Warriors of Phaeton: Paine and Rowe

by Leora Gonzales

  “It’s late on Djaromir already, and Kaine said, and I quote, ‘Do not be assholes.’”

  “He’s been hanging around one of the sisters again,” Paine said with a shake of his head.

  “Probably both.” Rowe chuckled. “You witnessed his reactions to those babies on Phaeton One. I didn’t think he was going to give Wyatt back to Poppy, even after the baby defecated on him.” Rowe shuddered at the memory. The smell had almost made him change his mind about having offspring of his own someday, before he’d come to his senses.

  Or rather, Poppy had taken the smelly child away from his senses.

  “Regardless, we’ve been instructed to not be assholes, and that means waiting until a reasonable hour to land. Specifically, the time that they’ve already said they would expect us.”

  “Right,” Paine drawled, trying to think of an argument that might sway his partner. “How many females did the warlord say were staying again?”

  “Thirteen confirmed pairings so far,” Rowe answered with a frown.

  “So far? Does that mean that he’s still introducing groups of his men to the unmated brides?” Paine asked, trying to keep his voice worry-free and failing. “Our bride?”

  “I—I do not know,” Rowe stuttered, glancing at the screens with an unsure expression. “He did repeat that all of the women have been offered sanctuary. Do you believe he’s still trying to convince the unmated ones to stay?”

  Paine let out an unsteady breath. “Considering he, as Warlord, is responsible for the fate of his people and a people in desperate need of females?” Paine paused. “He would be a fool not to try.”

  Rowe swiveled his chair back to the bank of monitors. “What are you thinking, brother?”

  “I’m thinking it’s time for us to be assholes.” Paine only had to wait a moment before he got the reaction he wanted from his partner.

  Rowe nodded. “If we take the smaller shuttle down to the surface for recon, we can report back on the conditions for landing the cargo ship. To check for preliminary safety concerns, of course.”

  “If that’s the excuse you want to give Kaine when he finds out we’re going down without the rest of the entourage then I’ll back you up.” Paine followed Rowe from the command deck down to the smaller shuttle they used when sending scouts ahead. “Once we’re through, I’ll send a message to Hix and Finch letting them know our landing coordinates.”

  “You think they’ll be mad?” Rowe asked, even as he climbed aboard and began buckling into the left pilot’s seat.

  Taking his spot on the right, Paine shook his head. “No, they’ve been wanting this mission over before it ever started.”

  “If you had a wife waiting for you back on One, you’d want the same,” Rowe pointed out.

  “I know. That’s why I’m going to defend our decision with the idea that this would speed things along.” Paine began going through the flight check automatically. “It’s the others I’m worried about. We’re not the only ones waiting to meet our bride, and they’re going to be more than just a little mad.”

  “Are you trying to talk me out of this?” Rowe growled, even as he prepared to detach the shuttle. “I thought you wanted to go down and get Indigo?”

  “I’m not–I mean, I do.” Paine held up his hands. “I just wanted to point out that we’re going to be dealing with more than just Kaine.”

  Rowe grunted, his fingers flying over the buttons that would get them on their way to Djaromir. Within moments, the shuttle was detached and they were drifting away far enough to trigger the boosters. “We can handle the others.”

  “Fuck yeah, we can,” Paine said, channeling his inner Poppy and making Rowe chuckle. The longer he’d spent with her—or the other brides, for that matter—the more he picked up their slang. He wasn’t the only one either. Even Rowe’s speech patterns had changed the more time they were exposed to the other humans. The usually always formal warrior had loosened up a bit, tossing in a few human curse words every now and then.

  “Have you thought about what you want to say the first time we see her?” Rowe asked.

  “What do you mean?” Paine frowned at the odd question. That wasn’t something he’d really considered, but coming up with an opening line couldn’t be that hard.

  Right?

  “I guess I’ll tell her how beautiful she is. How happy I am that she’s our bride—what?” he asked when Rowe shook his head.

