Odin: Alien Adoption Agency #5
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Odin
Alien Adoption Agency #5
Tasha Black
13th Story Press
Copyright © 2021 by 13th Story Press
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
13th Story Press
PO Box 506
Swarthmore, PA 19081
13thStoryPress@gmail.com
Cover designed by Sylvia Frost of The Book Brander
Contents
Tasha Black Starter Library
About Odin
Odin
1. Liberty
2. Odin
3. Liberty
4. Odin
5. Liberty
6. Odin
7. Liberty
8. Liberty
9. Odin
10. Liberty
11. Odin
12. Liberty
13. Liberty
14. Odin
15. Liberty
16. Odin
17. Liberty
18. Odin
19. Liberty
20. Odin
21. Liberty
22. Odin
23. Liberty
24. Odin
25. Liberty
26. Odin
27. Liberty
28. Odin
29. Liberty
30. Odin
31. Odin
32. Odin
33. Liberty
34. Odin
35. Liberty
36. Odin
37. Odin
38. Liberty
39. Liberty
Rexx (SAMPLE)
1. Abigail
2. Rexx
Tasha Black Starter Library
About the Author
One Percent Club
Tasha Black Starter Library
Packed with steamy shifters, mischievous magic, billionaire superheroes, and plenty of HEAT, the Tasha Black Starter Library is the perfect way to dive into Tasha's unique brand of Romance with Bite!
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About Odin
She swore she would never love again, but this dragon warrior's heat might just melt her resolve...
Liberty is a widow who's come to Lachesis for a chance to raise a child and get a fresh start on a far away frontier moon. But she isn’t ready for the baby to come with Odin, an Invicta dragon warrior who has sworn to protect the child with his life. And she certainly doesn’t expect the burly warrior to awaken feelings in her that she thought she left behind forever.
When rustlers threaten her new homestead, Liberty finds herself getting much closer to Odin than she ever planned, as the two are forced to work together to stop the rustlers and protect baby Colton.
If you like strong women, hunky aliens, wild adventures, steamy sensual scenes, and happily-ever-afters, then you’ll love the world of Stargazer!
Alien Adoption Agency is a Stargazer Alien Series – read them all:
Set on the moon of Clotho:
-Noxx
-Kade
-Tyro
Set on the moon of Lachesis:
- Zane
- Rexx
- Odin
Odin
1
Liberty
Liberty Clark stepped out onto the long grasses of the moon that was about to become her new home, and lifted her face to the sky.
The adjustment to the slightly lower than standard gravity left her stomach with a fluttery feeling like she was perpetually at the top of an arc on her childhood swing set. She figured she’d get used to it soon enough.
Lachesis was known for its thick, omnipresent cloud cover, casting dappled lighting over the land that almost made it look like the entire moon was underwater. But despite that knowledge, Liberty fully expected the clouds to part and welcome her with a glimpse of sunshine anyway.
When it didn’t happen, she chose not to cry, though tears blurred her vision for just a moment.
“Next time, Wyn,” she murmured instead, patting the tiny round holo-tab she had carried in her right pocket for the last two years.
“You okay?” her friend Abigail asked, her auburn hair like burnished copper in the murky light.
“Fine, Abigail,” Liberty said calmly. “Go meet your baby.”
Abigail brightened instantly and bounded across the meadow in the direction of a huge blue man carrying a small blue baby.
In the short but intense time Liberty had known her, Abigail seemed to have nothing but positive feelings about adopting an Imberian baby and starting a new life on a far-flung frontier moon. While the other two adoptive mothers in the group held their fears and their joy close to their chests, Abigail’s emotions were always on her sleeve. Liberty liked her immensely.
Their other friend, Sarah, was already holding her large golden baby and speaking to it intensely.
That left Liberty to approach the massive scarlet man who cradled a tiny scarlet baby to his muscled chest.
Her baby.
She tried to get a better look, but the man shifted slightly, hiding the little one’s face behind his enormous forearm.
Liberty had no doubts that the men were Invicta warriors. She knew the adoption agreement involved some sort of reparation treaty between the Invicta and the Imberians for past transgressions, but she hadn’t expected the elite dragon warriors to be working personally with the intergalactic adoption agency.
She headed over, desperate to get a glimpse of the baby. The man looked angry for some reason, and he was doing nothing to mask his emotions.
Liberty was no stranger to feeling angry - she had no shortage of sources in her life. She had been shunned by her family when they decided she’d married beneath her station. Then she had lost her beloved husband so very young to a cosmic lax mutation. Some days it took everything she had just to keep herself calm and positive. But she refused to let the negative emotions get the better of her.
