by Susan Hayes
The droids had the orders covered, so she took her plate and retreated to the end of the bar to eat. Not long after, the door opened and two new faces walked into her bar. She’d never seen either of them before.
Single she might be, but she wasn’t blind. If she’d laid eyes on either of these males before, she’d remember. They were both Vardarian, one silver-skinned and the other golden. The silver one was slightly taller than his companion, but the golden one was larger in general, a veritable mountain of a male nearly as broad as he was tall.
When they removed their coats, she got an eyeful of powerful shoulders and arms that dwarfed even the other Vardarians present. No arm bands either, which meant they were unmated. The taller one was blond with a broad smile and rugged features while the golden one kept his expression guarded and moved with care between the tables, avoiding even the slightest contact with the other patrons.
She knew the look. He was used to having to work to avoid trouble or notice, though with his size, she couldn’t imagine who or what would dare to take issue with him.
They were almost to the back of the room where Maggie and Striker were holding court when the dark-haired one stopped and turned around. He took a deep breath, his massive chest rising as he sucked in a lungful of air.
Fraxx. She knew what that meant. The male had caught a scent that intrigued him. It might be the roasted gharshtu on special tonight, or it could mean he’d detected the scent of his mate.
When he started looking around the room, she knew dinner wasn’t what had his interest.
“Here we go again.” She watched, curious to see who it would be. Several Vardarian females were present tonight, along with a large group of cyborg women who were celebrating with Maggie. Who was about to have their lives turned upside down?
When the big male’s gaze landed on her, she expected him to take one look and keep moving.
He didn’t. His amber eyes brightened, and he took another breath.
Oh, hell no.
A second later, the blond spun around to stare at her, too.
Anya took a step back. This was not happening. She’d known when she agreed to come here that as a single female this was theoretically possible, but she’d never for one second thought she’d be some Vardarians’ mate.
Both males stalked toward her, their skin gleaming like newly minted coins as their scales tightened, a sure sign they were agitated.
So was she.
“Mahaya,” the blond one said, his voice a deep rumble.
“Ma-hay-nope,” she retorted, stepping back from the bar to put more space between them. “I serve the food, but I am not on the menu.”
“But you are our mahaya,” the dark-haired one spoke this time, and his voice was pitched like rolling thunder.
Damn. He was sexy. They both were. If they’d been looking for a night of no-strings-attached sex, she might have been tempted. But this?
It had to be a mistake.
Both males stepped around to the opening at the end of the bar at the exact same moment. As they reached out to her, she noted they bore a matching pair of circular scars on their wrists. They were anrik, a blood-bonded pair.
“I can’t be. There has to be a mistake.”
“No mistake,” the blond said. “I am Tra’var. This is my anrik, Damos. What is your name?”
“Anya. Anya Hutchinson.”
“Anya.” Damos spoke the word with all the intensity of a prayer. “Shining star. It suits you.”
“It does?”
“Oh yes.” Tra’var reached for her again.
“Come. We have a lot to discuss and not much time.”
To her surprise, Anya stepped out from the bar and took their hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. She was even smiling for fraxx sake, despite the fact that every sensible cell in her brain was screaming at her to run for the hills before it was too late.
“Finally!” Saral exclaimed from the kitchen door, her smile as bright as a binary star system. “Go with them, Anya. We’ll take care of this place. You… enjoy yourself. Oh, your mother will be so pleased!”
“Do not tell my mother anything!” She didn’t want or need Hezza to cut short her cargo run so she could stick her nose into Anya’s business. If this was happening, the last thing in the galaxy she needed was her mother’s help.
When it came to relationships, she didn’t need anyone’s help, especially not a woman who had more romantic shipwrecks in her past than anyone else in the galaxy. Anya had enough wreckage in her own past to know how this was likely to go. If past was prologue, plenty of evidence suggested she could screw this up all on her own.
2
Tra’var’s mind was shattered. The pieces were scattered to the winds of chance… or more accurately, the whims of his ancestors.
Their mayaha’s name was Anya, and she was human. He forced himself into a moment of calm and took a good look at her. Her dark red-brown hair was bound back in some sort of tight braid, and her scale-less skin was a pale shade of gold. She had a soft, curvy body, and the lines around her eyes deepened when she smiled.
Her smile was dazzling as he stared at her, entranced.
“We should go somewhere private,” Damos said.
Anya cocked a brow and eyed them both, her hands swallowed up inside of theirs. “I know what the sharhal is and where this is heading. I’m not sure privacy is a good idea right now. We need to talk, not…” she trailed off.
“We have time. As much as you need.” Even as he said it, Tra’var questioned if that was true. They’d only scented her moments ago and he could already feel the first effects of the sharhal—the mating fever. Agitation. Desire. His skin gleamed bright silver, an effect created when his scales tightened.
Scales… qarf.
He glanced over at Damos. His anrik’s skin was as bright as molten gold. Fortunately, he’d unfolded his wings just enough to hide the changes to his back, and his fingers were carefully curled so his talons weren’t visible. He wouldn’t be comfortable until they were away from the others, though. He never was. Damos had never accepted his differences, and until he did, he couldn’t believe anyone else would either.
