“Earth has too many rules,” Havik said. He scrolled through the list, surprised by the number of vessels for a two-week period. Earth had more interstellar travel than he expected.
“I’m an officer of the law, so I can’t agree with you on that. Some rules keep us safe. Some require creative thinking.” She tapped a name on the list. “Like this one. The name on the registry is not the name the captain gave at the port. Suspicious or just a new owner who hadn’t had a chance yet to update all the paperwork? I’d like to find out but I, a federal agent, have no good reason to contact the captain or request a list of all the ports the ship with two names docked at in the last year. They call that harassment, and my superior officer doesn’t need me making a fuss over nothing.”
Havik nodded. “I have no such restrictions.”
A slow smile spread across Agent Novak’s face. “That is so fortunate.”
“What do you suggest?”
She stood up, the chair squeaking across the floor. “Work for me. Do the things I can’t do and go the places I can’t. Follow up on the leads I give you and let’s find out who’s been stealing our girls.”
“Other females have been taken?” The thought of Earth being so careless as to allow their people—their females—to be stolen filled him with indignation.
“Yes. Not enough for a solid pattern. Not enough for the bureau to take me seriously,” she muttered. “No one wants to admit that people are being abducted, but women are vanishing. They’re all vulnerable and I know that’s not a coincidence. Who, how, and what they do with these women, I don’t know. Help me find them, Garu Havik.”
“You believe my mate was a victim?”
Again, she spread her hands. “I don’t know, but we can try to find some answers. The offer is open to both of you. It’s a contracted position. Decent pay. I don’t have the budget for a vehicle, but I will cover supplies. Yes? Tell me yes.”
Havik shared a look with Ren. The male gave a slight nod. “Yes. We accept your mission.”
Part 2
Chapter 4
Thalia
Present Day
Thalia didn’t want to go.
She woke, gasping for air, one thought pounding in her head like a drum.
No, that was a headache.
Bright overhead lights hurt her eyes, and she tried to raise a hand to shield them but found her arms strapped down. In fact, all of her was strapped to a padded table, which was worrisome.
Thalia turned her head, the motion causing a queasy disquiet in her stomach. As her eyes adjusted, a sterile white room emerged. A cart with silver medical equipment waited to one side of the bed. The IV line attached to her right arm pumped her full of who-knows-what.
A man with two horns curling back from his brow like a ram and a deep purple complexion loomed over her.
Oh God, the aliens had her. They were going to slice her up for experimentation or stuff her full of alien eggs. She kicked her legs, dislodging a blanket, and rocked her body side to side. Her head hurt. Her entire body hurt. The inside of her head felt like she was swimming underwater, but she had to get out of there.
“Stop that, female,” he ordered.
Thalia kicked harder. She screamed, a raw, ragged wail tearing from her throat.
“For crying out loud, back up. You’re frightening her,” a woman said.
The alien stepped aside, and a human woman leaned over the bed to raise it into an upright position.
“Hello, hi,” she said. “I’m Meridan. I’m a nurse, and you’re safe. I think these belong to you.” The nurses handed over her pair of glasses.
Grateful, Thalia fumbled them on. Her hands didn’t want to cooperate.
“Better? Good. Water?”
“Yes,” Thalia croaked, her throat dry and scratchy.
The nurse pressed an ice chip to her mouth. “Just let it melt. How’s your head?”
“Hurts.”
“Stomach?”
As if by magic, Thalia’s stomach rolled, and she needed to vomit. There was no maybe and no waiting. Everything had to come out now.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, the taste of bile already in the back of her throat. The nurse shoved a pan under her chin and gently rubbed her back while her stomach emptied.
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning back into the pillows on the bed. Her abdomen muscles ached.
“Here. Rinse your mouth and spit.” The nurse handed her a paper cup of water. Thalia did as she was told, suddenly tired. “I’m undoing the straps. Don’t move suddenly or try to stand. You’re too weak.”
Thalia nodded, her head throbbing.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital. More water,” she said, accepting another cup. She gulped it down in one go.
“Careful. Your stomach has been empty for a long time. Give it a chance to adjust,” the nurse said. “Well, let’s cover the basics. You’re in the medical bay on the Mahdfel ship Judgment. We recovered you from the wreckage of a cargo ship and it looks like you were in a stasis chamber for three years.”
Three years…
“Wait. That doesn’t make sense. I—” Her mind went blank.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Nothing. The memories were there but she couldn’t access them, like walking through a river and fighting against a current for every step. “I don’t know. I was scared. I didn’t want to go.”
“That is not unusual,” the purple-skinned alien said, approaching the bed again. He must be Mahdfel, Thalia realized. He wore a white lab coat, so she assumed he was a doctor. “Short-term memory impairment is a common side effect of stasis chambers. Your exposure exceeded the recommended amount, but normal memory function will return in time,” the doctor said.
