The Alien Reindeer’s Bounty (A Winter Starr Book 6)

by Nancey Cummings

  “Farewell? You do not wish a fond farewell to lesser beings. She’s barely one step above a beast. I guarantee she will have forgotten about you the moment we break orbit,” Arne said with a sneer.

  Rage burned in Mads. He refused to believe Arne’s spiteful words. “That’s not true.”

  Arne leaned in, his breath medicinal from mouthwash. He must not have drunk any booze that day, knowing Reilen authorities would frown on chemical dependency, and his temper was worse for it. “Did you fuck her? Are you a pervert? Is that why her stink is on you?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Mads said, knowing full well that he would if he thought he could get away with it.

  Arne’s open palm hit him on the cheek, stinging sharply. “That is the last lie you get to tell. Understand, whelp?”

  Mads lifted his chin, refusing to show pain or fear. In a few years, he would reach his majority and have the legal rights of an adult, then he’d never have to speak to Arne again. The old bull could drink himself to death and Mads would not lose a minute’s peace.

  “What does it matter? Reilendeer can’t bond with a lesser being,” Mads said.

  “Because the act is abhorrent. Just the thought of laying with a human makes me sick. It’d be like—”

  “Like fucking the dog,” Mads said, finishing Arne’s often-muttered line.

  “The way you speak to your father. A stint in the re-education camp will teach you respect.”

  Not likely. By some miracle, Mads kept his mouth shut.

  Once, when Mads had been younger, he asked Karl why the mate bond was important. Reproduction happened without the bond. Karl gave him a mournful look and said that without the bond, they grew cruel.

  He hated that Karl was correct.

  “Cheer up, whelp. We’re going home,” Arne said, his mood swinging dramatically.

  No. The only thing he knew with absolute certainty was that the ship hurtled him through space, away from his heart and his home.

  Eleven Years Ago

  Mads studied the mate bond as best as he could, hiding his books and research from his father. Because he was not a scholar like his uncle, he limited himself to history, literature, and mythologies. A scientific journal would have snagged his father’s attention, and the last thing Mads wanted was Arne’s attention.

  Gleaning useful information from this strategy, however, proved less than ideal. Mads had old tales, rumors, legends, and anecdotes. For every fact he uncovered, he found contradictory information.

  Reilendeer could not form a mate bond with an alien species.

  Reilendeer once formed mate bonds with several aliens. Many of the unique aspects of reilendeer biology came from alien ancestors.

  Bonded mates had a psychic connection.

  There was no connection, just a heightened awareness of each other’s auras.

  Bonded mates could sense when the other was in pain or distress, no matter the distance.

  No such connection had ever been observed and recorded in the modern era, leaving many to speculate that connection as nothing more than a literary device.

  The lack of answers frustrated him. He grew careless, not bothering to wipe his search history on the network.

  “What is this?” Arne loomed above him, gripping the tablet in one hand.

  “Exploring reilendeer culture, since I’m a stranger here.”

  Apparently, that was the wrong answer. Arne snapped the tablet in half and hurled the fragments at Mads.

  He took his father’s blows with a stoic calm that only enraged the male further. Arne ranted and his chest heaved. “No son of mine is mated to a lesser being.”

  Mads said nothing.

  “Don’t ignore me! What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “You taught me not to lie,” Mads said. He refused to cry, to beg for mercy.

  Arne roared, grabbed Mads, and pain blinded him. When the last of his rage left Arne, Mads had a dislocated shoulder and two broken ribs.

  The next day, a shuttle arrived to take Mads to a re-education facility, where he would learn that the bond he felt with Odessa was only in his mind. He would receive no food or medical care until he agreed.

  He agreed, repeating the words blandly, but he did not believe.

  He never saw his father again.

  Ten Years Ago

  The facility kept Mads until his next birthday when he reached his majority. His lack of enthusiasm irritated the staff but they had no grounds to hold him against his will. He completed every task as instructed. He memorized phrases and echoed them back, his eyes empty and hollow.

