He hissed, snarled, and growled at A'tem and Bram. His warnings worked; they backed off.
“Huw. Behave.” Nadia touched his chest and patted him in the area over his heart, the exact spot he’d had an ache since he’d landed on Tarn. Her touch was gentle and soothing, lessening the throbbing. “Calm down. I’m fine. We did our job—and we were successful. My team protected me.”
His full-throated buzz-saw growl subsided to a low rumble deep in his chest. Huw took the hand on his chest and looked at it. He frowned and wiped a thumb over the dirt and bloody scratches marring her fingers and the back of her hand. His rumble threatened to escalate.
“I’m fine.” Nadia continued to talk to him, her soothing voice the only thing keeping him from losing control. “A’tem took care of my wounds.”
Huw swept a finger over the bandages at her shoulder and her waist. “Lia needs to check these out as soon as possible.”
“I’m not the one who’s seriously hurt.” Nadia touched his face, swiping at something along his jaw.
He focused on the feeling of her finger on his skin—it elicited a warm and tingling sensation where she touched him. It made him want to smile.
“Huw?” Nadia’s voice sharpened.
She was ticked off at him—again. He didn’t like it. He began to growl again.
“What?” He wiped a smudge of dirt off her chin. She needed a nice long bath and her bed.
“Pay attention. Bre needs a regen bed.” Nadia looked tired. “Did you make sure one would be sent our way?”
Huw’s wildly erratic emotions settled at the exhaustion and pain in her voice. “Yes.
Two are on their way. I knew you were in pain. I ordered two.”
He couldn’t handle even the smallest distance between them any longer. He pulled her into his body and held her gently against him. Her head nestled on his chest, her disheveled hair tickling his chin. He rubbed her back from the point where her shoulders met her neck to the top of her sweet bottom and back. “I am pleased you are okay.”
Nadia felt too good in his arms, was too tempting. He could not with any honor court her properly at this time. So he didn’t attempt to stop her when she shoved at his chest.
He let her go. She stepped away. He watched her clench her jaw. She was in pain, but refused to let anyone know. He felt it sweep over her body; she might have shut off her end of their telepathic link, but her pain pounded his skin like thousands of fists.
“Nadia … you need to lie down,” he chided gently.
“Later. I need to make my report to Mel and Wulf.” Nadia straightened to her full height; no sign of weakness betrayed her to the men. Huw’s admiration for her grew. She was a warrior. She added, “I’m sure you can handle things here … right, Huw? A’tem and Bram can help me to the field headquarters.”
The warrior-woman needed a keeper; if she could walk more than two meters without collapsing, he’d be surprised. Courage and pride was one thing, but refusal to accept help was another. “Nadia, Wulf and Mel can wait on the report. You must have medical attention.” Huw reached for her, but she stepped away. A look in her eyes pleaded that he not shame her in front of her team.
He grunted and inclined his head, honoring her unspoken request.
Nadia turned to A’tem and Bram. “Gentlemen, might I ask you for your escort?”
“Gladly, Nadia.” A’tem came to her injured side and took her arm.
“It would be an honor, Commander Nadia.” Bram took her other arm.
Huw fought the urge to tear her away from the men who touched her. He didn’t have that right—might never have that right. The sooner the Lost Ones mission started, the sooner his questions, his honor would be resolved. And then, maybe, he could punch out A’tem and Bram for touching her. The thought gave him a small amount of pleasure.
“See you on the ship, Huw.” She walked past him with A’tem and Bram assisting her. She paused by the Jod brothers and spoke, “I’ll see you all later. Maybe once Bre is feeling up to it, we can dine together and discuss concerned mothers.”
Huw couldn’t help it—he snarled. Dinner? With the Jods?
The Jod brothers smiled and saluted her. Cas spoke for them. “We will be honored, Commander Nadia. Our mother will want to meet the woman who saved her eldest from sure death.”
Nadia smiled at the three brothers with more than a hint of fondness. “I would love to meet your mother. We’ll arrange it.”
