by Mina Carter
“Blew the labs up?” Lizzie turned to look at her sister in surprise. As far as she knew, Jess had been in operations, not combat.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jess sighed. “You blow up one little lab and everyone loses their damn minds.” She clucked at Miisan as she started to cry and then looked at the two of them. “She didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m going to go and put her down for a nap.”
Lizzie folded her napkin and put it on the table. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, no!” Jess waved her to sit back down. “Being honest, I could do with one as well. You stay with Saal and talk. He can explain more about the Latharian culture. Help with your lessons. If that would be okay?” She directed the question at Saal. “If we wouldn’t be taking you away from your duties.”
“No, my lady. It wouldn’t be. I finished my listed duties a few hours ago. I just…” he shrugged. “I work in the gardens in my free time for something to do.”
Be still her beating heart. Lizzie hid the smile that wanted to spread over her lips. “Do you like plants?” she asked eagerly, leaning forward. “I’m a xenobiologist… well, training,” she added quickly. “So plants are kind of my thing.”
She hadn’t finished her course. Maybe one day she would get back to it. But now… she was right in the thick of it, surrounded by plants she doubted any other Terran xenobiologist had ever seen.
Saal smiled. “I like them, yes. They’re very calming. The old warrior who looked after my group at the foundling home was a jeraalis.”
“A jeraalis?” The unfamiliar word jarred at Lizzie’s brain. Laarn had explained he’d given her something so she could understand the Latharian language, but sometimes it took a second or two to catch up when there was no direct translation into English. Then the meaning came to her. “An herbalist?”
“Yes, I think. We didn’t have a healer full time, so he made teas and poultices from the plants in the gardens.”
She nodded. “Definitely sounds like an herbalist. A type of healer. Excellent! You can show me what plants are used for what? I’ve been dying to catalog them since the moment I saw these gardens.”
He rose, holding an arm out in a formal gesture, as though he was offering her a dance. “My lady, it would be my pleasure. Shall we?”
3
Saal couldn’t believe his luck as Jessica left with her daughter, leaving him alone with Lizzie. He had to hide his smile as he stood and extended his arm to escort her. The instant her hand touched his arm he was forced to hide the shiver that wanted to roll up his spine. Her hand was so small and delicate that every touch felt like a caress to his lonely soul.
He hadn’t slept much, his rest haunted by dreams of the female who walked next to him, her scent wrapping him in its silken coils. That wasn’t anything unusual. He’d dreamed of her every night since she’d arrived in a stasis tube months ago. His heart had about stopped when he’d first seen her, thinking that the purists had hurt Lady Jessica again. But even with the briefest of looks he’d gotten, he’d known she wasn’t Jess. Some of the other healers couldn’t tell the two apart, but he could. Perhaps it was her soul reaching out to his or something, but he could tell them apart easily, even though they were identical.
He’d be able to tell Lizzie anywhere.
But his dreams before had been different. More… chivalrous. Images of her on his arm as he escorted her at court. Of her wearing his colors as he competed in tournaments. Of her in her bonding dress and necklace as she joined her life to his.
Nothing explicit. Nothing erotic.
It was as if his brain wouldn’t even allow him to go there, not while she was asleep and unaware. But now he’d seen the light of interest in her eyes, the soft little smile a female gave a male she was interested in… that dam was broken. No, not just broken… Exploded. Annihilated.
He’d woken as hard as a rock, images of her beneath him and her beautiful face contorted in ecstasy as he took her. Claimed her. Made her his own. Covered in sweat, his hand wrapped around his cock, but he’d imagined it was hers as he stroked himself to completion. He’d come harder than he’d ever come in his life. So hard he was half convinced he’d suffered a brain bleed from the fireworks going off behind his eyes.
Locking those thoughts away so he didn’t have an inadvertent physical reaction to her presence, he fell in step with her as he led her down the path to the gardens. Pleasure shone in her eyes at the plants and flowers around them.
