by Aria Bell
Gren’don pulled out his microcomputer again. “I know what will cheer you. You can see your mate’s face, right before my trap shot him in the back of the—”
His words cut off, causing me to look up at him, bitterly wishing I had a blaster pistol of my own. But he was staring at the screen, frantically working the controls as if scanning through the vid, although I couldn’t see the screen. He cursed and flung the device away where it broke against the metal bulkhead.
He drew his sword and moved to the door. He hammered at the panel with his free hand, trying to lock it. It wouldn’t lock. He cursed and punched the panel. Then he drew his blaster and shot it.
The door opened. From where I was on the floor, I couldn’t see who was on the other side, but Gren’don shifted in that direction, raising his blaster. A sword blade slashed out of the doorway and struck the blaster barrel, knocking the weapon out of Gren’don’s hand. Gren’don stumbled backward, rage and fear on his face. The sword flashed through the door again, and Gren’don barely parried it with his own blade.
I recognized that sword. My heart leaped inside my chest, and my breath was sucked from my lungs as if I’d been thrown into the vacuum of space. A second later, Kash Dra’sten, my mate, stepped through the doorway. He was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. Another sob escaped my lips, this one made of pure joy.
He was alive but wounded, and my elation was immediately tempered by my concern for him. The back of his shoulder was scorched and ripped open by blaster fire, and it looked like another shot had scored his thigh. The wounds didn’t seem to be bleeding much, but they appeared painful. They didn’t seem to slow him down though. Luckily, he hadn’t been hit in his sword arm, because he expertly parried Gren’don’s slashing attack. I wanted to call out to him as I scrambled to my feet, but I was afraid of distracting him.
He glanced my way and met my gaze. I saw pure relief blazing in his eyes. He blocked another of Gren’don’s attacks without even looking and smiled at me. I thought my heart was going to explode with fear, relief, and—more than anything—joy.
Even wounded, Kash expertly drove Gren’don backward, sending him stumbling toward the stacks of fuel cells along the rear wall. Kash’s blade flashed so quickly it was hard to track. Gren’don’s expression grew increasingly afraid as he struggled to keep Kash’s sword at bay. I felt a flash of pity for him, then remembered how he’d tried to kill my mate by shooting him in the back, and all pity instantly evaporated.
Kash drove him farther backward. When Gren’don realized he was losing position and tried to change direction so he could move within reach of me, Kash launched a furious attack that left the Jardan first mate bleeding from two wounds, one on his left arm and the other on his right thigh. Then Kash stepped between me and Gren’don like a wall of muscle and steel.
“Sylvis, are you hurt?” Kash called, blocking two desperate strikes from Gren’don.
“No, I’m not hurt!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet. “Why don’t you blast him with the pistol?”
Kash had his blaster in a holster at his side. Instead of shooting the traitor who had kidnapped me and tried to kill him, he was playing around with his sword. We could already be done with this and kissing each other.
“What fun would that be?” Kash replied, gracefully countering another of Gren’don’s strikes and then driving him backward again with a series of snake-quick blows.
As much as I wanted to throw myself into his arms and kiss him, I also had the urge to smack him about the head for not simply blasting Gren’don when he had the chance. Males and their insane egos. Sometimes they made me want to bang my head against the hull.
I was considering grabbing Kash’s blaster myself and ending this, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to get close to those rapidly swinging swords. I stayed a safe distance away, my heart in my throat as I watched the deadly scene.
Kash was grinning as if enjoying this immensely. His wounds didn’t seem to slow him at all—or if they did, he was still incredibly fast and skilled.
“Afraid, Gren’don?” he asked, parrying one slash, dodging another, and opening a cut on Gren’don’s chest. Not enough to kill him, but the first mate was bleeding from several wounds now. Kash wasn’t even breathing hard. “Good. That’s how I felt when I learned you’d taken my mate. Terrified for her safety. And very, very angry.”
Gren’don only grunted. He was pressed up against the far wall of the supply room, trapped with nowhere else to go.
Kash hammered away Gren’don’s sword. The blow sent the other pirate staggering.
“I might have shown you mercy,” Kash snarled, “if you’d kept this between us. But you went after my mate. And that I can never forgive.”
Gren’don’s rough-featured face twisted with rage. He launched himself at Kash with a powerful swing of his blade. But Kash only blocked the heavy blow, then he brought his sword around so fast I barely saw it and he ran Gren’don through.
Kash stepped back, pulling his blade free. Gren’don fell to the floor, his eyes sightless and staring. Kash turned away from him as if he’d already dismissed the traitor and his betrayal from his mind.
My mate sheathed his sword as he came toward me, the love and care in his eyes making me warm all the way through. He pulled me into a fierce embrace that left no doubt in my mind how much I meant to him. A moment later, he claimed my lips in a kiss that had my head spinning.
