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Kissed by the Alien Mercenary

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  Kissed by the Alien Mercenary
  
  
  
  Warriors of the Lathar
  
  
  
  
  
  Mina Carter
  
  
  
  
  
  New York Times & USA TODAY Bestselling Author
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright No 2020 by Mina Carter
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  
  Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  Also by Mina Carter
  
  
  
  About the Author
  
  
  
  
  
  1
  
  
  
  
  
  He’d never seen anything as beautiful as the human females.
  
  Saal J’Qess paused in his duties logging stats on a patient as the Lord Healer’s mate passed by with her mother, who held the baby princess in her arms. Lady Jessica offered him a small smile as she noticed him watching. He smiled back but her companion had already reclaimed her attention. They swept through the healer’s hall in a rustle of skirts, the melody of their voices and laughter a welcome balm for the warriors recovering there.
  
  And for Saal as he followed at a discreet distance, checking on patients as he went. While not technically part of his duties, after volunteering at the hall for months the healers trusted him, and it freed them up for healing. So it was a win-win situation. He wasn’t complaining. He had time. Without family or a unit to belong to, his recreation hours were empty, and a male could only spend so many hours training.
  
  Besides… his gaze followed the females as they turned into a private room… there were other advantages to being around the healer’s hall. He finished with the patient in the end bay, a warrior who’d sustained spinal injuries being kept sedated while he healed, and moved to the counter at the end to log all his results. Well, he meant to log them… instead his attention wandered to the open door.
  
  It was the Lady Lizzie’s room—Lady Jessica’s litaan who was ill.
  
  He’d seen her when she’d been brought in, pale and motionless in a stasis tube. At first he’d thought it was Jessica herself, that the purists who’d tried to kill her before had actually managed it. But the presence of the emperor’s shadow, the legendary assassin, had stopped him in his tracks. Eventually he’d gotten it out of a healer. It was Jessica’s sister and she was ill, very ill. Some type of human illness that meant she slept all the time.
  
  And he found her far more beautiful than the Lady Jessica, even though the two women were identical litaan. There was just something about Lizzie—a softness Jessica didn’t have. At least in his eyes, and he’d spent many hours watching her during the long night shifts.
  
  Making sure she was okay, he told himself firmly. Nothing more. He was a volunteer at the hall, so it was his duty to ensure all within its care were looked after. He ignored the fact that her room was the cleanest of all the ones he was assigned to and that he read to her at night when most of the healers had left for the evening—a book of children’s tales hidden in his daysack until everyone had gone. It might have just been his imagination but she seemed to rest easier when he read, none of the fractiousness she’d had in the weeks after she was first brought here.
  
  Despite the fact that he was often in Lady Lizzie’s room, he kept his distance when the family were there, especially when he heard Lord Healer Laarn’s voice further back in the hall. Although the two had resolved their differences, during training and with Saal’s heartfelt apology for trying to claim Laarn’s mate, he was merely a J’Qess and nowhere near on the same standing in the empire.
  
  Laarn nodded as he passed. The movement was curt but an acknowledgment nonetheless. Saal nodded back, trying to hide his curiosity at the tree Laarn carried. It was an Aathari, usually considered a weed and eradicated whenever it sprang up.
  
  “Don’t ask,” the big healer ground out, trying and failing to get the thing through the door. “Apparently it’s ‘pretty’ and they want it in there for the Lady Lizzie.”
  
  Saal raised an eyebrow.
  
  “A little help here?” Laarn grunted.
  
  Saal nodded, quickly taking the other side of the large tub the tree was in. Between them, the two warriors managed to struggle the recalcitrant weed into the room.
  
  “Oh, it’s perfect,” Jessica smiled. “Just move it over a little so Lizzie can see it from the bed.”
  
  Seeing the pleasure on their faces made struggling it through the door and almost getting his eye gouged out by a branch worth it. Saal grunted with effort as he and Laarn moved it into the required position. He didn’t point out that Lizzie was asleep and wouldn’t see it. In cases like this, it was whatever brought the family comfort.
  
  “Thank you, love,” Jessica lifted on her tiptoes to kiss her mate. Saal looked away, not wanting to intrude on their moment. Then Jessica surprised him by turning to him as well.
  
  “Thank you, Saal.” Then she reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
  
  He froze.
  
  Laarn froze.
  
  Then growled.
  
  Draanth. He was so dead.
  
  “Behave!” Jess chided to Laarn, tapping his arm warningly. “Saal is a friend. Humans show affection to their friends. It doesn’t mean I want to jump into bed with him.”
  
  Saal didn’t know where to look. This was obviously a long-running argument with them. He swallowed the pleasure he felt at being named her friend and bowed his head. “You’re more than welcome, my lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have duties to attend to…”
  
  He didn’t, but Laarn looked like he was about to explode or commit murder. He’d just as soon not be around for either.
  
  “Please, if you have time…” Jessica stopped him with a hand on his arm, garnering another warning look and grumble from Laarn. “If there are any of those lights to spare. You know the ones… I’ve seen you tape them on the floor for the temporary bays? If you can find any for the tree, I’d be really grateful. Lizzie had a tree like this at home in the garden and put fairy lights in it.”
  
  He inclined his head. There were some in the stores he could… liberate. Especially if it gave him an excuse to be in here more. “Of course, my lady. I’ll see what I can do.”
  
  As he left the room, he couldn’t help overhearing Jess’ soft murmur to her mate. “It’s perfect… if only Lizzie would finally wake up and see it.”
  
  Saal’s heart ached for her, for the love she felt for her sister as Laarn’s voice followed Saal out of the room. “We’re doing the best we can, my love. I promise.”
  
  “I know…” Jess sighed in frustration. “Perhaps it’s not medicine. Perhaps we just need a prince to kiss her and wake her up.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  Later that evening Saal went back to Lizzie’s room to clean as he normally did. He cleaned all the private rooms, leaving the human female’s until the very last, at the end of his shift. And, even he couldn’t deny, he gave it far more care and attention than all the others.
  
  The Aathari tree stood in the corner, lights festooning its branches. He’d dropped them off earlier and could now see them wrapped around the tree. He had to admit it looked pretty. It was evidence of a family’s love for each other, that they were trying to recreate something Lizzie loved even though she wasn’t aware of it.
  
  His heart gave a small pang. He’d never had that. The last of his line, he’d been orphaned before he could walk and brought up in the care of the empire. The youngling home hadn’t been a place big on expressions of affection, or even home comforts, and he’d left as soon as he was physically mature enough to fight. He’d been forced to grow up fast in order to make his own way in the world. He barely remembered his parents. They were just impressions at the back of his mind—a big, loud warrior and the delicate scent of his mother’s perfume, her tinkling laughter. Nothing more, and even those he couldn’t be sure were more than figments of his own imagination.
  
  He finished up his cleaning, careful not to disturb anything around the tree. Standing, he moved over to double check Lizzie’s stats. At least, that had been what he’d meant to do. Instead, he found himself caught by the beauty of the female on the bed. She took his breath away. Like Jess, she was small and delicate, the figure under the light sheets one he tried hard not to let his male instincts dwell on, especially while she was asleep. It seemed… wrong somehow, to lust after a female who wasn’t conscious.
  
  She was beautiful though, even in sleep. Her dark hair spread over her shoulders like a cape, highlighting the flawless ivory of her skin. She had blue eyes, deep and mysterious. She’d opened them a few times when he was here, but he knew she didn’t really see him. She often opened her eyes and could be prompted to sit at the window, shower, and other necessary ablutions. When he’d first seen it, he’d been convinced she was a hairbreadth from waking fully, but she always dropped back into unconsciousness. The nights he’d sat in here, reading to her, were some of his favorite and most treasured memories.
  
  Taking the book from his bag, he paused for a moment, remembering something Jessica had said. Leaning over the sleeping woman, he pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
  
  “Wake up, my lady. Your family misses you,” he whispered and drew back.
  
  To find her eyes open. His heart leaped but then he recognized the out-of-focus look. She wasn’t really awake. His physical nearness, the kiss, had roused her to the half-state again.
  
  “It’s okay, kelarris,” he reassured her and, indulging the tiny temptation, he reached up to smooth a stray lock of hair away from her face. The small contact forced him to stifle a groan. Her skin was so soft… the softest thing he’d ever felt.
  
  “Go to sleep,” he murmured, forcing himself to take a step back and sit down next to her, opening his book. “I’ll just continue our story.”
  
  As her eyes fluttered shut again, Saal started to read, picking up the tale of Iaanis the Brave, the first warrior of the Lathar.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  “That’s the fifth ace you’ve pulled since we started.”
  
  Lizzie was so not a morning person. She never had been.
  
