by Emma Castle
“I never gave up believing he was alive, but I finally resigned myself to never seeing him again. It’s why I changed my duties. I wasn’t always a guardian.”
“What is a guardian?” She didn’t want to interrupt him, but she had a thousand questions. “Some kind of cop?”
“It’s somewhere between your policeman and your FBI. We enforce our laws and protect our people.”
“Oh…” So he was a Krinar cop. She tried to imagine him wearing aviator sunglasses and eating doughnuts. The thought almost made her giggle, but he was the farthest thing from that. He was more like the sexy lead detectives on TV shows. The ones who wore button-up shirts with their sleeves rolled up, their hair tousled as they spent late nights solving murders and slipping exhausted into the beds of beautiful women.
“What did you do before? I mean, before you were a guardian?”
His lips curved in a rueful smile. “An engineer, believe it or not. I designed some of our earlier technology.” He watched her, and she had a feeling he was waiting for her to react. She didn’t, so he continued. “I saw the blueprints in Ruby’s desk. The ones you drew.”
“It’s not like they’d work,” she said, her tone quiet, and she looked away from him. “I was just noodling around, trying to see if I could understand the fundamentals.”
Sef moved fast, coming around the table to sit beside her. He caught her chin in his hand, gently forcing her to face him.
“You’re closer than you realize. Keep working on them. I’m having them brought here, along with all of your belongings. They will be delivered this evening. Now, you may decorate this home as you like while I am away. The central core system can—”
“Sorry, the what?”
“The computer that operates the house.”
“Oh, gotcha. You mean Linda.”
“Yes?” the house trilled in response to her name being spoken.
Sef quirked an eyebrow at that. “You gave it a name?”
“Why not? Seems a bit stuffy to just call it ‘computer.’”
Sef had no way to reply to that, so he didn’t. “The central core system can prepare more than just food. It can provide you with almost anything you desire. I wish for you to be happy here.”
She almost pitied him, thinking he could win her over under duress. But part of her wanted to believe him, to trust the sincerity in his eyes. The problem was he was a masterful liar. He couldn’t be trusted. So she would lie right back. She would earn his trust, and then she’d escape and find a way to free her brothers. They would get the hell out of here and go into hiding. Like the slogan said on some of those biker jackets: Live Free or Die.
But she would have to be careful not to concede to him too easily. He wouldn’t trust a sudden change of heart.
“I will never be happy here, not as a prisoner.” She nodded toward the front door.
“You aren’t a prisoner, but I did not want you leaving until we had a chance to talk. We have high security, and if you ran, the other guardians might have taken you to a detention center.”
“Is that where they would torture me?” she asked coldly.
He sighed. “No, we don’t torture humans, but if they felt you were a threat, you would have had your personality adjusted. I don’t want that to ever happen to you.”
“You don’t want a compliant sex slave? Wouldn’t that make things so much easier for you? Just melt my brain and pop in a brainless sex toy program.” Pain choked her into further silence.
Sef sighed heavily and bowed his head. She’d hit a nerve with that. “No, that’s the last thing I want. I like you exactly as you are, even hating me as you do now. My feelings for you are true.” He cupped her face in both his hands and moved in to kiss her.
It took every ounce of her self-control not to rear back. She wanted to scream, to hit him over the head with a vase or a fridge, but the second his lips touched hers, she felt the awakening of that tender passion he’d shown her before. His breath quickened as her body gave in to his kiss.
It all came back—the delicious hunger, desperate desire, and the knowledge that if she let him, he would strip her bare and take right then and there.
“No…” She pushed away, and he let her. Their breath mingled as they remained close enough for her to feel his heat.
“Harper,” he growled. “Don’t fight your attraction. I know you want me.”
“Don’t you get it? I wanted Seth. I don’t know you at all.” She rushed from the dining room up the stairs and threw herself onto the bed.
“Harper,” Linda’s voice chimed. “I sense you are in distress. What can I do to help?”
She buried her face in the pillows. “Nothing. Get lost.”
A few minutes later, Sef stood in the doorway of the bedroom.
“I must return to work. If you need to talk to me, use the house’s voice command.”
“You mean Linda?” If she could find a way to annoy him, she was going to use it.
“Yes, Linda if you wish. She can summon me at any time. I’ll be back this evening to show you the Center, if you like.” He hesitated. “If you behave while we are out, I can arrange for a visit to see your brothers tomorrow.”
Hope blossomed in her chest. That was worth putting up with him for a while. “Really?” Knowing where they were and what conditions they were being kept in was vital. If she was going to escape with them, she would need information.
And she would need trust.
12
Sef stared at the monitors inside his office in guardian headquarters. He’d spent the last hour watching the private security feed to his residence, keeping an eye on Harper. The way they’d left things—her crying, him feeling like a villain—the entire situation had left a raw, bitter taste in his mouth. So he’d decided to check on her and ended up suffering right along with her.