  “Pixie said not to focus on how pretty we think she is. That women have more to be valued than just their looks.”

  “Oh.” Paine bit his lip, trying to think of a different tactic, their destination growing larger in the window as they moved closer. “Her file said she liked to cook, so maybe we can tell her how much we look forward to her cooking for us.”

  “Are you being serious right now?” Rowe shot Paine a look of disgust as he switched to autopilot for the rest of their decent. “The first words out of your mouth—to our new bride—is going to be a request for her to make a meal for us?”

  “Well—fuck!” Paine let out a groan and dropped his head back against the seat. “I have no idea what I’m going to say, and you’re not helping.”

  Rowe punched him in the arm. “I know. I’m just messing with you,” he said, voicing yet another one of the human phrases he’d begun using. “Although, I beg you not to ask her to cook for us as the first words out of your mouth. Please?”

  “What about you? Have you thought of what you’re going to say?”

  “Of course,” Rowe answered with a shrug, keeping his eyes on the instruments in front of him. “What else do you think I’ve spent the last two weeks doing?”

  “Pleasuring yourself like the rest of us have?” Paine guessed under his breath.

  That was another reason why he’d needed to get off that cargo ship. The amount of testosterone contained within such a small space had been driving them all crazy. Among the warriors waiting for their brides were two other Skrammon, three Healson and one Brakken.

  The doc, Leere, was easy enough to deal with, like many of his Brakken ranking. He preferred to stay within his small shuttle quarters studying the pile of medical books he’d boarded with. The same went for Vokus, Brock, and Jenz, all Healson warriors who—by all accounts—were quickly gaining the attention of the council for their leadership on Phaeton Two.

  As Poppy would say, “Those guys are easy-breezy.”

  The other two warriors—the Skrammon warriors—were not so easy-breezy. They were also two steps away from getting beat to death if Paine and Rowe had to be around them much longer. The tension was something both he and Rowe had hoped to avoid but expected, nonetheless.

  It was part of who they were on a genetic level.

  The Skrammon ranking was made up of the best warriors and fighters within their race. They were bigger, better, and deadlier. Their appearance fit their reputation well. Most of them had varying degrees of long braids or dreadlocks. Paine and Rowe had a mixture of both, which Poppy said put them on Game of Thrones level—whatever that meant.

  Besides their larger-than-typical Phaeton size and chosen hair styles, there were a few other key physical differences. Their canines were naturally sharper and longer, which gave them a fanged look that was more than a little intimidating, and most warriors of their ranks were covered in tattoos.

  They tended to have more…personality than most of the other Phaetons. They were more alpha than the others put together.

  Putting any four Skrammon together on a small ship for an extended amount of time was a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Paine and Rowe were not just any Skrammon. They were elite. They were two of the deadliest berserker Skrammon alive, and they were paired.

  Everyone had wondered what Kaine had been thinking when he’d handed down the mission orders, but they’d tried to make the best of it. Sparring and fighting on the mats had depleted some of the restless energy they’d had, but that had stopped being productive weeks ago. What started as friendly training exe
rcises the first few days had turned into them taking turns pummeling each other.

  It hadn’t been pretty.

  Kemper, one of the younger Skrammon he’d seen receive a ranking, was touchy but kept his tone respectful. Sparring with him had gotten rough, but they were able to keep it clean. Burke, on the other hand, was a completely different situation. He wasn’t the only one that found the Phaeton annoying either, considering every single crew member on board the ship went out of their way to avoid him. In fact, the longer Paine was around the Skrammon, the harder it was not to react. One of the last times they’d argued, Burke hadn’t wanted to walk away. Finch and Hix had stepped in before any serious damage was done, but the warning had been clear.

  Control yourselves.

  Recently, even the diplomatic Healsons had become overly sensitive. The only ones that stayed levelheaded were the two warriors not on this mission to retrieve their brides.

