by Lee Savino
My skin feels cold and clammy. Even now, even after all these years. “I was sick of it. I was there to study, and this guy kept harassing me. I told him to leave me alone.” I close my eyes for a second. “His ego got wounded. He came after me that evening with a knife.” I touch my cheek. “This was him. They sewed me up in the ER. The doctor working that night, Dr. Olowu, figured we didn’t have money for fancy reconstructive surgery. She could have done a rush job anyway. She’s an ER doctor, they don’t have time to do much more than that, but it was a slow night, and she took her time. The scarring could have been a lot worse.” Dr. Olowu was the reason I became a doctor. The reason I chose to work in the ER instead of choosing a more lucrative specialization.
“What happened to the human who assaulted you?” Kadir asks.
My lips twist. “Nothing. He was from a rich family, I was the child of an immigrant. He had access to expensive lawyers, PR consultants, you name it, he had it. While I lay in the hospital, recovering from my injuries, they started a whisper campaign in school. How unstable I was. Mentally disturbed. Suicidal. Prone to self-harm. They were very good at muddying the waters.”
I don’t talk about this. I don’t tell anyone this story. I’ve done my best to forget the events that led to my scar, and I’ve moved on. “Then the lawyers came to us with an offer. They gave me ten thousand dollars to retract my accusation and transfer out.”
“What did you do?”
“My mother wanted me to fight back. I didn’t. I wasn’t naïve; I could see the writing on the wall. Brett was protected; I wasn’t. I was in a no-win situation. I told her to take the money.” I shake my head. “I’m no warrior, Kadir. These aren’t the scars of battle.”
“You regret not fighting back.”
He doesn’t phrase it as a question. He’s caught my ambivalence. Kadir calls himself a soldier, but he’s definitely more than that. There are layers to him.
I find him fascinating. I want to know everything about him. Earlier today, when he’d told me about the ship filled with human women that had crashed on a prison planet, I hadn’t asked him questions about the women. I hadn’t asked him how they ended up in the rebellion, whatever that is, and I hadn’t asked if there was a way to get back to Earth.
No. There had been a hundred obvious questions, but instead, I’d asked Kadir about himself. Who he was. Why he came to help us.
Idiot.
He’s waiting for me to answer. “I do regret it, yes. I thought I was being pragmatic, but all I did was let Brett Kenney believe that there were no consequences for what he did.”
“Is that why you defied the scientists?”
I stiffen in his arms. “How do you know I defied the scientists?” I ask, my voice drenched with suspicion.
“You’ve seen a med-kit before,” he replies calmly. He loosens his grip. If I want to leave his arms, he’s giving me a way out. “You know how to work it. And I’ve been their captive. I know how the scientists work. They beat you, didn’t they? They broke your bones when you resisted.”
I stay exactly where I am. On Kadir’s lap, leaning against his broad chest. “Yes,” I whisper. “That’s why I needed to resist. It was too easy to slip into mindlessness. Too easy to give up. But the pain reminded me I was alive.”
He’s observant. Incredibly perceptive. He’s a big guy. It’d be easy to think of him as some kind of giant, golden Hulk who goes around smashing things that get in his way.
But Kadir isn’t stupid, not at all. I’d be foolish to allow myself to forget that.
“Earlier in the market, you weren’t afraid of my knife, just the med-kit. Why not?”
Damn it, how did he realize that? I’d just punched his jaw. He should have been reeling, and he still picked up on that. “How do you know I wasn’t afraid of the knife?”
“I can sense your emotions.”
“What?” I scramble off his lap. “You can read my mind?” Oh God. I’ve been thinking sex thoughts about him for hours now. This is mortifying. Kill me now.
He shakes his head, waving his ability away like it’s no big deal. “I can’t read thoughts, just emotions. Why weren’t you afraid of my knife?”
Persistent, annoying alien. “My mother didn’t like my decision to take the money, but she respected my choice. Then, when I got out of the hospital, she enrolled me in a self-defense class. I learned knife skills. I learned how to fight dirty, how to bring down a man twice my size. I learned not to be afraid.” I give him a rueful sidelong look. “Well, I thought I’d learned how to bring down a man twice my size.” I rub my hand. “Until I punched you and broke my wrist in the process.”