  His compliance did not please the staff. They wanted to make him believe that he was wrong about the mate bond, not just agree and nod his head.

  Physical correction did not work. He never cried, even when bleeding and bruised.

  They withheld food and water. They withheld sleep.

  They pumped him full of drugs designed to bring him into rut, tossed him in a cell with a female, and waited for biological urges to overpower him.

  He refused. He would always triumph in a contest of wills. The drugs turned his body into a traitor, but he would not touch another being other than his bonded mate. They told him he had no bond mate, that his body reacting to another female proved this.

  They lied. They manipulated facts to suit whatever narrative suited them that day.

  He filed away every cruelty, noting it with indifference. Nothing they did to him mattered. Nothing they made him do held significance. This was not his real life. One day he would return to his mate.

  He had to survive until that day.

  Nine Years Ago

  Rage consumed him. The military did not particularly care what Mads believed if he followed orders.

  Returning to Earth proved complex. As a protected planet, the only vessels allowed near the sector were military. Mads took every mission he could to earn the ability to transfer to a unit of his choice. When that time came, he requested to join the patrol that would bring him closest to Earth.

  He was denied. His interest in Earth and humans was deemed an aberration. The military, it seemed, cared somewhat what he believed and would not tolerate deviant behavior.

  Five Years Ago

  It was easier in his four-legged form.

  Simpler.

  Anger and rage faded to a distant noise and he finally found some small bit of peace.

  One Year Ago

  “Svallin—”

  “No. I won’t send you to Earth.”

  Mads ran his hand up the back of his head. “I speak the language fluently. I have an intimate knowledge of the culture. I understand the way the targets think. No one is more qualified than me.”

  His friend tilted his head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and sighed. “That intimate knowledge is the problem. You’re a high risk to defect. No one in their right mind would send you to Earth. If I do, I’ll be under scrutiny.”

  Arms folded behind his back, Svallin could not see the way Mads clenched his fists in frustration. He was allegedly a free citizen of Reilen yet his movements were restricted. He held no great love for the planet of his birth and loathed the attitude that reilendeer were superior beings. Still, Mads kept his expression neutral.

  “Reilen is the dominant planet in this sector. Indeed, in any sector. Of every species we’ve encountered in our explorations, none have matched the reilendeer,” Mads lied. “Why would I defect?”

  “Pretty words but empty nonetheless,” Svallin said.

  Mads shrugged one shoulder, a very human gesture the re-education facility had not managed to remove. He did not fit in Reilen society. Other reilendeer regarded him as an oddity, a wild male who lived too long with primitive beings.

  “Ask after you have proven your loyalty,” Svallin said.

  Chapter 3

  Odessa

  Now

  “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.” Ruby climbed onto the barstool and swung her legs, her feet kicking against the k
itchen island.

  “So glad you asked,” Odessa said, setting down the kitchen knife. “Tonight, we have roasted parsnips and carrots with rosemary. Juicy chicken breasts in a garlic butter sauce that will make your eyes roll back in your head, and fresh bread, still warm from the bakery.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes. “Ugh, parsnips. Gross. Why do you always make the weird vegetables?”

  “That’s not fair, goblin. You think all vegetables are weird.”

  “Because they’re covered in dirt. That’s gross,” Ruby said, demonstrating impeccable logic for a seven-year-old.

  “Food comes from the dirt. That’s where it grows.”

  “Nuh-uh. Food comes from the grocery store.”

  Odessa narrowed her eyes at her daughter and teased, “I cannot believe you came out of my body.”

  “Mo-om,” Ruby whined, stretching out the title.

  “Now make yourself useful and empty the dishwasher,” Odessa said, turning her attention back to slicing the parsnips and carrots. She had a hard time wrapping her head around how she could be such a foodie—she loved food, loved to eat, and her waistline paid the price—while her daughter turned her nose up at anything that wasn’t packed with salt and artificial flavors. “Your dad was a picky eater too.”

