He coughed and put an arm half around her and absently patted her back, gaining his voice. He looked around. “Where am I?”
“You are on my ship,” Kayzon answered.
Kia frowned and looked up. Her new husband was standing close, his stance wide, arms crossed over his chest. Shit, he was imposing.
Her dad immediately tensed and sucked in a breath. He grabbed her arm and stood them both up with surprising strength and agility for a man who’d woken up moments before from lockdown stasis. He stood strong before Kayzon and pushed her behind him. “Why am I here?” he demanded. “And why is my daughter here, too?”
Kayzon lifted his chin. “Your daughter is my Bride.”
“What?”
She peeked out from behind her dad’s back. “Crap. You didn’t need to lead with that, you know. We could’ve eased him into it.”
Kayzon’s ridges rose up. He shrugged. “I do not lie.”
“Obviously.”
“What is going on here?” Dago asked, his voice loud.
“We’ll explain everything to you in just a second. But first, are you okay?” she asked him.
“I’m fine.” He blinked and continued to stare at Kayzon with grim distrust. “Just…confused.”
She stood in between the two physically imposing men. Dad was much taller than her. Well, everyone was taller than her. Her whole life she’d been this petite person everyone dismissed as not pretty enough, not strong enough, not…just not special or worthy of even a second glance. And because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself or her powers, she’d cultivated that perception, keeping people at a distance. She was so tired of living like that. On the verge of invisible. So very tired. She looked over at her new husband who she was pissed off at and realized her anger at him was already fading. He’d never dismissed her or thought she was weak. He knew about her powers and liked her more, didn’t think she was odd or a freak. He’d already tried to train her to use them better. She felt she could be herself around him. Like this was home.
“I am Kayzon of Twenty-Six, a Bounty Hunter,” her husband announced. “Your case was assigned code THX690. I accepted the assignment to retrieve you.”
She looked at her dad, who was staring intently at Kayzon. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How could someone put a Bounty on your head? It’s hard to get ahold of the Bounty Hunter Guild when you live on New Earth. I should know because I tried. And anyway, there’s a zillion ways to have you secretly killed what with all the bloodshed going on, no one would need to go through the bother of hiring an outsider like a Bounty Hunter to kill you for them.”
Dago Cho stood up to his full height then, as if he were finally shrugging off the effects of the stasis unit. His eyes narrowed on Kayzon. “You are the Bounty Hunter who captured me even though I have broken no laws, and now you are claiming my daughter as your Bride?”
Oh shit, this was getting tense.
But right when she was worried she’d have a fight on her hands, Kayzon did something Kia never saw coming in a million years. Something amazing. He took a deep breath, lowered to one knee before her father and bent his head.
“I rescued your daughter from a Hurlian snatching and inadvertently touched her bare skin,” he intoned. “We tested mating compatibility and I discovered she was my Bride. I claimed her immediately.” He lifted his head and stared directly into her father’s hard gaze. “But I am a banished warrior who has been removed from the mating database. I have placed our mating in review as is required by law. Your daughter has twelve hours until judgment when she can decide to commit to this mating or to terminate.” He clenched a fist and beat it against his own chest. “I place your honor…her honor…before mine.”
Her jaw dropped. She had no idea what this honor stuff meant, but it seemed to be doing the trick with Dad because he uncrossed his arms and his face softened. He closed a fist and beat it against his own chest in return. “Dago Cho, Priest of the Twelfth Ward and the Thirtieth Line of Multigod of Gravian formally accepts your offer. I hear your truth and I see your honor.”
Wow. Just wow.
Dad looked at her. “He is your mate?”
She answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
Dago nodded. “I will then accept whatever determination my daughter makes. This is entirely up to her.”
She blew out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Kayzon gave a curt nod and stood, visibly moved at her father’s words. “You were difficult to retrieve, a worthy adversary,” he told him.