Huw clenched his fists as Nadia moved away. He’d just added the Jod brothers to his tentative must-kill list.
Chapter 9
Two Standard Days Later, Alliance Training Facility on Cejuru Prime The large gymnasium was filled with the sounds of bodies slapping on mats, the squeaking of bare feet on highly polished wood floors, and the grunts, groans, shouts, and taunts of men and women training in various forms of hand-to-hand combat.
Today, a select group of female soldiers were paired with Gold’s Prime soldiers. So far the hand-to-hand fighting had been a lesson in futility. None of the men wanted to hurt the women and had been holding back.
Nadia had paired up with Bre to fight against Bre’s brother Cas and Aeron. Even after their experience with her on Tarn, the men still held back with her also. She was pissed and gaining on going ballistic.
“Time out!” Nadia shouted.
Cas obviously hadn’t heard her in time and his forward momentum took her out at the knees. She landed hard on her back and hit her head. For several seconds the huge fitness room spun around her.
As Bre and the other two went to their knees by her prone body, a roar of rage echoed around the cavernous room. Huw! Before she could sit up and assure everyone she was fine and merely had the air knocked out of her, Huw raced across the room from where he had been monitoring several groups, tore Cas away, and began to pummel him.
“Dermo! Shit! Help me up!” Nadia reached for Aeron and Bre who pulled her to her feet. She leaned against Aeron’s supporting arm for a split second before shrugging him off. “I have to stop Huw. He’ll kill Cas.”
“My brother can hold his own,” Bre assured her. After a day in the regen bed, the Prime was healthy again. He stood with his arms crossed on his chest and a grim smile on his face. “Huw has been asking for someone to put him on the ground all day. Let Cas have his fun.”
She couldn’t disagree with Bre’s sentiment: Huw had been difficult most of the day, especially toward Aeron and the Jod brothers, but still…“Cas did nothing wrong. Huw’s being an ass.” Nadia added, “As usual” under her breath.
Aeron snorted. He’d heard her. Damn good hearing the Prime had. She’d have to remember that.
She approached the combatants with caution; all she needed was a wild elbow or foot to catch her. The men were on the ground and wrestling for superior position.
Everyone in the training room had crowded around, yelling encouragement to their chosen warrior. But the fight went far beyond training as defined by the Alliance. A soldier didn’t put choke holds on one of their peers.
Huw was trying to kill Cas.
“Huw! Stop it!” Forgetting all about her resolve to avoid getting clocked by a stray punch, Nadia straddled Huw’s back; he was on top of Cas. She pinched a nerve on the side of Huw’s neck until he released Cas from the oxygen-depriving hold.
When Huw turned and attempted to dislodge her, Nadia barely avoided the punch he threw at her throat. His fist hit her shoulder instead and spun her around, throwing her off-balance. She landed on her butt this time.
“Nadia! I didn’t mean … I never would … are you hurt?”
Both ends of their psychic pathway had been selectively open since Tarn. It was as if he had to monitor her well being, and she had to let him. Yet, he also hadn’t physically approached or spoken to her in the two days since she’d walked away from him outside the cave. Which was why she chose to ignore the mental voice now; she wasn’t sure her answer would be civil.
Aeron was at her side immediately.
“That was one way to stop them. A Volusian nerve hold. Well done.” He pulled her up and surrounded her from behind with his arms.
She wasn’t sure why Aeron felt the need to protect her, but that was how she read the attractive science officer’s emotions. Shit. He did have feelings for her. But his touch was wrong and made her skin itch.
“You okay, Nadia?” Aeron whispered against her ear. The sensation was like flicks of a whip and had her pulling away.
Conscious of Huw’s narrow-eyed gaze of molten gold, she patted Aeron’s arms.
“I’m fine. Let go, or he’ll attack you next.” When Aeron didn’t release her, she added, “Please.”