Finally he drew away, looking me over again as if searching for any wounds or bruises.
“I’m fine,” I said, amused and touched by his concern.
“I’ll be the judge of that, tersa tuval.” He brushed a loose strand of my hair away from my face. “Did he hurt you?”
“He pushed me around a little.” I shook my head. “You’re the one who’s hurt. We need to get you medical attention.”
He grunted. “These wounds are nothing. I doubt they’ll even give me good scars. That traitor played a cowardly trick on me. But no respectable Jardan is going to be taken down by a craven little robot trap.” He frowned, seeming offended by the very thought.
I kissed him again, trying to distract him back to what really mattered: kissing me. I reveled in the feel of his strong arms around me. They made me feel safe, made me feel loved. After he drew back a little, I opened my eyes again, gazing into his strong, rugged features—
“What happened to your ear?” I gasped, horrified to see the bottom part of his left ear was simply missing.
He cocked his head toward me and scowled. “I’m sorry, what? I can’t hear you. I’m missing part of my ear.”
“You… you incredible bastard! This isn’t funny! Your head is now uneven!”
He laughed. “Well, at least I got one good scar out of the day.” His smile faded, replaced by a look of such intensity that it made my heart leap into my throat. “I love you, tersa tuval. When you were in danger, I realized I hadn’t shared that with you. I hadn’t admitted my true feelings. And that is unacceptable. Whatever else may come our way, I want you to know how much I love you. To believe that I will love you until the end of days.”
My ears teared up and my voice was unsteady. “I know.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I love you too, Kash Dra’sten. My pirate hero. My true mate.”
He lifted me in his arms, carrying me effortlessly out of the storage room where he’d freed me. The engine room was now filled with heavily armed pirates and with the engineers who’d been repairing the systems. My heart lurched in sudden fear, not knowing if any of them intended anything bad toward my mate. Those fears were soon wiped away when the entire pirate crew saw us together, me held protectively in Kash’s arms, and they sent up a resounding cheer.
Kash leaned down and kissed me again. “Looks like you’re an official pirate,” he said, grinning as the look in his eyes showed me his pride and his joy.
I smiled at him. “Now maybe you can take me shopping somewhere I can get more than one set of clothes.”
“An
ything at all for you, Your Beautiful Highness.”
“‘Your Beautiful Highness?’ I suppose I might answer to that. But only from you.”
He bowed. “I am but your humble servant.”
“When were you ever humble, pirate?” I demanded with a laugh.
He flashed that charming grin at me. “It’s hard to be humble when I have a mate like you.”
He kissed me one more time.
And everything was perfect.
EPILOGUE
Sylvis Trasker Dra’sten
I watched the disabled transport vessel belonging to my father’s shipping company with nervous butterflies in my stomach. My mate was on that ship. Even though I was in continual contact with him, I still worried every time the stubborn fool that I loved insisted on leading the raiding parties. He especially loved stealing from my father. These days, that’s all we did, flying deep into the galactic core, avoiding the frenzy of galactic police patrols, and preying on my father’s cargo ships. It was the only way a former good girl like me felt comfortable being a pirate—stealing from the same father who’d humiliated and disowned me when he couldn’t sell me to the highest bidder.
I preferred to think of it as earning my inheritance back through space swashbuckling.
But once we had enough to retire, maybe even on this haul, then we were both done with the pirate’s life. We even had a new home world picked out. Oceatalla. It was an outer rim ocean world where the house-ships could float on the water or hover in the air at the press of a button. A place where the system’s binary suns made stunning sunrises and sunsets every single day. We’d have a deck. I would sit on the deck with my mate, naked in the sun, drinking something alcoholic and doing nothing but being next to him for hours on end.
Sounded like a bit of heaven to me.
“You there, tersa tuval?” Kash’s voice came over the terminal link in my ear.
“Right here. Everything okay?”
“No problems. They were loaded up with zerophyte ore and crisyncore reactor fuel for the military. Pack your bags, my love. This is the last big haul we needed.”
I had to remain professional. I couldn’t squeal with joy over our communications link, no matter how badly I wanted to jump up on the captain’s chair of the Defiance Blade and do a wild dance of happiness.
“Good to hear,” I replied, surprising myself with how calm I sounded. I scanned the sensor readouts while trying not to grit my teeth as my nervousness returned, pushing my joy aside. I was counting down the seconds until we could race out of here once and for all. “What’s your ETA?”
“On board in less than five minutes,” Kash said. Then he roughened his already deep voice. “And I can’t wait to get my hands on you, princess.”
I didn’t know if he’d forgotten this wasn’t a private channel or if he simply didn’t give a damn. Knowing Kash, it was probably the second option. I felt my cheeks heat as the crew laughed, elbowed each other, and grinned like idiots. Males. It didn’t matter what species they were, they were all the same. But that didn’t mean I didn’t love my male to death.