Dad nodded. Then they were all quiet for a minute. Because, shit, what did you say after that? Basically, she was just standing there in shock. What was that all about? It seemed to be more than simply multigod formality, because Dad used language and terms she’d never heard him use before, in any ritual. And she’d seen him perform hundreds of multigod rituals for the inhabitants of Singapore over the years.
Kayzon was the one who broke the silence. “I must report this abnormality to the Hunter Guild. You are either not THX690 or this mission was a complete fabrication. The Bounty Hunter Guild will want to start an investigation. Illegal Bounties are always fully investigated and punished.”
Dad grunted. “How did this happen? How did you end up apprehending a target who was innocent of any crime?”
“I do not know. The Bounty was vetted and approved by the Guild and sent out for bids. Only the Guild will be able to find the truth.”
“Dad,” Kia interrupted. “You look a little pale. We can keep talking about this, but how about we go somewhere where you can sit down and rest.”
“Let’s go to my quarters and have a meal together,” her husband offered.
She smiled. “That sounds like a terrific plan.”
Kayzon guided his temporary Bride and her father, the Gravian Priest of the thirtieth line, to his own quarters. He shook his head. A priest of the thirtieth line? Within his Bride flowed the blood of the most ancient lines of Gravian. She was only half human. His guilt over the accidental forcing of mating compatibility grew exponentially, along with the fact that he’d extracted the wrong target.
Fuck.
He offered a quick, silent prayer to the gods.
A female of her worth had no business mating with a Banished male. The manager of her line would never have offered to test her with a male of his lowly stature. Kayzon had never met a Gravian until he had fought with Dago Cho. He hadn’t even known the male was Gravian until after he’d arrived on the ship and requested the computer run a physical diagnostic. Gravians were the perfect species to infiltrate New Earth. They looked human, but their biology was different.
“The moment I returned to get all of you off of New Earth this Bounty Hunter was on my ass and he tranqed me,” Dago told Kia as he ate, recounting the story of his extraction.
Kayzon grinned.
The space was so small his Bride sat on the bunk and Dago Cho took a seat at the booth embedded into the wall. Kayzon had busied himself with the controls of the food dispenser while his Bride and her father spoke of their family. He served food to them then sat at the booth with Dago Cho.
Kia talked about her mother and two younger sisters, updating her father on their health and welfare. He watched as she spoke of her family, how her eyes sparkled. How she behaved in the presence of her father. Love showed in her eyes, her words and her every gesture. Jealousy flooded his body and his mind. He wanted that for himself. He wanted her love and her devotion. He wanted to belong to a line again. He wanted it all.
But instead he felt that no matter what, when she found out the true reason for his removal from the dating base, for the way he’d treated a female of royal pigment, she would decide he wasn’t a fit mate or parent. And he could not blame her for that choice. He wasn’t fit.
“…and then Kayzon put enough currency in the account so that they would be fine, and he sent a message to them letting Mom know where I was and that I was well and not to worry
…”
He glanced over at her, mid-bite. He placed his food down and stared at his Bride, his gaze fixed. By the gods, he wanted her now. Wanted to tear off her clothing, spread her legs and place his mouth on her delicious pussy. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his raging hormones in the presence of Dago Cho.
She looked over, met his gaze and stumbled in the midst of her words. Pink flooded her cheeks. She gave him a tremulous smile, regained the thread of her conversation with her father and continued talking.
Kayzon finished his meal, pulled out a tablet and tapped out his newly revised mission log while they spoke. He let the Hunter Guild know of the illegality of the THX690 Bounty. A Bounty placed on the head of a being innocent of any crime was a serious offense that had to be quickly investigated. The honor of the entire Bounty Hunter profession was at risk.
“And Kayzon rescued me from a Hurlian snatching.”
Kayzon looked up again and crooked a ridge. She wanted to discuss this? As she finished detailing the failed snatching, he leaned back, lifted his chin and joined the conversation. “She was working as a guard in the marketplace when I found her,” he told Dago.
