“How long until we get to your planet?”
“It’s only a short time. We were further away from...” A line appeared between his brows. “From your Earth than my planet.”
“And it’s too far to take me home.” It wasn’t really a question, but he answered it anyway.
“No. Not enough...”
“Resources. I know. You said that.” She turned back to the window. “You made that part perfectly clear.”
“And I do not want to take you back to your Earth.”
She heard the smile in his voice and turned to look at him. He was grinning at her, a grin that irritated her. Then he tapped his temple with one long finger.
“The want I have will not change. I came on this trip to find a mate. And I found you. And I want you.”
Anger flared up and she pounded her fist against the bench. It hurt, but she didn’t care. “It’s all about what you want, isn’t it? Nothing about me, what I want? That I didn’t want to be taken away from my home...my Earth. That I don’t want to be your mate. That I don’t want any of this.” Her voice had gone high and shrill. There were no tears now, she was done crying. Taso was looking at her, something like shock on his face, but he was still smiling slightly, with that infuriating grin. It was too much; she lunged up from the bench, left arm raised, covering the space between them in a heartbeat.
She hit him before he could react, catching him in the jaw. His head snapped back, hitting the wall behind him. Clearly startled, he only stared up at her. Before he could recover, she swung at him again, coming around with her right, but he reached up, almost nonchalantly, catching her fist with his hand. The sudden impact shook her; it felt like she’d slammed her whole body into a brick wall.
“Please...don’t do this.” His voice was remarkably calm for a man she’d just hit in the jaw. “Just...listen.”
“I don’t want to listen. I want to go home.” She tried to twist out of his grip, but his fingers were like iron bands around her fist. He pulled her toward him, jerking her off balance, and she fell against him. Before she could get away, he wrapped his arms around her.
“Listen and be still.”
She wanted to do neither, but he held her so tight that her ribs screamed in protest. It hurt to breathe. Gradually she relaxed, at least until his arms loosened enough so she could draw a breath without pain. He slipped an arm up, pushing her head down onto his shoulder with his hand. It might have looked romantic to anyone else, but she knew dammed well he simply wanted her under his control. And given how she felt at the moment, hitting him again wasn’t out of the question.
“I can understand that this is hard for you.”
She bit back the snappy retort that came to mind. It wouldn’t matter anyway. He was going to say what he needed to, regardless of what she said.
“I am sorry.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Those three words...three words she didn’t think was possible for Taso to say. She lifted her head, frowning up at him.
“You’ve never said that to me. Not once.”
“I was not sorry until now. To see you...” His shoulder moved beneath her; she took that as a shrug. After a minute, he went on.
“You hit me, out of anger. To see you hate me like this hurts...here.” He tapped his chest with his fist. “I have never felt hurt here before. I wish it to stop.”
Struggling in his arms, she managed to sit up enough to see his face. “You don’t make any sense to me, not at all. You can’t expect me to be happy about this, about being taken from my home. You can’t expect me to like you. I can’t comfort you because you’re upset over this. I hurt too, you know.”
He reached up, and she flinched, but he set his hand on her head, stroking her hair. It was an awkward gesture, yet strangely touching.
“I never thought about how this would be for you, or any woman I chose. I only thought about how it would be when we were home, my home. When I had someone to stand beside me, to fight with me. To come back to at night, in my bed. When I had someone to love again.”
She took half a breath, what she wanted to say eclipsed by his words, or a single word. “Again?”
“I do not love easily. It does not come to me naturally. We mate...have mates...for life. Or as long as life is for any of us. I have had more than one mate, but only one love.”
His voice had gotten softer, the last word—love—almost a whisper. For a minute, she thought that was it, that he wasn’t going to say anymore. But then he took a breath.
“Kiersta.”
“What?”
“Her name...her name was Kiersta. She was from my Clan, a fighter. Like you. She was killed in this endless war that rages around us.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
There was that shrug again, a hitch of his shoulder that rocked her head. “I loved her more than life itself.”
It was that simple; he loved her and she was dead. “But I’m not her. I can’t be her, you know that.”
“No. I know. I don’t expect you to be her. I thought...the reason I came on this mission was to look for my mate… I couldn’t trust that they would bring back the kind of woman I needed. I needed to find her – to find you- myself.” He made a sound that could have been a laugh. “You are everything I have ever wanted...” He lifted one hand, traced a voluptuous, curvy line in the air. The other hand still held her tightly.
“You are soft yet hard...soft of body, yet strong willed, strong in spirit.”
“These women your mercenaries’ bring back…how do they integrate with your Clan?”
“We give them everything they could ever want.”
“Giving them what you think they want won’t keep them from missing home, you know. You can’t yank a girl out of New York, away from her family, someone she loves, and think she’s going to be happy on your planet, even if you give her everything. Your everything might be her nothing.”
She could almost hear the frown creasing his brow. As scared and angry as she was, it was hard not to smile a little at his confusion. It seemed men, no matter what planet they came from, thought that all women wanted were things to make them happy.
