Spy

by Cyndi Friberg

  “No,” she objected forcefully. “But can I go back to your cabin and get my camera?” He hadn’t answered whether or not she’d be able to keep her pictures. If they needed to talk about it, the answer was not an unequivocal no.

  He sighed, but motioned her onward. “It doesn’t matter which ship we use as long as it has a bio-stream engine.”

  That caught her attention. “Not all of them do?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a relatively new technology. We’re working hard to retrofit the fleet, but we have a long way to go.”

  They returned to the Intrepid and Lexie retrieved her camera from Kaden’s cabin. They were about to depart when he paused and faced one of the walls. He spoke several Rodyte commands and the wall transformed into a deck-to-ceiling display. The image of a ship was centered on the wall. It looked sort of like a floating aircraft carrier. There were so many decks it was hard to tell one from another. In fact, the image was so minimized it was hard to distinguish detail of any kind.

  “That’s the Undaunted, but this doesn’t really do it justice.” He gave several more commands and images of two additional ships joined the first. “This is the Intrepid,” he pointed to the smallest ship. “The one beside it is the Destroyer. All three are to scale.”

  Her eyes widened as she studied the display. The Destroyer was easily five times the size of the Intrepid, but the mighty Undaunted was at least fifty times the size of the Destroyer.

  “There’s a ship this large nearby and Earth has no idea it’s up here?” Her gaze shifted back and forth between the three ships, trying to comprehend the true size of the Undaunted. How did they even get something that large off the ground?

  “We’ll be transporting onto her, so you’ll be robbed of an external view. That’s when she’s really impressive.”

  “She? Did you pick up that habit from us or did we borrow it from you?”

  “Depends who you ask.” He motioned her toward the door as he turned off the display.

  She walked toward the door then turned back around. “You said the offer was still open.”

  His brow arched and a wicked gleam lit his gaze. “Which offer would you like to explore?”

  Heat suffused her face and tingles erupted all over her body. How did he do that? It was almost as if someone had given him a remote control for her senses. No, mating fever had just made her more attuned to him than any other person in the universe. The tingles turned to chills and she pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind.

  “Won’t it seem odd to Fyran if I speak only English? Especially if I use any of the roles Milanni suggested.”

  “You want translator nanites?”

  He didn’t seem opposed, so she nodded. “How long does it take? Should we send the message first?”

  After waving away her concern, he assured her, “One of the clinics is more or less on the way to the departure bay. It won’t take any time at all.”

  And it didn’t. They stopped by the smallest of the three clinics and one of the medical technicians administered the injection to the back of her neck without uttering so much as a greeting to Lexie. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to be polite or if he was afraid of Kaden. The injection stung like fire for half a second, then the sting was gone.

  She waited for some cosmic rush of voices or a spreading heat. She felt nothing. “I don’t think it’s working.”

  “It can take a minute or two for everything to be—” he made a bland motion toward her head, “—rewired.”

  Kaden thanked the technician, who promptly returned to his duties, then led Lexie out of the clinic.

  With her camera strapped securely across her chest, Lexie followed him to the departure bay. She rubbed the back of her neck, wondering when this fantastic new ability would kick in. The knots in her stomach grew tighter and tighter as they walked down one corridor and then another. “What does bio-streaming feel like? Are you sure it’s safe?”

  He reached down and took her hand, casually entwining their fingers. “If it weren’t safe, I wouldn’t have allowed it to be installed on my ship. And the feeling is intense but fast. It might leave you nauseous until you get used to it.”

  Just thinking about it was making her nauseous. Hopefully she wouldn’t throw up and humiliate herself.

  The departure bay was just what it sounded like, a bare room from which people bio-steamed to other locations. The engineers controlled the process from an adjoining room. All Lexie saw were their upper bodies as Kaden spoke with them in Rodyte. When were her translation bots going to kick in? It would be really nice to know what the men were saying.