This man on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about fighting his anger at all. His eyes were flashing and even his body seemed coiled with energy like a sky-panther, ready to lash out at any moment.
Though Liberty normally valued good manners, something about the honesty of his fury spoke to her.
“Hello,” she said pleasantly, ignoring it when he narrowed his obsidian eyes at her. “I’m Liberty Clark. Is this my son?”
He handed the child over wordlessly, and the rest of the world faded around them.
The baby was heavier in her arms than she had expected. He snuggled in, his little head warm and fragrant.
Liberty’s heart soared and she fought back tears for the second time in two minutes. How she had longed for this - a child to love and care for.
She and Wyn had been trying for two years when the doctors detected the cosmic lax mutation that took him from her. The irony was that he had only been scanned because they were searching for a key to why she wasn’t getting pregnant.
The doctors seemed to think they would be glad not to have achieved a pregnancy when it became clear that Liberty would soon be a widow. But she would have treasured a reminder of Wyn, and a family of her own to love.
“We did it,” she whispered to Wyn now, gazing down at the small, innocent face.
In his final days, Wyn had recorded her a message that contained a sort of bucket list of a dozen-odd experiences he wanted her to have. And becoming a mother was one of them.
Over the past two years, she’d checked off all of the items on his list, saving motherhood for last, since s
he knew it was hard to have adventures once there was a child to be looked after.
Well... she had checked off almost all of them.
Don’t hold a torch for me forever, Liberty, she heard the holo-recording say in Wyn’s warm voice. You have too much love. Find someone to share it with. Someone who can burn down the walls you’ve built around your heart.
She had dutifully promised him she would at the time, but she hadn’t really meant it. She suspected that loving this little one would be fulfilling her promise well enough.
And she loved him already.
His little brow furrowed in his sleep, and she instinctively brushed the pad of her thumb against his cheek, feeling gratified when his expression smoothed again.
“What in the nine tails of Boramatt is this?” the red warrior demanded.
Liberty spun to face him, but he was talking to a gawky young man who held the reins of a shaggy animal harnessed to a utilitarian-looking cart.
“It’s your transport, sir,” the boy said, stepping back with a faint buzzing sound that told Liberty he had cybernetic ankles and maybe knees too. She was surprised to find that kind of augmentation this far out from the central ring.
“We’re going to the highlands,” the red warrior spluttered. “This thing will take two days to get there.”
“There’s an inn at Five Points,” the boy pointed out nervously.
“I know there’s an inn at Five Points,” the warrior roared. “I don’t want to stay at that inn. I thought I had a gadabout reserved.”
“We d-don’t have gadabouts,” the boy stammered.
“Then what is this?” the warrior asked, tapping a metal circlet on his wrist to reveal a holo receipt. “It says Gadabout.”
Liberty couldn’t resist leaning in to read it. It did indeed say Gadabout.
“Th-that’s her name, your honor,” the boy said, indicating the shaggy, cow-like creature whose harness he held.
They all turned to behold Gadabout.
The creature blinked back at them, chewing indifferently on the long blue-green grass that nearly reached her snout.
Liberty tried and failed to hide her smile.
The warrior huffed through his nose and offered her his hand to help her into the cart.
She took it, expecting it to be dry and rough.
But a hot spark went through her the moment their flesh touched. She felt a honeyed warmth spread through her limbs, like nothing she had felt in a very long time.
She let go of his hand the instant her bottom hit the seat, feeling thoroughly confused and a bit horrified.
Calm down, Liberty, she told herself sternly. You’ve had a big day. Your body is going a little haywire. Crossed signals. That’s all.
2
Odin
Odin bit back a roar at the sensations caused by her simple touch. He knew what it meant, even if he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge it.
She is not my mate. I do not accept her.
But the storm raging in his blood assured him he was wrong. Every cell in his body pulled him inexorably to the small Terran female.
And in spite of the thousand reasons this was bad news, his dragon bellowed out his joy in Odin’s chest.
He ignored the dragon and swung himself into the cart next to her, willing himself not to inhale her intoxicating scent.
But the dragon observed her approvingly. His primal side loved the way she curled her body around the infant, her slender arms rounded in an instinctive position of protection.
Odin turned his head away so the dragon could see no more.
But it didn’t care.
Mine, it said, with a heady confidence that made Odin want to break something. My mate.
Odin gave a cluck and flicked the reins.