“Oh my,” she gasped, pulling him to the side to study a vibrant pink flower in the border. “This almost looks like a cornflower…” She’d let go of his arm to study the plant. “But it’s pink. It’s definitely from the Knapweed family, but a variant I’ve never seen before.”
“Naapisa,” he commented softly, nodding to a couple of healers walking up the path opposite the one he and Lizzie were on. “It’s good for bruises and sores.” He chuckled. “We used it a lot in the foundling home.”
She looked up at him from where she was crouched. “You grew up in a children’s home?”
He nodded as he extended a hand to help her rise.
“I did. My parents died when I was young and I had no family. So I was taken into the care of the empire. It wasn’t bad,” he assured her as her expression twisted with concern and sympathy. “We were fed well and looked after. No money for a healer, though, so the foundling fathers turned to the jeraalis and his plants to heal us. You have no idea how many bruises and scrapes young males acquire in a day.”
She gave a small laugh that he instantly wanted to hear again. “Oh, I would. The family who lived next to us when we were growing up had boys. They were forever skinning their knees and elbows. No sense and no fear.”
“That sounds about right.” Saal grinned as he led her further down the path. They were in a more secluded part of the garden now, where no one could see them. A soft growl tried to rise in his throat, all his male instincts telling him to crowd the little female and claim her for his own. Taste her lips.
Gritting his teeth, he ignored the impulse and pointed out another plant growing beneath a tree. “Ocrablade, for open wounds and expels poison. We all ended up taking it after one of the younglings assigned to kitchen duties picked the wrong mushrooms for the stew.”
“Sounds like you had a narrow escape, and you were lucky you had an herbalist there.” She winced, stopping to look up at him. Automatically he tried to move to the side to give her room, but she stopped him with a small hand in the middle of his chest.
This time he couldn’t help the shiver. It rolled through his entire body—from his toes in his boots right the way up to the top of his head. He looked down at her, effectively captured by the soft touch. He couldn’t have moved a muscle even if war had broken out around them.
“My lady?” he asked softly.
Then his brain disconnected as she lifted on her tiptoes, her voice soft. “I’ve never kissed an alien before.”
Her lips brushed his and his heart stuttered. The soft brush of her mouth over his was heaven and hell all at the same time. He forced himself to hold still as she did it again, anything to avoid scaring her off. But she didn’t seem scared, not with how she rested against him trustingly, their bodies pressed together from chest to hip.
“It’s rather nice,” she pulled away to whisper, looking up at him. The darkness in her eyes did it. The chains that had been binding him snapped. With a growl, he wrapped his arms around her, one hand driving into her hair.
He crushed her mouth beneath his, seeking the sweetness he’d only had a hint of. She gasped, her lips parting beneath his, and he didn’t refuse the invitation. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss. He swept his tongue into her mouth and groaned as her taste, indescribable and utterly instantly addictive, exploded on his tongue. Every cell in his body shifted and attuned itself to her. In that moment he knew one kiss wasn’t enough, would never be enough. He was hers to the end of time and beyond.
Slowly, carefully,
he eased back on the kiss, schooling his body’s reactions so he didn’t tumble her to the stone bench behind them and take her there and then. No, the first time he took her wouldn’t be in a garden where anyone could come across them. He wanted it to be private and unrushed—filled with romance and meaning to begin their life together as a mated couple.
“Oh my,” she murmured as he pulled back, soft kisses giving way to shared breaths. “Aliens really can kiss. No wonder Jess fell in love with Laarn.”
His primal instincts growled at the sound of the other male’s name on her lips. He didn’t like that at all. Grimly, he beat them back down. She was human, not Lathar. They had different conventions and customs, and he needed to remember that, learn about them, if they were going to have a life together.
