by Mina Carter
“No problem. I was only saying hi anyway, being polite.”
Kenna dried off her hands and made to move past. She kept her expression bland and polite when it looked like the other woman was considering blocking her path, but her entire body was on alert. If she made one move that looked threatening, Kenna was ready for it.
For all that she was concealing her military training and background, something in the way she moved or the look in her eyes must have warned Bulldog-face because she dropped her gaze and moved to the side. Kenna murmured her thanks and left the washroom without a backward glance.
“What happened?” Xaan asked, pushing the last slice of bread over as she sat back down. “The young female from the kitchens came out of there like a stabbed sukazin.”
“Trouble in paradise I think,” Kenna mused in a low voice and then shrugged as she realized Maggie was watching them. “Perhaps just teenage trouble. You know what girls that age are like.”
“It ain’t much, but it’s one of the better rooms.” Maggie bustled ahead of them down one of the warren-like corridors of the colony’s main structure and opened a low door. Behind it was a small bedroom, mostly dominated by the bed under the skyport window. “Bedding’s just out the scrubber, so excuse the smell. It’ll fade off before morning and…” she grinned and winked at Kenna. “Guy lookin’ like that, well, I figure you’ll be too busy to notice… know what I mean?”
Kenna chuckled, her cheeks reddening. “I’m sure we won’t notice the smell. It’s been a long day…”
“Yeah, yeah…” The big, cheerful woman obviously didn’t believe a word she said, eyeing Xaan with an appreciative grin. “Whatever you say, hon.”
She moved to open another door. It stuck halfway, and she gave it a practiced kick on the bottom corner. Kenna’s grin broadened a little at the little reminder of home. Plasticrete often swelled in the heat, so doors in the personal spaces caught a lot.
“Washroom’s through here. Three-minute limit on the shower per person. Even bein’ a guest don’t get you no more hot water’n that I’m afraid. Breakfast is at seven. Be there early if you want feedin’ cause this lot’ll clean me out faster’n a pack of rats. Well then, I’ll leave you two young ‘uns to it! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” She winked and headed for the door.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality, Maggie. Good night,” Kenna said, closing the door behind her as she left. She leaned against it to look at Xaan.
“What on earth’s gotten into you?” she demanded. He was acting well out of character. Like a cat on a hot tin roof.
He shook his head, fishing something out of his pocket and setting it on the bedside cabinet. It looked like a standard personal communicator and she wondered for a moment who he’d lifted it off. But then he pressed a button on the side. Lights erupted from the top of the device, spreading out into a grid that covered the ceiling, flowed down the walls to outline the window and doors, and then created a chessboard floor. Three spots flared brightly, two in the corners of the ceiling and the lamp by the bed.
Xaan fiddled with the device. The spots and the grid disappeared with a snap.
“Okay, we’re good,” Xaan straightened up, dropping the trader accent. “That’s blocked the mics they have in here.”
“They bugged us?” She blinked but then laughed and shook her head. “Xaan, this is a backwater colony. They’re not known for their high-stakes espionage.”
He folded his arms over his broad chest, his expression forbidding. Before he spoke, he covered his mouth with his hand, not enough to muffle his voice, but to conceal his lips she realized. “Stay by the door, you’re out of sight of the cameras. Maybe not, but they were listening to us and I don’t trust them.”
She folded her arms as well, mirroring his posture. “Maybe they are. Perhaps they think we’re here scouting for weaknesses. Pirates are known in this area and a colony like this? Easy pickings for a scavenger group.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that. Something feels wrong here.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s not just because they’re human? You’ve only ever dealt with human females before. Not males.”
His expression didn’t change. “You think I am that easily led by my emotions?”
The temperature in the room dropped a couple of degrees.
“No.” Kenna didn’t raise her voice, the center of her chest aching. He didn’t trust humans. That was plain to see. So where did that leave them? “I think you’re in a new situation and you don’t like it. A few of us? That’s a different matter than dealing with a whole colony where you’re the odd one out.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Kenna,” he said in a low, half-growl, his eyes flashing dangerously. “You know what you’ve been told, or what you’ve managed to glean. This is not the first time I’ve been on my own amongst others not my own kind.”
“Oh? Did you take an instant dislike to them as well?” Her words were sharp, but to the point. “Because that’s what it seems like to me. I haven’t been among many of my own kind for months… and you start behaving like a jerk as soon as we are.”
He was across the room before she registered the movement, slamming a hand into the door by her head. Anger heated his eyes as he bit out, “So that’s it, is it? You prefer your own kind? Probably prefer a human male as well. Dex probably.”
She blinked, blindsided by his anger and his assumption. “Dex? No! God no,” she exclaimed and then reached for him. “Xaan… stop, just stop. I don’t want a human male. I want you. Okay?”
He sighed and pulled her close, wrapping her up in his strong arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his lips pressed against her hair. “I see you looking at them, smiling at them… and I want to kill them, every single one, so I can keep all your smiles for myself.”
His growl made her chuckle. “Please don’t kill all the colonists just because I smiled at them. That wouldn’t give the right impression of the Lathar at all. Would it?”
