around the back of her waist tightened for a second.
“Don’t move,” he ordered, keeping her pinned against the counter as he let go. She was treated to a front-row seat as he stripped his shirt off, twisting and lifting the hem.
She may have whimpered.
Full-on whimpered as the carved muscles of his chest and his rock-hard abs filled her view. She didn’t know all the rules of social interactions between human males and females, but she was pretty sure that licking his chest broke at least a dozen of them.
She blinked as he dropped his shirt over her head, watching him as he pulled her arms through the sleeves like he was dressing a small child. Fussing over her, he ensured the skin-warmed fabric covered everything, stepping back to look at her in assessment. He nodded, apparently satisfied, and stepped aside for the others to approach.
Indra and Gracie were first, their expressions filled with excitement and wonder.
“Keris? Is that you?” Gracie asked, taking a step forward. Her lips curved into a wide smile. Keris blinked, forced to alter her mental perception of the tall, slender woman. Given her previous body had been over seven-foot, everyone seemed huge now.
“Yes. It’s me… Keris, I mean. I’m Keris,” she added and then was overwhelmed as Gracie whooped and raced at her. Before she could prompt her new body into any form of defense, the human female had pulled her closer, crushing Keris against her.
“Oh… this is… is this… a hug?” she asked, her voice muffled against the other woman’s shoulder. She’d seen humans embrace before, mostly Indra and her friend Madison back on the Izal’vias but had never thought she’d be the recipient of one. It was… nice. Warm and… She closed her eyes and leaned into it—her first hug in her new body. The shudder rolled through her, but she was too busy experiencing the sensation to analyze it.
Gracie chuckled and squeezed before letting go. “Yes, hon, it’s a hug. Welcome back. We were getting worried about you.”
“You were?” Keris pulled away to look up at the other woman, her voice rising in surprise. Her hand stole up to cover her throat as she looked around the small group. Their expressions all said the same thing. They’d been worried about her and they were… pleased to see her?
“Hell yeah, we were worried about you,” Jay said gruffly from behind her. As she turned, he covered his mouth with his hand for a second and she was caught, riveted by the strong fingers. He looked down at her, a slow smile spreading over his lips, eyes shining as though she were the only thing in the room. “You were in the tube for over a week, sweet stuff. We thought something had gone wrong.”
“A…a week?” She shook her head. “No, I can’t have been. It’s only been a little while. Surely?”
It had felt like no time at all between leaving her metal body, Jay’s face the last thing she saw, and the bio-growth tube spewing her out onto the floor. But… a week?
“A week,” he nodded and then lifted his head to address the air. “Miisan? I thought you were going to let me know when Keris’s program was complete?” he asked, a note of accusation in his deep voice.
Between one second and the next, the AI materialized. Tall and regal with long, dark hair she was exactly as Keris had imagined herself when she’d thought about having a body.
“I told you I would, and now I have access to that level, I will,” she said, voice an annoyed whip through the air. Then she spotted Keris and stiffened, her eyes widening slightly. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but Keris wasn’t most people. She might be in a biological body without access to even the most rudimentary of sensor arrays, but she was quickly working out that biologicals had their own version. Plus, she was an AI, created by the same female who had made Miisan.
In essence, she was looking at her own creator, which was… weird.
“Keris?” Miisan asked, her voice catching. Her eyes unfocused for a second and Keris knew she was checking on the lab. She also knew what she’d find—the empty bio tube in the printer and growth accelerant fluid on the floor.
She nodded, offering a small smile. They were sisters, of a fashion, after all.
“I apologize,” the AI said, color riding high on her holographic cheeks. “It appears my sensors in sector four are temperamental. I did not receive notification that the cycle had concluded.”
“Not a problem,” Jay managed begrudgingly. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Keris needs some better clothes. Seren, you’re on bug pasta duty.”
He began to hustle her toward the door. She bit her lip at the feeling of his big hand on her hip, looking up at him.
“Could I have a shower as well? I have…” She lifted a lock of her hair. It had dried into crispy ratted tails. “Birth gunk.”
“Sweet stuff, you can have whatever you want,” he murmured, his voice rough. “It’s your birthday after all.”
Before they could reach the door, though, Nyek stepped in front of them, blocking their path.
“I don’t think it’s wise to allow it to wander the corridors.”
4
“It? Who are you calling it?” Jay demanded with a snarl, pushing Keris behind him. Then he remembered the others were back there and did a kind of sideways crab movement, pulling her against him to shield her from them. Which was crazy. She’d known them all as long as he had so him worrying was utterly ridiculous.
