Hero

by Reagan Woods

  “I guess it’s a good thing I’m carrying this.” Surreptitiously, she drew her knife from its sheath between her breasts. It was a big gamble, flashing a forbidden weapon. However, it seemed worth the risk to put his mind at ease and to show him that she wasn’t some damsel in distress, constantly in need of a white knight to rescue her.

  Calyx pulled her out of the pool of light into deeper shadow. “Tara!” He whisper-yelled. “You’ll get yourself locked up for having that out here.” His warm fingers brushed against her skin as he tucked the knife back into its sheath. She shivered at the light touch.

  “I’m going to stab him if he tries again,” Tara replied heatedly, refusing to back down. “It’s not fair he’s allowed to try to hurt me, and I’m supposed to take it. That’s not happening.”

  “I understand the sentiment, but it might not be Shirok that shows up next time.” In the muted light, his face took on the same grim edge as his voice as he gripped her shoulders tightly. “He could get another female to lure you to him, or he might send a friend in his stead. You have to be smart, Tara.”

  None of that had even occurred to her. Frustration bubbled up as she spoke, “I can’t – won’t – Will. Not. Hide away or live in fear.” She shook her head furiously from side to side, volume rising. “I refuse. I am tired of having circumstance dictate my life. Do you hear? When do I get to decide?”

  “Everything okay over here?” Tara almost jumped out of her skin at the unexpected interruption.

  Calyx took a hasty step back. “We’re fine,” he assured the Warrior hovering in a patch of light a few yards away. “Tara was just heading in for the night.”

  The Warrior wandered back to his post, and Calyx wiped a hand over his face. “You’d be safer if you applied to the Claimed Female Program.” The words came out flat and emotionless.

  “I – don’t understand.”

  “Knowing that a Protector, preferably a Warrior, would retaliate against anyone who threatened his female is a very effective deterrent,” Calyx said.

  “Wait,” she held up a hand, reluctant hope springing in her chest. “Are you the Warrior in this scenario?”

  His posture shifted, the universal signal of discomfort. “If I could be, I would be,” he sounded regretful, but didn’t fill the ensuing silence.

  “Screw that, then,” she answered, angry at herself and at him for even suggesting it. “I’m not shacking up with a stranger. I’ll take my chances with Shirok.”

  “Tara, that’s not smart.” His mouth said one thing, but his tone said another.

  “Then Claim me, Calyx,” she shot back boldly.

  His face fell into a deep frown, he didn’t appear any happier than she was. “I don’t yet rank high enough to have my application put before the General,” he gritted, leaning forward to cradle her face between his hands. “Or you’d have been mine a year ago.”

  Tara gasped, eyes searching his. “What? Why haven’t you said anything?”

  “Now is not the time for this conversation.” Hands sliding possessively down her neck to her shoulders, he squeezed lightly before turning her toward the dorm door with a little push.

  She turned back, reluctant to leave – and feeling a little starry-eyed. “I know you’ve got a big job right now...”

  “So do you,” he reminded her, hands which had been slowly reaching forward dropping. “And we’re both low on sleep with no end in sight.”

  “Right, but if not now, when?” She pushed, already half-convinced she’d imagined the revelation.

  He groaned, “Don’t look at me like that.”

  She giggled at his tortured look, unapologetically flirting. “Like what?”

  His teeth glinted as he stepped back, fading into the darkness. “We’ll talk soon,” he promised.

  Chapter 31

  Tara ladled fajita sauce over the thin slices of honest-to-God beef steak and hummed a happy tune. Her new kitchen recruits were not exactly skilled, but nothing could bring her down when she had utter largesse rolling in from the fields. Calyx’s late-night admission that he would have Claimed her a year ago didn’t hurt her overall outlook either.

  The alien General was visiting, so most of her fellow Earthers were nervous – and prone to mistakes. The five young women who were sent to her for training were part of a geological survey team that Commander Skylan disbanded. Rather than having rotating help like before, these five were hers permanently.