He grumbled in the back of his throat, but he was smiling as he pulled her away from the door and ushered her toward the washroom. “Go get ready for bed. And keep the door shut,” he warned her. “I don’t want anyone spying on you.”
“Aye aye, Captain Renner, sir!” She gave him a wink and a smart salute and then disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind her as ordered.
7
Sleeping with Kenna in his arms had affected Xaan more than he’d thought it would. It had both soothed his soul to hold her close as she slept and kept him awake half the night because of the temptation of her slender, curvy body pressed against his. But other than a heated kiss he’d ruthlessly kept under control before they’d slept, he’d behaved himself.
Even though he’d wanted nothing more than to roll her over and pin her beneath him, kiss her until she moaned and writhed under him, he hadn’t. Bracing his hands against the washbasin in the tiny washroom off the bedroom, he battled the instinctive reaction of his body to the idea. He battled the need to walk back into the bedroom and tumble her down onto the bed so he could claim her.
No. No way.
He would not take his mate hurriedly with others watching them. She deserved better. She deserved romance and time for them to get to know each other physically. She deserved all his attention as he discovered what she liked, what made her squirm, and what made her scream in pleasure. And he would make her scream—time and time again as he made her come and gave her pleasure.
“I could get used to this view in the morning.”
Her voice reached him from the bedroom and he turned to smile over his shoulder. Kenna was still in bed, lying on her side wrapped up in all the blankets as she watched him.
“Good,” he threw back, loving the possessive little gleam in her eyes. She was everything he wanted in a woman—fierce and loyal. He couldn’t wait to get back to the ship so he could claim her as his own finally. “Because you’ll have to.”
>
Kenna frowned and sat up, something in the main room catching her attention.
“What is it?” he asked as she slid out from under the covers.
“Someone just pushed something under the door.”
He stepped out of the washroom to find her with a piece of paper in her hand. She looked up and held it out to him silently. A message was scrawled in marker across the dirty cream surface.
Trust no one.
The message stuck with Xaan all the way through breakfast, and Kenna had to hiss to remind him not to glare at people and blow their cover. He was forced to get ahold of himself and focus on the mission. It was a task when all he wanted to do was grab Kenna and fight his way out of there.
This distraction was new and not altogether welcome. Even though he’d been mated before, he’d never reacted like this, had this loss of focus on a mission. But then, Laryssa hadn’t been a warrior like Kenna. She’d always remained at home, safely. Apart from that final time…
He pulled his mind away from the memory but not because it had any power to hurt him, only because he needed to focus on their mission. Namely getting himself and Kenna out of here. Now they’d checked that the colony wasn’t in danger, and it didn’t appear to be, there was no need for them to remain.
Still, something about those bodies bothered him. The wounding patterns seemed familiar somehow. But… the colonists kept on about predators in the area, so it could easily have been one of them.
He shook it off and shoveled something Kenna had called “eggs” into his mouth. It was weird, rubbery stuff that tasted artificial. He’d much rather have field cake—standard Latharian rations that gave a warrior all his nutritional needs for the day and kicked his metabolism into high gear.
He flicked a glance at Kenna, who was demolishing some sticky, gooey confection with relish. He suspected if he did have field cake, he wouldn’t be the one to eat it. It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that the human women were inordinately fond of what they called “chocolate cake,” which was what they’d dubbed field rations.
“Hey guys,” Dex dropped into the seat next to Xaan. “Did you sleep okay?”
Kenna smiled at the guy and Xaan glowered for a moment, wanting to drive his elbow into Dex’s throat and crush his windpipe. Or maybe his nose and spread it all over his face. Draanthic wouldn’t get her smiles then.
“Yeah. We slept well thanks,” he rumbled, getting his murderous impulses under control. Dex irritated him beyond measure. He tried to tell himself it was because something about the guy wasn’t on the level, but could Kenna be right? Could he mistrust the guy simply because he was human and he’d considered him a rival for her affections? She had a valid point that none of them had had much interaction with the males of her species. He grumbled to himself. And the ones he’d had anything to do with before this had proved to be complete and utter trallshit.
But there had been spy cams in their room. It might just be something voyeuristic, and to be honest, he couldn’t blame any male wanting to get a closer look at Kenna. But she was his. Quickly he batted the fury down again.
“Much obliged to you for the room and board, but since you ain’t in no danger,” he said, sticking to the dialect he’d observed Kenna and some of the others use. “Then we’ll be getting on our way today. Got some cargo we need to move further into civilized space.”
“Sure, sure… Understand totally.” Dex nodded, a mug of steaming coffee in his hands. They were thin and callused like Xaan’s. A worker’s hands. “Thanks for dropping in on us. I have to ask, though. You said you were an engineer?”
He hadn’t, but a warning kick from Kenna under the table had him nodding. “Of a sort, yeah. Why? What’s up?”
“Could do with a hand getting that radio up and running. Just in case those aliens come back again.”
He exchanged glances with Kenna. It wasn’t an unreasonable request and, seriously, how long would it take him? He hadn’t been a science officer for years, but he’d never forgotten his training and primary discipline. And given what he’d seen of the colony, they were years behind the central system Terrans, so their primitive technology should be easy to fix.