  “Really?” Ruby’s entire body perked up with interest. She had never met Jamie, being a posthumous birth, and soaked up any scrap of Jamie-related intel she could get.

  “Yup. When we were in grade school, he only ate chicken nuggets and Cocoa Pebbles.” Odessa failed to mention that Jamie had been teased mercilessly for eating the same food every day, long past when other picky eaters outgrew their habit. At least she hadn’t been one of the kids who teased him. She barely knew he existed back then, being far too infatuated with her best friend.

  “I like Cocoa Pebbles! Can we get a box? Please, please, please.”

  “Pebbles for parsnips, kid,” she said, seizing her opportunity. She wasn’t above bribing her kid with a box of sugary cereal if it got her to eat some gross dirt-covered vegetables.

  “How many?”

  “You clean your plate; I’ll get you a box at the store.”

  Ruby scrunched up her nose and made a sour face, making Odessa’s heart flip. No one should be that adorable.

  “Grandma Becker wouldn’t make me eat parsnips.”

  “Oh, a desperate ploy from a desperate child,” Odessa said in a sing-song voice. She loved her daughter’s spirit but trying to manipulate her with the grandparents? Not cool. “Grandma Becker isn’t in charge of your breakfast. Deal or no deal?”

  Getting Ruby to eat anything that didn’t come out of a box or from the frozen food aisle was a challenge. Odessa continued to make the rich, flavorful meals she enjoyed from local, organically grown foods. Sometimes Ruby ate a few bites out of curiosity and occasionally she cleaned her plate.

  “Ugh, I guess,” Ruby said, full of attitude.

  Odessa dumped the sliced veggies in a dish, coated the pieces with olive oil, and seasoned them with salt and pepper. The chicken breasts got the same treatment. Everything went into the oven. “Dinner in an hour. Do you have homework?”

  Ruby nodded. “We need to draw connie-fur needles. You know, pinecones and stuff.”

  They had a surplus of that, but the sun was already setting. “We’ll do it tomorrow. It’s getting dark.”

  “But it’s due tomorrow.”

  Mother forking—

  “Of course, it is.” Odessa sighed. “Get your hat, gloves, and coat on. Don’t go into the woods, just the edge. Don’t get out of eyesight from the house.”

  “Mo-om, I’m not a baby.” Ruby jumped down from the stool and rolled her eyes.

  “You’re my baby.” Odessa knew that Ruby spent her summers tromping through the woods, just as she had done at that age. Ruby probably knew the woods surrounding their mountain house better than most hunters, but it was cold and there was snow on the ground. “Stay in my line of sight and come back if you get cold.”

  “Grandma Becker says my dad liked the forest,” Ruby said as she wiggled into her coat.

  “Oh yeah? Your mom liked it too.”

  “Did you and my dad play in the woods together?”

  “No, sweetie. We weren’t friends back then.” She kept her voice neutral. The Beckers were great and loved their granddaughter with everything in their hearts, and Ruby soaked up the Jamie stories. One day, probably soon, she would realize that Odessa never really knew her father.

  Well, Odessa knew Jamie; they went to school as kids, and once bumped into each other at the same party, but they were never really friends. Jamie had been on the football team and had always been surrounded by his friends, all on various sports teams. What the athlete Jamie Becker had in common with the nerdy Odessa Muller was a handful of shared classes in their small high school.

  Their relationship began years after graduation, with Jamie on leave from Afghanistan, and it consisted of one night hooking up at the local bar and a busted condom. A few days later, Jamie was back in Afghanistan and Odessa assumed that was that.

  Six weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant and an IED took Jamie’s life.

  “I’m going to find the coolest pinecone.” The back door slammed as Ruby rushed into the yard.

  “Within sight of the house, kiddo!” Odessa shouted.

