He knew this transition was hard for Becca and he needed to be patient. He’d lived his whole life knowing one day he would meet his Bride and their connection would be instant. All Xylans were raised knowing this could happen any moment after their initiation into adulthood. He knew when he found his Bride, she would be perfect for him, a match biologically and temperamentally. Very few mated pairs ever parted. In ancient times, mental illness could cause living pairs to separate, but now, because medical science could cure the mind, there was no reason mated pairs couldn’t have long, healthy lives together.
Rayzor thought of his parents, a mated pair separated due to banishment. It must have been difficult for his mother, betrayed by her husband and separated from her sons. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her in ten years. He was starting to forget the sound of her voice…
Rayzor shook his head, pushing aside dark thoughts, trying to bring himself back to the problems in the present. Becca had tried to escape, and the Bounty Hunter Union would soon learn about his illegal mating. But his Bride didn’t know about the decisions darkening their future. She didn’t know she had to learn to accept his claiming and their status as mates far too quickly—their future depended upon it.
“I want to show you something,” he said as they entered the bridge. “Look up at the screen. I want you to know the terrors that went through my mind when I discovered you’d left in that damn escape pod.”
“Rayzor—”
“No,” he cut her off and pointed at the screen, at the vastness of space. “Look, there is nothing here, there are no planets, no space station, no other ships, nothing but deep space. If you left on an escape pod, it would have taken over two Earth days to reach your planet. Do you know if you had enough food and water? Did you ask the computer to calculate this? What if it took longer than two days? This is not a starship or a luxury transport set up with escape pods loaded and ready for distance travel. This is a small, sleek ship with the minimum of short-distance pods. Did you think of this when you jettisoned so far from Earth? I did. And what if you made it and landed alive but somewhere remote and had to walk to civilization in the heat without food or water for many more days? You could have been attacked by men on your own planet. What if something happened to you along the way to Earth? What if you ran into an asteroid belt, or what if space pirates picked you up? Becca,” he sighed. “You don't seem to care about your safety, but I do. You carry our offspring…”
She stared at him, her eyes wet. He walked up to her and pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, her cheek against his chest.
“I’m sorry, Rayzor” she said, her voice filled with anguish. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was really pregnant. I thought you were lying to me to keep me here. To me, you were the alien keeping me captive. I ran away because it was easy for me to believe what Joyzal said and I thought you were a Blackbeard alien who was going to kill me if I stayed, so my chances of staying alive were better if I tried to run. If I’d known I was pregnant I wouldn’t have risked our baby that way. I’m sorry I scared you, honey.”
He pulled her closer, happy to hear her words and unsure what honey meant.
A chime sounded.
She lifted her head. “What is that? I heard it earlier, too, in your room while you were gone.”
Rayzor’s jaw clenched. Time was running out. “It’s the amount of time we have left until the Board receives and reviews the data logs of this mission. I asked the computer to monitor it and let me know at intervals when the download was imminent.”
She stepped back out of his arms and glanced at the small vid screen with a countdown clock that had materialized on the wall next to them. “But it says…it says we have 10 seconds left.”
“Correct,” he sighed. “It does.”
“THX238 mission log transmitted and received,” the computer confirmed.
“What does that mean?” his Bride asked. “What does it matter if the Bounty Hunter Board, your bosses, review the log?”
They stared at each other, quiet for a moment. He could see she was working it out for herself. His Bride was smart.
Her lips thinned. “It’s me, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to take me. You’re in big trouble, aren’t you?”
Rayzor looked down at the ground. He’d never expected to have a human as his Bride. Because she wasn’t Xylan, she didn’t feel the mating call like he did. He’d initiated and heightened her awareness with their mutual contact, but it hadn’t been enough. It was fleeting. His Bride didn’t want him. He’d tried everything. She’d run away from him and he’d had to throw her over his shoulder and drag her back to their room, kicking and screaming. He would lose her; he would lose his offspring. His heart felt like a lump of dead chokal in his chest.
His Bride, his beautiful Bride with the unnaturally colorless skin continued to stare at him with indecision. He’d once thought of her as ugly, but now her features were the thing he cherished most in this universe. And he had nothing left to convince her of his loyalty, his caring and his love for her. He’d shown it all and it hadn’t been enough. When the judgment came and she was obviously fearful of him and begging to leave, it was all over. He’d never win against those odds. She would be taken from him and his life would be over.
“Why? Why would you bother to claim a wife you can’t have? Why couldn’t you choose a Xylan as your Bride?” Rebecca didn’t understand his reasoning. It didn’t make any sense. Why would he make life so hard on himself for an alien Bride with “colorless” skin?
“There is no choice in mating. We claim whoever we form the bond with, and the bond is irrevocable.”
Those words pierced her heart like a million bee stings. “So you arrived on Earth to arrest that bad alien with all the arms. You thought it was an in-and-out thing, staying long enough to make your arrest and get out, but then I got in the way and when you touched me to help me with my foot, and skin touched skin…”
“That was when I knew you were my Bride.”
“And then you were stuck with me, a Bride who wasn’t even Xylan, a Bride who is…a burden.”