Harper hadn’t moved from his bed. She just lay there, crying into her pillow. The sight of her in such pain was tearing him apart. He would rather have faced a hundred resistance fighters armed to the teeth with Krinar weaponry than see her like this.
But what else could he do? He had his duty, and protocol had to be observed. He couldn’t just let her roam free in the Center until he was certain she wouldn’t do anything. His people wouldn’t hurt her, but if something happened, she might make the other guardians nervous. They could stun her and detain her and even erase her recent memories before he was notified. He could change that—or rather, she could. If he officially claimed her as his charl, she would have that protection. But he wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—do that until he knew she wanted it, freely and without the safety of her brothers hanging over her head.
She had to want to be with him because she cared about him, not out of some misguided need to sacrifice herself for her brothers. And because of all this, it meant that every second she was outside of his home alone, she was at risk. He had no way of knowing what she would do in an attempt to reach or rescue her brothers. The idea terrified him.
The thought of losing Harper sent a chill down his spine. She no doubt assumed he wanted her only for her body, but she couldn’t be more wrong. In the short time he’d had with her, he’d realized that she was a female unlike any other. She wasn’t just intelligent—she was brilliant, with so much potential. She was also loyal, brave, compassionate, and sensual. Everything a male like him could dream of and hope for in a mate.
“Your latest assignment?” A familiar voice broke through his brooding thoughts. Familiar because it sounded much like his own. He swiveled in his antigravity chair.
His twin, Soren, stood there looking amused. He wore a human three-piece gray suit, which meant he must have recently come from his duties as ambassador.
“Soren, what are you doing here?” With a subtle gesture, Sef switched off all the surveillance screens behind him. He didn’t want Soren to realize he was spying on his own house.
“I agreed to show Bianca one of the Centers here in the Midwest.”
&
nbsp; Sef raised a brow in challenge. “She’s already visited the Center near Monterey several times since you moved there. Why would you bring her to Kansas City?”
His brother chuckled. “Perhaps I came to tell you that Mother and Father have left Krina recently. They intend to move to Earth and will be planet side in a few days.”
“What? I thought they planned to stay there for another decade, along with the first wave of colonists.”
Soren laughed. “That worried, eh? Mother promised me she wouldn’t try to hook you up with any females we know. She didn’t want to wait for the colonist groups. She wanted to come sooner.”
Sef stifled a groan. His mother had been trying to arrange a match for both him and his brother for the last thousand years. Soren, by claiming a human charl, had escaped their mother’s plans, but that left Sef all on his own to face her well-intentioned schemes.
“So…” Soren focused on him. “Who were you watching?” He nodded to the blank screens behind Sef.
“No one.”
“No one? Come, brother, you know me better than that. I won’t judge. Have you become besotted with a human?” Soren pulled up a chair and leaned in. “I will tell no one, not even Mother. Twins’ honor.” He raised his hand and touched his heart.
“Twins’ honor?” Sef hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time. It was something from their boyhood, a promise they’d made to each other to reflect the need for ultimate trust.
“You have my word. Now, tell me.” Soren kept his voice low because Sef’s office wasn’t separated by walls from the other guardians of the Center working in nearby cubicles.
“I had an assignment in Kansas, the one I told you about. There were two suspected resistance leaders there. They owned a bar and were hosting meetings in the back storeroom. It turned out to be more serious than we suspected. They were getting ready to work with a human who knows one of our kind, who was going to help them acquire bombs to break down our walls, steal our tech, and expose the Center to the general public.”
“What?” Soren paled. “That’s serious.”
“But they also had a younger sister. She’s…” He cleared his throat and continued. “I got too close. I brought her here when I took her brothers into custody. I messed up.”
Soren was quiet, but Sef didn’t see any flicker of judgment or disapproval in his brother’s face.
“Messed up how, exactly?”
“I desire her, deeply, as I’ve never desired any other female. It’s like a madness possesses me whenever I’m near her. I told her that if she agreed to submit to me, to be my charl, then I would keep her brothers from having their memories erased.”
“Is that something you can promise?” Soren inquired.
“If they can cooperate and prove to be nonviolent, which I believe may be possible with a little time, I can keep them safe. Detained, but safe. Eventually they could be released.”
Soren leaned back in the chair, their gazes locked. “Sef, let me give you some advice. Seducing one’s charl without securing her trust only goes so far. Females never truly submit, not like you expect. They can be sweet and willing to bow to our dominant tendencies, but a female will always be in charge of her own life, and you shouldn’t want it any other way. If you resist letting her have her own life, it will hurt you both. You must be ready to give her the freedom to walk away if she can’t be happy with you. I know you hold on to our traditions of taking what you want, but if she can’t be happy, you won’t be either. And that is one thing you cannot live with. So woo her, seduce her, make sure she is hopelessly in love with you, but most importantly, earn her trust, then give her the key to her cage. She may surprise you by not flying away.”
Sef closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and opened his eyes again.
