“Stop growling, brother, or you’ll have me starting.” Iolyn’s anger had turned his tanned skin dark red. “Royce, those Prime apayebote are not indicative of the majority of Prime men. Women are cherished for the creators of life they are.”
“Yeah, sure,” Royce drawled. “I’ve read some Prime histories, including one by your Uncle, Tenar Caradoc. Prime have prided themselves on their ability to fight and survive.
Well, war is hell—and often, in the drive to win, acts are committed which violate all rules of decency. The Prime’s history in the galaxy has been one of imperialism and subjugation of the native people much as England did on Earth during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
Royce turned to Iolyn and then Huw, raising one sandy-colored brow. “So, you two keep telling yourself that little lie about the all-so-noble-when-it-comes to-women Prime male. But from what I’ve heard and later read in the interrogation transcripts, the Prime fanatics have threatened to rape, torture, and then kill any non-Prime female caught consorting with a Prime male.”
The Prime males emitted low, angry sounds, scaring the other diners around them.
Royce’s lips twisted in what Huw discerned as scorn. “Didn’t read your communiqués today or listen when Kerr made the announcement at the end of the lecture, did you? I’m thinking Joen did, because he made sure the ladies had an escort. If he hadn’t offered, I would’ve. None of our female military personnel is to be out alone while we’re dirt-side. Those orders come from not only the Alliance Military Headquarters, but also from Premier Caradoc.”
He took a drink and swept the table with a glance, his stern gaze finally settling on Huw. “But I digress. Bottom line, Huw, will you apologize to both women or not?”
“Yes.” Huw took a drink of his Valerian whiskey, needing the heated jolt it gave his suddenly icy body.
The voiced threat to the women of Gold Squadron—to Nadia—chilled him to the bone. The announcement and orders must have gone out while he’d attempted to have sex with Susa; his anger at being forced to attend this evening’s lecture had caused him to shut Kerr and Lia out. Shame and guilt had him kicking himself mentally.
Then something scratched and thudded against the wall of denial he’d built around the mental bond he had with Nadia. The skin above his heart burned. And over it all, a deep foreboding—much akin to what he felt when a battle had reached a critical point— swept over his body and roiled in his gut.
Huw glanced around the bar, but didn’t see anything to warrant such battle feelings—and none of the other Prime at the table seemed overly concerned. But then they were too busy being mad at him.
He shook his head in an attempt to throw off the sensations and turned his thoughts back to the current topic of discussion. “I will apologize, because I was rude and inconsiderate. But you’re wrong, Royce. Nadia doesn’t like me. She hates me. She turned her back on me, both on Tarn and again this morning.” He strove hard to keep the petulance out of his tone.
“God give me strength. Am I the only one who has noticed you’ve been avoiding and turning your back on her whenever she’s around?” Royce’s voice was filled with antipathy.
“He’s correct, Huw,” said Kerr. The others nodded in agreement. “You are the one who does those things and have been for over two weeks. Nadia must have understood your message and decided not to engage with you any longer. If you want my opinion, you have driven her away.”
“Kerr’s correct. Nadia was open to you in a way she’s never been with any Alliance soldier,” Royce said. “But then you started spouting off the Prime women are supreme bullshit all the time and treating her as if she had a contagious disease. She probably got tired of your crap.”
Ard smiled, a sly look in his eyes. “If you don’t want her, Huw, I would like to date her. Court her like the good doctors suggested in class. Nadia is strong and beautiful. Her skin and hair glow like starlight off the Cejuru Prime seas. She would give a man handsome, strong sons and beautiful daughters.”
Huw turned to snarl at his soon-to-be former friend’s provoking words when the door to the bar was thrust open with a crash.
A disheveled, bloody Lia stumbled into the room and collapsed to the floor. “Help them,” she cried out weakly.
Kerr ran to Lia’s side to check over her wounds. The other men raced for the door.