  But she was a nap person, or she certainly had been the last couple of years. She put that down to taking her PhD in Xenobiology. She’d known when she started that it was going to be a tough course, but hell… it was rough. Studying so much and working as well, she’d had to get used to napping when she could. Which explained why she was waking up to the sound of her mom and sister bickering. Again.
  
  “Is not. I’ve put two down. Are you sure you’re remembering right, Mom? Age, you know… memory is often the first to go.”
  
  “You cheeky little cow… I can remember things perfectly well thank you very much!”
  
  She smiled to herself as she snuggled down deeper into the embrace of the duvet. Jess must be back home on leave. Odd. The last thing she remembered clearly was the end of term exams coming up to Easter break and Jess wasn’t supposed to be home for… months. But she’d always taken a while to wake up and come to full consciousness, so not remembering didn’t worry her too much.
  
  “What? You totally forgot your coffee the other day! Don’t think I didn’t see you pouring it away because it was cold. After I slaved over a hot kettle making it for you as well!”
  
  The argument was going on around her, so she must have fallen asleep on the sofa again. Not an uncommon occurrence. For saying she and Jess were twins and looked identical, they couldn’t have been more different in terms of personality and mannerisms. Jess was all fire and get up and go, whereas Lizzie was more observation and subtle snark. And recently, any get up and go she’d possessed had definitely gotten up and left.
  
  “Ha! You? Make coffee? Yeah, right. You just ring a bell and you know it!”
  
  She sighed, turning over and pulling the blanket up. “Would you two keep it down over there? People trying to get some rest over here.”
  
  There was silence. Then the scrambling of feet.
  
  “Oh my god! Lizzie, are you awake?” That was Jess, her voice sharp.
  
  “Baby?” Mom’s voice was softer, gentle brushes on Lizzie’s cheeks. “Baby, please look at me.”
  
  She opened her eyes to find her mom and Jess crowded around her, their expressions twisted with hope and concern. She blinked. Her eyes felt full of crud, like she’d been asleep for a hundred years. Then she managed to focus and blinked again.
  
  “Did you decide the dress code was formal today?” she asked, looking at the pretty dresses they both wore. They looked like silk, but the design was odd. She’d never seen anything like them, not in all the history books she’d ever read. Must be a new film out or something.
  
  She tried to struggle to a sitting position, which was when she realized she wasn’t at home. “Oh… shit.”
  
  Eyes wide, she studied the room. It was fairly normal, with pale walls and a polished wooden floor. The soft bedding was in direct contrast with the complicated-looking medical equipment sitting by the side of the bed, a clue this was a hospital room. But it was the swankiest, most luxurious hospital room she’d ever seen. Why was she in the hospital? What had happened?
  
  Her gaze swept past the tree in the corner of the room, stopped abruptly, and returned to it. Hardly able to believe what she was seeing, she slid out of bed and padded toward it. She barely noticed Jess and her mom hovering at her sides, like a toddler they expected to fall over at any moment. All she was concentrating on was the leaves on the tree.
  
  “You’ve been asleep for months…” Jess whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
  
  “Yes, I know. The last thing I remember is Easter break. Figured I’d lost some time.”
  
  She knew something had gone wrong somewhere, and the fog in her memories was concealing it, but all she could see was the tree in front of her.
  
  Tentatively, she reached out a hand to stroke its leaves gently. It looked like a fir, but it wasn’t. Instead of the straight needles she’d expected, the branch was one entity, splitting down into side branches. But they weren’t actual branches. They were part of the main section. It had what looked like internodes as she’d expect in an evergreen with tiny nodules that looked like buds. The problem was, they were all crystalline in structure, like green snowflakes stuck together.
  
  She looked at Jess. “Okay… Where are we? Because we’re sure as hell not on Earth anymore.”
  
  Jess shot Mom a triumphant look. “I told you she’d figure it out. You owe me ten dollars.”
  
  “Yeah, yeah… I’ll get it for you when Fenriis takes me back to Earth for a visit… like next decade?” Mom snorted and then smiled at Lizzie, leading her from the alien tree. “Come and sit down, baby. We have a lot to tell you.”
  
  Lizzie frowned as she allowed herself to be led. The initial flood of adrenaline when she’d spotted the tree had leached away, leaving her feeling dizzy and like her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She made it to the bed, her family sitting on either side of her.
  
  “Right,” she told them. “Spill.”
  
  “Well…” Her mom started slowly. “You remember how Jess was—”
  
  “Captured by aliens.” Lizzie frowned as the memory came back through the fog. Although Easter break was the last thing she remembered for sure, her memories before that were a little fuzzy too. There were large blank areas that responded like cotton wool when she poked at them mentally. She looked at her sister.
  
  “You were captured by aliens, that much I remember, and if we’re not on Earth anymore…”
  
  Her gaze dropped to their dresses. The odd design would make sense if they weren’t even human fashion.
  
  “The aliens are called the Lathar,” Jess said quietly. “They’re a warrior-based society and have no women.”
  
  Lizzie’s eyebrow winged up. “So they steal other people’s. They sound like assholes.”
  
  She remembered her mom’s panic and tears when the news came that Jess had been taken. They’d always known that service in the TDF was dangerous. Space was a perilous place. But there was a distinct difference between “hit by an asteroid” and “kidnapped by little green men.”
  
  Jess’ expression set for a moment, darkness in her eyes as she pressed a hand to her stomach. “Well… some can be. But we’re exactly the same. Some humans are right dicks. And really? The Lathar aren’t all that bad.” A dreamy smile crossed her face. “Some are very… nice.”
  
  Lizzie gasped, picking up on her twin’s emotions. “Oh. My. God. You fell for one of them. Didn’t you?”
  
  Jess grinned. “Not just me.”
  
  Lizzie’s gaze slid sideways. A flush rode high on her mom’s cheekbones.
  
  “Mom!” she hissed, scandalized. “You didn’t?”
  
  “In my defense, I only said yes at first because Fenriis promised to get me to you two.”
  
  That news stopped Lizzie in her tracks. She felt off kilter, and not just because she’d been ripped away from everything she knew and thrust into what was turning out to be a strange new world. That was traumatic for any homebody. Even college had taken her some time to adapt to, and that was one on Earth. She’d immediately discounted anything off-world. Now? She felt like her entire existence had been tipped upside down and shaken about. And like something was missing…
  
  “I’m sorry, Fenriis? Who is that when he’s at home? Us two? And was there a man in here talking to me?” She shot rapid-fire questions at them, a frown on her face.
  
  “Fenriis is my ma… my husband,” her mom explained, taking her hand. “And Jess wasn’t the only one who was taken by the Lathar. They sent someone to take you as well. I’d lost you both. I was ill and then Fenriis offered to help me find you.”
  
  “Oh. And you fell in love with him on the way?” Lizzie asked, trying to fit the image of a distinguished silver fox Lathar in with the idea of little green men.
  
  “Something like that.” Amanda smiled, patting the back of her hand. Lizzie looked at her mom, really looked. She looked happy, in better health than Lizzie had seen her for a long time.
  
  “So why did they take me as well?” she asked, including Jess in her look. “And what about the guy speaking to me?”
  
  “My husband Laarn is the head doc here,” Jess explained gently. “He’s been treating your sleeping sickness. Perhaps it was him you heard?”
  
  “Hey! Get in there, sis! A doctor. You snagged a good one,” Lizzie grinned. “At least… you haven’t scared him off yet, so you must be doing something right.”
  
  A sound by the door caught all their attention, and they turned, just to see a long-haired guy look into the room. His eyes widened as he spotted the three of them. Then he disappeared abruptly.
  
  “Was that?” Lizzie whispered, leaning against her mom. She was tired, so tired, but it was a bone deep tiredness rather than a feeling like she needed to sleep again. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could ever sleep again.
  
  “Uh-huh,” Jess nodded. “That was Ivaas, one of the healers looking after you.”
  
  “He looked so… normal. Human.”
  
  “Well, they are human. Kinda.” Jess smiled, settling herself more comfortably on the bed. Like their mom, she looked happy, almost glowing. She’d put on a little weight, which suited her, but there was something else. Something Lizzie hadn’t put her finger on yet. And it wasn’t just because Jess was in love. That was apparent. It was something else.
  
  “Or rather,” Jess carried on. “We’re Lathar. Humanity are descended from one of their expeditions that got lost. They crashed and forgot where they came from… became us.”
  
  Lizzie’s eyes widened at that news and then widened further when the biggest guy she’d ever seen walked through the door. He was covered in scars and had long, dark hair that flowed over his shoulders. Neither detail held her attention as soon as she saw the little girl in his arms. Tiny and delicate, she had a small hand wrapped in the guy’s long hair, the thumb of the other in her mouth.
  
  Lizzie held her breath as the child looked at her, feeling the weight of an old soul’s regard. Then the baby smiled and held out her arms.
  
  To Lizzie.
  