“Stuck with you? I don’t understand this human phrase. Becca, the moment my skin touched yours and my body flooded with the claiming hormones, this was one of the greatest moments of my life. I was overcome with happiness to have found my Bride. It is a privilege to have found one’s life mate. Some Xylans live their entire life span having never found a mate, never continuing their line.”
“But you thought when you found your mate she’d at least be Xylan.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I did. You are a surprise. A welcome surprise. I will find a way to keep you.”
“I still don’t know if I want to be kept.”
“Becca,” he said. “Our offspring…”
“I know. I know. But I’m scared. I’m worried if I go with you, I’ll be miserable for the rest of my life. You’re going to take me to your planet and I’ll be stuck living in some futuristic apartment, stacked on top of another apartment, squeezed into a tight corner of some super-sized city with millions of strangers. And I’ll be the only human.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You know I’m not a city girl, right? I grew up in the country. I only live in the city right now because I have to for college, and the moment I can leave and go back to the country, I will. I hate the traffic, the noise, the congestion and most of all I hate being around so many people. I won’t be able to handle your life, Rayzor. I’ll hate it.”
He exhaled. “I don’t live on Chronos. I live on Zamarian Prime, an agrarian planet in the third sector.”
“You don’t live on… Wait, an agrarian planet?”
He nodded.
She smiled. A brilliant smile that lit her whole face. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Her flat, featureless, colorless face was transformed into a landscape of curves and sparkles of light that locked him into a state of shock. She stepped closer to him. “Is it quiet? Do you live in the middle of n
owhere with not many people around?”
“Yes.”
“What about your friends? Are you the type who likes loud parties with lots of people in your house all the time?”
“Friends? I don’t have friends on Zamarian Prime.”
“None?”
He shook his head.
“What about the Zamarians who work for you?”
“Employees, not friends.”
“What about the other Bounty Hunters? The people that like your work so continue to hire you? Aren’t you close with any of them? Do they come over and hang out in your house all the time, too?”
“I do have one friend in the Guild of Bounty Hunters.”
“Who?”
“Joyzal.”
Her eyes widened. “What? He’s your friend? The guy that warned me about you and tried to help me escape so you’d lose out on this mission? The guy that did this so he could take over the number one Leaderboard position from you?”
“Yes.”
She snorted. “Some friend.”
“I agree. Xylans are very competitive. The next time I see him I will pound him to the ground because he put you in danger, but yes, we are friends. I do not see Joyzal often. Where I work and live is very isolated. I communicate with others mainly through vid screen.”
“Well…what about your family? Aren’t you close with your family?”
His chest tightened.
Rebecca could see immediately this had been the wrong question. Their light-hearted banter ended. Rayzor grew still, hard. “My family is banished. I haven’t seen or heard from any of them in over ten rotations.”
“Banished? Why are you banished?” She hadn’t heard that word since high school English, when Romeo was banished from Verona.
“My father was a great warrior. A great man, or so I thought, so we all thought, until the day he was discovered to be a traitor to the Alliance. He sold secrets to the renegades and compromised the safety of our world. His betrayal sparked the Cordovian Wars. His punishment was so severe, it is lasting two generations. All of us were banished from Chronos. Our line is scattered to the edges of the four sectors. We are not allowed contact with one another.”
“Oh no, that’s terrible. So you are paying for the sins of your father.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “And so is my brother. And my mother, who was found innocent and knew nothing of my father’s treachery, she, too, is banished.”
“Do you ever see your family? Your mother? Your father?”
“No. Never.”
“But your children and your brother’s children would be allowed back to Chronos if they wanted to go?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live on Zamarian Prime because you’re banished?”
“Yes and no. Banished means you cannot live on the home world or any planets in sector one. All other sectors are acceptable as long as you are not in contact with other members of your family because all are banished and the line dispersed. I could have chosen many planets, all with vast networks of cities. I chose Zamaria on purpose.”
“Why?”
“For the same reasons you wished to leave the city and return to the country when your schooling was complete.”
She stepped close to him, closing the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
His arms tightened around her. He placed his chin on the top of her head. She sighed, a feeling of overwhelming contentment warming her heart.
“I want you with me on Zamaria,” he told her.
“I want to go with you to Zamaria,” she admitted.
“Finally, my Bride accepts my claim?” he asked with his trademark deep voice. Rebecca closed her eyes and let the sensations wash all over her. He smelled like leather and sunshine and a woodsy note she couldn’t quite place but she loved. Really, he smelled so good. A feeling of certainty settled into her soul. He wasn’t a liar, or a crazy Blackbeard alien. This was right. Here, with him, was right. The two of them, no, the three of them, forming this family bond—this was meant to be. It was all happening so quick, but she was certain—
“Incoming message via the holo-deck,” the ship’s computer stated, scaring Rebecca half to death.
“The what?” Holo-deck? Jeez. Hanging out with Rayzor was becoming more and more like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation every day.
Rayzor cursed. “Come with me.” He grabbed her hand. “We will face this together.”
“Face what together…?” she sputtered.
Oh no.