I’m expecting him to be smug about that, but his eyes are serious. Holding my gaze, he reaches for his pack, pulls his knife out, and holds it to me.
The six-inch metal blade gleams in the dim light. The edges are wickedly serrated. The handle is metal too, plain and unadorned. This isn’t a decorative piece. This is a working weapon.
“A gift,” he says. “For seven months, you endured the scientists’ torture, and you survived. Make no mistake, Alice. You are a warrior.”
I swallow hard. Tears, hot and unexpected, well in my eyes.
Could I kill him? I doubt it. If I needed to, could I incapacitate him enough to escape? Maybe.
He’s still giving me a blade.
I blink the tears away and take the knife from Kadir. “So you can read emotions?” I ask him, forcing lightness into my voice. “What am I feeling now?”
A smile curves his mouth. “There’s some fear, the residual impact of your nightmare. There’s sadness when you remember your mother.” His eyes spark. “And then there’s lust.”
I scramble backward, my cheeks heating. He knows exactly how turned on I am. Oh God, oh God, oh God, this is pretty much the worst-case scenario.
He watches me, amusement in his gaze.
I gather the tattered remnants of my dignity and lift my chin in the air. “You are a very good-looking man,” I say frostily. “And I’m not blind. My reaction is purely physical, but I’m not going to act on it.”
Liar. I’d been perfectly ready to act on my desire earlier.
“So don’t get any ideas,” I finish, ignoring my flaming cheeks.
He gives me a puzzled glance. “I’ve been in stasis for a thousand years, but we’re still an advanced civilization, Alice. I understand consent.”
Wait, what? My mouth drops open. “You’ve been in stasis for a thousand years?”
From his expression, I don’t think he intended to let that nugget of information slip. Too bad, buddy. I’m prying the whole story out of you, whether you like it or not. “What were you doing in the scientists’ labs? Why did they want you?”
He grins and lies down on his stomach, turning his face toward me, making a show of closing his eyes. “Another time, my curious little human. It’s a long story. Go to sleep. You need your rest. Tomorrow will be a long, difficult day.”
Little human.
My cheeks still feel hot. I tuck the knife under my pillow. “Thank you for this.”
He doesn’t reply. He’s stretched out on the bed next to me. His broad chest rises and falls.
The muscles in his abs are so defined they look sculpted. A thin line of hair trails from his bellybutton and disappears under the waistband of his pants. I want to follow that trail. With my tongue.
I felt his cock. Call me insane, but I want to see it. Will it be golden, like the rest of him?
I shake my head in silent rebuke. You have lost your mind, Alice. Kadir is an alien. You met him less than twelve hours ago. He arranges a bath for you and gives you a knife, and that’s all it takes to get in your pants? Go to bed, you fool. Your brain isn’t functioning right now.
Tomorrow will indeed be a long, difficult day. We’ll have to locate Kadir’s spaceship, and then, we have to rescue Tanya before she ends up as the sex toy of some alien warlord.
I don’t know how to rescue Tanya. But I have an
idea about how to find the ship, and Kadir really isn’t going to like it.
11
Kadir
When I wake up, Alice isn’t in bed. She’s nowhere to be seen.
I move. I’m on my feet, wrenching the door open, barreling down the corridor. Mahr. Where is she? I disabled the door’s keypad last night. Nobody should have been able to open the door from the outside, and I would have woken up if they’d tried to break it down.
Kashrn. I slept too well. Too soundly. My body had needed healing, and with Alice nestled next to me, the rathr had left me alone. I slept better than I’ve ever slept before, and now, I’m paying the price for my rest. If something has happened to her…
I round a corner and see Alice, her hood covering her face, walking toward me with a tray of food in her hands.
I remember to breathe.
“Good morning,” she says cheerfully. “I was really hungry when I woke up, and so I went to get breakfast.” She gives me a sunny smile as she marches down the corridor to our room. “It’s amazing how universal some things are. I pointed to my mouth and my stomach, and the innkeeper understood me perfectly.”