  She blinked as the big guy walked over, automatically taking the baby as he handed her over. “Welcome to the family, Lizzie. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for a long time.”
  
  “Uh… hi?” she managed to reply, looking from the child to the alien in front of her, then to Jess, who was beaming.
  
  “Meet my husband, Laarn, and this is Miisan. Your niece.”
  
  
  
  
  
  2
  
  
  
  
  
  She was on an alien planet. A freaking alien planet.
  
  Lizzie couldn’t stop looking around, eyes wide at the plants in the garden around her. If she squinted and looked sideways, she recognized almost all of them. They were very similar to plants on Earth. Like evolution here had followed the same paths and ended up with almost the same design.
  
  She wasn’t surprised. It happened on Earth as well. There was a pinnacle for design in each niche, and even in closed ecosystems on opposite sides of the world, evolution created the same basic design, like the wolf and the long-extinct Tasmanian tiger. Same design, same predatory niche, but one lupine and one marsupial.
  
  So the fact that she could almost recognize all the plant varieties around her wasn’t surprising and was actually rather comforting. With a sigh, she leaned her head back against the lounger and closed her eyes, listening to the comforting rustle of the breeze through the branches of the trees. The temperature out in the garden was pleasant, even verging on warm. Perhaps the seasons were the other way around here, like in Australia back home?
  
  Making a note to ask someone about it later, she let herself relax. Her morning had been taken up by Jess’s husband, Laarn, doing tests on her. From what she could work out from his conversation with the other doctors, they had no idea why she’d woken up. It wasn’t anything they’d done.
  
  Interesting. For all their high-tech medical knowledge and gadgets, including the holographic scanner machine they’d had her in earlier, they didn’t know everything. That in itself was comforting. Aliens were discomforting enough, and hot aliens were even worse. But hot alien know-it-alls... That would flip Lizzie’s bitch switch quicker than anything.
  
  And, at the moment? It wouldn’t take much to make her flip out.
  
  She’d been playing catch up all morning. She’d known Jess had been taken by aliens, so to find out she’d married one was no surprise. Jess was clever, easy to talk to, and beautiful… all the things Lizzie was not… so the fact Laarn had fallen hard and fast didn’t surprise her. And her niece, little Miisan, was utterly delightful.
  
  Her mom being married though? That was a surprise. Apparently Fenriis was away on a mission at the moment but would return soon. Her stepdad was an alien. Fuuuuuck… That would take some getting used to.
  
  But for now, she was on her own. Laarn had called a stop to the tests for now and had ordered her to take some time to relax in nature. Seemed the Lathar doctors—sorry, healers—advocated a lot more communing with nature than human ones did. Again, no surprise. They were massively more technologically advanced than humanity.
  
  A sense of being watched made her open her eyes. Laarn had brought her out to a secluded area, setting a lounger for her under the shade of a tree with a good view of the gardens and, in the distance beyond the big walls, a sprawling city. Her very first alien city.
  
  But, while she might have the view, she hadn’t seen anyone since Laarn and his attendants left. She’d been surprised about that until she realized the lounger itself was monitoring her.
  
  Sitting up, she looked around, trying to spot whoever was watching her. There… in the bushes.
  
  “Hey!” she called out, standing. Her legs were still a little unsteady, the result of being in bed for so many months, so she gripped the back of the lounger to steady herself. “Hey… don’t be scared. You can come out. I won’t hurt you.”
  
  The bushes stilled, but she’d definitely caught the sense of movement behind them. They were high and thick, though, so even squinting, her gaze couldn’t penetrate them to reveal whoever it was.
  
  “Would you come out?” she asked. “Please? I’d like someone to talk to…”
  
  More silence. She was about to give up, sighing in disappointment and moving to sit down, when the bushes rustled again.
  
  An alien man stepped through, freezing the breath right there in her throat. He was almost as big as Laarn, broad-shouldered and heavy with muscle but without the scars. Pale eyes studied her levelly as he rose to his full height. She bit back a whimper, her knees going weak.
  
  He was the most gorgeous man, alien or human, she’d ever seen.
  
  Annnnd… she was staring.
  
  She shut her mouth with a click and looked up at him. “Hey.”
  
  “Hello.”
  
  His deep voice hit her like a shuttle at light speed and she gasped. It was him.
  
  Before she knew it, he was across the space between them, his arm out to steady her.
  
  “Lady Lizzie? Are you okay?” he asked, a look of concern on his handsome face. “Should I call for a healer?”
  
  “No. No, it’s okay,” she managed, looking up at him in wonder. “It’s you. You’re him. The man from my dreams.”
  
  A smile crept across his lips and she lost the ability to think. With dark hair bound back at the nape of his neck and pale eyes, he was gorgeous. Smiling? Yeah, no red-blooded woman stood a chance.
  
  “You honor me, my lady,” he dropped his gaze for a second, the little inclination of his head hinting at manners that were courtly and old-world.
  
  “No. I mean I remember you,” she said, her hand spreading out over his arm where he held her. “Your voice, I mean. It was in my dreams. When I woke up, everyone told me you were a figment of my imagination. A dream person. I knew they were wrong. I knew you were out here somewhere.”
  
  Suddenly she became aware she was clinging to him. The sheer relief of something familiar from her slumber, his voice, had made her lose all sense of acceptable behavior.
  
  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured, certain he didn’t want her all over him. With the way he looked, he could have the pick of the women from Earth. Probably already had, she thought, coming down to Earth with a bump. Okay, not Earth, she reminded herself, but back to wherever this place was with a bump.
  
  “No apology needed, my lady.” He smiled and let go as she straightened up, but he stayed close. He was probably worried about her face planting in the grass. “I am Saal. One of the… caretakers in the hall.”
  
  He motioned for her to sit down again, pulling up a small bench to sit opposite. “I did read to you, yes. Lord Healer Laarn said it was possible that you could hear us all even through your slumber and… I didn’t want you to feel alone.”
  
  She looked at him in surprise and then smiled, a bolt of pleasure rolling through her. “That was very thoughtful of you. Thank you.”
  
  She ducked her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. The way he was looking at her… he wasn’t hiding the interest in his eyes and his very nearness made her stomach feel like it was filled with butterflies. “I heard you,” she admitted softly. “Your voice made me feel safe.”
  
  It was just a small admission but his expression… it was like she’d given him the world on a silver platter. “I am glad. You—”
  
  “Saal.”
  
  A deep voice laced with disapproval and anger made Lizzie and the big alien warrior whirl around. So deeply involved had they been in their conversation, neither had heard Laarn approaching. He stood behind them, his arms folded across his broad chest and his face like thunder as he looked at the other warrior.
  
  “Don’t you have duties to attend to?”
  
  Saal was on his feet in a heartbeat, his expression tight and controlled.
  
  “Yes, Lord Healer.” He turned to Lizzie and bowed low. “My lady, an honor to meet you.”
  
  And with that, he was gone.
  
  “Why did you do that?” Lizzie demanded, turning on Laarn as he approached. His face was a hard mask as he used some kind of computer mounted on his wrist bracer to connect to the lounger she’d been resting on. “We were just talking.”
  
  “As long as it was just talking.” Laarn shot her a direct look. “Lizzie, I appreciate this is all a big shock to you and you’re having to adjust rapidly. But never make the mistake of thinking that because we look like you that we’re human. We are Lathar. Saal is Lathar… and that means he is very dangerous indeed.”
  
  “He was nice to me. He didn’t look dangerous.”
  
  Laarn squatted down next to her.
  
  “Every male can be nice when they want something. After... ” He shrugged. “Saal is a good warrior, and I trust him… up to a point. Don’t be alone with him again and never agree to anything, even if it seems harmless. Not until you understand our culture more, or you could well find yourself mated to a male you don’t want and there will be nothing I nor your sister can do about it. Understand?”
  
  She blinked in surprise. “Just talking though? That can’t be dangerous. Surely?”
  
  Laarn inclined his head. “Depends what you’re talking about, and what promises you make without realizing it. Hells, agree to a dance in some parts of the empire and you could find yourself in a multiple marriage.”
  
  Her eyes widened. “Okay. Not dancing. Promise.”
  
  He smiled. “Good. Now, since you appear to be a little more recovered, I’ll talk to Jess and the other ladies about getting you some lessons. So you don’t get yourself into trouble.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  It turned out Laarn hadn’t been kidding. Latharian culture was way more complicated than Lizzie had suspected. Lizzie laid her head down on the table and groaned after her first lesson. It was now stuffed with more rules and protocol than she’d ever dreamed possible. Using the right knife and fork at a state banquet back home on Earth had nothing on the Lathar. It seemed even looking at a guy in the wrong way could get a girl into trouble here.
  