“Where would you be comfortable?” Tra’var asked Anya.
The question caught her by surprise. “Um. We really can’t talk here. Can we?” She looked around. They were still the center of attention.
“Go already!” a beaming Vardarian female called from the kitchen doorway. She was pointing up to the ceiling. Tra’var didn’t understand what it meant, but Anya must have.
“Thank you. Now get back to work, you meddling female!” Anya called back in passable Vardarian.
Damos sent him a subvocalized message. “She speaks our language. I didn’t expect that.”
“She does.” This female was already surprising them.
“Come with me.” Anya tightened her grip on both their hands as she made her way to the front door, pausing just long enough to let them all collect their coats.
“We’re going outside?” Damos asked.
“It’s snowing out there,” Tra’var warned her.
“Oh! Then this is an even better idea. Come on.” The little female darted out the door without even donning her coat.
They shared a bewildered look and went after her. Wherever she was going, they would follow.
She stepped out into the snow and laughed, arms outstretched and her face tipped up to the sky. “So this is snow?”
“You’ve never experienced this before?” Damos asked.
“Never. I’ve spent time on planets before but always in resort locations—warm weather, beaches, places where beings would come to relax and enjoy themselves.”
“That sounds like a nice way to grow up. My family is from the mountains. I stopped enjoying snow once I was old enough to be expected to help clear it away,” Tra’var said.
“It gets that deep?” Anya looked around. For now, the blanket of snow was minimal. None of
them knew exactly what winter would look like in this place because no one had been here before.
“It can.” Damos placed his jacket over her shoulders. The garment was so big it swallowed up her entire body, the edge barely skimming above the snow.
“That’ll take some getting used to, just like everything else about this place.” Anya turned to smile at Damos, her hands on his coat, and Tra’var experienced a pang of jealousy. It was like a hot needle driven into his gut.
He was at her side before he even made a conscious decision to move. “You will have us to keep you warm.”
Damos smirked. “Losing control already?”
Tra’var ignored the jibe. He wasn’t going to admit that the sharhal was already making it difficult to stay rational and patient.
“Uh. Yeah. For the moment, that won’t be necessary. We’ll be out of the weather in a few minutes. This way.” Anya was on the move before she finished speaking. She darted away again, leaving them to follow the tantalizing trail of her pheromones.
“She seems uneasy,” Damos muttered.
“Two strangers just walked into her establishment and claimed she was their mate. If I were in her place, I’d be skittish, too.”
Damos held out his hand, revealing the claws he’d been struggling to hide. “True. Still. You should probably go first.”
“I will not. You outrank me, Damos Arosa. You will go first and I will follow.” Tra’var inclined his head. “It is the way things are.”
Damos snorted. “The only time you say that is when you think it will provide you an advantage.”
“That is your fault. You’re so qarfing stubborn nothing else works.” He pushed his anrik in the direction Anya had gone. “If we don’t move quickly, she’s going to think we don’t want to be with her.”
“If she believes that, she doesn’t understand the sharhal.” Damos grinned so broadly his fangs showed. “Shall we clarify things for her?”
It was the happiest Tra’var had seen him since the day they’d left Vardaria behind. By all the winds that blew, this was a good day.
Perhaps the best day they’d ever had.
Anya climbed the flight of stairs, keeping a firm grip on the railing to avoid slipping on the icy steps. She’d need to sweep them off in the morning and then find some way to keep them free of ice and snow. She had no idea what that entailed, but she’d ask around.
“’Oh, the climate is mild,’ she said. ‘The odds of you being the mate to any of the Vardarians is smaller than a Jeskyran’s junk,’ she said.” She made it to the top of the stairs just as the two males reached the first step. “That is the last time I trust Phaedra fraxxing Kari.”
Still, she couldn’t help but appreciate the view as the two males ascended the stairs. They were striking in every way she could think of, including a few that had her normally slumbering libido perk up and take notice.
They were only halfway to her when she was struck by a totally irrational urge to go back down the icy steps just so she could be with them sooner.
Great. Five minutes after first contact and her brain was already starting to melt into slag. What would she be like in an hour… or a week? She thought about Saral and the shameless, joyful way she interacted with her mates even after all these years.
So… maybe it wouldn’t be all bad. But that depended on who her mates turned out to be. She knew their names and species. That wasn’t a lot to go on.
They really needed to talk.
Damos arrived first and she stepped aside to give him space to join her on the patio. It was protected from the elements by a small shield like the ones the Vardarians used to weatherproof the massive practice arena and parts of the other public spaces. There were plans to eventually cover the entire bridge with one. They’d have to move up the timeline now the weather had changed or the businesses that operated here would be hard pressed to stay open.
Anya knew she was distracting herself with thoughts of business instead of dealing with her more pressing concern—the two males now looking around with interest.
“You live here?” Tra’var asked, nodding toward the door leading inside her apartment.