  She took her place beside Kaden and he waited until the last moment to release her hand. Was it dangerous to touch while being beamed from one place to another? It was the last rational thought she had as the room around her disintegrated. Every cell in her body seemed to lose cohesion and then there was a dreamlike suction that obliterated sensation all together. She suffered one moment of terrifying blackness, then the process reversed. Intense but fast. Kaden’s words perfectly described what she’d just experienced.

  “You okay?”

  Kaden’s warm hand pressed against the small of her back as she shook off the lingering disorientation. “Almost. Give me a minute.”

  “I said that in Rodyte.” He smiled, his hand still pressed to her back.

  She tossed back her hair and looked up at him. “What language did I use to respond?”

  “English. Understanding other languages is basically automatic. Speaking requires an extra step. Reading and writing is the most complicated of all. Literacy requires a language infusion, which is different from what you just received.”

  Excited now, she couldn’t wait to ask, “How does speaking work?”

  “Everything you need is already there,” he assured her. “Think about what you want to say and listen carefully to your mind’s answer. Repeat what you hear inside your mind and see what happens.”

  She thought about the sentence, This sure beats language classes and heard a string of strange words inside her mind. Rather than resist the unfamiliar, she repeated the words out loud.

  Kaden’s brows scrunched together over his nose. “This sure assaults communication teachings?” He looked perplexed for a moment then unraveled the translation. “Ah, beats not assaults. Try to be as literal as possible until you become more comfortable with how this works. Avoid anything that can be misconstrued.”

  “I’m American.” She laughed. “Half of what we say has multiple meanings.”

  Before he could say more, the door opened and a tall, ruggedly handsome man stood in the doorway. With super short hair and a perfectly pressed uniform, his bearing was so aggressive and his expression so stern that she didn’t make the connection. Until he smiled. Then Kaden’s resemblance to the other man was unmistakable.

  “I heard you were streaming aboard. Did you miss me?” The stranger spoke Rodyte, but she had no trouble understanding his words. New languages were definitely easier to comprehend than to speak.

  This had to be Sedrik, the oldest of the three battle born Lux brothers.

  Kaden moved forward and gave his brother a warm hug. Hadn’t Kaden said he didn’t get along with Sedrik. Well, actually, what he’d said was he was closer to Dakar. Clearly, that didn’t mean he felt no affection for Sedrik.

  Kaden stepped aside and Sedrik’s sharp gaze fell on Lexie. His head tilted and he inhaled deeply. She would never get used to being sniffed by strangers. “She wears your scent.” His gaze snapped back to Kaden. “General Nox has forbidden interaction with—”

  “Garin knows, and it was unavoidable.” No longer concerned with leaving her out, Kaden replied in Rodyte.

  Sedrik grew progressively more restless as the brothers stared at each other. “Has her blood been tested? I think she’s our genetic match. I suddenly want to rip you limb from limb.”

  “She is and I’m sorry. It’s safer if she stays by my side.”

&nbs
p; Sedrik took a step back and then another. Apparently out of her scent’s range, he took another deep breath. “Why are you here?” All familial warmth was gone. He was all business now.

  Kaden stood close enough to the door to keep the portal open without crowding his agitated brother. “I need to send a message from Milanni’s ship. Are you certain she can’t access it at this range?”

  “When the engineers aren’t working on the ship, they turn on a dampening field. But they’ve been tearing apart one system after another ever since you brought her over. If Milanni could access the ship, I’m sure she would have by now.”

  “All right,” Kaden motioned Lexie closer. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Sedrik started to make a hasty departure, then paused and turned back around. “Sorry to behave so rudely.”

  She carefully chose her words, then spoke in Rodyte. “I understand,” she assured him with a smile. “And my name is Lexie.”

  Sedrik responded with a quick bow then continued down the corridor away from her and Kaden.

  “That was perfect. You have an odd accent, but that will lessen with time.”

