by Mina Carter
Pinned back into the low, padded couch, he kept an eye on the readouts. Well, that’s what he told himself. All the screens were within normal parameters, which was good since he wasn’t paying attention to them. Thoughts of Jane swirled through his mind, preoccupying his thought processes. He tried to shut them down, put thoughts of the tempting little human out of his head to concentrate on his mission, but the memory of her face when they’d said goodbye kept sneaking in. The image of her eyes, wide and dark, over lips plump from his kisses, tormented him and he groaned.
He didn’t have time for this shit. He had a mission. An important one. One that would prove to the emperor he was ready to take on the role of War Commander. He couldn’t afford to fuck it up because his brains had been addled by his prick.
The G-forces let up as they reached higher orbit and with a skill belied by the size of his warrior hands, he nudged them around the orbital defenses and into space. A quick course correction later and he engaged the FTL. There was a slight lurch, barely noticeable, and the stars in the view screen became streaks of white.
With a sigh, he released the four-point harness and rolled to a standing position. For a moment, he stood by the pilot’s couch, thoughts of Jane filling his head. She hadn’t seemed to want him to go. Of course, she was a spy. He’d expressed an interest in her, so he was the soft touch, the one most likely to be open to emotional manipulation. If she thought that, she hadn’t learned anything about the Lathar, or him.
The thought of her spying didn’t sit well with him. He knew her better than that. She wasn’t a spy. She was too open, too honest, a warrior through and through as he was. They’d both been forged on a battlefield, not in the shadows.
With a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t want her to be a spy, that was the problem. While he knew she wasn’t innocent, he wanted to think of her as honorable.
The same kind of honor that stopped him pressing his claim over her when he really, really wanted to. If she turned out to be an underhanded, deceitful shylakster, though…he didn’t know how he’d react. Severely probably.
Stomping to the middle of the central cabin, he lifted and twisted three catches high on the port side wall, grabbed the handle that protruded from the sleek metal and pulled down the bed. Since this was the emperor’s own craft, it wasn’t the hard, narrow cot Karryl was used to. Instead, it was a wide, well-padded haven of luxury, complete with cozy eedireen blankets.
Not wanting to get such expensive bedding dirty, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. They hit the deck plating with dull thuds. He lay back with a small groan. It felt good to stretch out on a bed where his feet didn’t hang over the end. Even for a Lathar, Karryl was tall, almost as tall as Daaynal himself, and most warrior accommodations were built for men at least half a foot smaller.
Closing his eyes, he tried to summon sleep. He should rest. The journey was long and he had no idea what he would find at the other end. If it was worse than he expected or he needed to gather intel, then he may need to stay on his feet for hours…days even, so best to rest now.
As soon as he shut his eyes though, all he saw was his little human warrior. Images of her as she’d fought back when they’d attacked the base, the defiant tilt of her head when they’d finally captured her and her team. Her hard expression on the T’Laat ship when she faced down rival enemy warriors to keep her women safe. Her evasion of each move he made on her until…finally, the memory of her soft lips parted in surrender beneath him.
With a groan, he rolled over and punched the pillow. If he carried on like this, he’d get no sleep. At least, he wouldn’t until he took matters in hand… but the last thing he wanted was to have to explain to Daaynal why there was a mess on his beautiful, expensive bedding, so he thought of something safe. Like draakis kits, or Xaandril in his underwear. Eww, Kaaryl wrinkled his nose. Okay, that was enough to put anyone off.
Closing his eyes again, he let his body relax, deliberately keeping his mind clear so he could drift off. The ship was on autopilot and he was using remote space lanes so there should be no issues between him and his destination. If there were, the computer would wake him. The sheets rustled around him as his limbs went lax and he started to drift into sleep.