  It had gotten to the point where everyone avoided each other to stop the bickering and fights that seemed to break out the longer they were told they had to wait. More recently, unless they were performing their specific duties on the ship, most of them stayed in their bunks.

  And it didn’t take a genius to figure out how they were probably filling their time.

  Paine knew because he was personally only a few strokes away from a chapped cock. Even now he was having a hard time controlling his erection by simply thinking of the bride they awaited.

  It wasn’t because she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen in his life—even though she was. It was deeper than that. The longer he’d looked at the picture attached to her file, the more connected he’d felt to her. Before they’d left One, Kaine had been able to procure her entire bridal application. They’d both memorized her likes and dislikes, researching ways they could surround her with things she loved to help her acclimate to space. They’d talked about the answers she’d given on some of the deeper questions and how her goals for the future were similar to their own. Her education and work history were proof of her dedication when they noted she seemed to handle a schedule with little to no free time. Everything about her on paper showed what a strong, independent woman they’d been matched with—literally the perfect mate for them.

  Her beauty was simply the icing on the cake, as Pixie would say.

  The first thing he’d noticed was her eyes. Big, brown, and soulful, they’d stared back at him from her intake picture. The smile on her face was beautiful regardless of the small gap between her front teeth. He found it endearing. Her hair was dark and curly, cut shorter than he usually preferred but suited her perfectly since it surrounded one of the most enchanting faces he’d ever seen. Gold hoops hung from her ears, large enough to almost touch her shoulders, creating a look he found exotic when mixed with the wild curls around them.

  Then came her figure.

  The tiny bit of her that was framed in the photo had made his mouth water. Sitting in front of the camera, Indigo was framed all the way down to her waist. Ripe and curvy, her body made him harder than he’d been in years.

  Including those serving in the pleasure houses on Euphoria.

  “Indigo needs to know that she is safe,” Rowe said, interrupting Paine’s thoughts of their soon-to-be wife. “Getting ready to disengage autopilot—now.”

  “What do you mean she needs to know she’s safe?” Automatically taking over the controls in front of him, Paine cast Rowe a questioning look. “Is this something else the sisters told you?”

  “No. Although they did offer to put in a good word for us,” Rowe added. “It was the magazine that said a woman’s strongest desire in a relationship is security even before sexual chemistry.”

  “What magazine?” Paine asked, completely confused.

  “The magazine that I borrowed from Jenz.”

  “Stop right there.” Taking one hand off the controls, Paine pointed a finger at Rowe angrily. “I’ve been waiting for Jenz to finish that copy of Cosmo for a week now. He promised I was next in line. I can’t stand to look at our Ikea catalog again, and I’m still waiting on Burke to finish the copy of Seventeen that Hix borrowed from Maggie. By the time I get it, I’m sure half the pages will be ripped just like Good Housekeeping was!”

  Both men fell silent after Paine’s outburst.

  Running a hand through his hair, he looked over at Rowe, letting out a shaky sigh.

  “Thank God we’re off that fucking ship.”

  Rowe let out a rough chuckle that turned into a full-blown laugh. “I agree, brother.” Holding his fist out, he waited for Paine to bump knuckles with him. “To being assholes!”

  “To being assholes!”

  Chapter Seven

  “Let me do all the talking,” Rowe instructed as he kept his hand over the button to open the ramp doors. Wearing bulky full-body, temperature-regulated surface suits, his gloved palm looked gigantic as it hovered over the circle. The suits were less than ideal to fight in but would keep them alive and breathing in the harsh environment.

  When Paine didn’t say anything, Rowe elbowed him. “Understand?” he repeated, giving Paine a serious look through the helmet’s visor.

  He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he’d been partners with the other man long enough to know that even when Paine didn’t intend to cause trouble, he did.

  A lot.