“Tell me, does Bianca make you this crazed? Even when I’m furious, I want to take her to bed and fuck her and then hold her close just to reassure myself she is still in my arms.”
“Have you drunk from her yet?” Soren asked.
Sef nodded. “Yes, I know I shouldn’t have, given that I was still pretending to be human, but she was so tense the first time we mated that she needed help to relax since she was so small and had trouble accommodating me, so I bit her.”
“And now you are addicted,” Soren guessed. “The same was true of me with Bianca. The bloodlust grows stronger over time, but trust me, so does your control. Your desire to protect her will overrule any desire to drink too much.”
Sef nodded. “I have no doubts about my control, but I can’t imagine letting her go.”
“She must be special.”
“You have no idea.” He spun toward his desk and pulled up copies of the blueprints she’d made on the screen. “Look at these.” Soren slid his chair closer so they were sitting side by side.
“They’re very unique,” Soren said. “But they seem very rough. Who designed them? Does Korum have an apprentice?”
“They’re Harper’s.”
A look of shock swept over his twin’s features. “But…how? These designs feature components of our science. Even understanding the basic concepts is…”
“Too advanced for a human?” Sef finished smugly.
“Yes. All the humans’ top scientists who have been trying to understand our technology haven’t come this close. So how?” Soren repeated, still closely studying the designs.
“I have no idea. She’s had no access to our technology, only secondhand information and what little has been seen by their media. She came up with these based entirely on observation and supposition. But she suffers from severe dyslexia.”
“What is that?”
“A human neurological condition that makes reading very difficult and, in her case, painful. I was thinking of having our biologists look at her and see if they could do something to help her.”
Soren nodded. “You should. Imagine what she could accomplish without that limitation. She could be working alongside Korum or other engineers.”
“That is what I was thinking. She could point toward the future of humans, one where we work alongside them and no longer against them.” It had long been a desire among the Krinar to find such enlightened humans, ones who wanted to improve their world to the benefit of all. Before meeting Harper, Sef had lost all hope of seeing that side of humanity. But perhaps Harper was the beginning of the change.
“Driana, one of our best biologists, can relocate here for a while to check into your female’s condition. She’ll be teaching in the fall at Princeton, but travel between New Jersey is easy with our spacecrafts. I would be happy to contact her.” Soren touched his shoulder, and a deep joy surged between them.
“Thank you,” Sef said, hoping his brother could feel his own echo of joy through their bond.
Soren grinned mischievously. “I’m happy you found a human mate. Mother will find out eventually, like she did with me and Bianca. I swear to keep my mouth shut, but once she arrives, I doubt you’ll be able to keep the secret for long.”
“True.” Sef winced, knowing how perceptive their mother was. “I guess I need to woo my rebellious charl sooner rather than later.”
“Why don’t you take her out to dinner with Bianca and me tonight?” Soren offered. “Bianca can perhaps dispel some of her fears about what it means to be a charl and show your Harper the positives of belonging to a Krinar male.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Sef nodded. “Very well. Let’s go for it. We’ll see you this evening.”
Soren grinned, clapping Sef’s shoulder again as he stood. “This should be fun.” He left Sef’s office, though Sef wondered just how much fun Soren would have at his expense tonight.
Harper had showered and felt refreshed. She dressed in clean clothes from her belongings, which had arrived in featureless boxes an hour ago. Now she was ready to face the problem of being incarcerated by an alien she’d once had feelings for and was now determined to hate until the day she died.
“Linda?” she called o
ut while in the kitchen again.
“Yes, Harper?”
“I need to make updates to your system. How would I do that?”
“Updates?” Linda’s confusion was clear. “I require no updates. I am an ever-adjusting operating platform that that exists from a central control core.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Harper chuckled and rubbed her hands together like a cartoon villain. “Linda…” Harper paced the length of the kitchen. “Exactly how is your platform linked to the central core?”
“Via QER signals.”
“What are those?”
“Quantum entanglement receptors. The closest approximation would be sound waves or radio waves, but it is far too complex for human understanding,” the voice responded.
“Right…” Harper drawled out the word sarcastically. She actually understood what quantum entanglement was, on a theoretical level anyway. “And where is your central core physically located?”
“My central core is installed in Sef’s hand. It draws additional resources from a common data storage facility, which links to databases used by all Krinar Centers.”
“Okay, so it’s part cloud data storage and part physical storage. So your program is installed in his hand? How does that even work?” She wrinkled her nose, now picturing Sef as some sort of cyborg.
“The nanocytes in the Krinar work using nanorobotic technology. The implants in their palms can interact with virtually all forms of Krinar technology.”
Holy cow… Harper took a moment to wrap her brain around that and then posed another question. “All right, these nanocytes. How do they work?”
“That information is classified.” Linda’s prompt reply shut down Harper’s hopes. But she at least had one more bit of the puzzle pieced together.
“Linda, I don’t have a core or whatever like Sef, so why do you respond to me?”