Huw beat them to it and was the first through. He dropped the thick wall he’d constructed around the connection to Nadia. Images bombarded his mind.
Fighting. Knives. Thuds. Groans. Heavy breathing. Fear … cold, icy fear. Nadia’s pain. Her increasing weakness.
Everything that made him a dominant, protective Prime male roared to the surface.
Without conscious thought, he sent his strength across the connection he’d never verbally acknowledged, willing her to hold on, to survive until he arrived.
And his soul screamed “Nadia!” in a looping crescendo.
Chapter 12
Minutes earlier, outside the bar
The heat of the day had vanished with sunset. A fog bank hung low over the breakwater protecting the capital city’s wharf area. Fishing boats and pleasure craft bobbed gently in their berths.
The night air was refreshing after the too-warm bar. Nadia took a deep breath, allowing the salty smelling air and the sound of the surf hitting rocks to wash over her.
Unfortunately, not even the peaceful beauty of Cejuru Prime’s ocean could calm her inner turmoil.
“Nice night.” Joen’s voice was whiskey-smooth and filled with concern. His body was a solid warmth next to her, close but not quite touching. She shoulder-bumped him, a silent gesture of thanks for his attempt to maintain a sense of normalcy. She was lucky to have him as a friend.
“Yes, it is,” said Lia, following Joen’s lead. “I love this temperate equatorial climate.
Hot during the day and cool at night. The fog bank reminds me of San Francisco Bay on Earth. Looks like it might rain tomorrow, though. The sunset was really rosy.”
Joen chuckled. “This is not Earth, Lia. The rain will come tonight, but tomorrow will be another clear day. Would you ladies like to go deep-sea fishing with me? It will be a perfect day for it. We could catch some fish and have a … what do you Terrans call it when you cook and eat outside?”
“A barbeque or picnic,” Lia said. “I’d love that. We have the day off before we find out what the change in mission orders entails. Nadia, please say you’ll come.”
“No, you two go.” She appreciated the fact they wanted to include her, but she refused to be an awkward third. Lia and Joen needed the opportunity to connect. Being a couple on a ship populated with mostly Prime males would be challenging. Private time would be limited. “Anyway, I’d promised Mel I’d prepare what the landing parties could expect to find on the target planets we’ll visit during our upcoming mission. Some of the planets aren’t geologically stable and others have had changes in atmosphere.”
The Prime had searched for years and found no trace of the missing ships. But Mel’s survival and changes in original routes noted on the data disks she’d brought with her had been the impetus for the mission. Nadia put the chances of finding any of the missing Prime women and children at less than point two percent. Mel’s survival had been a miracle according to her adoptive parents’ diary.
Yet, the Alliance felt the effort should be made as a goodwill gesture for their new signatory, the Prime. Plus, it would be a good way to shake down the merged Prime and Alliance crews, a test before taking on more deadly and dangerous missions.
Lia opened her mouth to say something when Nadia stiffened.
“Shh.” Nadia touched Joen’s arm as she reached for her side arm with her right hand.
“Someone’s out there. Stalking us.”
Joen stiffened, his formerly relaxed mood gone in an instant. He hissed under his breath, “Yes-s-s-s, I sense them now.”
Leaning into Joen, she used her peripheral vision and detected four
hulking shapes hugging the shadows of the buildings opposite the shoreline. Their stalkers had begun trailing them a few meters back. She’d thought nothing of their presence at the time, but as the group had begun to close the gap between them, their violent emotions had assaulted her senses.
“Of course, Nadia, we’ll go back and get your jacket.” Joen spoke loudly, his words echoing off the buildings in the quiet night air.
She admired Joen’s quick thinking. He gently herded her and Lia back toward the brightly lit bar. They hadn’t come far, maybe three hundred meters or less. The bar was the closest place of safety and reinforcement; all the other businesses were closed for the night.
Nadia flicked off the safety on her weapon and rested her fingers around the grip, ready to pull and fire at a moment’s notice. She slipped her left hand down her thigh and prepared to go for her knife in its sheath.