Aeron let her go slowly as if to taunt the beast seething inside Huw who had risen from the floor. He stood less than an arm’s length away from them, his hands clenching and unclenching and his lips twisted into a snarl. Damn, just what she didn’t need— Aeron and Huw going all ape-shit territorial on her, especially when the first man, the wrong one, wanted her and the other just played at it.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Aeron told her. “None of the men here are.” He paused and came to her side and whispered, “Why do you think he attacked Cas? It was clearly an accident.”
“Not sure,” liar, “he must not have seen the whole thing.” Nadia glanced at Cas who’d gotten up also. “Cas? Are you okay?”
“Yes, Commander Nadia. Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine, Cas.” Ignoring Huw, she addressed the soldiers who’d surrounded them.
“In fact, I was stopping the fight to tell you men to cease holding back with us women.
The Antareans, the Erians, the mercenaries, and the Prime rebels won’t hold back. We women have to be able to go toe-to-toe with bigger males. We need to learn all the dirty tricks to take a bigger opponent down. That is why we’re here today—help us learn!
Understood?”
The men in the room shouted, “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” She turned to Huw who’d moved closer and stood in front of her. He snarled subvocally, but she could hear and feel it scratching over the psychic link with him. His dark gold gaze was focused on Aeron who’d remained close to her side.
Goddammit, she didn’t have the time or the patience for this chest-thumping shit.
Nadia nudged the science officer away. Thank God, Aeron took the hint. Huw’s raspy snarling subsided and his breathing slowed.
“As for you, Huw.” Nadia turned her muddled emotions on him; after all she was an emotional basket case because of his hot and cold treatment of her. “What in the hell were you thinking? You don’t attack one of my teammates. Cas didn’t hurt me. We were training. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We need to get you Prime males used to working and fighting alongside women. We aren’t fragile flowers here. We’re goddamned highly trained Alliance soldiers. Understood?”
“You were hurt.” His concern was real, and it swept through her like the leading winds of a thunderstorm.
“Huw. I’m fine. The dizziness was due to the air being knocked out of me. My head is fine.”
Huw looked her in the eye, nodded once, and then turned and walked away. His emotions, their link, locked down behind a frigid black wall.
Nadia’s breath hitched, but she refused to let the watery sob emerge. He’d walked away … again.
“Nadia, what’s going on?” Aeron whispered against her ear, his body as close as he could get without touching. “Are you in telepathic contact with Huw?”
She angled her head to look at Aeron. She read anger and jealousy mixed with envy in his voice and aura, saw those mixed emotions reflected in his glittering gold gaze.
“I’ve always been empathic.” It seemed Bram and the Jod brothers hadn’t spread the word about her telepathy, or if they had, Aeron hadn’t heard about it. He was genuinely shocked. “And now it seems with some Prime I’m telepathic—and that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”
Aeron’s nostrils flared. Before she realized what he was about to do, he spun her around, tucked his fingers into the waistband of her pants, and pulled it down far enough to view her lower abdomen. His sigh of relief was audible in the oh-so-quiet room.
Nadia blushed when she noticed all the Prime males with a view looked and promptly began to spread the word. Her hearing was also good enough to hear the gist of the comments. “Commander Nadia is still available. No mark.”
She punched Aeron’s gut with a stiff-armed jab and shoved him away from her.
“Don’t ever touch me that way again.” Her voice was low and ragged with her anger and shock. She felt feral.
She tugged her pants back into place. In a louder voice, she announced so all around could hear, “Terrans don’t mark. I’m not Prime. Also, it is never, I repeat, never appropriate to stick your hands down a woman’s pants in public. It is also not appropriate to do so in private without the woman’s consent. Is that understood?”
A chorus of “yes, sirs” came from the males present and “damn rights” from the females.
“Now that the side show’s over.” She swept the assembled soldiers with a stern glare. “Let’s get back to work. Pair up. And if I see any Prime male not giving his best effort when paired with a female, those men will be on tunnel maintenance for a standard month on their respective ships.”
Mel had instituted tunnel maintenance as a punishment since she’d crawled and walked through some dirty ones on the Galanti back when she’d first met Wulf. No Prime male worth the name wanted housekeeping duty.
Her soldiers went back to work and soon the fitness room rang with the shouts and thuds of fighting pairs.