“You were doing what?” Dago Cho’s head whipped around to stare at his daughter with fury in his gaze.
She threw her hands up. “Oh, come on, you two, I needed a job. We both know I can’t do much else. I was desperate, okay?”
“Kia, you need to keep the secret, for your own safety.”
“Dad, it’s a little late for that. And…anyway…” She looked down at her fingers twisted together on her lap then back up at her father. “Is it true that you aren’t human?”
Huh. Kayzon was wondering when she’d finally get around to asking about that. He glanced at Dago Cho to see how the male was going to explain this to his daughter.
Dago’s giant shoulders slumped. He took a deep breath. “Yes, Kia, I am not human. I am Gravian.”
“You’re not human,” Kia repeated. “What does that mean, Gravian?”
“We are a species that originates in the second sector on the planet Salo. We pride ourselves on being the spark of the multigod movement throughout the universe. The oldest multigod temples and altars are on Salo. Other species come to Salo for religious pilgrimages. I am the Priest of the thirtieth line.”
Kia’s eyes were wide. “How did you end up on New Earth?”
“I was sent deep undercover to New Earth to offer help to the suffering and to help bring multigod to New Earth. Gravian and humans have similar biology, so it was natural that this planet would be chosen as a mission project. In fact there has always been a Gravian or two undercover on New Earth since its inception. But I never meant to stay. Every Gravian is expected to complete a mission when they turn twenty, offering help in some way on another planet in the four sectors. It was only to be a short mission, with others taking on my role in rotations, but I fell in love with your mother. Gravians mate similar to Xylan. We only have one true mate per life cycle. Unlike Xylan, we can have pleasure mates. But only a true mating will produce offspring. I was not supposed to go so deep undercover that I had a family. That was not necessary, that was my choice. I fell in love with your mother.”
Kia smiled. “You did?”
“Yes, I instantly knew Mariah was my mate. We have both chosen to commit to New Earth and the inhabitants there.”
“This is why I’ve always been so strong?”
“Yes. Gravian are much stronger than the typical human.”
“Why aren’t Harmony and Janet?”
“They are more human than Gravian.”
“When you left, did you go back to Salo?”
Dago turned his head toward Kayzon. “I had to leave my family behind because there was only one transporter on New Earth. The Hurlians had been getting closer and closer to discovering who the Gravian infiltrator was…me. They had recently destroyed my secret bunker where I kept my communication equipment and emergency transporter. I had no way to communicate with the Gravian Command.”
“When I left our house that day, leaving you girls and your mother alone, I met with a smuggler who had a transporter and left the planet in order to meet with the Gravian Counsel and to make plans to extract all of you from this world and return to Salo. My position on New Earth had been blown. My undercover mission was over. But I was delayed because an epidemic of Worlian Coma was sweeping through Salo.”
Kayzon winced. “Three hundred years ago Worlian Coma killed half the population of Chronos.”
Dago nodded. “I am lucky to be alive and clear of the virus. I was finally allowed off planet, but there wasn’t much the Counsel could do to help. They have their hands full with saving Salo.”
“But…Dad,” Kayzon could see that Kia was struggling with the question she wanted to ask. “New Earth is terrible. Let’s be truthful here, it’s terrible. And you said, well, you’re saying you were there to help but I don’t see how you…helped.”
Dago’s nostrils flared. “Kia, how do you think everyone we care about in our family and network of friends has never been snatched by Hurlians?”
Kia opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.
“And how is it that our planet has so many tools and resources, despite the fact that we’re isolated, with no contact with the outside world, and the Hurlians give us almost nothing?”
“The Black Market?” she whispered.
“Who on New Earth would have the currency to pay them?”
She paused. “You?”