  “Plants are easier,” she moaned as she sat up, heartily glad that they’d repaired to the terrace overlooking the gardens for lunch. Learning always made her ravenous.
  
  Jess, settled on the plush chair next to her with her sleeping daughter in her lap, chuckled. “Hey. Think yourself lucky. When we all arrived, there were no lessons. No integration period. We just had to muddle through.”
  
  That shut Lizzie up. Compared to her twin, she did have it easy. Jess and the other women on the Sentinel Five base had been kidnapped and kept prisoner, not woken up after a months’ long nap in a comfortable private hospital room.
  
  She sighed and turned her attention to the lunch that had been set out for them. Like with the plants, everything was sort of familiar, if you looked sideways and squinted a bit. There were small sandwiches, with what looked like cheese and tomato on them, but the bread looked more like pita bread than a baker’s loaf. It was crumbly though, more like a biscuit. Very odd. Tasty, though, she decided as she nibbled on one.
  
  The sandwiches were accompanied by some kind of sparkling drink that her nose wanted to tell her was floral but her taste buds swore was more berry-based. Sliced fruit that looked like a cross between a watermelon and an orange was set on a plate in the center of the table.
  
  But the food didn’t hold her attention for long. As always when there were plants nearby, her gaze slid to the garden and she sighed in happiness, feeling a calm settle over her. She’d always liked to be close to nature, and it seemed even nature on an alien planet would do the trick.
  
  That was until Saal wandered into view and all sense of calm fled the scene like a bank robber with a bag full of swag. She hadn’t seen him since Laarn had run him off yesterday. Trying to conceal her interest from her sister, she kept a calm expression on her face and swept her gaze over the gardens. But her eyes kept wandering back to the tall, broad-shouldered alien as he began to trim one of the hedges that bordered the many paths.
  
  He knew what he was doing, she realized, wielding a large pair of shears like a pro. She wondered idly why he wasn’t using a chainsaw or the like, instead of the more labor-intensive manual tool. But she couldn’t argue he made for an appealing sight, the heavy muscles of his shoulders and arms bunching to cut the thick foliage.
  
  “Close your mouth, sister dear,” Jess commented. “You’re drooling.”
  
  “Am not!” Lizzie shot back, but she couldn’t resist the automatic swipe under her lips to check.
  
  “Gotcha!” Jess chuckled, rocking Miisan gently. The baby snuffled and cooed, her hand wrapped around a lock of her mama’s hair.
  
  “Bitch,” Lizzie snorted. She’d given herself away so she only had herself to blame.
  
  “He is quite appealing though. Isn’t he?” Jess winked. “Never tell Laarn I said that.”
  
  “Oh, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. And, yes, he is.”
  
  Saal was more than “quite appealing.” The guy was drop-dead gorgeous. Lizzie sighed and looked away.
  
  “Laarn already warned me off him though. Said he was dangerous.”
  
  “Oh, he did. Did he?” The light of battle entered Jess’s eyes as she sat up a little.
  
  “Hey! Saal!” she called out. “Come up here. I’d like you to meet my sister.”
  
  The tall warrior turned gardener looked over his shoulder but then put down his shears and made his way toward them. His booted feet crunched the small stones of the path underfoot. Lizzie tried not to notice he was shirtless, but it was impossible. All that satin skin over hard muscle demanded attention and every feminine instinct she had sat up and took notice.
  
  “Lady Jessica.” He bowed as he spoke, his deep voice sending shivers up Lizzie’s spine. “Lady Lizzie.”
  
  He straightened and flashed a small smile at Lizzie. “I have already had the pleasure of meeting Lady Lizzie.”
  
  Lizzie smiled back but Jess answered. “As far as I understand it, my husband got involved. Said you were dangerous. Isn’t that right, Lizzie?”
  
  Lizzie almost spat her drink out but managed to choke it down rather than spray the delicate tablecloth in front of her. Tears in her eyes, she nodded. “Words to that effect, yes. Said I should be careful around him. Not be on my own with him.”
  
  “Utter bullshit! Saal’s not dangerous at all. Are you, Saal?” Jess demanded, soothing the fretting Miisan as she woke up.
  
  Saal’s expression twisted a little, but almost instantly smoothed out again. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but he was right. I am dangerous.” He looked directly at Lizzie. “Your sister’s mate gave you good advice. Be careful around any warrior whose intentions you don’t know.”
  
  “Huh,” Jess commented, standing to rock her daughter. “Well… I guess he’s right. All Lathar are dangerous. But Saal won’t hurt you. I trust him with my life. Have trusted him with my life. Isn’t that right?”
  
  Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Really?”
  
  She tried not to edge closer as Saal, invited by Jess’s motion toward a free chair, sat down. She’d been dying to ask about Jess’s time with the Lathar and how she’d ended up married to an honest-to-god alien prince, but so far she’d only gotten the bare bones from her twin. Her time was eaten up with her roles as an imperial princess and a mother. It would be nice to ask someone who’d known her during that time. The fact that he was also as handsome as hell and made her stomach do flip-flops was purely a happy coincidence.
  
  “Really.” Saal shot Jess a look but relaxed a little. “It was more the other way around,” he admitted to Lizzie. “She covered for me when the emperor and his forces were prepared to execute me for purist leanings. Mind you, she had just blown up the main labs, so I don’t think anyone fancied arguing with her.”
  
  “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 spread 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.
  
  “I don’t think human females are used to multiple matings,” he warned in a low voice. “Some might be. I don’t know. Perhaps you can mention it as a possibility when you register your interest?”
  
  The farmer nodded, rubbing at his beard. “We figured the only way we could ‘ave a chance at a female was if we were willin’ tae share. But we’ll take one any way she’s willin’ tae ‘ave us. It would just be nice tae ‘ave somethin’ nice to look at, yea know?”
  
  Saal nodded. Most males he knew would agree to just about anything to get a female. Hells, he’d even share Lady Lizzie if he had to, if that was the only way she’d accept him. Anything to know the love and softness of a female in his life.
  
  “You can register at the palace,” he suggested. “The mate program is open to all. As far as I know the emperor is negotiating with the human leaders about allowing us to have their unwanted females.”
  
  “Unwanted females…” the farmer murmured, as though such a notion was completely alien to him. And to be fair, it was. Had the Lathar still had females, not one of them would be unwanted. They’d long ago learned their lesson on that score.
  
  Then he snapped out of it, shaking his head and looking directly at Saal. A look of contrition crossed his face. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, gesturing toward Saal’s injuries.
  
  Saal shrugged and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. One of the advantages of working in the healer’s hall, eh? Well… good luck with your application, my friend.”
  
  “Ye too,” the farmer smiled, and with that turned to head out the way he’d come.
  
  The rest of Saal’s journey to the palace was uneventful. Before long he’d logged in and was checking patient stats on one of the secondary healers’ orders when he stepped out of a bay and almost walked right into the lord healer himself.
  
  Laarn’s hard expression didn’t alter but Saal knew he’d noticed his injuries from the would-be street fight.
  
  “Anything you want to tell me, orderly?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
  
  Saal kept his expression level. As Laarn was hall master as well as lord healer, by law he should report any and all acts of violence to him. But… he couldn’t. The farmer had just been doing what he thought best for himself and his brothers. In his place Saal might have done exactly the same. It was an impossible situation. One he was glad he wasn’t in.
  
  “No, my lord. Nothing to report.” He added a small, rueful smile. “Just an argument with a door, to my embarrassment.”
  
  “Hmmm,” Laarn grunted, obviously not believing him. Neither would Saal if he’d been in his shoes. The marks of violence on a male’s face were unmistakable. “Well, make sure you limit your… disagreements with doors. I will not have any member bringing disrepute down on this hall. You will be exiled if you do. Understand?”
  
  Saal didn’t argue but simply nodded.
  
  “Yes, my lord. Perfectly.”
  
  He didn’t move, waiting as per protocol.
  
  Laarn looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. “Dismissed. Make sure I don’t see you again until your face is healed.”
  
  
  
  
  
  4
  
  
  
  
  
  She had to agree to his claim.
  
  Lizzie hadn’t been able to get the handsome warrior’s words out of her head. They, and he, had haunted her dreams the night before. The memory of his lips on hers followed her out of sleep and into daydreams. She wanted more, of his kisses and his company.
  
  Wandering through the healer’s hall, she couldn’t spot him, so she strolled out toward the gardens. Perhaps he was on duty out there today instead? But he wasn’t among the gardeners either, so she walked back toward the palace. Maybe it was his day off today? Her mood took a nose-dive at the thought of not seeing him today.
  
  Then she found him, quite by accident. Turning a corner, she almost ran into him. He stopped abruptly in surprise, a hand out to stop her as dirty water from his bucket almost slopped over her toes.
  
  “Careful, my lady!” he warned, setting it down carefully and urging her to take a step sideways away from the dirty puddle.
  