Swearing under his breath, Joen subtlety maneuvered away from her and Lia’s bodies, giving him room to fight. All the while, they retraced their steps.
“If they attack before we get back inside the bar…” Joen’s voice was low and monotonic, “…I want you both to run. Let me handle these apayebote.” He surreptitiously pulled his weapon and held it along his thigh between his and Nadia’s body.
“Like hell,” Nadia muttered. “Lia can run and get our crew members. You saw what I could do on Tarn—don’t go all protective Prime male on me now.”
“You are unwell—and in training this morning you were hurt…”
“Dermo!” Nadia hissed in her native Russian, cutting him off. “I’m fine. I won’t leave you. Deal with it.”
The four men stalking them were closer now. They appeared to be large Prime males. Joen was a decent fighter, but he wasn’t the kind of warrior to take down four bigger men.
“Nadia’s correct. You need her.” Lia released Joen’s arm. “What a day to leave the com-devices in our quarters.”
“Be ready to run, Lia lubha.” Joen’s free hand swept down the doctor’s back, a tender, loving gesture. “Nadia, don’t hold back.”
“Didn’t plan on it. Get ready, Lia.” Nadia echoed Joen’s order. “They’re coming.”
The chilly calm Nadia was known for swept over her conscious mind, shoving all other worries aside. The primitive part of her brain was on full alert and in survival mode.
Adrenaline flooded her veins, preparing her for the coming fight. The piercing ache over her right ovary, always bothersome, subsided as if it realized now wasn’t the time to distract her. She needed all her energy, strength, and concentration for battle.
In the back of her mind, the connection with Huw unshielded and began to seek him out as it had on Tarn. All she found was blackness. Again, he denied her. She shoved the feelings of hurt aside; she had no time for such useless emotions with a fight to survive.
The black-clothed stalkers went on attack and flowed across the narrow street like a living malevolent fog rolling over the land. Their angle of approach cut Nadia and her friends off from the bar. The men were armed with laser weapons, but didn’t fire them.
They obviously weren’t out to kill but to capture.
The repercussions of Alliance officers using deadly force on planet, even on men who meant them harm, swept rapidly through her mind. The diplomatic nightmare and the potential for destroying the new alliance had Nadia leaving her sidearm in her holster.
“No lasers until they use theirs.”
“Smart call, Nadia.” Joen mimicked her move.
His immediate agreement meant his mind had worked along the same channels as hers—this attack could be a set up to see how Alliance crews would react to civilian threats. The Alliance military couldn’t be perceived as easily resorting to deadly force for every potential threat. The fact that several Prime—traitors though they were—had died on Tarn, and even earlier on the Galanti and on Tooh 2 at the hands of Alliance officers, had created a furor in the Prime Elder Council.
Until these four Prime used deadly force, she and Joen would meet the threat level on an equivalent level.
When she spotted the glint of knives in two of the men’s hands, she pulled her serrated battle knife. “Knives, Joen. They have knives.” Joen’s battle knife made a swishing sound in the quiet night as he drew it from his thigh sheath.
As the four men circled the three of them, one of them made the mistake of leaving an opening big enough for Lia, freeing a path toward the bar.
“Run, Lia. Get the others!” Nadia shoved Lia through the gap and leapt toward the man who attempted to follow the doctor.
Joen beat her to her target, shouting, “Lia, gemate! Behind you!” He roared a battle cry similar to one she’d heard the Caradoc brothers use and threw his body at the man who’d threatened Lia’s escape.
Gemate? Joen and Lia were bonded? Joen’s concentration would be to protect his mate at all costs. The other three attackers had heard Joen’s words. They bellowed and turned to attack Joen and Lia; the bonded status of the couple made them the primary target.
Nadia shouted the battle cry of her family and engaged the enemy. Her job would be to keep the other three off Joen’s back as he battled like a demon to kill the man who would’ve harmed Lia and prevented her from obtaining help.