  There had been many times—too many if Rowe had to admit it—that he’d had to get them out of some scrape Paine had gotten them into. He was one of the best warriors that Rowe had ever met, but he had one fatal flaw: He let anger rule him too often.

  Paine was one of the most passionate fighters he’d ever known, but sometimes it burned too fierce for him to control. It was one of the things that made Paine such a deadly foe. He was not only a Skrammon but a Skrammon berserker—they both were. Rowe was simply stricter with his emotions. The result from his frigidity meant he was able to maintain a thread of control when in a killing rage. That was something Paine struggled with.

  On the other hand, Paine brought the passion needed to win a fight, even when they were outnumbered.

  It was one of the reasons they were a perfect pair. They balanced each other out.

  “Understood,” Paine said before he punched the back of Rowe’s glove, triggering the doors.

  “Damnit, Paine,” he snapped, shaking out his hand. “I can already tell you’re going to get us into trouble.”

  Following him down the narrow shuttle ramp, Rowe shivered as his leathers and spacesuit struggled to keep him warm. “The report said the temperature would be harsh, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”

  Everywhere Rowe looked he saw white. It was blowing, it was on the ground, and it was in the distance. Visibility was so low that without their gear this would have been a deadly idea.

  “It would be very easy to get lost here,” he said more to himself than anything.

  “Makes sense now why they inhabit the tunnels underground.” Paine checked the readings on the arm of his suit before pointing in the direction they were facing. “According to our scans, the gate to Djaromir is that way. Only a short distance and we should be out of the elements.”

  The lights on Rowe’s Phaeton band flashed around his wrist indicating a new message. Accessing the touchpad on his own suit, he read the response.

  “It’s Finch,” he said, leaving it at that.

  “How bad?” Paine asked, increasing his pace.

  “Could be worse,” Rowe answered, his voice sounding hollow inside his helmet.

  “How worse?”

  “Could have been Kaine.”

  Paine nodded as they broke into a full run.

  It wasn’t long before Rowe could see a red blinking beacon, which became more visible as they ate up space. Luckily, the landing field hadn’t been too far from safety. They’d made sure to land closest to the gate leading to Hamuir, the Djaromir tunnel city where the brides were housed. Although neither had ever been to Djaromir, they were well acquai
nted with the way things worked on the rough mining planet.

  First, the planet itself was deadly. Extreme weather conditions made the surface uninhabitable for humanoids. Some areas had temperatures hot enough to cook through someone passing through, while others—like this—were cold enough to kill within moments if poorly provisioned. They’d heard through rumors that the miners would trek between the gates simply as a training maneuver.

  “Finch must have alerted them of our arrival.” Paine pointed at the large carved stone gate that was beginning to open. Both men slowed their pace to a casual jog as they approached.

  Rowe began recording the vid feed from his helmet. He made sure to catch the door opening in its entirety before he stopped recording and stored the vid for later.

  The recording automatically synced with his partner. “What is this video you archived?” Paine asked.

  “Don’t you see it?” Rowe made a grand gesture towards the entrance.

  “No,” Paine said, looking at Rowe as if he were crazy.

  “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” Rowe said dramatically, giving a miserable John Hammond impersonation. “Poppy would think it is cold.”

  “She would think it was cool. Not cold,” Paine said with a roll of his eyes.

  “Same difference,” Rowe mumbled before snapping to attention as he saw someone approaching from inside the gate. “They’re here.”

  Paine straightened as well, and his hand tightened on the staff he carried. “I recognize two of the warlords but do not see the third.”

  “Remember, let me do the talking,” Rowe warned just as they came face to face.

  Before he or Paine could greet the Djaromir, the one he recognized as Warlord Sparx spoke.

  “Follow us into the safety of our first gate. It is too dangerous to stay exposed.”

  Without another word, they turned and moved back into the opening behind the large slabs of stone.

  Paine and Rowe followed without hesitation. If the Djaromir had meant them any harm, they would have simply left them outside.