I ignore her chatter and hone in on the most crucial detail. “You went out alone?” She left the safety of our room to get food. She went to the common room. A common room absolutely littered with traders, mercenaries, and petty thieves. Is she demented?
“I thought you might have this reaction.” I open our room door for her, and she sweeps in and sets the tray down. “Do you like my dress?” She does a little twirl, and the thin fabric flares out around her. She’s wearing robes of the deepest indigo. The color suits her. “The innkeeper’s wife gave it to me. There’s more food, but I couldn’t carry it all. Nakima said she’ll bring it to our room.”
Such reckless disregard for her safety. “I don’t care about your robes,” I snarl. “I don’t care about the food. You could have been killed. You could have been kidnapped. Have you lost possession of your wits?”
Her eyes flash fire. “You told me yourself that the innkeeper wouldn’t attack you again. You told me that the mercenaries didn’t hold grudges. You told me they’d invite you to drink with them.”
Caeron grant me strength. Next time, I’m going to lock the fucking door from the inside. “If you were hungry, why didn’t you wake me? Or rummage through my pack and find yourself another nutrient bar?”
“I can’t go through your stuff,” she replies primly. “That’s just rude.”
I stare at her. She looks pleased with herself. There’s something she’s not telling me. What has she done?
There’s a knock at the door. It’s the innkeeper’s bondmate, Nakima, and she’s holding a heavily laden tray of food in her hand. Porridge, meat, even fresh fruit. “Urgali voc,” she says.
What do you know? That’s actually a civil greeting from the woman who wanted me dead last night. What did you do, Alice? “Voc urgali,” I reply, taking the tray from her. “Thank you for the food.”
She lingers. “My water is yours,” she says stiffly. The Cotari equivalent of an apology. “I thought you were with one of our children yesterday. Such sin deserves to be punished.”
Muttering a curse under my breath, I shoot the human a death glare. She winces and avoids my accusing stare. Alice must have deliberately pulled down her hood. The innkeeper's bondmate caught a glimpse of her face, realized she fucked up, and is now here offering apologies.
Very good. All is forgiven. Go away now so I can have a pointed conversation with Alice about the danger she’s put herself in.
“When your woman showed herself,” Nakima continues. “I realized I had misunderstood. You could have killed my netfakqim, but you didn’t.” She fishes a folded scrap of paper from one of the hidden pockets in her voluminous robe and hands it to me. “A map to your ship’s location. “The traders that took it scavenge during the day. You will find it unguarded.”
Alice is beaming now. I thank the innkeeper’s wife, shut the door, and turn to the human. “Now,” I say, my voice very soft. “Let’s talk about risk.” I take a step toward her, and she backs away until her back hits the wall. I cage her in with my body. “You went out alone. You exposed your face to the innkeeper’s bondmate. Do you have a reason for such reckless stupidity?”
She lifts her chin in the air. “Tanya’s in danger,” she replies. Even though her eyes flash defiance at me, there’s a slight tremor in her voice. She’s afraid of me. Good. She should be afraid. Maybe it’ll make her careful.
“We need your ship back,” she continues. “We’re sitting ducks without it. You said yourself the innkeeper was a coward, and the mercenaries wouldn’t attack us again.”
She’s afraid of me, but not afraid enough, otherwise she wouldn’t have done something so dangerous. She has no idea who I am. What I can do. If she knew, she’d run away, screaming in panic. She wouldn’t be standing here, her mouth close to mine, her breasts brushing my chest, her eyes radiating challenge.
Pity.
“The Infar aren’t the only guests in the inn,” I bite out. “By now, every Cotari trader would have heard about the disturbance last night. They would have realized the Zorahn came back for you. You are valuable. Every single person on this planet is a threat to you.”
“I was careful,” she says stubbornly. “I kept my hood up the entire time. I only showed the innkeeper’s wife my face. And I had my knife.”