  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, a surprised expression on his face as he indicated their surroundings. They were in a service area, where the servants went about their business.
  
  It wasn’t an area she would normally have been in. If any of the servants saw her, usually they gently but firmly guided her back to the more “acceptable” areas of the palace. She didn’t see why. These areas were often far nicer with less ostentatious decoration.
  
  “I was looking for you,” she admitted.
  
  “For me?” A burst of pleasure showed in his eyes and he smiled. “How can I help, my lady?”
  
  “I… Err—” He had to go and ask that. Didn’t he? Make her put it into words. Then she caught the edge of a wicked little smile cross his lips and she gasped. “You evil man!”
  
  He chuckled, the deep sound sending shivers across her skin, and swept her up into his embrace. Pulling her into a darkened alcove nearby, his lips were on hers almost before she’d registered the movement, and she melted in his arms.
  
  “Can you blame me?” he murmured when he broke the kiss, both their breathing ragged. He rested his forehead against hers. “It’s not often—like ever—that a female as beautiful as you comes looking for me.”
  
  She smiled, winding her arms up around his neck. “I’m sure if the Lathar still had women, you wouldn’t even look twice at a plain little nobody like me.”
  
  The expression of surprise and outrage on his face as he pulled back took her breath away.
  
  “Plain nobody?” he demanded, his hands on her upper arms as he gave a little shake. “Don’t you ever let me hear you put yourself down like that again. Do you hear me?”
  
  She bit her lip and nodded, rendered speechless by his vehement reaction. How could she explain to him that she felt she was always living in her twin’s shadow? How it felt always being seen as the quieter, less successful twin? The one who always stayed home while Jess was off traveling the stars.
  
  Only that wasn’t quite accurate anymore. Was it? They weren’t on Earth anymore, but on an alien planet… under a different star than Earth’s sun. So Lizzie had traveled the stars as well.
  
  “I’m the nobody here.” Saal smiled, putting a finger over her lips when she went to argue with him. “Oh, I am and I know it. You’re a K’Vass and I’m just a J’Qess. I’m surprised Laarn even allows me to be in the same room as you.”
  
  She batted his hand away, annoyed. “I am not a K’Vass. Mom and Jessica are. I am a Kallson and proud of it! And I’ll talk to whomever I damn well please. They don’t get to decide my friends for me. No one does.”
  
  He’d captured a lock of her hair, winding it around his finger.
  
  “Then are we friends, Lady Lizzie?” he murmured, using the movement to pull her closer until their lips almost touched. Her heart stuttered and then hit double-time within her chest, matching the butterflies dancing in her stomach.
  
  “I’d like to think so,” she breathed, hardly able to frame a thought with him so close. Not with his lips almost brushing hers.
  
  “Good,” he smiled against her lips and then kissed her quickly.
  
  It was over almost before it had begun, leaving her aching for more. Hot and cold chills raced over her skin, her body on fire as she rode the keen edge of sexual frustration.
  
  “I have something for you,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Close your eyes.”
  
  “You do?” She couldn’t help the small gasp of delight. “But it’s not my birthday!”
  
  He shook his head. “Do I need to wait for your birthing day to give you something?”
  
  She laughed softly and closed her eyes as ordered. “No, not at all.”
  
  She smiled as she waited, her ears strained for any sound or movement from him. Curiosity filled her. What had he gotten her? There was the rustle of cloth and then something small and cool was placed on the front of her chest, just below her throat.
  
  “Oh!” Opening her eyes, she looked down to find he’d placed a star-shaped pendant on a ribbon around her neck. It had delicate silver rays reaching out from a central blue stone, wrapped by silver wire in an intricate pattern.
  
  She sucked a quick breath in. “Oh, Saal, it’s beautiful.”
  
  Twisting, her gaze snapped up to his. “But I don’t have anything for you!”
  
  He shook his head as he tied the ribbon at the back of her neck, his fingers brushing her skin. She bit back her shiver at the tiny contact.
  
  “A gift given with expectation of something in return is not a gift,” he said in a soft voice. “I just wanted to make something for you.”
  
  “You made this?” she asked in wide-eyed awe. Her fingers brushed the pendant again. It was so pretty and delicate, she couldn’t believe he’d actually made it. For her. “No one’s ever made anything for me before.”
  
  “I did. When I was a kid I was desperate to join the engineer’s hall…” He shrugged. “Things didn’t work out as I planned but I keep my hand in it.”
  
  He smoothed the ribbon flat and turned her around to admire her wearing his creation.
  
  “It’s not much, just the central crystal from a decommissioned comms unit,” he said, a faint hint of color across his cheeks. “Not like the jewels in the K’Vass family vaults—”
  
  She stepped forward into his arms, pressing her fingers against his lips to shush him like he had to her. He responded by kissing her fingertips, which made her giggle softly.
  
  “I love it,” she whispered, reaching up on her tiptoes for another kiss. It was a long time before either of them were aware of anything around them. Only the sound of someone calling Saal’s name snapped them out of their romantic clinch.
  
  “Draanth,” Saal growled, letting her go after another quick kiss. “The Lord Healer has had it in for me all day. I should go.”
  
  “Wait!” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Will I see you tonight? There’s some kind of ball…”
  
  He shook his head and then winked. “They don’t invite the riff-raff, I’m afraid. I’ll see if I can get on the wait staff, though, so keep an eye out for me.”
  
  “SAAL! CLEAN UP IN BAY FOUR!”
  
  With another wink and hard kiss, he was gone.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  Latharian culture was the strangest thing. They walked around in combat leathers armed to the teeth, like they were the baddest of the bad alpha males who took what they wanted when they wanted it. But then it turned out they had rules about how to conduct themselves in polite society that wouldn’t look out of place in a regency ballroom.
  
  Lizzie sat on a silk-covered couch to one side of the large hall, next to her mother and sister. They were dressed in beautiful gowns with flowers in their hair, flanked by Laarn, who stood, casting a forbidding eye over anyone who dared to wander close. Several warriors already had, the light of interest in their eyes as they looked at Lizzie, only to be warned off by a growl from Laarn. The scene was being repeated all around the room, each group of women flanked by one or more stone-faced protectors.
  
  “They know you’re unmated,” Jess leaned in to murmur, the delicate flowers in her hair making a tinkling sound like tiny bells as she moved. Herris blossoms. She’d been told only the imperial family were allowed to wear them. Of all the women in the room, they were the only three with Herris in their hair. “So they’re trying their luck to see if Laarn deems them worthy of an introduction. But so far, no dice.”
  
  She nodded. None of the men who’d approached had interested her in the slightest. Oh, they were all handsome and ripped, their heavily muscled physiques screaming power and virility, but none made her stomach flip-flop like Saal had yesterday.
  
  Just thinking his name made the memories of the incident in the garden flood back. Her lips still tingled from his kiss, heat flowing in her veins at the way he’d held her. All his talk of soulmates had resonated within her, even as it scared her a little. How could someone know, just like that, that they wanted to spend their entire life with a person.
  
  Love at first sight maybe? A tiny voice sounded in the back of her mind. It was so soft it would have been easily overlooked, but it was like silence had fallen in the room suddenly so she paid attention to it, frowning. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. Did she? That being said, a few years ago, she didn’t believe in aliens either…
  
  Raised voices on the other side of the room made them all turn in surprise. One of the circling males had tried to sit down on a couch with a woman in a sweeping silver dress while the warrior with her was caught up in conversation with his two accomplices. As they watched, the two males tried to stop him getting past them to where his female was being charmed.
  
  “Oh, this should be interesting…” Jess commented, a hint of amusement in her voice.
  
  Lizzie didn’t see what was amusing. It was a pincer maneuver on the poor woman on the couch. She was tall, yes, and slender, but no nowhere near as tall as the Lathar trying to crowd her. Lizzie’s heart rate sped up in worry. If a fight broke out, that poor woman would get hurt—
  
  Then the woman pulled her arm back and punched her would-be suitor right in the jaw. Lizzie gasped, hands pressed to her mouth, as the alien warrior sprawled all over the floor, a look of shock written on his face.
  
  The woman stood in a graceful movement, her skirts swirling around her, and leveled a heavy hand-gun, aiming it right between the alien’s eyes. Even at this distance Lizzie could see the stone-cold resolution in her eyes and the fact that the gun didn’t waver one iota. She looked like a woman who really meant business.
  
  Jess chuckled as the warrior and his friends scuttled away like their asses were on fire. “Must be new at court… and they pick on Jane. Poor bastards.”
  
  “You knew that would happen?” Lizzie breathed, in awe of the woman in silver as the pistol disappeared somewhere in the voluminous skirts. She hadn’t missed the heavy combat boots the woman wore under the masses of her skirts.
  