“Yeah. Sure.” He nodded, finishing up the eggs. They weren’t that bad. Especially with the spicy sauce all over them. “I’ll take a look.”
“Cool, that would be awesome! Meet us out front when you’re done here, and we’ll head out to the booster towers. We’ve isolated the problem to one of them.”
Twenty minutes later, Xaan and Kenna stood outside in the main square as the work teams started to assemble. Most were ready to head out into the fields, and he wondered what kind of crops they grew. The question was answered a moment later, at least in part, when Kenna gasped and stopped a woman walking by them.
“Is that a goojan berry basket?” she asked, eagerness written all over her beautiful face.
“Errr, yeah,” the woman replied, flicking quick glances at the pair of them. “We got a patch over the other side of the valley, near a small stream.”
Kenna was all smiles. “I love goojan berries.”
“You’ll have to head out with Liz and her group,” Dex broke in, appearing at Xaan’s side. “They’ll be back at lunch so that gives Steve here plenty of time to look at the radio issue.”
He didn’t want them to split up, but at the look of delight and anticipation on his beautiful soon-to-be-mate’s face he didn’t have the heart to tell her no. It would take him a while to trek with Dex out to the towers, fix whatever was wrong and get back anyway. Plenty enough time for her to go pick as many berries as she wanted.
“You head out, love,” he said, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead. “Make sure not to eat more than you pick though.”
She chuckled and nodded. “Promise. See you at lunch.”
“You two been married long?” Dex asked as Xaan watched Kenna walk off to join the berry-picking group. He told himself it was purely professional, making sure a member of his team was okay, but even he didn’t believe that. No, he outright ogled her slender figure and shapely ass, highlighted in the cargo pants she wore, as she walked away.
“Couple of years now,” he replied, looking at the other man. “Why?”
Dex chuckled. “Didn’t think it was that long. You still look at her like you want to rip her clothes off and fuck her right now.”
Xaan grunted, not liking the human linking Kenna and fucking in the same thought. “You wanted me to look at this radio?”
Within a few minutes Xaan, Dex and two others left the compound. Xaan had raised his eyebrow at the high-powered rifles the two men held, more combat weapons than something he’d expect a colony to use for hunting. Dex spotted his look.
“Got some nasty predators in the area. Pays to be prepared,” he said, patting his sidearm. “This is Billy and Rob. They’ll be coming with us.”
It was a sensible precaution, so Xaan let it go, even if he did have the sneaking feeling the guards were keeping more of an eye on him rather than on the surroundings while Dex kept checking his personal communicator like it held the secrets of life itself.
The planet itself was pleasant—the kind of place he might have brought Kenna for a romantic getaway. They were headed northeast so the view ahead was filled with rolling hills and forests. The sky was clear and more toward the blue spectrum, the air pleasant. From the pictures he’d seen, the place could pass as Earth, apart from the purple grass and fauna. Although, it made sense that humans would seek out planets like their home… which in turn was similar to Lathar Prime. Strange how it all came full circle.
As he walked, he allowed his mind to fill with thoughts of Kenna again. Her softly worded admission last night that she wanted him, not a human mate, had eased a knot inside he hadn’t known was there. He realized he’d been worried that once back amongst her own kind she wouldn’t want to leave. She wouldn’t want him, a scarred veteran warrior from another race with an adult son, anymore.
H
e’d spent time reviewing the files they’d gleaned from the base they’d taken Kenna and her friends from. He’d seen the entertainment files. Art imitated life and in most of their romantic dealings, it seemed human females mostly favored younger males. Young, fit and stupid if what he’d seen was typical.
The males in these “rom-coms” seemed to be clueless with females, only realizing the perfect female was right there after events forced them to. They’d only proved to him that human males weren’t fit to reproduce. Any Latharian warrior would have taken one look at the female and done everything he could to claim her. None of this commitment-phobic behavior that almost caused the female to walk away forever.
He wasn’t young, but he was fit, heavily muscled and more than met the physical requirements. And he wasn’t stupid. Now he knew Kenna wanted him, there was no way he’d let her walk away. Not now. Not ever.
She was his.
“You been a trader long, Steve?” The question came from Dex, and it took Xaan a moment to drag himself from pleasant thoughts of Kenna in a bonding gown, his jeweled collar at her throat.
“About twenty years or so,” he replied, noting the guy was a little out of breath as they headed up the rise toward one of the towers. Add another reason why human males were inferior. Human females would be much better off with males of his kind.
“Career before then?” Dex wanted to know.
Before Xaan could answer, a sound in the undergrowth just ahead made all three humans whirl around skittishly.
The big Latharian warrior extended his senses, expanded and enhanced for battle when he was little more than a boy. A small mammal in the undergrowth had taken off as they approached—a prey species by its rapid departure. It was nothing to be worried about, but the humans with their limited senses didn’t know that so he kept his face impassive. He felt sorry for them. To be so blind to their surroundings must be awful. Crippling. But they’d never known anything else. Was it better to never have had than to know and mourn the loss?