Nadia approached the two Jod brothers with Aeron following her. “Aeron, you’re seriously pissing me off. I don’t need protection.”
“I think you do. Huw is still within earshot. He’s outside the training room, watching us.” Aeron placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward the side entry to the room.
Yep, there he was skulking in the shadows like some demented ghost in a gothic novel.
“Get his hands off you, Nadia. Now.”
So, now he lowered his shields. She ignored him for the moment.
“Aeron, I consider you a friend, but please don’t touch me again. It sets a bad example for the men.” Nadia stepped out from under Aeron’s hands and looked toward the sky. “God, what have I done to deserve this?”
“Dammit, Huw. You’ve caused enough disruption today. Go away. Find some other female to glare at. Hey? I’ve got an idea—why don’t you go find your gemate ?”
Huw’s answering snarl traveled across their mental connection and made her shudder. He was furious. Fine. Let him be. She was mad also. He’d all but ignored her for two days and then he went all primitive on her as she did her job, which happened to entail working with men. If he didn’t get his act together, she’d report him to his brother.
Let Wulf handle him.
When she looked again, he was gone.
“Okay, that was fun.” Nadia pinned the Jod brothers and Aeron with a narrowed glance. They’d surrounded her like the coastal mountains of Cejuru Prime hugged the capital city’s bay, isolating her from the rest of the room. “Let’s get back to training. I’m not holding back. You are not to, either. I’ll use every dirty fighting technique I’ve learned in my years in the military and from my pre-military days in some of the seedier neighborhoods on Mars Colony—and I expect the same from you. We can share the techniques and decide which ones our female soldiers can use to their best advantage.
Understood?”
Bre nodded, an impish grin twisting his lips. “Will you teach us the Volusian nerve hold you used on Commander Huw?”
Nadia grinned back. “Sure. Let’s do this.”
*
Huw slammed his way out of the training facility. Damn Nadia! She made him crazy. He was defending her and she turned it around so he looked like the bad guy. In front of the crew.
Adding insult to injury, she’d easily
defeated him with one fragile, female hand.
And he was a sick man because he found that sexy.
Her touch. Her smell. Her beautifully muscled, long body. Her mental touch. All of those things had him stiffer than the titanium barrels on the ship’s laser cannon. But he couldn’t approach her—not until after the Lost Ones mission, and maybe not even then if he found his gemate.
Ansu bhau. He needed sex. Now. Nadia was a temptress, created by the One to lead him off the honorable path he’d set for himself.
Requisitioning a surface vehicle, he drove to the house of the sex surrogate his family had always used to teach the younger Caradoc males about how to make love to a woman and later ease all of the Caradoc males’ sexual needs until they mated.
Susa would take away the gnawing pain in his balls and cock.
After parking in front of Susa’s villa, he ran up the steps. Her door panel indicated she was home and receiving clients. He entered his code and waited for her to let him in.
“Huw!” Susa greeted him at the doorway, wearing only a sheer floating garment.
Every line of her curvy, long body was visible. Her dusky rose nipples showed clearly as did her dark curls over her sex. “It’s been so long. With Wulf mated, I have one less of my favorite Caradoc men to take care of.”
She stood on her tiptoes and nibbled at his lower lip before kissing him fully. Her soft hands petted his chest, paying particular attention to his nipples.
He grimaced with discomfort when her hand brushed over a particularly sensitive part of his chest. He stopped her caresses by covering her hands with his and pulled away from the kiss. “Susa? Do you have time to give me a massage and ease my erection?”
“Always, darling Huw.” She pulled on his arm. “Come to my bedroom. I will get you a Valerian whiskey and then undress you.” She rubbed her cheek along the arm she held. “You do seem tense, warrior.”
“Yes.” He kissed the top of her head. “But you have always eased me well in the past. I expect no less of you now.”
“It is nice to be wanted, needed. Many of my peers are afraid that if our men can procreate with other hominid females in the galaxy that we will no longer be needed to care for their needs.”
Prime Selection Page 11