  “Hell yeah. Jane’s been kicking ass since we got here.” Jess smiled as she turned back to their little group. “Killed the guy who poisoned Karryl—that’s her mate over there with her—and tried to claim her point blank. Bullet between the eyes. She’s been a legend here ever since.”
  
  “Wow…” Eyes wide, Lizzie looked over at the couple again. The big Lathar had taken his human mate in his arms, leading her out onto the dance floor. He didn’t seem at all bothered that she had what amounted to a hand cannon hidden somewhere in her skirts.
  
  “Like I said, they must be new at court. No male who recognized her or Karryl would be stupid enough to make a move on Jane.” Jess frowned as she looked at her glass, now empty. “Dammit, this stuff is too nice.”
  
  “Here. Let me get you another.” Lizzie held her hand out for the glass. A quick glance at her mom’s revealed it was mostly full, forgotten as she chatted with a woman from a nearby group.
  
  “No, no. Don’t get up. I’ll go in a moment.”
  
  “Seriously,” Lizzie huffed in frustration. “I was lying down for like… months. I’m sure I can get a drink without a problem.”
  
  Taking the glass, Lizzie was off like a greyhound before her sister could decide to come with her. She loved Jess to bits, but sometimes she needed a little space from her prettier, smarter and funnier twin. It had always been the same, Lizzie feeling like she faded into the background when compared to Jess. She knew her sister didn’t do it on purpose and would probably be horrified that Lizzie felt that way sometimes, but… yeah, occasionally she needed a little space.
  
  Heading across the room, she smiled at a couple of women as she passed them. She tried not to make eye contact with the alien men, not after seeing how those guys had moved in on Jane. And unlike the tall blonde, Lizzie didn’t have the back-up of a cannon in her skirts.
  
  She reached the drinks table without incident and refilled both glasses she carried. But, just as she was about to turn and walk back to her family, a group of males swept past her and a hand under her arm swept her out of the room and onto the terrace. It was done so quickly and neatly, she barely had time to protest. One moment she was in the ballroom, and the next she was backing up away from the three big men trying to surround her.
  
  “Hey, pretty lady,” one of them smiled, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. It made her shiver. In a bad way.
  
  “Excuse me, please. I need to take these back,” she said, holding up her glasses.
  
  “That’s not polite,” another, leaning against the wall, protested. “You’re a guest on our planet. The least you can do is talk to us.”
  
  She didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want anything to do with them. Unlike the Lathar she’d met so far, who were polite and pleasant, these sent the hackles on the back of her neck rising.
  
  “Actually, I’m a guest of Laarn K’Vass,” she said, keeping her voice just this side of polite. With a definite option of “not polite” or even “I will be making a complaint to your boss.” She’d had to deal with assholes like this in lab placements before, so she knew how to handle them. She hoped anyway. “So direct any issues with my manners to him.”
  
  The mention of the lord healer seemed to make the two at the back nervous. “Errr… Raaneth… perhaps we shouldn’t bother the lady any further?”
  
  “Yeah, I mean if she doesn’t want to talk to us, others might.”
  
  Huh, wouldn’t count on it, boys, she thought. Not with this approach.
  
  But either Raaneth was stupid, or… he was stupid. He shrugged their concerns off.
  
  “No, she’ll talk to us. Wouldn’t you, beautiful? Grab her…” he ordered, lunging forward.
  
  But Lizzie was ready for them. She flung the contents of her glass into their eyes with a shriek and ran, vaulting the low wall and fleeing into the gardens.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  The ball was well underway.
  
  Saal lifted his head and leaned on his scythe to listen to the sound of music drifting over the imperial gardens. He’d opted to work tonight because of the ball. Too lowly ranked to hope for an invitation, it was the only way he could get anywhere near Lizzie and have a hope of glimpsing her in her finery… even if she probably had no clue he was out here. But then the sounds of music were drowned out by other, closer noises and he frowned.
  
  The sound of a female in distress was unmistakable and far more distressing than Saal would have guessed. Without females of his own race, it was something he’d never heard before. Something unique. Other races didn’t make quite the same sounds when they were scared. The oonat made low cooing sounds, the Krynassis hissed according to the historical records… no one had ever been near enough to an actual lizard female in recent memory to find out. And the Krin… Yeah, he wasn’t sure those draanthic ever felt distress.
  
  But this sound, the breathy cries of panic, hooked right into his hind-brain and he was instantly on alert, his body ready and primed for battle. His hands tightened on the scythe he was using to cut the long grasses in the lower borders as he turned his head this way and that, trying to isolate the sound.
  
  There, left of midline. He took off without thinking about it, the cries threatening to tear his heart right from his chest. That was Lizzie. He knew it was. How he knew, he didn’t have a clue. The knowledge just welled up from the center of his soul and he snarled. No one would hurt Lizzie while he drew breath.
  
  He raced through the gardens, using the hidden paths only the plant-keepers knew about. Instead of racing across the main lawn, he hung a sharp left and plowed through the xariista patch. His calves bashing the stems forced the blooms to release their spores and he breathed them in. Instantly, the world came into sharper focus, and his limbs felt energized, as though he could take on the Izaea themselves and win. Gritting his teeth, he dug deeper for more speed and raced toward where the sounds were coming from.
  
  Crashing through the hedgerow, he found three males surrounding Lizzie in the empress’s pergola, her face a mask of fear. There was no way out. They’d covered every avenue of escape the little female had. He’d wanted a glimpse of her in her ballgown, but not like this.
  
  “With a fertile human female, my sons will be strong,” the one at the front leered, crowding her. “Then when you’ve borne my young… maybe I’ll let my men have a taste of human pussy.”
  
  “How about you have a taste of this instead,” Saal growled and swung the scythe. At the last moment he flicked the blade to inactive, the handle catching the warrior behind the ear. He crumpled instantly, all animation gone from his body as he sprawled over the floor.
  
  The other two snarled, yanking their blades free to advance on Saal. He bared his teeth and activated the blade. He’d had the element of surprise with the first one, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could take these two unarmed.
  
  The quiet hum of the blade drew their attention and he smiled without humor.
  
  “Want to try it? I can assure you, it’s sharp enough to harvest pilaris root,” he told them, naming a crop that was harder than Lathar bone to cut through. “But if you fancy your chances…”
  
  He saw their nerve fail before they moved, the subtle withdrawing of the mind before the body reacted. First one took a step back, not looking at his companion, and then the other. At the same moment they both turned and made a run for it, leaving Saal looking after them with grim determination.
  
  “Ohmygodthankgodyou’rehere!”
  
  He barely had time to deactivate the blade before Lizzie launched herself into his arms, clinging tightly to him. Instinctively, he wrapped her up in his embrace, holding her close to his body. She was trembling and crying, hot tears leaking from her eyes to bathe the naked skin of his chest, which was revealed by his parted work waistcoat. He had to bite back the snarl that wanted to well up, his instincts urging him to wake the draanthic sprawled at their feet and shove him in a ring to take him apart piece by piece with the scythe.
  
  He held it inside, though, the need to comfort his female winning out. Her needs would always win out, he realized, even over his baser, warlike nature. Unless her life was in danger… then all bets were off.
  
  “Shhh,” he murmured, his lips buried against her hair. Goddess help him, he liked her clinging to him like this. He had dreamed about it all night last night, his rest disturbed by the soul-deep need to claim her and make her his own. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
  
  “They wanted… They nearly…” She couldn’t get the words out, her voice trailing off in horror. Once again, he wanted to grab the electro-scythe and carve all three warriors into little pieces for scaring his female.
  
  Because she was his female. Never mind that he hadn’t claimed her yet, that he didn’t have bond marks around his wrists. She was his and that was all there was to it. The gods wouldn’t have brought them together if they didn’t intend for her to be his.
  
  “Shhh… don’t think about it. They didn’t. I was here.”
  
  And thank the gods he’d decided to roster onto the gardens this evening. If he hadn’t… A cold chill rolled down his spine and he closed his eyes. Her three attackers had been A’Raant, a clan not known for their kind and loving natures. If they’d managed to spirit her out of the palace grounds… No, he wouldn’t even think about that.
  
  “Please…” she begged softly, nestling closer to him. “I can’t go back inside. Get me out of here.”
  
  “Your wish is my command, my lady,” he murmured, bending down to scoop her up. She barely weighed anything physically, but he felt her small, curvy form against his chest like the feeling was branded all the way down to his very soul.
  
  Leaving the fallen A’Raant behind to be recovered by his cowardly relatives, Saal strode from the gardens with his precious female in his arms.
  
  
  
  
  
  5
  
  
  
  
  
  Saal had been there to save her. Impossibly, but he had been. She’d been praying for something, anything… and there he’d been, crashing through the hedge like an avenging hero. She’d never been so relieved to see anyone in her entire life.
  
