Her Fearless Warrior: A SciFi Alien Romance (Lunarian Warriors Book 6)

by Roxie Ray

  “And they’re all willing?” I didn’t expect Greenwood to tell us anything that he wasn’t supposed to, but I figured it was worth gauging his reaction.

  I figured right.

  “They’re… well, yes, of course they are. As we agreed. Naturally.” Greenwood looked a little tense at my question, which only deepened my suspicions that this whole thing wasn’t quite as above-board as the humans wanted us to believe. “Here. See for yourselves.”

  Jaix and Kien parted, waving the females forward. The tiny one that Greenwood had mentioned was even smaller than I’d imagined. She was pale and looked almost sickly. I didn’t recognize her from the holo-image that had accompanied the dispatch we’d received before arriving, but I supposed if she was ill, the humans might have doctored the image before sending it along.

  She didn’t look willing, either.

  If I was being honest with myself, she looked terrified.

  The second female wasn’t quite so timid, though. Her hair was a dull color of brown, but her eyes were blue and bright.

  “I’m Ora,” she said, stepping forward. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “It is—ah—likewise, Ora. I am Pax of House Lament.” Pax swallowed hard as he stepped forward as well. He took Ora’s tiny hand in his own then, with a hesitant glance, lowered his lips to her knuckles and kissed them. “It is a pleasure to be your, er…your protector on this endeavor.”

  Ronan and I shared a look. If Pax had been blushing before, his skin was on fire now. The skin on the back of his neck was so flushed, it was almost pink.

  Rascal. His first time in front of a human female, and already he was falling over himself trying to make a good impression. I didn’t want to be the one to remind him that these females were doomed to become breeders for Lunaria’s high lords, but then again…

  My heart leapt up in my chest as I finally looked to the third female—the one who’d been sneaking into my dreams every night since I first saw her face.

  I probably needed a little reminding of that myself.

  “I’m Eve,” she said. Her voice was rich and smooth, like the cream from a bucket of warm milk fresh from the udders of a steppe-beast.

  Eve.

  So, she finally had a name.

  “Gallix,” I blurted out. My legs carried me forward faster than the rest of me was ready for. I stumbled toward her clumsily and gave her an awkward grin. “I’ve got no lordly house to boast of, but like Pax said, happy to be of…erm, yeah… service.”

  Eve blinked up at me—all long, fiery lashes and lovely eyes—then laughed.

  “Thank you for your service, Gallix.” She smiled gently up at me and just like that, my heart melted into a puddle that pooled and rippled with warmth through my chest. “We’re happy to, um…to serve as well.”

  To serve. Moons have mercy—I was hard in an instant. Hard enough that I had to clench my jaw and flex my thighs to try to keep my cock from breaking through my trousers.

  I knew damned well what kind of service she was talking about. Eve and the other two would be the salvation of Lunaria if all went well—or at least, the beginning of it. Lunarian females only went into heat twice in their lives. Many didn’t survive childbirth, and most cubs born to my people were born male. As far as we knew, the only other species in all the galaxies that could breed with Lunarians were humans like Eve.

  Her service would be to accept artificial insemination by Lunarian healers with the seed of one of our high lords. To carry his cub, birth it, then provide other lords with two more before her contract was up.

  But as I stared down at her, chest burning, cock stiff…

  That sure as hell wasn’t the kind of service I was imagining.

  Nah. I was a baz-terd for it, in her tongue, but I was imagining Eve on her knees before me, begging me for my seed instead.

  Like he could sense the impurity of my thoughts, Greenwood cleared his throat and stepped between us. He placed a hand on Eve’s shoulder, guiding her away from me.

  “As you can see, they’ve been briefed on what’s being asked of them. They’re up for the task.” Greenwood leveled his gaze up at me. “Happy?”

  Not particularly, I wanted to say. But that was just me thinking with my cock. Instead, I held up my hands in surrender and stepped back as well.

  “In that case, we should disembark.” Ronan, always the most level-headed soldier on any squad I’d ever served on, raised his palm to Greenwood in parting. “We thank you for your efforts, Commander, and wish you a safe journey home.”