“I do. The downstairs neighbors are kind of noisy, but the commute is the fastest in town.”
Damos chuckled. “Not as fast as ours. We don’t need to use stairs. We have wings.”
“You work out of your home, too?” She gestured to a pair of chairs. “Actually, don’t answer that just yet. Have a seat. I thought we could talk out here and watch the snow fall. It’s prettier than I expected, and once I open the door this space heats up quickly.
The two males shared a glance. “You don’t want us inside your home?” Damos’ words were even, but she saw the way his expression tightened.
Veth. She was going to have to be honest and hope it didn’t do more damage. “Honestly? No. Because I am already experiencing the first effects of whatever weirdness this is, and I don’t trust myself to make good choices right now. All I know about you are your names.”
“Would it be easier if you spent time with only one of us? I could go and leave you to get to know Tra’var,” Damos said.
“No!” She didn’t want him to go.
His expression softened. Just a little, but it was enough for her to grasp that something else was going on. Tall, dark, and golden had doubts too? Okay. That made her feel a little better.
“Then I will stay.” His lips quirked up into a tiny smile that made her stomach all quivery.
“Good. That’s good. Uh. Sit. I’ll be right back. I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink before we have this conversation.” And during it. And probably several more afterward.
“You do not need to make us something to drink, mahaya. I am happy to go downstairs and order us something from your tavern,” Tra’var spoke this time.
“If you go back down there, Saral will want to know why you’re not here with me, and then the whole place will watch while you get interrogated. You might think you’re tough, but believe me, that female will have you spilling your deepest secrets inside a few minutes.”
Both of them laughed. “She would take that as a compliment,” Damos muttered.
“You know her?”
“She bought several knives from us. Gifts for her mahoyen when they started a new job… which I now realize must have been to celebrate their coming to work for you,” Damos said, his voice a pleasantly low rumble now.
“Those are yours?” She knew which blades he was talking about. They were identical in almost every aspect save for the color of the handles. They were elegant and oddly beautiful for something so dangerous—as much works of art as practical tools. So these were the craftsmen who’d made them. More information fell into place. “You’re the forge masters I’ve heard some of the others talking about. The ones who made Maggie and Striker’s kes’tarvs.”
Tra’var looked pleased. “We are. They talk about our work?”
“All the time. Maggie was going to take me to your shop someday so I could talk to you about buying a kes’tarv for myself.” The metal baton could extend into a quarterstaff of sorts, serving as simple practical weapon she could keep behind the bar.
“Do you know how to wield one?” Damos asked.
“Uh. No. Maggie was going to show me.”
“We will teach you,” Damos declared. “It would be our honor. Though you will not need one now that we know you are our mahaya. We will protect you.”
Oh no. That wasn’t going to work. She did not need to be protected, cosseted or treated like a Tiskalien ice orchid. “That isn’t necessary. I’ve always taken care of myself. We can add that to the list of things we have to talk about. But not until I get drinks. This won’t take long.”
She shrugged out of the massive coat still draped around her shoulders and handed it back to Damos. Then she slapped her hand on the palm scanner and fled inside the moment the door unlocked.
She needed a moment to think, or at leas
t to try, and that wasn’t going to happen when she was standing next to the twin avatars of temptation on her deck.
Three deep breaths later, she had enough clarity of mind to realize she’d bolted like a scalded peskin. Feeling foolish, she stuck her head back outside. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No. We had intended to enjoy a meal inside with Striker and Maggie and the others.” Tra’var shrugged. “But then you happened.”
“Okay. Two afterburner cocktails and two orders of Almost Heaven coming up.” She ducked back inside, ignoring the exclamations of surprise from her two guests. She was not ready to think of them as her mates. Not even close, in fact.
Her food dispenser was programmed with everything on her bar’s menu, but she didn’t use it. Instead, she tapped out a quick request on her comms and sent it to the kitchen downstairs.
Not five seconds later, she had a response. “On its way.”
“How the hell does she do that?” Anya muttered aloud and went over to the chute she had added to the tavern’s design before they’d even broken ground. It ran from her small eating area to the Bar None’s kitchen.
Sure enough, the little mag-lev platform was already on its way up by the time she got the door open. It held a tray with the requested drinks and desserts, along with a liqueur-laced coffee and an appetizer platter generous enough to feed half the guests seated downstairs.
She picked up the tray, turned, and gave an undignified squeak of surprise when she saw both males in the still-open doorway. They hadn’t set foot inside her place, but they were as close to the threshold as they could manage without crossing it.
“What are you? Space vampires? Can’t you come in without permission?” she asked.
“What is a vampire?” Damos asked.
“A fanged, flying, blood-sucking monster from human folklore that can’t enter a victim’s house without an invitation. It was a bad joke. Forget I said anything. I’ve got our drinks, time to—"
“You think I’m a monster?” Damos stepped back and vanished from sight.
“What? No!” She almost dropped the tray as she raced to the door, afraid he’d already left. If he flew off before she could explain…