  From what she’d gathered, they’d worked closely with Dorit’s goons, and as a result, didn’t trust any of the aliens. It seemed like a bad plan to have these ladies involved in food prep as most of the Warriors had begun taking meals with the Earthers in recent days. But it wasn’t her call. Not one of the newbies was as good at multi-tasking as Marta or Franny, either. That made for excruciatingly long shifts.

  Calyx’s friend, Silex, had poked his head in the kitchen after the morning rush. She knew him – he’d been the one to transport her out of Fort Burro – but hadn’t spoken with him much. It was a bit awkward when he asked her to recount the day of the mass abduction in front of her newbies.

  “I need to know exactly how many females were here that day, who might have shown too much interest in one or all of them, things like that,” Silex demanded gruffly.

  Tara had gently resisted, noting the owl-eyed stares and hunched posture of her staff. This wasn’t the time or place for such a conversation. “I’ve already told Commander Skylan everything I know,” she answered coolly. “I have a few questions of my own, though, since you’re here and you brought it up; what happened to all that surveillance equipment y’all use to spy on us? Surely, you could have tapped into that to keep tabs on who did what.”

  He’d gone quiet for so long she thought she’d offended him. “The female I’m tracking is skilled at avoiding cameras when she doesn’t want to be tracked,” he finally admitted quietly. “I’d like to make sure all your staff is safe – most of those missing did at least one shift in your kitchen leading up to that day.”

  “But you haven’t got any clues,” she surmised sadly. The reality of the situation was that Marta and Franny – as well as several others – were gone for good.

  He’d left after that, but her mood had been soured. It took an unusual amount of time for her sunny disposition to reassert itself.

  To keep from brooding, Tara turned her thoughts back to General Darvan. The kitchen minions weren’t all worthless. They reported that the alien General had a woman with him – as in, a human woman that he kept under constant guard.

  Penelope, the tall redhead, said the woman was the General’s mistress or a Claimed Female. The leggy Juanita thought the woman might be a war prize of some sort. Jocelyn didn’t see how she could be a war prize as the war for Earth had consisted of the aliens swooping down and kicking the snot out of an already weak population, and Anne and Jenn were just as curious as everyone else.

  Without the mind-bending reconditioner sessions, Tara felt more and more relaxed by the hour, falling into easy conversation with her new staff. Still, she made a point to check-in with one of the Warriors stationed outside the building when she needed to go into the fields. There was no way she was going to make it easy for Shirok to get to her.

  Often, whichever Warrior she approached went with her. Having a shadow wasn’t the concession she thought it would be. She was never going to be brave like Franny, ready to take on the big, bad aliens at the drop of a hat. Nor was she like Marta who couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag. Tara was somewhere in between. She was capable but not so head-strong she wouldn’t accept help.

  That epiphany combined with Calyx’s revelation was how Tara found herself really considering the Claimed Female Program. She’d felt stirrings of discontent every time another woman left for her Happily Ever After with a Warrior. A part of her had always hoped Calyx would step up and Claim her. He seemed more than willing when they spoke last night. That made her heart sing, but essentially, he was too y
oung.

  Maybe there was a way to have her cake and eat it, too, as the old saying went. First, she had to help him exercise the fear that she’d drop her panties for just anyone. That was an issue – if he wouldn’t pull his head out of his ass, she would have to find a way to remove it out for him.

  All movement in the kitchen came to a grinding halt. Tara shivered as the atmosphere became charged. Carefully, she sat the hot skillet of steak aside and looked up to search for the source of tension.

  “Tara,” Calyx spoke from just inside the swinging metal doors. Just the sound of his deep voice had butterflies doing the cha-cha in her tummy. They needed to quit dancing around one another. Soon. Before she exploded with pent-up need.

  Taking in three sets of hostile eyes, Tara glanced back to Calyx’s handsome face. “I’ll meet you in the hall as soon as I’ve finished up here,” she advised him with a pointed look around. “I’m sure these ladies can get things started without me.”

  He nodded to let her know he understood, a cute trait he’d picked up since being on-planet.