  “Home. Ha. Not quite yet.” Greenwood moved to Jaix and slung an arm around the taller specter’s shoulder. “These two will be teaching my men and me a thing or two about these ships you’ve gifted us before we head back to Earth. I’m no politician, mind, but if you ask me, you purple-eyed baz-terds are getting the short end of the stick here. Three women for a whole fleet! Next time, you ought to—huh.” Greenwood glanced down at the communicator on his belt, which had just lit up red. He raised it to his eyes, shrugged, then moved to the smallest female and took her by the arm. “Seems there’s been some kind of mix-up. Just a moment.”

  “Lily?” Eve turned to the tiny female in horror as Greenwood pulled her away. “No—Lily was chosen, Commander. Just like Ora and me. You can’t—”

  “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.” Greenwood pushed Lily back and glared down at Eve as two black-clad human males came down the bridge toward us. Suddenly, I found myself hating him even more. “Looks like she’s not suitable after all. Take her away, boys.”

  “The agreement was for three females,” Ronan reminded Greenwood. “I cannot allow—”

  “You’ll get your three,” Greenwood snapped. “Hold your whore-zez. They’re bringing the replacement now.”

  “I don’t see any whore-zez here,” I snapped back at him. The word wasn’t clearing my translator chip properly, but I understood it well enough. “These females are honored guests for us—not whores.”

  “I didn’t mean—ugh.” Greenwood swatted my words away, then passed Lily off to the human soldiers. She looked paler than ever, if that was even possible. “Never mind.”

  “No!” Eve glanced between Lily and Greenwood for a moment, then dove after the smaller girl, catching her by the wrist. “You can’t take her. We agreed to do this together, not—”

  “Dammit, woman! Stop your bitching, or I swear I’ll—”

  I blinked, and suddenly the humans among us were moving slower than before. The warmth in my chest shifted in an instant as Greenwood raised his hand to Eve. He looked as though he was ready to bring his palm down against her cheek—and she was too slow and too small to stop him.

  Not on my watch.

  I moved forward, catching Greenwood’s wrist in my hand and wrenching it away before he even knew what was happening.

  “Bring your new female,” I snarled at him. His eyes widened as I glared down at him. “But if you try to hurt any of them, I’ll break your damned wrist so bad you won’t have a hand left to beat anyone with.”

  “Gallix…” Ronan warned, but it didn’t matter.

  Greenwood backed away in terror.

  I’d made my point.

  The female they replaced Lily with was taller, blonder, and more curvaceous. Closer to what I assumed Pax had been imagining, given his gesturing before. As Ronan closed our boarding doors and went to the cockpit to retract the connection bridge, I got the sense that she didn’t get along with Eve and Ora as well as the other female had.

  “I’m Marisa.” She introduced herself to me with a flutter of eyelashes and a sensual smile, then moved to Pax. “And I’m just so grateful to be here.”

  “Pax,” he said in return, and nothing more. Regardless of Marisa’s ample curves, it was obvious that Pax only had eyes for the brown-haired one, Ora.

  Just like I only had eyes for Eve.

  “Stay away from us,” Eve said to Marisa. Her voice, so warm and rich before, was suddenly cold. She t
urned her gaze to me, jaw set. Smile gone. “And if you aliens know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from her as well.”

  3

  Eve

  “First off, you should stop calling us aliens.” The tall, yellow-haired one who called himself Gallix had long enough legs he could have easily outpaced me as we moved down the hall of his ship. But instead, he was taking great care to match my steps. I barely came up to his shoulder. Somehow, despite all of the indignities I’d suffered through back in Sector Five, this was the smallest I’d ever felt. “We’re Lunarians, plain and simple. If you think about it, you’re the aliens to us, you know.”

  I wanted to spit at him. I wanted to snarl. If he took offense to being called an alien, I had a world of worse insults that I’d picked up in the work camp to hurl at him instead. I wanted to call him every bad name in the book, then invent a few others besides for good measure.