  She accepted the praise with a distracted nod, but wasn’t sure she understood what just happened. “Why was your scent so upsetting to Sedrik? No one else has reacted that way.”

  “He just encountered a genetic rival. His instincts were urging him to kill the competition, so he could claim his mate.”

  She shivered. He sounded like the narrator on some nature documentary about lions on the Serengeti. “Will he always react that way?”

  Kaden grinned. “When I claim you, your scent will change and his instincts will relax.”

  “That’s a little presumptuous.” She arched her brow at him. “Don’t you mean if you claim me?”

  His arrogant smile said it all. He honestly thought that claiming her was a foregone conclusion. And after last night, he had a right to be confident. She’d melted in his arms like butter, despite all her moral hang ups.

  Milanni’s ship didn’t appear to be anything special, but Lexie snapped a few pictures anyway. It was slightly larger than the shuttle she’d sneaked aboard, and the interior looked like a mixture of old and new technology. Everything on the shuttle had been streamlined and smooth, while Milanni’s ship felt cluttered.

  “How were you able to move the ship?” She stood on the last step of the hatch, while Kaden sat behind the main control console. “I thought it only responded to Milanni.”

  “It only responds to Milanni’s DNA,” he clarified with a wicked smile. “Milanni doesn’t have to be present for the ship to sample her DNA.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t cut off a body part.” A morose shudder rolled across her shoulders.

  He shook his head. “Blood sample.”

  She took more pictures while Kaden sent the message.

  “Now what?” she asked as he pivoted toward the narrow aisle so he could stand.

  “We wait. There’s nothing more we can do until he responds.”

  That was the answer she’d expected, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. “How will you know when that happens?”

  “I forwarded all new messages to my com-queue. I’ll know the instant it hits.”

  “All right, but it doesn’t feel right just to wait around.”

  He followed her off the small ship then took her hand. “We’ll have to find something to distract us.”

  The sensual purr in his voice told her what he had in mind. “I’m actually sort of hungry. Besides, you still haven’t told me what Raylon and Garin said. Do I get to keep my pictures or not.”

  Kaden felt his heart compress as he looked into Lexie’s eyes. She was so beautiful, so vibrant, so…his. The last was a fervent longing, not a reality. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think that reluctantly allowing him to mark her meant she was ready to bond. He had a long way to go before he earned that right, and it was unwise to rush her decision.

  “So what sounds appetizing?” He allowed passion to smolder in his eyes. Trying to suppress it completely was pointless. He wanted her and they both knew it.

  “Does all the food on the ships come out of those vending machines?”

  The description made him smile. “They’re called nutritional generators or nutri-gens. And they’re molecular printers not vending machines. A vending machine dispenses something that already exists, while a molecular printer transforms energy into specific molecules according to a library of options.”

  She chuckled, but eased her hand out of his. “I didn’t mean to insult you. It was just a question.”

  “I’m not insulted,” he assured her. “And, yes, eating from the nutri-gens is how it’s generally done, especially in locations that have no natural resources.”

  “Like the moon.”

  “Yes, but there are some restaurants on the tiers that prepare food the old-fashioned way. Is that what you had in mind?”

  “This is your territory, not mine. What’s your favorite restaurant?”

  They’d almost reached the departure bay, so he pulled her to a stop. They needed to decide where they were going, before he could ask the engineer to send them there. “Unfortunately, my favorite restaurant is also everyone else’s. It’s only been open a week, so the crowds are still terrible.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not in the mood to fight a crowd. What are our other options?”

  “There’s what you would call a bistro on tier two that’s good, but less popular. It’s still early. We’ll probably have the place more or less to ourselves.”

  “Perfect,” she said with a smile. “Lead on, Commander.”

  He sensed no sarcasm in her tone or expression, but his rank sounded odd coming from her. He was her mate, not her commander. And mate was the only title he wanted to hear on her lips.