Seconds later, the smallest sound from the back of the ship made his eyes snap open. He was alone in the cabin, but his gaze fixed on the small storage door tucked between the wash facilities and the side of the ship. Something moved in there. It couldn’t be the cargo settling since it was all crated with mag-grav fastenings. No, it had sounded more like the slide of fabric when someone scooted across the floor on their backside.
Silent and focused, he slid off the bed and padded toward the door. A flick of his wrist dropped a blade into his hand from the sheath on his inner forearm. Light from the strip lights along the top sides of the cabin glittered off the lethal edge. If he had a stowaway, the stupid draanthic would regret the day he’d been born. Karryl was in no mood to play nice guy or even semi-not-violent guy.
His lips curled back into a grim snarl as he yanked the door open, reached a hand in and pulled the intruder out. With a spin and a hard shove, he pinned his captive’s front side against the door with his bigger body, the knife kissing the skin of her throat.
Wait, what… Her throat?
His intruder was small and curvy, wearing the silver-gray robes of an Oonat. His body took that moment to remind him that thanks to his pursuit of Jane, he hadn’t been with a female for far too long. After having spent more than five minutes in the company of the human females, the animal-like docility of the oonat disgusted him. His lip curling, he made to push the creature away when her hood slipped to reveal a short crop of silver-blond hair.
“Jane?” Snatching the blade away from her throat, he spun her around so her back hit the wall. “What the hell are you doing here? I almost killed you!”
*
Oh, shit. Jane met Karryl’s angry gaze and tried not to shiver. The big warrior had a face like thunder as he looked down at her and the blade he’d held at her throat had been all business.
“Hmm, I got lost?” she tried, watching as he let her go and backed up, crossing his arms over his massive chest. Somehow, here in this enclosed space, he seemed even bigger and she struggled to draw breath.
“Try again, little human,” he rumbled, his expression unchanged. “Wearing an oonat robe, I’d say getting lost was the last thing on your mind.”
The silence stretched between them; a hard, uncompromising silence and this time she did shiver, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. She hadn’t had a plan beyond getting aboard, which she now realized was the dumbest thing ever. For all she knew that storage compartment might have been vented to space during take-off.
Crap, she just wasn’t cut out for this espionage lifestyle. Give her an assault rifle and a battle plan any day.
“I wanted to know what had you disappearing off. I honestly didn’t expect to get this far,” she admitted. “I expected to get caught before I reached the shuttle. You really do need to review your security procedures. As myself, I couldn’t get anywhere near the restricted sections but put on one of these?” She plucked at the robe. “And I walked right in.”
“Right.”
His expression grew darker, more forbidding, as though she said something wrong. Which didn’t make sense. She’d told the truth, what more did he want?
“So you admit you’ve been spying for your people?”
For a moment she just looked at him. Then she laughed. “Of course, I’m damn well spying. I’m a soldier. I’m going to gather whatever intel I can. What else did you expect?”
He moved faster than she expected, grabbing her by her upper arms with a growl. “You stupid female, do you know the punishment for spying in the empire?”
She opened her mouth to answer, shaking her head, but he didn’t let her get a word out.
“Flogging, with an energy whip. Fifteen lashes.” Each word was
punctuated with a little shake, his fingers digging hard enough into her arms to make her wince. “Most warriors don’t make ten. A human? A female? Draanth, it would kill you.”
He pushed her away to pace the cabin, shoving a shaking hand through his long hair. “Gods, I didn’t want to believe them when they told me you were passing messages to that soft-bellied male. I didn’t think you were so…” He looked her up and down and the expression in his eyes made her cheeks burn. “Dishonorable. I thought you were a real warrior.”
She gathered her stolen robes, mangling them with her hands as she looked at him. All of a sudden, it mattered what he thought of her. Something inside her died when he looked at her that way like she was something that had crawled out from under a rock. Her throat tightened, but she ignored it and lifted her head.
“Are you going to turn me in?”
He paused his pacing to glare at her. A muscle in the corner of his jaw jumped as he looked at her. Finally, he sighed and shook his head.