  Carried through the corridors in Saal’s arms, Lizzie laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She felt safe and content. Okay, maybe not content. She was aware of every movement he made and the strength of his body against hers. It caused her breathing to shorten and the butterflies in her stomach to go into overdrive.
  
  The corridors seemed empty, so they didn’t pass anyone on the way to her rooms. Her lips quirked when he didn’t ask directions. “You did your homework then.”
  
  He grunted, the softest sound in the back of his throat, as he shouldered open the door. “Homework? I do garden work for the palace and work in the healer’s hall. I do not work in homes.”
  
  She chuckled, opening her eyes to look at him as he carried her through into her bedroom. Her fingertips trailed over the line of his shoulder, flirting with his collarbone. “I meant you’d found out where they put me.”
  
  “Yeah… I did. Cost me a few favors though.” His little glance sideways as he stood by her bed was swift and full of dark heat. She sucked a breath in as he released her, looking away and giving her room to breathe.
  
  “Lizzie…” he started and then closed his eyes. “Tell me to put you down and leave.”
  
  “Why would I do a thing like that?” She didn’t want him to leave. She felt safe with him. Safe and… not safe at all, but in an entirely different way, which made her shiver and want to press her thighs closer together.
  
  His eyes snapped open and he pinned her with his pale gaze. It was like looking into a white-hot flame and seared her right the way down to her soul.
  
  “Because if you don’t, I am going to claim you,” he said bluntly.
  
  Her heartrate spiked at the roughness in his voice. “And that’s a problem how?”
  
  He growled, his expression tight.
  
  “I’m not joking or playing about, Lizzie. If I stay, I will lay you down on this bed, strip every stitch off your gorgeous body and not stop taking you until the suns rise.”
  
  She held his gaze levelly, even though a flush rose on her cheeks. “Again. Not seeing a problem with that.”
  
  A muscle ticked in his jaw and he barked a short laugh. “Okay, I’m done playing nice. I gave you an out. Asked nicely. Now… you’re mine.”
  
  His mouth crashed down over hers, sending a spike of heat through her blood. He parted her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue and drove within as he dropped her knees. She slid down the front of his body, her small sound of surprise and pleasure lost under his kiss. He drove his free hand into the now loose fall of her hair, the other in the small of her back as he walked her backward onto the bed.
  
  She gasped, tearing her mouth from his and clinging to his broad shoulders as she fell backward. But he was with her, her smaller frame protected by the cage of his arms around her. They hit the bed, him braced over her as he bent his head and kissed her again.
  
  Only it wasn’t just a kiss.
  
  This time there was no exploration. No gentle teasing and testing of her responses. All that was gone to be replaced by hunger and need. She whimpered and clung to him, her hand latching in the loose fall of his hair, freeing it from the tie at the nape of his neck to fall around his shoulders.
  
  She moved with him, against him, answering each demanding kiss with one of her own. It had been too long since she’d done this… but she didn’t feel nervous. Instead, it felt right. Like she knew everything about him, deep down. Like she’d spent a lifetime looking and waiting for him, but at the same time like she’d known him all her life.
  
  He groaned, the sound containing an edge of a growl as the heat between them ramped up to inferno levels. Hands pulled at her dress. She wasn’t sure whose, hers or his, but she didn’t care. Before long she was naked beneath him. When she’d first seen Latharian fashion, she’d been scandalized by the lack of underwear, but now… seeing the dark heat flare in his eyes…
  
  “Mine…” he murmured in reverence, his hand spreading out over her stomach, stroking down across the soft skin.
  
  She chuckled, pulling him down for another kiss. “I think you have that the wrong way around, handsome. You’re mine.”
  
  She kissed him, the aggressor this time, and he groaned. But she hadn’t been prepared for the response she got. With an easy strength he turned them over so she straddled him on the bed. A shiver hit her as he plundered her mouth, his hand sliding between her thighs. He growled as he parted her pussy lips with strong fingers, only to have them bathed in the wet heat of her need.
  
  Breaking the kiss, he watched her as his thumb grazed her clit, causing her to shudder in response and bite her lip.
  
  “That’s good,” she managed. “Oh, god yes…”
  
  It wouldn’t take her long, not like this. He seemed to know just how to touch her. How? Her analytical brain wanted to know. If the Lathar had no women, how did he know how to do this? The feminine, primitive part of her brain chased such thoughts off, wanting more of the delicious sensation.
  
  “No gods required…” he breathed, kissing along her neck as he teased her with quick strokes. “Just your mate.”
  
  Her nails bit half-moon crescents into his shoulder as she tried to hold still for him. He blew that out of the water, though, when he found the entrance to her body and slid a finger deep into the silken embrace of her pussy.
  
  “Ohhh…” She bit out as he groaned again, her ability to frame a sentence gone. She didn’t know who she was, where she was… all that mattered was him and what he was doing to her.
  
  “Oh gods, you’re tight,” he murmured and added a second finger, stroking her within slowly. She arched her back, rocking her hips to ride his hand. “So tight and wet. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
  
  A soft bark of laughter escaped her. “You don’t need to be. Oh god, do that more…”
  
  She rode his hand, chasing the pleasure he offered. He worked her body, scissoring his fingers to stretch her and prepare her for his possession. She moaned as he found her g-spot, pressing against it in a way that made her hips buck.
  
  “That’s it,” he murmured, his free hand at the back of her neck to hold her in place as he pressed again, forcing her to accept the hard pleasure. She whimpered, her breathing coming in short hard pants as he teased her, both with clever fingers and the promise of the withheld kiss.
  
  “Come for me, beautiful. I want your pleasure.”
  
  She bit her lip, lost in his eyes. Then his thumb pressed down over her clit hard and she shattered. Her pleasure was softly voiced, a gentle cry as her hips ground against his hand, her pussy clenching hard around his fingers. He folded her in his arms, holding her tightly as her rapture washed over her. Soft strokes of his fingers within her teased her climax out. She shuddered as the waves decreased until they were little ripples.
  
  He pulled out, turning them over on the bed. She lay back against the sheets as he sat up, undressing and discarding his clothes unheeded on the floor. He was back in a heartbeat, his gaze intent on her as he braced himself over her.
  
  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his knee parting her thighs so he could settle between them.
  
  She smiled and reached up to push his hair back from his face, her thumb grazing the stubbled line of his jaw. Her lips parted as he pressed against her. The thick, hard head of his cock brushed against her pussy lips and a savage ache shot through her. She needed this, needed him with an intensity she’d never encountered before.
  
  “Oh…” she managed as he began to press in, one hand in his hair and the other against his broad chest. Her eyes widened. He was huge, much bigger than any human guy she’d been with.
  
  “Draanth,” he cursed, his jaw clenching as he managed to get inside her half an inch. It was lucky he’d already made her come, so the slickness from her previous climax aided his penetration. She rocked her hips, lifting her legs to try and help, but it took him a few thrusts to get angled right. Then her eyes crossed as he thrust and gained a few inches.
  
  “Oh fuck!” she hissed with her hand still tight in his hair.
  
  He moved and slid inside her even more. His deep groan wrapped around her softer moans in the air as he pulled back and then surged forward again. With short, sharp movements of his hips he pushed into her as she wrapped herself around him. Bracing himself on one elbow over her, he slid the other hand up her thigh to hold her leg up close to his body. Conversation between them was limited to soft sighs and pleasure-filled moans.
  
  Then he filled her completely, throbbing in the silken embrace of her body, and stilled. She held her breath, feeling herself stretched tightly around his thick, invading shaft. He leaned down and kissed her. His kiss was filled with raw, primal need as he began to move.
  
  It was slow at first, and she could tell the effort cost him. His body was tight with tension and control in every line as he pulled back and slid into her again. She whimpered at the sensation—a long, slow ride of utter pleasure.
  
  “Oh god, more… please, Saal.”
  
  She felt his control crack at her words. When he thrust into her the next time, the dam had shattered. She cried out in pleasure. The pace he set up was hard and powerful… so hot it was unreal.
  
  She clung to him as he took her, every inch of his large, powerful body bent to pleasure. To claiming her and making her his. To owning her and branding her soul. Soft pleas and whimpers filled the air around them to match his masculine groans. Reaching up, she offered her lips to him, an offer he didn’t refuse as he claimed her mouth again in a torrid kiss.
  
  Pleasure became deeper, harder… hotter as the bed rocked beneath them. She couldn’t stop touching him, hardly believing this amazing man was hers. He knew how to touch her, how to make her burn, and she wanted nothing more than to go up in flames in his arms again.
  
  She didn’t have to wait long, her body beginning to tighten again almost immediately.
  
  “Saal… I’m going to… oh god, Saal!” she screamed as she came again, clamping down over his thick cock.
  