Galaxy help me. The human is the most aggravating woman in the universe. “Do you think I am an idiot?” I demand in exasperation. “My ship is keyed to me. It has a beacon that I can trace. The only reason we didn’t go after it last night was because we both needed rest. You were exhausted, and I couldn’t protect you effectively until I healed.”
Realization dawns on her face. “Oh,” she says, and then her eyes flash with fresh anger. “If you had a beacon, Kadir, you should have told me about it. You told me you weren’t concerned about threats. I heard what you said, and I acted. I wasn’t stupid, and I wasn’t reckless. I took a calculated risk because Tanya is fragile. Her grip on reality is already frayed. If this Great One, whoever he is, rapes her, I don’t know if the damage will ever be undone. Hell, I don’t know if the damage can ever be undone anyway.”
Her reasoning is not without logic. My heart is still racing from the panic I felt when I thought she was missing. I close in until I’m a hairsbreadth from her face. “Listen to me very carefully,” I tell her. “I have been sent to find you. I am responsible for your safety, a safety you recklessly disregarded this morning. From now on, you don’t even go to the refresher without my permission. Disobey me, and I will tie you up. Are we clear?”
She meets my gaze with scorching defiance. “You can try.” This close to her, I can feel the heat from her body. The scent of the lotion on her skin fills my breath. “The scientists tried to break me for seven months,” she says. “I’m not pliable, Kadir. I won’t bend for you.”
An image of her bent over the bed, naked, her legs parted, flashes through my brain. My stupid cock goes predictably hard. The dragon, who stayed silently disapproving during our fight, lumbers to its feet and stretches its wings in satisfaction.
Alice sucks in a breath. The air charges. Lust saturates the space between us. My gaze falls to her erect nipples, a human sign of arousal. Her breathing is shallow. Her tongue darts out nervously, swiping over her lush lower lip.
I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want this human woman. And, surreal as it is, she wants me too.
“You will bend, Alice,” I murmur. “You’ll bend for me freely, and, I promise you, you’ll enjoy it.”
“Will I?” she whispers. “You might be right about that.”
Then she stands on tiptoe and brushes a kiss across my lips.
Desire short-circuits my mind. The dragon roars in triumph. I lace my fingers in her hair, and capture her mouth with mine, demanding entrance, demanding surrender, demanding everything. She sighs in pleasure and offers
herself up to me, her arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me even closer.
I deepen the kiss. A possessive fire ignites my heart, scorching, heady, powerful. My lungs fill with her scent. “Kadir,” she whispers against my lips. I drink her in, ablaze with heat and anticipation. I want her with a deep, feral intensity. I need her naked. I need to taste her everywhere.
She breaks the kiss and stares up at me, her chest heaving, her expression foggy with desire. It takes a moment for her lust to subside. For a long instant, neither of us speak. We just stare at each other.
What just happened?
Then Alice’s expression turns mischievous. “This big, bossy, pain-in-the-ass guy told me I need permission to go to the bathroom,” she says pertly. “Do you mind?”
She slips inside the refresher. I stare at the closed door. Alice is curious about me, but it’s not the twisted curiosity of the other Highborn women who wanted to know what it would feel like to fuck a Draekon. Her arousal feels… honest.
I do not understand human women.
Of course we run into trouble. Four Cotari traders jump us in the common room on our way out. I look at the innkeeper, rage in my eyes. “I didn’t say anything,” he gibbers, throwing up his hands in terror. “I swear. They have trackers.”
Trackers. That’s either dogs or bots. Neither is good. If they’re at the inn, then they have Alice’s scent trail. They won’t lose it. It’s a good thing I know where the Bikana is, because unless we want to get jumped by every trader crew from Akan to Kora, we have to leave Calis as soon as possible.
Alice got you the Bikana’s location, my dragon helpfully reminds me.
I turn my attention back to the traders. “The Zorahn are looking for you,” the red-clad Cotari in the lead says, gesturing to Alice. Only the Priestesses of Baku wear red. I guess the temples are hard up for money. Either that or the scientists are truly desperate. “You will come with us now.” She spares me a look. “Resist us and die.”