  They stepped into the departure bay and he told the engineers to deposit them on commerce tier two, near the main elevator banks. It took a moment for the engineer to reprogram their destination, then they were on their way. He was well used to the staggering acceleration and disorientation that struck upon arrival, but they still made him catch his breath.

  Shielding Lexie with his body, he gave her a moment to compose herself. Color had drained from her face and she kept her eyes tightly closed as she fought off the vertigo. “Take all the time you need, love. I’m right here.”

  His assurance made her smile, but he longed for the mating bond so he could feel what she was feeling and know exactly what she thought. Males and females could shield themselves from their mates when they needed some privacy, but when it was important, there was no hiding from a bonded mate.

  Slowly she opened her eyes and released her pent-up breath. “I’m good now.” She leaned to one side and looked around. As he’d promised, this tier was all but deserted. The midday rush was finished, yet the evening rush had yet to begin.

  “That’s the location I mentioned.” He nodded toward the small, intimate restaurant. The menu was a combination of Rodyte, Bilarrian, and Ontarian cuisines. He was confident he could find something she’d enjoy on such a varied menu.

  A hostess said, “Sit anywhere you like,” as they crossed the threshold, so Kaden took Lexie to a table near the back of the restaurant. They’d just settled in when the same female set water glasses on their table and handed them each a datasheet menu. She smiled, but walked away without speaking. Kaden wasn’t sure of her species, but a slightly blue cast to her skin was the only thing about her that didn’t look human.

  “What’s good?” Lexie set down the datasheet. She was speaking Rodyte with much more fluency, but she wouldn’t be able to read it until she had a full language infusion.

  “As you found out yesterday, Rodyte food is extremely spicy. Ontarian cuisine is very colorful, but the flavor profiles are similar to human food. Bilarrian is somewhere in between. It might be spicier than you’re used to, but you’ll find it more exotic too.”

  “Bilarrian it
is.” She smiled. “I’m feeling adventurous.”

  “Do you mind if I order for you? It might be easier than having our waitress explain the ingredients in each dish.”

  “Please do. I probably wouldn’t recognize the ingredients either.”

  The waitress approached a few minutes later and Lexie’s jaw slowly dropped. He nudged her under the table and she quickly closed her mouth. Unlike the hostess, the waitress would never pass for human. Judging from the proportions of her features, she was from somewhere in the Lorillian star system. Her eyes were massive, taking up more than half her face. A narrow, yet long nose drew attention downward to her tiny heart-shaped mouth.

  “Good afternoon, well, almost evening. Can I start you off with an appetizer?” If she’d noticed Lexie’s rude reaction, she didn’t respond to it.

  “No thank you, we’re ready to order.”

  “Of course. The setrion is fresh, but we had a rush on rock tridar during lunch. Sorry, we’re all sold out.”

  “Not a problem,” he assured her. “Setrion sounds wonderful.”

  “Broiled, baked, or fried?”

  “Broiled.” He told her which side dishes he wanted then handed her his menu. “And bring us a bottle of blood wine.”

  The waitress turned toward Lexie. “And for you, ma’am?”

  Kaden answered for her. “Bring her a foristrim crock with rinora bread on the side.”

  Displeasure narrowed her extra-large eyes and drew her lips into a miniature pucker. “Right away, sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “Not right now.”

  Lexie handed the waitress her menu and the young woman departed.

  “She probably thought you’re so domineering that you won’t let me choose my own food.”

  He laughed, yet concern niggled inside him. “Do I appear that domineering?”

  “Not for a battle born commander.” She took a drink of water, then added, “You’re actually pretty mellow compared to Raylon.”

  “Almost everyone is mellow compared to Raylon.” He wasn’t sure he could sit here and play the gallant suitor when all he could think about was touching her. Using decades of discipline, he restrained his urges and focused on his potential mate. This was all new to her. She wasn’t even Rodyte. She needed time to accept all the changes he would bring into her life.