“I don’t know,” he told her, brushing his mouth across hers again. The way her lips clung to his, as though not ready to let go, fed his male ego. “I’ve never kissed Laarn. Never wanted to. So no idea if he’s a good kisser or not.”
She laughed again, the look of amusement and happiness on her face one he imprinted on his memory so he’d have it until the day he ceased to draw breath. Then her expression dropped serious and she studied him as though looking for the answers to the universe itself in his eyes.
He wanted her to find them. In him. With him. Wanted to be everything she needed him to be.
“Why do I feel I know you?” she asked softly. “Like I’ve known you all my life? Been waiting for you?”
His heart leaped at her words. He’d thought he was the only one who felt that way. He expected to have to persuade her, charm her… court her. But, was it possible? Could she feel the same already?
“I don’t know.” He kept his voice low as he reached for her hand and drew it up to his lips so he could place a soft kiss across the backs of her knuckles. “Sometimes it just happens. Two people who were always meant to meet… even if they were born on different planets to different species. Soulmates,” he told her. “My soul calling to yours and yours answering. Knowing that we’re meant to be together.”
“Soulmates? The Lathar believe in those?” She chuckled but this time the sound was nervous. Saal gritted his teeth, calling himself all kinds of draanthic idiot. He’d pushed her too hard. Too fast.
“We do.” He eased up on his grip, holding her looser and giving her a little space. “It’s rare… there have been a few instances between humans and Lathar though. But, it’s your decision, my lady. You have to agree to any claim, even from a male who knows deep down he was always meant to be yours.”
* * *
The streets of the capital city on Lathar Prime weren’t the safest of places. But Saal had been brought up here, in the foundling home between the Three Moons Inn and the temple district, so he knew it well. He knew every inch of cobblestone, every shortcut and back alley… which inns served the best ale, which watered down their spirits and which of the street food vendors was the best, coin-wise and taste.
He also wasn’t in his dotage, so he was more than aware that someone had been following him for the last three streets. Virtually since he’d stepped out of the lodging house he currently called home.
Rather than raise the alarm, though, or give any indication he was aware of the male dogging his tail, he continued to amble on toward the palace. Usually he took the North Walk and entered by the Empress Gate but he’d been a warrior long enough to know to vary his route at times. So he made a turn left into the alleyway behind the tanneries, making sure to slow down enough so he didn’t lose his little “friend.”
Once in the alley, Saal ducked into the shadows of one of the deep doorways and waited. Sure enough, within half a kilisec, a tall, rangy male entered after him. Saal narrowed his eyes. The male wasn’t local, that much was evident from the beads woven in his honor braids, and the provincial cut of his clothing marked him as from the outer systems. Saal frowned. What would an out-systemer be doing tailing him in Lathar Capita?
Sliding out from cover, he crept up behind the male, intending to slide an arm around his throat before the male was any the wiser. But either the out-systemer had extra-sensory perception, or he was better a warrior than Saal expected because he whirled around before Saal could get a grip on him. The male’s fist slammed into his jaw, snapping Saal’s head back. He grunted as pain exploded through his face. Somehow he kept his feet, circling the out-systemer as he rubbed at his jaw.
“Wanna tell me why you’re picking a fight with a male from the healer’s hall?” he asked lightly. While his lack of scars proved he wasn’t a healer himself, there was no way anyone could miss the hall logo on his sash. Usually anyone wearing that symbol was sacrosanct. No one wanted to offer violence to a healer and find themselves barred from receiving the services of the healer’s hall. For a combat-orientated species like the Lathar, such a thing was tantamount to a death sentence.
“You ain’t no healer!” the male growled, even his accent singling him out as a country hick. “An’ I ‘eard that they got them ‘uman females there. And me ‘n’ the boys back ‘ome could really do with a female. Gets mighty lonely out there.”