  But I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  I’d just seen what had happened to Lily, who—despite all of her fears about the contracts we’d entered into—had been perfectly obedient through every probing, every moment, every test.

  We’d been offered better lives among these aliens—these Lunarians. Warm beds. Hot showers. All the food we could eat.

  When Ora, Lily and I had been chosen for this, we’d agreed to do it knowing that we’d be entering these new lives together. But for reasons I didn’t understand—reasons that probably involved some kind of underhandedness on Marisa’s part—Lily’d had her offer ripped away from her before her new life had even begun.

  I wanted to claw the stupid purple eyes out of every single one of these Lunarians for dangling that carrot out in front of her, only to rip it away—but I knew I couldn’t.

  I still had Ora to think about. If they decided to return me as well, I wouldn’t be able to protect her.

  And, as little as I wanted to admit it, I needed to think about myself as well.

  “Thank you,” I said stiffly. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

  “Yeah?” Gallix looked surprised, but pleased.

  “Yes, sir. Whatever you say.”

  “All right. Then, second off—” Gallix turned abruptly, cutting me off. Up ahead, I could see the other two aliens guiding Ora and Marisa to their rooms down the hall. The sweet, innocent-looking one had Ora smiling and giggling. It was like she’d already forgotten about Lily completely. As for the serene, silent one, Marisa was laying the charm on thick—not that he seemed to be noticing.

  “What?” I asked Gallix, eager to move things along. “What else do you want from me?”

  “Stop being so damned polite. You’re not subservient to me here, or to anyone else. You’re not a slave to anyone—so stop acting like it.”

  “Isn’t that the entire reason I’m here?” I cocked my head to the side. “To be a breeding slave?”

  Gallix blinked. “I…suppose. But that word, slave—it has different meanings for us than it does for you, I think. You’ve signed your contract, right?”

  “Yes.” I almost added the sir at the end but stopped myself. It was obviously pissing him off.

  “Then you’re only contracted to give birth to three half-Lunarian cubs. You don’t have to go around following orders and calling everyone sir.”

  “Are you ordering me to disobey you, sir?” That time, I couldn’t help myself. The sir came out almost teasing—maybe because what he was saying was so ridiculous.

  Gallix held my gaze for a tense moment…then chuckled.

  “All right. Fair enough.” He pointed a finger at me. It was thick and orange, tipped with a sharp, bone-white claw where the nail should have been. “Any orders that I, or Ronan, or Pax over there give you are going to be for your own safety. Like, if we say, Strap in, you find the nearest safety seat and you strap in. If we kick you out of the cockpit, you leave. That kind of thing. But all of these honorifics and whatever-you-says…drop those.” Gallix rubbed the back of his neck and knitted his brow. “I mean. If you want to. Not an order. Just a…a suggestion, I s’pose.”

  “I understand.” I nodded at the space behind his left shoulder. “Can we move on, then?”

  “’Course. Silly of me. You’ve had a long journey. Must be tired.” Gallix led me a little further down the hall and stopped at one of the doors. He waved his hand over it and it slid open with a gentle hiss. “This’ll be your room. You need anything, you can find me in the room right across the hall. Or in the cockpit, if I’m not there.”

  “You’re the captain of this ship, then?”

  “Bessie?” Gallix patted the panel next to the door. “Nah. I’m the pilot.”

  “You call the ship…Bessie?” I raised an eyebrow. That was…strange. It almost sounded, well…

  Human.

  “Sure I do. Short for Bezelex.”

  I curled my lips inward to try and stop myself from laughing. A little snort came out anyway, though.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just…on Earth, it’d be short for Elizabeth. It was…” I looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “Just a name.”

  My mother’s name, I’d almost told him—though I didn’t know why. I didn’t know Gallix, and he didn’t know me.

  If I was going to go through with what I’d promised when I signed the contract that would enslave me to Gallix’s people, it was probably best if I kept it that way.

  “Interesting,” Gallix said, even though I supposed it really wasn’t. He was just humoring me. “Anyway. Your room. This is your space, so don’t be worried about me or Ronan or Pax coming in here without your say-so. You can stay in it as much as you like, but you’re also free to roam the rest of the ship at your pleasure.”