Aware that she stared, Thalia looked away. She had never been this close to an alien before and now she was on a Mahdfel ship. She was safe. That sank in, penetrating the fog in her brain. Safe. Whatever had happened in that blank spot in her head, she knew she had been in danger.
Holy fuck.
The beeping of a machine increased.
“I remember,” Thalia said. “I was at an auction and they put me in this coffin—” And the memory slipped away. She chased it down, and it felt very much like trying to hold water in cupped hands. All that work only gave her a few sips but never enough to quench her thirst.
The nurse, Meridan, sat on a stool next to the bed, which placed her head just a little below Thalia’s. Oddly, Thalia felt more in control.
“What Medic Kalen tried to tell you was that stasis chambers are designed to be used for one or two days, a week at the most. You got an extra big dose of the drugs used to keep your body in suspension, and it’ll take time for them to work their way out of your body. We call that ‘anesthesia brain’ back on Earth. The fog will clear in time.”
“It sucks.”
Meridan nodded. “Undoubtedly. Can you tell me your name?”
“Thalia Fullerton.” She smiled, pleased she knew something without a struggle.
“What happened to your identification chip?”
Thalia held up her hand, frowning. For a moment, she didn’t know, then remembered that she never had one. “I had one from school, the kind in a rubber bracelet.”
“School? How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.” Shit. She had been in the stasis chamber for three years. “I guess twenty-six now. I’m confused.” She frowned and every muscle in her face ached.
“It’s not a trick question. I’m guessing whoever put you in that stasis chamber took your ID chip. We’ll set you up with a new one.”
“The Mahdfel.”
“Yes. This is a Mahdfel ship,” the nurse said again, her tone gentle and reassuring.
Thalia must have fallen asleep because she woke again, this time a different alien with horns and a purple complexion loomed over her bed. He questioned her about how she got in the stasis chamber. She told him all she could remembe
r about Nicky and the auction, but the details were slippery.
After an eternity, he left with a frown and a vague promise that the one responsible would face consequences. Clearly, she didn’t have the information he wanted, and she didn’t like the odds that he’d be bothered to report Nicky to the authorities on Earth.
The friendly nurse came back, checked her vitals, and reassured Thalia that she was doing great. The ship was headed to Sangrin and they would help get her back to Earth, back home.
Only she didn’t want to go.
Chapter 5
Havik
The day had been a complete waste of time, and now he was stuck in a hospital with the most useless Terran he had ever met.
Frustrated, he slapped his palm against the cinderblock wall.
The Terran jumped. “I said I don’t know!”
“You know something,” Havik said.
“I don’t know anything.”
“That I believe.” Havik stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders. His tail slapped against the wall, a loud crack echoing through the room.
The color drained from his face, which was a feat as bruises mottled it. “You swore you wouldn’t hurt me.”
The day had started promising enough. He and Ren traveled to Sangrin to liaise with a local warlord, Paax, who had rescued several females abducted by smugglers. The assignment fit the mission they received on Earth, to seek out the females who had gone missing and bring justice to those responsible.
If the assignment went well, Havik knew that Ren hoped for a place in the warlord’s clan. Though they had each other for the last few years, Ren needed people. Havik was content to be alone, but Ren suffered in isolation. His friend would never admit it, but Havik knew. Ren vibrated with excitement when they arrived at a new station or port and spent every available moment talking to as many strangers as possible.
Havik would rather gnaw off his tail than converse with a stranger. Joining a clan filled with strangers rubbed him like sand under his armor—not a pleasant experience—but he would do this for his friend.
By accident, he spotted his mate—former mate—in the crowd. Three years had passed since he last saw her, and her hair was styled differently. In his mind, her belly was still round with their child and her face puffy. That she had changed in their time apart sent ripples of dissonance through him.
He had changed, surely. He was no longer the spoiled son of the warlord, selfish, and short-sighted. But for Vanessa to change, without him, felt wrong.
He followed her. Having spotted her in the Sangrin station, long after he gave up hope of finding her in the wilderness of stars, he would not let her vanish again.
Even if she walked with another Mahdfel warrior.
And smiled at him.
And kissed him.
The male was not completely useless. Occasionally he paused, as if alerted to Havik’s pursuit, and scanned the crowd. He spotted Havik several times, as he should because Havik knew he was the opposite of stealthy, but his gaze always slid over Havik. If the male registered Havik’s presence at all, it was as a non-threat.
Foolish male.
No one could be trusted, especially another Mahdfel warrior.
Of course, he noticed the Mahdfel warrior beside her but paid the male little mind. Vanessa would be glad he found her. When he told her to return home with him, she would run to his arms, thankful their years of separation had come to an end.
It did not happen that way.
They went to the surface. Havik followed. They ordered a meal. Havik invited himself to their table.
Sitting across from Vanessa, he took in all the subtle changes to her person. Her eyes were harder, as were her words. The years apart forged her into a survivor. If she had such a fighting spirit when they were mated, his father might have respected her and not poured poisoned lies in her ears to drive her away. Perhaps she had always been so, but he failed to notice.