Calling upon years of training and experience, Nadia rushed into the fray. She swept her knife in wide arcs. As she made initial contact with the three men, drawing blood, they turned to face her.
One man jumped toward her, leading with his knife, testing her mettle. She slashed him across his knife-wielding arm with a backhanded move and danced away from him.
Thank God, she had long arms and legs; they made hand-to-hand fighting easier.
A sweeping side kick kept his two buddies away.
The attackers now realized they had a real fight on their hands. She continued to use her knife and legs to block them from going to the aid of their friend who wasn’t faring well at Joen’s hands.
The man she’d sliced initially charged her as she maneuvered to reposition and find her balance after a series of kicks. Reflexively, she arched away, backhanding him across the face with the fist clutching her knife. He bellowed his pain and managed to slice her shoulder as she twisted away. She forced the pain of the shallow wound into the back of her mind, imagining it sinking into a deep well of soothing water. The pain now blunted; she fought back even harder.
“Forget the other two. The leader wants this one!” one of the three said in Prime.
“She is a friend of Wulf’s woman and is worth much.”
Not gonna happen, bastard.
Nadia parried and thrust at the trio who taunted her with jabs of their knives and their talk of what they’d do once she was in their power. Her agility and superior training were the only things keeping her alive.
She could feel the blood soaking the back of her uniform as the slice was unable to coagulate due to the movement of the fight. Not a good sign. The loss of blood would weaken her eventually, and the predators would swarm and overpower her.
Definitely not gonna happen.
Ignoring the bleeding and the dull, throbbing pain, she fought with a furious concentration, doing as much damage as she could. The sounds of Joen’s grunts and swearing punctuated the background as did the sound of Lia’s feet hitting the pavement fading into the distance.
Joen was still standing and her friend had gotten away. Help would arrive soon.
At the thought of reinforcements, she dug deeper into the little bit of extra strength all warriors held back to close out a battle. She let loose with another battle cry. A new surge of adrenaline infused her blood and she went on the attack.
Nadia slashed at the closest man, slicing him across the thigh and adding to the wounds she’d already inflicted. He glared and spat Prime curses. She smiled and gave him a vulgar Prime gesture Wulf had inadvertently used with his brothers during training.
The assailant’s look of shock had her chuckling, which served momentari
ly to throw her three attackers off their game plan.
One of the thugs yelled. “You dare laugh? Sued-seuater! Karote!”
Anger ate at her gut. Fear threatened as she grew weaker. She encased both emotions within a box of ice in her mind. Soldiers didn’t allow their emotions dictate whether they won or lost a fight. At times like this, training took over.
Her attacker wanted her to react crazily at the egregious insults; she’d refuse. Little did these men realize her crew members didn’t call her the Iceberg for nothing. Better men than these bastards had tried to get a rise out of her.
Only Huw’s continued rejection had the power to touch her; nothing these cowards said could unnerve her.
“You are mistaken, apayebo—bastard!” She ducked as a fist headed for her face.
“I’m not a seed sucker or a whore.” She shoved the fist-bearing arm up and away using a forearm block. She followed with a front kick to the man’s crotch, missing his groin and getting him instead in his lower abdomen.
Then, the three backed away; their gazes aimed over her shoulder.
Nadia sensed Joen’s presence behind her before she heard him. The aura of his anger was like a column of flaming heat washing over her back. Now she realized how the Prime worked so well together in battle—they could sense one another’s batel rabia.
“Nadia … at your back.” Joen’s rumbling voice sounded loud in the sudden break in the fight.
The night air was chilly, and the rain Joen had predicted had begun to fall in a light drizzle. Nadia’s ragged breaths became little puffy clouds as they hit the cool mist. Joen’s breathing didn’t sound much smoother.
The only good thing was the three Prime labored also. They’d probably expected an easy victory against one Prime and two women. The rebels would soon learn—the Alliance fought until the last man was standing.
Prime Selection Page 14