Chapter Eight
They took a few steps, and then Rayzor stopped and looked down at her. He cupped her face in the palm of his hand. The four-fingered, clawed hand she adored.
“I love you,” he said. “Whatever decision is made today, you are everything to me. My priority is you and my offspring.”
He loved her?
Her eyes flooded with tears, but before she could answer, he was striding down the hall with urgency, pulling her behind him.
They stopped at a door that automatically swooshed open. She stepped inside after Rayzor and was amazed to see a room that reminded her of a cross between a holo-deck from Next Generation and the transporter room from the new Star Trek movies. It was super cool. Two male Xylans, dressed very formally in dark robes, were each standing on a disk of light. Rayzor stepped on another disk and gestured for Rebecca to step on the last free one. The instant she did, it suddenly seemed as if everything shifted and blinked into focus and they were all together in a different room, a room with stone walls and a fire pit blazing in the middle.
She couldn’t figure out what this all was. Were these men his bosses? Was Rayzor going to be fired? Were they sending her back to Earth? She placed her hand on her stomach. She couldn’t go back to earth, though, ever again.
“Judge Rankin of Ninety-Six.” Rayzor bowed his head with respect.
“Rayzor of Twelve.” The judge sniffed with an air of barely concealed disrespect. He wore heavy black and dark red robes with a black headdress similar to one a nun would wear back on Earth. “You are to speak in your own defense. This is Junio of Twenty-Seven. He will speak in opposition, representing the Bounty Hunter Union.”
Rebecca gasped. “What is this? Is it a trial? Rayzor is on trial? Why? What are the charges against him?”
“The humanoid female will stand quietly and listen to the proceedings, or she will be removed from the transmission,” the judge intoned.
Rebecca shut her mouth. She shot Rayzor an angry glare. His quiet returning glance let her know the seriousness of the situation. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she whispered.
“Rayzor of Twelve, you have been charged with the kidnapping and removal of a Rare Indigenous Species from its home world. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty.”
The judge glanced at Rebecca, his dark eyes looking her up and down before going back to meet Rayzor’s gaze. “Uh huh,” he murmured. “Junio of Twenty-seven, you may speak.”
The Xylan Rebecca had already pegged as the alien equivalent of a prosecuting attorney began speaking, his speech rapid and slightly nasal. “Rayzor of Twelve, Bounty Hunter for subsectors Nine through Thirty-Seven took on the assignment to extradite THX238 from planet Earth, taking on the additional responsibility of removal without consequence to indigenous species. All proceedings were recorded as mandated by the Bounty Hunter Ethical Standards Council. Upon review of these recordings, Rayzor’s immediate superior noted Rayzor had mated many times with a humanoid female.”
Rebecca couldn’t help the squeak that escaped from her mouth. The judge frowned at her. How could she keep quiet? She’d just discovered Rayzor had known of the existence of sex tapes that were made of them and were being passed around to his bosses and reviewed. She felt a blush heat up her neck and cheeks. Rayzor didn’t say a word, a grim look on his face.
“The first infraction is fraternization with an indigenous species?” the judge asked.
“
Yes, your honor. Many times.”
The judge nodded. “Continue.”
“Rayzor apprehended THX238 and placed the Mandible in lockdown stasis, meeting the exact requirements for extradition. But he also seized the female and placed her in his quarters and continued to mate with her, leaving Earth’s orbit and plotting a course for Zamarian Prime. Therefore, under the terms of the contract Rayzor of Twelve signed upon employment, his chits are null and void at the completion of this assignment and the Bounty Hunter’s Union requests judgment fall in favor of removal of said Bounty Hunter’s license and relinquishment of the humanoid to the Union.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Becca is my Bride,” Rayzor stated.
“You cannot keep her,” the lawyer sniffed.
“I will die without her. You both know mated pairs cannot be separated during the initial phase of claiming.”
“You are already banished,” the judge responded. “Your health and mental stability is of no concern in this judgment.”
Rebecca looked at Rayzor. He would’ve died without her if she’d left him on the escape pod? He hadn’t even mentioned that. He’d gone on and on about how she’d compromised her safety and their child’s and how he didn’t want them hurt, but not once had he revealed that he would’ve lost his mind if he wasn’t with her. He hadn’t mentioned himself at all. Her chest tightened. He was such a good man.
The holograph of the lawyer shimmered as he spoke. “The humanoid is wanted by the Bounty Hunter Union to use as a base sample to study humans. Her presence is requested immediately. They have provided the transmission code to transport if needed.”
Rayzor growled. “You are not giving my Bride to the Bounty Hunter Union.”
“Well, it appears I have a conundrum,” the judge said. “Both of you want the humanoid female. The disposal of a female who cannot be returned to her home world is not specified in the Scales of Xylan Law. This event is wholly new and unexpected. I have freedom to make this decision as I see fit. I have decided to cut her in half. Her upper half, including her torso and her brain, will be donated to the Union for study, and Rayzor can keep her lower half and attach it to a cybernetic double and continue to use it as a sexual respite.” He smiled.
Rayzor's One (Alien Bounty Hunters Book 1) Page 8