“Yes. Me. When I first arrived on New Earth I was appalled at the conditions. Gravians had been helping the humans of New Earth for hundreds of years. But it wasn’t good enough. I was the first to fall in love with a human, the first to stay when my allotted time ended. I was the first to marry into the humans and bear children. I stayed on New Earth and started the first bank. But mainly all I’ve done is hand out micro loans to individuals to help them start small businesses. Gravians have been investing in New Earth for the last twenty years.”
Kia sucked in a breath. “I just can’t…this is hard for me. You aren’t human, you never were and you never told me? Never told me that I’m not actually human either?”
“What if something went wrong and you were snatched by the Hurlians? What if you were arrested by unigods? What if you were tortured for information?”
“I would never break,” she hissed.
“The Hurlians can make you talk, even if you don’t want to.”
“This is true,” Kayzon broke in. “The strongest warrior cannot withstand Hurlian interrogation,” he told her. “They have technology that scrapes information from your mind. I agree with this logic. It would have been necessary to keep this from you, for your own safety and for the safety of your family.”
Kia exhaled. “I can’t believe you’re agreeing with him,” she muttered.
Kayzon shrugged. “He’s Gravian.”
“So?”
Kayzon met Dago’s steady gaze.
“Tell her,” he said.
Kayzon nodded. “Gravians are known throughout the universe for their altruism. They are mainly warrior priests. Because he is Gravian and a Priest of an ancient line, I know your father is guided by the multigod principles and leads an ethical, honorable life. Everything he says I accept as truth.”
“Thank you,” her father answered.
Kayzon lifted his chin.
An alarm sounded throughout the ship. “Monitoring update,” the computer announced.
“Monitoring?” Kia asked. “Monitoring what?”
“I have drones recording your family’s residence. I had the computer monitor your family on New Earth while we orbited the planet. It was to let me know if anything unusual was happening.”
“You did?” she asked with a watery smile.
“What happened?” Dago barked.
“Computer, update from this position.”
“Confirmed.”
A vid screen popped up, showing a Hurlia
n hovercraft orbiting New Earth. Fucking Hurlians. He knew it. That’s why he’d told the computer to monitor her family. He suspected they were being targeted. “Hurlian ships approaching New Earth. Destination, Singapore.”
Dago cursed.
“When is their estimated time of arrival?” Kayzon asked.
“The ship will reach New Earth in approximately two quarter rotations, or forty-five minutes New Earth standard time.”
10
The three of them suited up.
Kayzon outfitted her and her father in shiny black Bounty Hunter suits he’d ordered the computer to design and manufacture in the cargo bay, minus the Bounty Hunter insignia. The suiting-up process was solemn and exciting at the same time. Pieces of armor clicked easily into place on her chest, arms and legs. It was light and comfortable, much lighter than she’d expected.
“I am woman, hear me roar,” Kia yelled out with a raised fist.
Dad chuckled from across the cargo bay as he stepped into his own suit.
She stood tall, looking down at herself, delighting in the fit of the black armor. For once in her life she felt like a real soldier, a goal she’d always had, but on New Earth women weren’t allowed to join the militia or the peacekeepers.
Fuck them all. They weren’t stopping her anymore.
Her husband’s large form loomed next to her. She leaned into him. “How do I look?” she whispered.
His hot gaze traveled up and down her body possessively. She shivered inside the metal exoskeleton. He handed her the blade he’d picked earlier for her personal use from his Cabul. She slipped it into the front sheath at her chest.
“You look powerful,” he answered hoarsely.
She snorted. “Stop treating me like every moment is our last together.”
He grew quiet again, that handsomely marred face and glowing eye staring straight into her soul, dark and silent.
She threw him a sexy smirk and willed the helmet to close and the gloves to cover her hands.
The ramp opened and the three of them stepped out of the ship. It was the middle of the night in Singapore. The moon cast a green glow over the craggy landscape. She inhaled, loving the familiar scent of jasmic in the breeze.
The Alien Bounty Hunters Complete Series: Books 1-8 Page 33