  “Thank you,” I said softly. The words came out a little warmer this time.

  I stepped inside the room, overcome by some emotion that I couldn’t quite name. It was small, but cozy. There was a desk with a chair on one side of it. On the other side was bed with four fluffy pillows and a smooth black blanket stretched over a mattress twice as wide as my bunk had been back in Sector Five.

  “To your liking?” Gallix asked from the doorway as I moved to run my hand across the blanket.

  It was soft. Softer than even the blankets at the holding center we’d all been taken to so Dr. Walters could run her fertility tests. Easily the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life.

  “I don’t have to…share?” I couldn’t imagine having this much space all to myself. A bed easily big enough for three people, if they cuddled up and squeezed in tight. A door that closed. A room of my own.

  “Nah. No need. Ora and the other one—Marisa?—are just down the hall. Ronan and Pax, too.”

  “That’s…” Something hot and uncontrollable was welling up in my sinuses. Tears. I shook my head as I blinked them away. “Thank you, Gallix.”

  “Hey—whoa there, no, you’re all right.” Gallix moved to me like he wanted to embrace me, but stopped just short, like he’d suddenly thought better of it. “This isn’t some kind of…kindness, or whatever. You’re a full-grown adult. You deserve a room of your own. Okay?”

  I sniffed and nodded as I wiped my tears away.

  Embarrassing. When we signed our contracts, Lily, Ora, and I had all agreed to put on brave faces and make the best of this arrangement. After all, based on the armed guards that had been positioned around us at all times, it hadn’t really felt like we were going to be allowed to say no anyway.

  And I’d tried. I really had.

  It just hadn’t lasted long. Only right up until the moment that Lily was taken away.

  And now here I was, crying in front of some alien—some Lunarian man—I’d only just met, like an absolute baby, all because he’d given me my own room for the first time in my life.

  I needed to pull myself together. And fast, too.

  “That, ah… that other girl. Lily. You knew her? Friend of yours?”

  I gritted my teeth and took
a deep breath, then nodded.

  “We were all in a work camp together in Sector Five. This was supposed to be our—” Our way out, I almost said. But then I remembered what Dr. Walters had told me.

  Convince them of your willingness, she’d said. This is a big chance for all of you to make something more of yourselves. But if they catch the slightest hint that you’ve been coerced in any manner, it can all be taken away, too.

  “We were friends,” I said. “I mean—we are friends.”

  “And that Marisa…” Gallix looked uncomfortable. “Safe to say you and Ora aren’t as fond of her, then?”

  “No, we’re not.” At least I didn’t have to lie about that. “She was at the camp with us too, but…no. I don’t know how she managed it, but…”

  But she took Lily’s place.

  “I’m sorry about that. With Lily and all, I mean—and with Greenwood too. He shouldn’t have raised a hand to you.” A cruel light glimmered in Gallix’s purple eyes as they shifted a shade redder. “We don’t treat females like that on Lunaria. It won’t ever happen again.”

  “That’s a relief, then.” I didn’t want to say more. I couldn’t say more. If Gallix knew all the times I’d been beaten by the guards in the work camp—if he got it in his head even a little that I’d agreed to this to escape how bad things had been back on Earth—there was every likelihood that I’d be sent back, just like Lily had been. “I’m…honored to be here. Truly. I just wish that Lily had been allowed to come as well.”

  “Honored, huh?” Gallix shifted back to the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned up against it. Even through the white sleeves of his military jacket, I could see how thick his biceps were. The same shape and size as the bombs we’d filled in the chemical sheds. After the way he’d twisted Commander Greenwood’s wrist away from me, I imagined Gallix’s arms could be almost as destructive, too. “That why you’re here, then? Because it’s an honor?”

  “No—I mean, yes.” I knitted my brow together. Quick, Eve. Smooth this out—or else. “They explained your people’s population problems to us back on Earth. I was…sympathetic to everything you’ve all been through, and since I’ve apparently got two working ovaries and a viable womb…”