  “Be careful,” Anne, the petite brunette, advised under her breath from the work station a few feet away. “If they get you alone, they expect sex – and it’s never the kind that’s fun for you.”

  Tara blanched as Jocelyn made a noise of agreement from her other side.

  “I know him,” she replied carefully, not wanting to upset the other women – they’d obviously been through something terrible. “But I’ll be cautious.”

  Anne gave a sharp nod as Juanita wandered closer and rested her hip against the tall counter they worked at.

  “We heard you took Shirok, the King of the Shitheads out,” Juanita commented, paying an inordinate amount of attention as Tara wrapped the fajita meat for transport to the food line.

  “Oh?” Tara invited her to continue, curious about where this would lead. She really didn’t want to stay here and talk when she could be flirting with Calyx, but these women clearly had something on their minds. Also, she couldn’t have Calyx thinking she’d come running every time he snapped his fingers. He could cool his heels for a moment.

  “Word is Shirok was supposed to abduct our whole team,” Juanita continued. “We owe you. If that guy bothers you, say the word.”

  Anne leaned around Juanita to say, “What she means is we’ll kick the shit out of that big dude if he tries to hurt you.”

  “I, um, I appreciate the offer,” Tara sputtered. “But I’m not afraid of Calyx. He’s…a friend.”

  The pair exchanged skeptical looks. “They’re alien conquerors,” Juanita enunciated slowly as if Tara were daft. “They aren’t friends.”

  This was getting ridiculous. “He’s saved my life more than once,” Tara protested.

  “Because he wants to fuck you,” Anne said bluntly. “They don’t have a lot of women and they all want to get laid.”

  “Enthusiastically and often,” Juanita added with a dark laugh. “And they don’t care if you’re willing.”

  Tara gulped, her guilty little heart shouting, I want to get laid, too! It was the wrong place and wrong time for letting that cat out of the bag, though. Instead, she changed the subject, “How do you know Shirok was supposed to kidnap you?”

  Penelope stuck her head around the door between the kitchen and the dining room. “Hey! We’ve got a pile up of people waiting for fajitas out here!” She stepped further into the room and whispered, “There’s a metric-shit-ton of Warriors out here. Help a sister out before they decide to kill me and use my stringy hide for their lunch.”

  “They’re big but usually polite,” Tara reassured Penelope as she handed the pan of meat off to Juanita. Turning her full attention to Anne, she motioned for the other woman to continue.

  “CeeCee, she’s in dorm six, heard a couple of the Doranos talking about it when they locked us down,” Anne whispered. “She told Commander Skylan and he beat a confirmation out of one of them.”

  “So, wait,” Tara held up a hand. “You trust Commander Skylan but not Calyx?”

  Anne nodded solemnly. “The Commander isn’t interested in us like that. The way he looks at me,” she paused to shiver. “Those cold, serial killer eyes tell me I’m little more than a cockroach he could squish at any time. He doesn’t care enough about us – any of us - to lie. Your friend? Calyx? He’s got the lust eyes going on. Men will say anything when they want sex.”

  Juanita, returning from exchanging food on the line, butted in, “Mmmm hmmm, he wants you bad.”

  Tara cocked her head. “I hadn’t really noticed.”

  Juanita snickered. “Because you’re skipping through life like it’s a field of daisies instead of living here in prison with the rest of us.”

  Chapter 32

  “I need a favor.” The hall was deserted when Tara joined Calyx just outside the kitchen doors. She didn’t want to go far in case the Ferocious Five ran amok. She didn’t trust them not to burn her kitchen to the ground.

  Plus, after last night, she was feeling extra-attracted to Calyx, so she really needed to keep her distance from the sexy Warrior.

  Taking advantage of the brief respite from the steamy grill, Tara turned off the energy field surrounding her head. Whooshing out a stream of air, she asked, “What kind of favor?”

  Calyx’s brown hair, shaved a bit closer at the sides, was growing out. Her hands itched to test the texture, to see if it was as soft as she remembered. The tired crinkles around his eyes brought out the mother hen in her. She clasped her hands together tightly, so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself.