“No. I don’t have the time. But,” he barked, cutting off her sigh of relief, “you’re not out of the woods yet, little human. When we get back, they’re going to question you. And you’re going to tell them that you stowed away because you couldn’t bear to be parted from me.”
Jane froze, and lifted her gaze to his hard, multi-colored one. “You’re going to use this to force your claim on me?”
Her words were hard, but inside she trembled. Wasn’t this what she wanted, the decisions removed from her? Faced with the possibility they might be, she suddenly realized that yes, having the decision meant a great deal to her indeed.
His jaw worked, lips compressing. “No. I do not need to force any female, much less a short, stubborn, pain in the ass human female with no concept of honor. You merely need to tell them you pursued me to get me to claim you, but I declined.”
“Oh great, so I’m a bunny-boiler now, am I?”
“I do not understand this phrase ‘bunny-broiler.’”
He’d moved closer, one eyebrow raised and she was suddenly reminded that however much the Lathar looked like humanity, they were very different. More graceful, faster, stronger. If the two species were related, then humanity had definitely gotten the shitty end of the stick.
“Boiler,” she corrected automatically. “It means an older woman who is emotionally unstable and possibly dangerous when it comes to relationships.”
“You’re not old.” His expression was hard to read, but she thought she caught a glimmer of amusement. “I can’t say anything about unstable, and we both know you’re dangerous.”
She just looked at him. It couldn’t have escaped the Lathar’s notice that she was at least fifteen years older than the other women they’d captured. In fact, a few eyebrows had raised when she requested assignment to Sentinel Five, along with a few muttered comments about her being “past it.”
“I’m forty-three years old,” she said flatly. “Welcome to bunny-boiler territory, and according to some of the base staff talk, practically in my dotage.”
After having given her age in such a matter-of-fact manner, the last thing she expected was for him to burst into laughter.
“Really? Forty-three? Hells, you’re practically a baby.” He grinned, shoving his hair back with a large hand. She caught her breath, arousal surging through her as he looked up, the smile transforming his cruelly-handsome face to something more boyish. “I’m sixty-seven next month.”
***
“Seriously, sixty-seven?” Hours later, Jane still couldn’t believe how old Karryl was. “I wouldn’t have said more than what… thirty-five, at the most.”
The big Latharian warrior sat in the opposite recliner at the front of the cockpit, his gaze focused on the holographic screens in front of him. She had to admit, seeing him stretched out like that, with his attention elsewhere was more than handy. She could look her fill without him noticing.
“Yes, sixty-seven. Do human women ever stop talking?” he grumbled, throwing a scowl her way, which she ignored.
“Be thankful I’m not Kenna. That woman can talk the hind legs off a donkey. Creatures like your kervasi, but smaller, and more beasts of burden rather than to ride elegantly.”
He did look at her that time, his expression quizzical. “Their legs detach? That seems a strange evolutionary feature. Is that common on your planet?”
“No, they don’t really come off. It’s just an expression,” she chuckled, rocking back on the comfortable recliner and hugging her knees. The co-pilot’s couch was just as big as the pilot’s and built for the Lathar, so it was almost the size of a bed. “It means she talks a lot. Nothing to do with animals at all. I actually don’t know where that phrase comes from. One of my old combat sergeants used to say it.”
His hands moved over the display in front of him. They’d dropped out of FTL a while back and were approaching L-three with Karryl piloting, but she knew his attention was on her.
“You’ve been a warrior a long time?”
“Since I was eighteen.”
She glanced out the view screen. This area of space was beautiful. Big gas giants with more rings than she’d ever seen cosied up to huge white-violet nebulae. Most of that was secondary, though, to the vast asteroid field they currently picked their delicate way through. Well, rather, he was now picking a way through. She had no idea how to pilot the alien craft and, to be honest, her one and only flying lesson in a beat-up troop carrier had ended badly. Her instructor leaped from the ship as soon as they’d touched down, swearing never to get into anything she was piloting. Ever again.