Selfish, just as Ren said.
Whatever he had hoped to achieve from intruding on Vanessa and that foolish male—Jaxar, what a ridiculous name—he did not expect to gain a fledgling friendship with Vanessa and her engineer. Nor did he expect to feel relief when she refused to return to him.
She informed him she had a new mate and zero interest in returning to their empty marriage. Her response confused him, but he explained Kaos’ lie. Surely that would settle the matter.
It did not.
He had found his mate and lost her again. She wanted to be friends. He did not know how that would even be possible when a grinning fool with horns—Horns! How preposterous! —stood beside her.
Then he spotted a suspect smuggler on the street. Wanting to prove himself more capable than the grinning fool, he roped them into following the suspect.
That ended poorly when they were captured by the smugglers and thrown into a holding cell with the Terran male he now wanted to shake until his teeth rattled in his empty head.
“I said I would bring you to a medic. I made no promises about keeping you from harm,” Havik said, moving toward the male, menace in his every step.
The male scuttled behind the examination table, pressing himself into a corner. “Va-Vanessa won’t like it if you hurt me. She paid good money for me. I’m her investment.”
The male—Teddy, that was his name—had been a colleague of his ex-mate but they were hardly friends. In fact, the male antagonized and insulted Vanessa in front of two Mahdfel warriors, proving the male’s idiocy.
Vanessa was too kindhearted. She ignored the insults and paid a disgusting amount of credits to buy the male’s debt from smugglers.
A waste of credits, in Havik’s opinion. Perhaps if Teddy had paid the slightest bit of attention to his captors and had information regarding their recent ports of call, contacts, or even their next destination, he would have been worth the money.
Havik ran a background check on the male and discovered several outstanding warrants from Earth. Teddy was a common criminal, running from the consequences of his actions.
“They’re not going to care about me. I’m small-time,” the male said, a sneer on his face.
“True. Your offenses are nonviolent, but criminals apprehended by a Mahdfel warrior receive particular attention,” Havik said, baring his teeth in what he knew was not a reassuring smile. Menacing. Threatening. Disturbing as fuck. Vanessa had once claimed his smile was all those things.
Color drained from the male’s face. Terrans were too easily intimidated.
A lost mate found and lost again, accompanied by a lead that went nowhere.
At least the day would not be an entire waste. Justice would find one criminal.
Thalia
Alien beer tasted weird. Not bad, simply different enough that Thalia almost forgot she was drinking at a bar filled with aliens, floating in space with nothing separating her from the black void but a few inches of metal and goodwill.
Thalia took another disappointing sip, the taste sour and floral on her tongue, which seemed like the perfect beverage for her lousy day.
First, being betrayed by the person who took her off the streets when she was thirteen should not have been a shocker. Nicky was not what anyone would call stable or a good guy. He was a small-time criminal, teaching kids the fine art of burglary and pickpocketing, then pimping them out when they got too old to climb through teeny-tiny windows.
Not a good guy. Thalia knew that. But auctioned to aliens? Who does that?
Second, after being sold for an insultingly low price, she was not a fan of being shoved into what was essentially a giant freezer for three fucking years. She had been twenty-three when she went in, so did that make her twenty-six now? Or was she still twenty-three? Thalia had legitimate time travel questions and no one to ask except aliens.
Third, she might have screamed a little bit when she woke up from the deep freeze, surrounded by aliens. They looked about as excited to see her as she was to see them. Their grumpiness wasn’t a reflect
ion on her or the panicked screaming. They were aliens, gibbering away in another language. Panic was a reasonable response.
Slapping at the alien doctor and knocking over a tray full of suspicious-looking syringes and chemicals? The dude should have known better. At least there was a human nurse on staff who talked Thalia through the panic and confusion of being thawed out from a three-year stint in a stasis chamber. Pro tip: people aren’t meant to be in stasis that long. The chemicals build up and have a weird effect on the brain.
They were Mahdfel, at least. While she had never seen a real Mahdfel alien in person, she assumed they were better than some random alien off the street. Er, out of the sky? Anyway, Doc approved of them, begrudgingly.
Which was point four, being tossed out on her ass by the aliens who rescued her from the slavers. Sure, being rescued was great. Hooray. Being shipped back to Earth little more than a week after waking from stasis? Not cool.
Thalia had no money, a newly registered identity chip, and she still felt foggy in her head from the stasis. She wasn’t fit to go back to Earth, not that she wanted to go back to Earth, but the aliens didn’t care. They made it perfectly clear that she couldn’t stay on their ship.
Returning to Earth wasn’t an option. Nicky might find her, and he probably wouldn’t be so generous as to auction her off again. With no friends or family to tie her down, she had little reason to return to the same city. Returning to familiar territory would be a mistake. She’d have to start over somewhere new, with no marketable skills and no cash.
Havik: Warlord Brides (Warriors of Sangrin Book 9) Page 6