  Anne was right about one thing, there weren’t many women in Corian Space. Tara wanted Calyx to choose her for herself. She had no issue with providing a little incentive, but she wasn’t about to do it in the middle of a public hallway when he already thought she was a teensy bit of a ho-bag – whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “I need you to – What is that?” His nose scented the air like a dog and his stomach rumbled. “It smells divine.”

  “That, my friend, is genuine Earth-grown beef,” Tara told him proudly. “I can’t guarantee it doesn’t have the slightest dash of radiation poisoning, but then, I think we all do by now.”

  Calyx chuckled, a glazed look in his eyes that told her he probably hadn’t eaten yet today. “No, we’ve cleansed most of the radiation from the immediate area.”

  Tara’s mouth dropped open. Then, “I didn’t realize… That’s fantastic!”

  That kind of good news deserved a reward – and she was compelled to give him the little bit of comfort she could. “Wait right here.”

  She zipped through the kitchen doors and into the dining room. There was a long line of Earthers and aliens alike moving by. “Excuse me,” she nudged Jenn aside and grabbed one of the thick, papery-feeling bowls the aliens – and, therefore, everyone - took their meals in.

  “I didn’t realize we were serving picnic lunches now.” Penelope looked over with a grin. “But you’re the second person who’s been through here putting together a doggy bag today.”

  Tara scooped fajita meat and a healthy portion of sautéed vegetables into the self-composting bowl and snagged a handful of tortillas. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Penelope kept scooping and smiling as she talked. “Some big dude wanted food for the General and his lady earlier.”

  “His name is Domik,” the quiet Jenn piped up unexpectedly, shooting Penelope a mutinous side-eye.

  Penelope’s grin widened noticeably. “Domik,” she repeated. “Has game. He asked our sweet little Jenn if she wanted to picnic sometime.”

  “And what did you say?” Tara asked Jenn curiously.

  “She said Y-E-S, yes. Capital letters and all,” Penelope crowed, beating Jenn to the punch and drawing several curious stares.

  Jenn ducked her head and continued to dump spoonfuls of veggies onto the quick-moving line of trays.

  “I think that’s nice.” Tara gave Jenn’s shoulder a squeeze and breezed back throu
gh the kitchen before she had to break up a fight between the two. That would derail her afternoon.

  It seemed the Ferocious Five might not be as cohesive as she thought. They were clearly divided on their opinions of the aliens.

  Swinging back into the corridor, Tara pressed the bowl and the funky spork-like utensil into Calyx’s hands before quickly retreating to her side of the hall.

  “I don’t have time to eat,” Calyx grumbled - as did his stomach.

  Tara raised her eyebrows and smiled. “It sounds like you better make time.”

  “Will you please let me know if you hear any gossip about a new male going by the name of Peter?” He asked around a mouthful of steak and vegetables wrapped in warm flour tortilla. “This is amazing,” he groaned, shoveling food into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in a month.

  “I suggest you start eating regular meals, Warrior Calyx,” Tara scolded with mock severity. Her eyes widened as the over-large portions she’d dished for him quickly and methodically disappeared into his mouth.

  From the low pocket on her tunic top, she withdrew a napkin and passed it to him. “You have sauce on your chin.”

  Swiping the napkin across his mouth, he gave a contented groan. “I usually just grab a bar.” He passed the empty plate back to her and rubbed a hand down his shirtfront.

  She hurriedly looked away. The image of him without a shirt was practically tattooed on the backs of her eyelids, she didn’t need any extra reasons to fantasize.

  “But those dusty rations don’t hold a candle to your cooking,” he continued cluelessly.

  If he knew the naughty thoughts parading through her mind, thoughts of him and her without pesky jobs or clothing, he’d know she was an absolute hussy. Why was she trying to convince him otherwise, again?

  “Grandmama used to say the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach,” she commented with a light-hearted laugh, determined to pull her mind out of the gutter. She could withstand his pheromones. Definitely.