The lazy ox-yak lumbered forward, as the cart’s wheels groaned in complaint.
Odin groaned too.
“Are you okay?” the female asked.
He hated the way her voice sent a shiver of lust down his spine, hated how calm and polite she was. Didn’t she feel this uninvited desire too?
“I’m fine,” he barked. “But this low-tech contraption is going to mean an extra day of travel to the highlands.”
“And you don’t like the inn the boy mentioned,” she remembered helpfully.
He fought twin urges to scream with frustration and to pin her to the cart floor and claim her right then and there.
The cart went over a rut and the female jostled against him, maddening him at the briefest contact with her soft, warm flesh.
He hadn’t asked for any of this. Odin was a soldier. He belonged in the field. He neither wanted nor deserved the luxuries of civilian life - least of all a mate’s embrace.
They hit another bump, but this time he was ready to brace himself on his side of the cart.
He glanced over to see that the woman had repositioned herself to shield the whelp from the bumps so he could sleep better.
She would be a good mother. That much was already apparent.
A little of his anger dissipated.
Being pulled off active duty and saddled with a whelp to guard was hard enough. But he’d expected to treat it like any other assignment. Instead, the little thing had immediately weaseled its way into his heart.
He still wasn’t sure how that had happened. It was so small, younger than Zane and Rexx’s charges. All it did was eat and sleep and make waste that was shockingly pungent for one so tiny.
But to Odin it seemed that his useless whelp was different from any other whelp in the galaxy, and he had grown accustomed to its warm weight against his chest and the strange expressions on its small face.
Knowing he had to hand it off to someone else had haunted him for weeks.
“He’s lovely,” the woman said softly. “What is his name?”
“Colton,” Odin heard himself say before he could think better of it.
He clamped his mouth shut immediately, unable to believe he had blurted out his secret name for the child at the least provocation.
“Colton,” she echoed, her voice still soft with wonder.
Odin closed his eyes against a surge of emotion so strong it was almost like pain.
“Have you been with him since the beginning?” she asked, oblivious to his anguished battle with himself.
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s Imberian, right?” she asked. “Did his coloration shift to match yours?”
“Yes,” he admitted, impressed that she had done her homework. “The Invicta made a terrible mistake long ago that destroyed the gentle people of Imber. The Intergalactic Council has given us permission at last to try to right that wrong as best we can by using Imberian DNA to grow whelps in pods. Each whelp will be guarded by an Invicta soldier until he or she reaches maturity. Then the babes will inherit the planet of Imber and its rich mineral resources.”
“Until maturity?” she asked, looking up at him in surprise.
Apparently, she hadn’t done all of her homework.
“Yes,” he said. “Twenty standard years for an Imberian.”
“So… you’ll live with us?” she asked, her eyes wide with alarm.
So she did sense the mate bond.
And she didn’t crave it either.
Something about that annoyed him, but he wasn’t about to let her see it.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t interfere with your lifestyle. I just have to make sure nothing happens to the boy.”
She nodded and gazed down at the child again, her face softening with love.
A twinge of jealousy shot through him, though of course he was not jealous of the whelp.
It was just strange, that was all. Women usually desired Odin. He was accosted at every port by them - both professional and amateur lovers, happily vying for a place in his bed.
Why did this one not blush and blink at him like the others? She should be honored to serve his needs through the bond. She should beg for his touch.
&nbs
p; He tried to keep himself from picturing her begging. No good would come of that. He stole a glance at her, to see if she noticed any of his frustration.
But the woman studiously kept her hands and eyes to herself and they traveled on, so slowly Odin feared the day would never end.
He pushed the thoughts of her aside and tried to picture Adyxx in his mind, so as to stave off the waves of need inspired by the woman’s proximity.
Adyxx would have been twenty-five standard years of age by now. Maybe he would have been an Imberian guard now as well. More likely, Odin’s apprentice would still have been serving on active duty. The boy had such promise.
A cracking sound and a terrific jolt brought Odin out of his thoughts. The ox-yak stopped pulling and took a bite of the blue flowers growing in the grasses beside the cart.
“No,” Odin moaned.
But the sideways listing of the cart made it obvious what had happened. A wheel had cracked.
Liberty hopped off the cart with Colton still snuggled in her left arm. Odin followed her and was surprised to see her crouched over the broken wheel, observing it keenly.
“Are you going to fix it?” He said jokingly. He could tell from her iridescent black hair that she came from money. That kind of modification didn’t come cheap. She wouldn’t know how to fix a wooden cart wheel.