“But you are different, Max. There is more to you than just...” His hand lifted and began tracing the outline of wide hips, waist and thighs, slowly in the air. “…a beautiful body. You are a warrior. You fight. You must. I can tell.” He squeezed her upper arm. “You are strong. If you’re not a warrior, then tell me how you are like this.”
Something uneasy rose up inside her. The why of her life wasn’t any of this man’s business. Still, she could feel the hurt in him, the loss of his love. Maybe it wasn’t so different, what she wanted out of life. To love someone, to be loved, but it still wasn’t any of his concern.
“On Earth we fight for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it’s for protection, if someone attacks us. Sometimes it’s for money. They’re called professionals, people who fight for a living.”
“Then you are a professional?” There was that same slow pronunciation. “You fight as your job.”
She shook her head, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. He smelled...interesting. Under the sand and dust and blood, she inhaled what must be him, Taso’s own scent. It was masculine, no doubt, strong and rich—and slightly off-putting. She wondered what she smelled like, after a shift delivering packages in the sweltering canyons of New York, then running around after an alien in the sand. Probably pretty disgusting.
“No. Not for my job. I deliver packages on a bicycle.” The absurdity of that statement, and the thought of trying to explain it, made her laugh. “I fight because I like to. I like how it makes me feel, how my body feels when I train.”
“But do you fight opponents? You must. You fought that alien...”
“I fought that alien because he was pegging rocks at us with a slingshot because he wanted us dead. I fought because my life and yours was on the line.”
“My life...and yours.” Taso’s voice held a
smile. “You fought for me.”
“Well...yes. I mean, if you died, I’d have been stuck on that planet. Your little chip thing might have stopped working...”
There was a beat of silence. Taso’s voice was low when he spoke, his words slow. “You didn’t know about the chip until after the alien was dead.”
“I... well, I guess...” She was confused, the events already a blur. It had been the reason she’d come up with a plan, had gone out there, risked her life. Risked her life to save her life. Wasn’t that how it had been? Without him, she would have been marooned. She was only looking out for her own life. Nothing more, right?
“I don’t know.” It was the best that she could do.
Taso sighed, a contented sound that irritated her. Like he knew her better than she knew herself.
“Don’t think I fought for you because I have any feelings for you. I was scared, I wanted to live. I needed you...”
“Needed me.” The contented sound played out in his voice. “You needed me. And I needed you.”
“You really are impossible; you know? You twist my words around...make it sound like I’m saying things I didn’t say. I needed you to fight the aliens...or alien. I couldn’t have killed it on my own.”
He ignored most of what she’d said, circling back to that one point.
“But you do want what I want. To need, be needed.” He hesitated. “To love someone. To have someone love you. And you fight to get what you want. Just like me.”
She tensed against his arms, then realized those arms had slackened quite a bit and if she’d wanted to, she could have stood up, moved away from him. Could have, but didn’t want to, and she couldn’t really say why. He’d said what she’d been thinking, and it bothered her that he’d echoed her thoughts. It bothered her because he was right. He’d hit a nerve or something, jarred something loose in her mind. To be loved...
“I hate this; the way you do this.”
“I have done nothing but talk. Do you hate my words too?”
She sighed. “I don’t hate your words, or you. I don’t know how I feel.”
“You felt something...in the wreckage of the ship. When we came together.” There was more than a smile in his voice; there was the sound of a very confident man.
“That was...” She clenched her fist against his chest. “Damn it. That wasn’t love or anything close to it. That was...”
“Passion born from the heat of battle.”
“Yes. Fine. Passion...whatever. But I didn’t feel anything...else.” That was a lie; she’d felt more with Taso than she thought possible. But, to tell him that? No way. His ego was big enough already.
“It was just physical, that’s all. Leftover adrenaline from fighting.” That was as close to telling him anything as she was going to get. “I don’t love you.”
“I would think not, after only a few days, but I believe it will happen.”
“How are you so damn sure of yourself?”
“Because in all of your words of protest you’ve never said there was someone you left behind, someone that you loved.” He touched her hair again, less diffidently, with more confidence. “Is there someone you love? That loves you? Someone that I would return you to, if I took you back?”
“That’s none of your business.” Her voice had taken on an edge she didn’t like. “It’s private.”
Abruptly, he pushed her off his lap, slamming her down on the bench next to him. His hands were on her shoulders; his face close to hers. The suddenness caught her off guard and she was too stunned to move.
“There is no one left behind. You fight with men who want to ask you out. You want to be tough, but underneath all of your toughness, you want one of them to love you.”
He was smiling and that made her blood rise up, hot and wild. She reached up then, blindly, trying to push him away or hit him, but mostly to wipe that smug look from his face.
“You don’t know anything about me or what I left behind...not a damned thing.”
She was breathing hard, and so was he. But he was also laughing, and that made her mad. Swinging wildly, she slapped his face, her hand cracking against his cheek. He grunted, but the smile stayed on his face.