“Joined up the day I left school. A city kid, from one of the less salubrious areas. Money and food were tight. Joining meant I got three squares a day and could send money back to feed my siblings.”
He glanced across at her. “Did your parents not have sons to send instead? Why send a female?”
Her hard look went unnoticed as the consoles bleeped and claimed his attention again.
“My brother at that time was four. A little young to be sent to basic training.” She sighed, and rubbed her hand down her calf. “He became a soldier in the end. He’d have been twenty-nine now.”
“Been?” Karryl asked as he neatly maneuvered them around a large asteroid. They were almost at the end of the rocky field and a large satellite rotated slowly in the clear space ahead of them.
“Yeah, lost him in the colony wars,” she replied briefly, sliding forward to the edge of her couch as the satellite got larger. “Is that it?”
Even with her limited knowledge of Latharian technology, it looked wrong. The sleek metal looked misshapen. Not burnt and destroyed but more like it had been melted. “That doesn’t look good at all.”
“No. I’m pinging it, but it’s totally non-responsive. Scanning now…” His lips compressed into a thin line. His hands moved over the holo display, tapping on the thin lines in mid-air. The engines kicked in, slowing the shuttle in front of the satellite. “There’s nothing left—Oh, fuck!”
Swearing in Lathar too quickly for her to understand, his hands flew over the controls. The engines roared to life, the ship lurching as they raced away from the satellite. The sudden movement dumped her into the foot well in front of the co-pilot's couch with a yelp.
She clambered onto the couch and strapped herself in, just in case Karryl felt the need to hit the gas again. “What’s going on?”
“It’s emitting high levels of keraton radiation.” His face was pale as the lights in the cabin turned orange, blinking from the cockpit to the rear. “Running a de-com routine now. The shuttle is shielded but I don’t want to take any chances—”
With her. She finished his sentence silently, realizing that he wasn’t worried about himself, but about the effect of radiation on her. His concern was touching. Actually, rather unexpected.
“Is it dangerous?” Keeping her voice light, she pretended to double-check her harness. “We weren’t in range long enough for it to have an effect, surel
y?”
“No.” The little muscle at the side of his jaw worked again as he shook his head. “We weren’t, thankfully. It’s not overly dangerous to a male my size, especially with the shielding on this thing, but I don’t wish to risk a female.”
“You’re a big softy really, aren’t you?” She teased him to lighten the mood. “So boss, the thing’s toast. What’s the next move?”
“Well, there are only a few species that have keraton technology, and given the damage, they couldn’t have gotten far. There’s a trading outpost not far from here. We might be able to pick up some gossip on who’s been in the area, then get back within range of long distance comms to report back to the palace.”
The engines rose in pitch as Karryl turned the shuttle and laid in a new course. There was a slight lurch as the FTL drives kicked in and then she found herself looking at streaks of light as the stars raced past.
“So,” she grinned, relieved that they weren’t going back to the palace, and the probability she’d have to face the music, “we get a road trip.”
Chapter Five
Not far from here turned out to be a two-hour journey. Lulled by the soothing hum of the engines and the lure of the comfortable recliner, years of military training to rest when she could, ensured that Jane slipped into a light doze.
A change in the sound of the engines as they dropped out of FTL woke her and she sat up, blinking and ruffling her hair so it wasn’t flat. Pure feminine vanity. She’d lived in trenches and barracks for months at a time and never bothered about her appearance. For some reason with Karryl it was an entirely different matter.
“Coming up on the outpost now,” the big warrior announced, his voice low and gruff. He hadn’t slept but didn’t appear fatigued at all. A comment Daaynal had made a few days ago came to mind. The Lathar were experts at tinkering with genetic code, much like humans would alter and enhance vehicles, they did to themselves. They’d increased their strength, endurance, and cognitive abilities to make them better warriors.