Saal felt sick to his stomach. This piece of… draanthic planned to kidnap a human female and spirit her back off to the outer systems. For “him and the boys.” They could kidnap Lizzie or one of the other females in the palace at the moment. For a second his brain hiccupped and he sent a fervent prayer up to any of the gods listening that if any hick like this actually managed to carry out such a plan that the female they managed to snatch was Jane Allen. Or one of the human females who called themselves “marines.” Perhaps he could have a whip around and get some snacks together. Sell tickets.
Before he could answer, though, the out-systemer pulled out a vicious-looking hunting blade, the serrated edge glittering in the shadows between the closely packed buildings. “Hand over your work pass or I’ll carve you a new smile.”
Saal almost sighed. It was one step up from laughing at the male, which, given he’d been up half the night making something pretty for the Lady Lizzie, he didn’t have the spare energy for. So a sigh it was. Did this idiot seriously think this was going to work?
All the orderlies at the hall were battle-hardened warriors who had been treated there. From Torvaai, the one-legged elder who logged in new cases, right through to Svett, the youngster who’d lost his eyesight in a confrontation with the Krynassis and was awaiting ocular implants from the engineer’s hall. Every one of them wore multiple honor braids and could kick this piece of trallshit’s ass with one arm tied behind their backs.
Saal included. And he wasn’t just a battle-hardened warrior. He’d been raised right here in Capita, in some of the meanest and most cut-throat streets in the known universe. No draanthing farmer would get the better of him in a street brawl.
His opponent attacked low and fast. Again, his speed would have surprised Saal, if he hadn’t already isolated the male’s accent as from the systems near the Trisemiika Expanse. Those systems often had issues with Isaarian-spiders, huge space-borne arachnids that literally ate everything in their path. Orbital defense systems usually destroyed their egg clouds before they hit the upper atmosphere of a planet, but on the more rural settlements that wasn’t an option and the spiders ran rampant.
Isaarian-spiders were fast as draanth and difficult to kill, with a necrotic bite. Not something you wanted to get up close and personal with, that was for sure. Now Saal knew what he was up against, he blocked with ease, treating his opponent with the same respect and wariness as he would any other in the ring.
The fight was fast, no holds barred. Ducking his opponent’s swing, Saal slid behind him and hammered two hard blows into his kidneys. Either would have his opponent in agony and pissing blood for a week. Together, they should have brought the farmer to his knees.
Instead, it earned Saal a growl and an elbow to the face. Not able to block in time, he turned his head to take the blow across his cheek and jaw rather than let it sp
read his nose over his face. At such an upward angle, it could have been a killing blow, shattering his nose and sending shards of bone up into his brain.
“You realize the palace uses biometric scans as well as work passes now. Don’t you?” he queried lightly as he circled, probing a loose back tooth with his tongue. Draanth, this male could hit, and hard. “Purists had the same idea as you months ago, so security was upgraded.”
“Trallshit!” Farmer shot back, but Saal didn’t miss the sudden doubt in his eyes. “What would that lot of fanatical draanthic want a non-Lathar for? They’d rather fuck each other if’n it meant keeping their ‘racial purity.’”
He wasn’t wrong. Saal shrugged, not dropping his guard even though they were talking now rather than throwing punches. “Some crackpot prophecy about bringing the goddess back. They thought sacrificing a female would do it,” he said, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth.
Shock slackened the farmer’s face. “They would ‘arm a female? When we ‘ave none? What kind of—”
“Exactly.” Saal nodded, recognizing the horror and outrage on the male’s face at the idea. It was the same as he’d felt when he heard what they’d planned to do to the Lady Jessica… what they’d almost managed to do to her and her baby.
“You do know there is a potential mate program, right?” he asked, still not dropping his guard. Instinct might be telling him the fight was over, but experience knew not to count his raalix before they were hatched.
“There is?” The farmer’s look of surprise was replaced with one of hope and interest.
Saal had gone out on a limb by offering the information, but the quick flash of soul-deep loneliness told him he’d been right. This wasn’t a bad male, just a desperate one.