That had been in the safety of her metal body though, and she wasn’t in it anymore. The way Nyek eyed her, with a combination of disbelief and barely concealed disgust, brought the hackles up on the back of his neck.
He locked eyes with the Latharian paladin, letting his expression flatten and level out. His fist tightened, knuckles white. If that asshole even looked like he was about to make a move toward Keris... The slight quirk of Nyek’s eyebrow wasn’t quite a challenge, but the testosterone ramped up in the room at the silent threat.
“Oi! Stop it you two!” Indra got herself between them, a hand in the center of her mate’s chest.
“You promised to behave. Remember?” she murmured, crowding him. Her comment was obviously meant to be just between them, but the room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, so they heard it all.
Nyek’s dark gaze shifted from Jay to his mate, and his expression softened. Only slightly, but it was enough. Jay looked away, uncomfortable at intruding on a private moment between the couple.
He transferred his attention to Seren. He’d take on both Latharian warriors to protect Keris if he had to, but he’d rather not. He wasn’t suicidal, nowhere near, and taking on two aliens who’d spent a lifetime training for war was the very definition of suicide.
Seren met his gaze levelly and then gave a small nod. Jay didn’t let his relief show on his face, instead moving to the next operational issue—Keris’s interaction with the other women on the team.
Neither were wallflowers. Indra was a former ganger, the scar on her cheek proclaiming her violent past, and Gracie… well, he wasn’t sure precisely what Gracie was. She’d claimed to be working undercover for the Colony Commission, rooting out scavenger teams that had been attacking colonies in the outer systems. Yeah, right, like he believed that for a hot second.
Fortunately, so far both seemed to like Keris. Indra turned to smile at her. “Besides, she’s such a cute, itty-bitty little thing. What harm could she possibly do?”
“I have no onboard weaponry or anything that could be used as a weapon anymore,” Keris took a step toward Nyek to explain, her voice wavering as she pulled the shirt Jay had covered her in down. “I…uhm…physically I’m the smallest being here. I couldn’t hurt anyone if I tried.”
The look on Nyek’s face didn’t alter, the expression in his eyes implacable, and Jay almost felt Keris wilt. Stepping forward, he slid his arm around her waist.
“If you’re scared of a tiny little female, Subcommander,” he commented, “perhaps you need to reassess your thought processes. I thought Latharian warriors protected females... that they’re better than human males at doing so. Or so I keep being told anyway. But from where I’m standing, not seeing much evidence of that.”
“That is not a female.” Nyek stiffened, his head jerking back.
In Jay’s arms, Keris flinched a little. He rubbed his thumb reassuringly against the inside of her wrist.
> “You need your eyes tested then, brother. She looks and feels plenty female to me. Plus… Miisan, the variant used for Keris’s body… what type is it?”
The AI had been staring at Keris but snapped out of it with a slight jump. “The core build is expedition variant Jevenar four three seven. The facial features are—”
Jay smiled as he cut her off with a short movement of his hand. He didn’t want to know if anyone had used Keris’s face before her. It was hers now.
“The Jevenar expedition was the failed expedition to Earth. Right?”
Miisan shook her head, hair shimmering as it danced over her shoulders. Her holographic avatar was so detailed and lifelike; it was easy to forget she wasn’t real.
“Incorrect. The expedition was to the third planet in the Hetalian systems, but for some reason was knocked off course and apparently ended up on Earth where it evolved, and its descendants became humanity. With some additional DNA, which I assume was from cross-breeding with hominid species native to the planet.”
Jay nodded and circled back to his original point. “So basically, the Jevenar variant body is human?”
Miisan blinked. “In very simplistic terms, yes.”
He grinned as he turned back to Nyek. “Humans are, I believe, under the protection of the emperor himself. Isn’t that right?”
Nyek didn’t move for a moment, but then he inclined his head. “That is correct.”
The asshole on the end of his sentence was silent, but Jay heard it all the same. His grin widened. “Perfect, then Keris is under his protection and she’s leaving with me. Now. Do you have a problem with that?”
Nyek didn’t answer. He stepped aside, sweeping his arm out so they could leave.
“Come on, sweet stuff. Let’s get you out of here.”
He hustled Keris out of there as quickly as he could. It was partially practicality but mostly selfishness. If they stayed, someone else might object or… more likely… Nyek would say something else, Jay’s temper would flare and he’d introduce the alien’s face to his fist.