I stared at the viewscreen, watching his shuttle making its way from the transport ship back to the Defiance Blade. “How do the long-range sensors look?” I demanded of one of the crew working the sensor arrays.
“Clear. Looks like we surprised them this time.”
I nodded. The previous ship of my father’s that we’d raided had managed to contact the GP before we jammed their communications. We barely escaped with our haul. But we had escaped, and that was all that mattered.
Still, I was eager to retire and start a new phase of my life with my mate. My old life was utterly gone. My father had kept his word and turned me in to the Xexe Moray Corp and the Galactic Police, claiming I had become a brigand and that I’d betrayed my position as captain to hand over the ship to Jardan pirates. I’d seen my arrest warrant. It was actually a good picture of me. I was wearing my captain’s uniform and I was smiling. Looking happy. But when that photo had been taken, I had nothing close to the level of happiness I had now with Kash Dra’sten. And although I had lost much, the only things I truly missed were my friends, Bestri most of all. I’d actually caught a vidcast of Bestri on the news, telling reporters they were crazy, that I hadn’t betrayed my ship, that I was a good person and a fine captain. I’d ended up crying after watching her. Kash held me until I’d quieted. Then he’d promised to take me to see my friend—and his mother—once we slipped into our false identities and began our new, respectable life. Our life focused on the two of us.
The shuttle finally docked in the Defiance Blade’s loading bay. Kash’s voice came loud and clear over the comm system. “We’re on board. Get us out of here.”
I quickly gave orders to fire maneuvering thrusters and then light up the main engines, sending us racing away. A moment later, we engaged the FTL drives and streaked out of the system for the last time.
“Sav’kon, you have the bridge,” I said as I rushed out of the room and ran for the landing bay. I couldn’t wait another second to see him.
My heart nearly stopped in my chest when I burst into the loading bay and spotted him. He was striding down the shuttle ramp in his synth-leather coat with his chest bare beneath it and his sword at his side. He grinned and headed straight for me, his bright blue eyes lit up with love and desire, enough to make my chest ache with return love for him and pure wonder that I’d managed to find him. In all this wide universe, I’d found my soul mate among the stars.
The rest of the boarding party was coming down the ramp behind him, but I only had eyes for Kash. My heart felt lighter than air. I didn’t give a damn; I sprinted across the landing bay deck and hurled myself into his arms.
He caught me as if I weighed nothing, twirling me around. Then he kissed me. One of those toe-curling, soul-touching kisses that had the crew cheering wildly.
“I think it’s time, my tersa tuval,” he told me after ending the kiss, looking deep into my eyes. “We have more than enough to start our new lives together.”
“I suppose my father has paid enough dowry,” I replied, but in truth, I was glad it was over. I’d never fully enjoyed the life of crime and piracy, even if our targets had always been my father’s shipping empire. That my mate had chosen to give this life up, all for me…well, that meant more to me than I could say. “So…what’s next, pirate?”
“Hmm,” he said, pretending to consider it carefully. “We’ll use the new identities we’ve bought and purchase our house on the pristine waters of Oceatalla. Then I’ll spend my time fishing and making love to you. What’s next for you, princess?”
“Making sure we have a huge shower or bathing tub in our Oceatalla house so you don’t smell like fish. And maybe we’ll buy a small, two-person starship and cruise the systems whenever we get bored with sitting naked in the sun.”
“Good plan. We’ll eat fancy, exotic dishes and visit mysterious places.”
“And we won’t even steal anything from those mysterious places.”
“I don’t know about that…”
I mock-glared at him. He laughed and picked me up again, embracing me tightly, his eyes telling me I was the only important thing in the universe to him. “I love you, my little human.”
“I love you, my big pirate captain.”
We would make a home together. When we were ready, we would travel the stars, chasing all the mysteries and wonders of the galaxy. We would go wherever the urge took us.
But we would always go together.
~ * ~
Quick Note from the Author
I hope you enjoyed the third book in the Galactic Alien Mates series! If you enjoyed Dra’sten and Sylvis’s story, I hope you’ll consider leaving a review to help other readers discover it. As a new author, I really appreciate you and want to thank you for reading!
~ About the Author ~
Aria Bell loves to write and read SF Romance. Her stories have larger-than-life males indulging in l
arger-than-life sex with feisty human women. She lives in the Midwest with her family, which includes a dog and a cat. Her Galactic Alien Mates series has three books so far. Mated to the Jardan Warrior, Mated to the Warrior Prince, and Mated to the Jardan Pirate. All are standalone stories with happily ever afters.
~ Also by Aria Bell ~
Mated to the Jardan Warrior
Galactic Alien Mates Book One
Aria Bell