“You don’t know anything...anything at all.” She was damned if she was going to cry in front of him again. She pounded her fist against his chest, tried to hit him again. But he reached up, and grabbed her wrists, easily restraining her. It infuriated her, and she struggled against his grip until her strength gave out. Tugging weakly in his grip, she stared up at him. He didn’t let go, seemed to be waiting for her to come to some decision.
“Fine. You want me to admit there was no one? There was no one.” Admitting that seemed harder than anything she’d done so far on this bizarre trip. “There was no one. Ever.” The fight went out of her, at least the fight against Taso’s words.
He let go of her, and she fell back against the wall. He was still smiling at her, but it wasn’t the cocky, know-it-all smile he’d been wearing, but something that seemed almost gentle. It changed the sharp contours of his face, softening them. It was an unexpected change, and it caught her off guard.
Taso sat back on the bench, looking across the small space. The only thing behind him was the window, with all that empty, black space outside. He was quiet for a long time, sitting with his hands on his knees. She wondered if that was the real fight between them, him prying this confession out of her. Considering himself the winner, he’d shut her out. She was on the verge of getting up, walking away from him—as far as she could—working the kinks out of her limbs when he reached out, taking her hand.
“I have no one either. There...” He pointed at the little window. “In all of that blackness, among all of those planets and stars, we are alone. You and me. But...”
He turned to her so suddenly she shrank back, expecting another friendly slap on the cheek or amicable punch in the solar plexus, but he only held her hand, looking at her with bright eyes.
“We could have each other, Max. If you could see my world through my eyes, you’d understand. You would be a part of that world, help me fight for something worth fighting for. Be something more than you were on Earth. Could you think about that?”
She stared at him. “I was something on Earth.” Of course she was. She’d been...someone. She’d been loved by...Gus? Her father, surely. But he’d been dead for almost five years.
“I was someone...” Some of the resolution had gone out of her voice.
“Who?” Taso’s voice had gone quiet, so soft she thought she imagined the word. “Who were you, that you’d be missed? Who is left that loves you for who you are?”
Hearing it said like that made her feel small and alone. Something small, but vital broke inside her, like a tiny mirror shattering. Barely heard, but it changed how she saw herself.
“My parents are dead. Killed when I was a junior in college. They loved me.” She found herself sniffling, a tear running down her cheek. Swiping at it angrily as the memories crowded in. This wasn’t fair; she didn’t know how to fight against this kind of attack. There was nothing to hit. She felt confused, unmoored. It was impossible to look at Taso, so she looked at his hand over hers.
“My father loved me, always. From the start.” Thinking of him, how the cowlick of black hair always fell in his eyes as he clapped wildly for her at one of her competitions. Always alone; her mother never came along.
“It was his idea that I start training in martial arts.” She could almost see the quirk in Taso’s eyebrow. “Lessons in how to fight in different ways. Anyway...the lessons were his idea. It was my mother’s idea that I do something because I was...” The word came to her, but she’d never said it out loud before. But now, it hardly mattered.
“My mother thought I was fat. She wanted a pretty daughter, a thin daughter she could take shopping, buy matching clothes for. But that’s not the daughter she got.”
She looked like her father, from the unruly black hair to the thick,
muscular legs, that had the tendency to carry a few more pounds for their height.
“So they made me take these classes...” There had been karate, taekwondo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And somewhere along the way, a boxing class. That had solidified everything for her, gave her fulfillment like none of the other disciplines had. And it had horrified her mother.
“And I loved them. That’s where I learned how to fight. And that’s where I discovered that guys don’t always like girls who fight.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You know; they don’t want to ask me out. They just want to beat me up.”
While she’d been talking, Taso had wound his fingers through hers, tightening them as she’d finished. He was quiet for a moment.
“Your father was a wise man. Your mother...” He shrugged. “Perhaps foolish to not see the value in you. And the boys…they were probably just afraid of you.”
“She was who she was.” It was hard to hold bad feelings toward the woman, now that she was gone. She had loved Veronica, in her own way.
“But they are gone.” Her voice was quiet.
“Yes, they were killed in a car accident when I was in college. I ended up dropping out, and getting a job.”
She’d been dependent on them for support, and when they died, she’d been set adrift in every way possible. She’d gotten a job, or the beginning of a series of jobs. Nothing seemed to fit...or more accurately, she’d never fit in at any job she’d had. Men had given her a glance, maybe a second, and then seemed confused about her. Girls had tried to include her in lunches and coffee breaks, but she had no idea about hair styles or shopping or who’d said what to someone on Twitter or Facebook. It all seemed so confusing. And no one had the faintest clue about martial arts or boxing.
The guys she’d tried to talk to went past confusion into posturing, trying to out her as a poseur. Then they’d gone back to confusion when she’d proved she knew what she was talking about. The bike messenger job had come about purely by accident; someone delivering a package had mentioned he was quitting, and how much he would miss the job. The independence, the speed and thrill of riding through traffic. She’d gotten the number of the company and gotten the job the next day. And she’d never looked back.
Dark Side Of The Moon (BBW Paranormal Were-Bear Shifter Sci-Fi Romance) Page 8