  She loaded up the dishwasher and wiped down the counters, letting the mundane tasks clear her head. She’d like to think that Jamie would have been involved in Ruby’s life if given the chance, but she couldn’t say. She didn’t know him. He seemed nice that one night in the bar—they laughed together over nothing and beer—but was he a good man? Could he be patient and firm, the way a willful child needed? Did he drink too much? Did he solve problems with his fists or with his words? She just had no idea.

  One day Ruby would no longer be satisfied with scraps of trivia and would want to know what type of man her father had been. Odessa had no idea what to say. Worry kept her mind racing on restless nights.

  Odessa stood at the window above the sink, watching Ruby stomp toward the tree line. The setting sun cast a soft glow over the snow-covered lawn and the greenery of the woods.

  Lights burned at the property to the left, probably renters for the holiday season.

  It had been twelve years since Mads lived next door and she was still checking out the window for him.

  Damn it. Odessa rubbed her chest, soothing an old ache. That jerk could still hurt her and that infuriated her. He’d been gone longer than she knew him, had grown up, went to school, had a child—so why did it still hurt?

  She should move to a new town, somewhere free of the past. A fearful little voice whispered that if she moved, he wouldn’t be able to find her, and how pathetic was that? She finally moved out of her parents’ house five years ago, all the while fighting the dread that Mads would never find her if she didn’t stay.

  He might have been her best friend when they were kids, but he left without saying goodbye. He hadn’t tried to contact her, except for one odd email, in all that time. She needed to face reality.

  He wasn’t coming back.

  He didn’t care about her, not the way she cared about him. Odessa had loved Mads with everything her teenage heart could muster, and he just vanished. His family moved. No goodbye. No new mailing address. No phone number. It was like he vanished off the face of the earth.

  And she absolutely hated the way he worked up her emotions after all this time.

  God, she was pathetic.

  Satisfied that Ruby would stay out of the woods, Odessa set the table and made herself a cup of coffee.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe she’d have less trouble sleeping if she didn’t have coffee at five in the afternoon, but also maybe some people should keep their noses out of her business.

  She kicked off her shoes and changed out of her work clothes while the coffee brewed. Muller’s Pantry Essentials ran her off her feet all day, but she loved her store
. It had originally been Muller’s Family Market, a quaint little shop in a tourist-friendly downtown, but her parents expanded to a larger building on the edge of town.

  The move had been a financial disaster. Customers weren’t willing to pay the slightly higher costs when they could drive fifteen minutes to a big box store in the next town over and get a pound of genetically modified pesticide-covered strawberries for less.

  They had to do something or the store, an institution her grandparents started, would fold.

  Odessa updated the downtown property’s interior with a new floor and trendy paint, and turned it into a boutique market, featuring local-sourced foodstuffs. Tourists loved it. When asked, she knew the farmers and the fields that grew the produce. Hell, she probably knew the cows from the local dairy. No one complained about paying extra for berries harvested that day and no one grumbled about not finding watermelon in December.

  For now, her father managed the larger store location, but that would probably close when the lease came up for renewal next year. He might retire or he might join her at the downtown store. They hadn’t talked about it.

  She loved managing the Pantry. It had a lot of perks, like setting her own schedule and dropping Ruby off at school every morning, but it exhausted her.

  The door slammed open. “Mom! You won’t believe what I found!”

  Mads

  Home.

  Home finally.

  Mads might have been born on Reilen, but Earth had always been his home.

  He reared back on two legs and took off at a gallop. Dried grass crunched under his hooves, every step bringing him closer to his mate.

  Home.

  Home to finally claim his mate. A clumsy misstep had tied him to Odessa but he regretted nothing, only the time and distance between them.

  He snuffled the ground, catching the scent of a fox. Interesting. He followed it into the forest, but the heady perfume of moss, moldering leaves, and freshly gnawed tree bark erased all thoughts of chasing down the winter fox. He found a creek, not yet frozen over. The water was cold and clean. In the mud and the leaves of the creek, he caught the scent of a lynx. So interesting. He followed, his hard hooves striking against the frozen mud.