  He growled and pulled her closer, sliding his arm beneath her and wrapping a big hand across the back of her neck and shoulder as he sped up. She watched him as pleasure washed over her, each heavy thrust making sparks fly through her veins. His face contorted in need, cords standing out in his neck as he powered into her a couple of times… then he threw his head back and roared as he came, his cock jerking and pulsing deeply within her.
  
  Filling her with his seed.
  
  Branding her with it.
  
  Claiming her as his own.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  Oh. My. God.
  
  She’d fucked an alien and it was Ah-Maze-Ing. Lizzie woke the next morning with the biggest smile over her face. The soft warmth of first sunrise was just beginning to creep through the blinds as she turned on her side to study Saal. He was still fast asleep on his back. He hadn’t sprawled out over the bed, nor was he a cover hog. In fact, the only thing she could possibly complain about was the fact that he hadn’t let her have much sleep. If she was looking for a reason, which she totally wasn’t.
  
  She bit her lip as her gaze wandered over his handsome profile. Stamina wasn’t the word. He’d kept her up all night and now she was sore in some very pleasant places. And probably hoarse, what with the amount of screaming she’d been doing.
  
  Lizzie didn’t consider herself innocent. If anything, she thought she was more than competent in bed… previous boyfriends had certainly had no complaints. But her sexy alien blew every guy she’d ever been with out of the water. Not only did he have the stamina and the equipment to match it, but he also knew what to do with it. And in her opinion, there was nothing more disappointing than a man with a good dick—not too long, but nice and thick—only to find out that his entire sexual repertoire consisted of thrusting it in and out. Cock was nice, but it wasn’t the be all and end all of a good sex session.
  
  Saal wasn’t like that. He had the D and knew what he was doing with a woman. She’d come so many times she’d lost count, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that he always saw to her pleasure first.
  
  “You just going to watch? Or say good morning?” Saal smiled, his eyes still closed. Then he opened one, spearing her with a light blue gaze rendered turquoise by the shaft of sunlight that played across his face. “Because I have some ideas about how I’d like to bid you good morning.”
  
  She grinned and then squeaked in surprise as he moved, flipping and pinning her beneath him in one powerful surge. Before she knew what he was about, he’d parted her legs with his knee and settled between them.
  
  “Saal! We haven’t even had breakfast!” she gasped as he slid into her, holding her gaze with his as he filled her completely in a slow, slick slide of pure sensation. “Ohmigod!”
  
  “Who needs food?” He grinned, his hips pumping in an easy rhythm that sent sparks whirling through her veins. She’d never been one for morning sex before, but her alien lover was well on his way to changing her mind.
  
  Even though he’d taken her so many times during the night she’d lost count, she quickly fell under his spell again. Wrapping herself around him, she welcomed each thrust and clenched around him each time he pulled back. Heat spiraled through her blood and she felt the need rising, her pussy aching and her body tightening as she approached her—
  
  “Hey! Lizzie!” Jess called out from the next room. “Are you up? We were worried about you last night, leaving so abruptly.”
  
  They froze, Saal’s gaze finding hers.
  
  “Shit. Jess,” she whispered, but he placed a finger over her lips.
  
  “She’s probably tired,” Laarn’s voice sounded, a little lower. “We should leave her to rest.”
  
  “Shit, Laarn is with her. What do we do?”
  
  Saal cut off her question with a quick shake of his head.
  
  “Lizzie? Are you awake?” Jess called again, her voice closer.
  
  “Crap,” Lizzie hissed. “She’ll come in here.”
  
  Saal watched her face levelly. “Let her. We have nothing to hide. We’re mates.”
  
  She bit back a squawk. “I don’t want them seeing us.”
  
  His expression shuttered, and he pulled out of her. “I apologize, Lady Lizzie. I didn’t realize I would be an embarrassment.”
  
  “No!” She tried to stop him, but he was off the bed in a heartbeat, reaching for his clothes. She scrambled toward him, putting her hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean like that. I just… I wanted to keep what we have to ourselves for a while. Just until I’m used to it. I’ve… I’ve not been in a relationship for a long time.”
  
  He paused, pants already on and one foot in a boot, to look at her. She could see the hurt in his eyes and her heart ached.
  
  “Lizzie?”
  
  “Bear with me. I’ll be right out,” she called out to stop Jess just barging in. While Saal might not have been bothered at her sister seeing his bare ass, she certainly was. Jess had her own alien warrior. She wasn’t having Lizzie’s.
  
  “Please, Saal,” she murmured, all but crawling into his lap naked. “I want to be with you. I’m not ashamed of you. Give me a few days of just us. Then we can tell them.”
  
  “A few days,” he agreed grudgingly, dropping the boot in favor of wrapping his arms around her. “But then we tell everyone. You’re my mate, and I want all to know it.”
  
  She smiled, kneeling in his lap with her arms around his shoulders to kiss him. He groaned as she nestled against him, her bare breasts pressed into his naked chest.
  
  “You’ll be the death of me, Lady Lizzie,” he murmured against her lips and then kissed her quickly and put her from his lap. “Now get dressed or you won’t be leaving this bed any time soon.”
  
  She grinned as she scampered from the silken sheet-covered bed, casting a saucy look over her shoulder as she headed for the wardrobe for a wrap. “Can I get that on a promise for tonight?”
  
  
  
  
  
  6
  
  
  
  
  
  Saal managed to make it to his lodgings, get changed and back to the healer’s hall in time for the start of his shift. But only because he ran most of the way, the extra hours he’d put in training working in his favor. If he’d stayed in bed with Lizzie, he would have missed most of it. Even though he hadn’t wanted to leave her, he knew in his heart of hearts that she was right. She was K’Vass, if only by familial connection, and he was J’Qess. He had a long way to go to prove he was worthy of her.
  
  As he began his rounds, he was aware of Lord Healer Laarn watching him. He’d arrived not long after Saal had himself, and he knew Laarn knew he’d been in Lizzie’s room this morning. He didn’t know how since he’d been silent and hadn’t spoken, but by the way Laarn was looking at him, he knew.
  
  Saal ignored him, concentrating on his duties. Part of him wanted to march up to Laarn and announce that, yes, it had been him. That it was exactly what the lord healer suspected. Saal was in love with Lizzie, and they were mates. But the more sensible part of him realized that was likely a quick way to a beating in the challenge circles. So he bit his tongue and made sure his cleaning was beyond reproach.
  
  Once he was done with the main areas of the hall, he moved onto the bays, a nod of acknowledgment to the patients in the bays if they spoke to him. Sometimes they asked him for water or to notify a healer of their requirements, none of them caring what his family name was or where he came from as long as he could provide the help they required.
  
  “We were attacked! I want justice!”
  
  Shouting from the main entrance to the hall drew Saal and the healers out from their bays and into the common area to see what the ruckus was. A crowd of warriors at the entrance carried two injured warriors into the assessment area. They were badly hurt, blood dripping steadily as they were laid on examination beds.
  
  Saal’s eyes widened a little as he recognized two of the males who had attacked Lizzie the night before. The third of their number, the one he’d clocked with the scythe, was standing behind an older warrior with flowing white hair. Saal didn’t know him, but it wasn’t difficult to work out from the sigils on his armor that he was Janaar, leader of the A’Raant.
  
  Which meant the warrior behind him, decked out in similar armor was his son. Even though his lip wanted to curl back in disgust, Saal schooled his face to neutral politeness as befit a member of the healer’s hall. While it wasn’t the engineer’s hall he’d wanted to belong to when he was a child, he was still honored to have a place here.
  
  “What happened here?” Laarn demanded, striding forward to examine the two warriors.
  
  Behind him, Saal grabbed a clean mop and bucket, heading around to clean up the floor. The rules were very strict—any spilled blood in the hall was to be cleaned up immediately to mitigate the risk of further accident. Blood-borne infections were no longer a thing in their species due to genetic manipulation, but the rules had been set in stone long before that.
  
  “They were attacked!” A’Raant spat. “Cornered in an alleyway in the city when they were just going about their business and viciously assaulted.”
  
  It couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair, Saal thought as he cleaned the blood up. It was fresh and there was lots of it, indicating whoever had tagged the two A’Raant warriors had gotten them good.
  
  “Must have been a crowd of them,” Laarn commented, his voice sounding absent as he examined the injured males. “These are some pretty nasty injuries. They’re going to be with us for a while.”
  
  “It wasn’t.” A’Raant’s voice was hard as he folded his arms over a broad chest. His expression was furious.
  
  “Wasn’t what?” Laarn didn’t mince his words, obviously not happy with A’Raant’s attitude, especially not here in the healer’s hall where Laarn reigned supreme. Here, not even the emperor could gainsay the lord healer.
  
  “It wasn’t a crowd,” A’Raant spat. “It was one male.”
  
  Saal blinked at that, casting a startled look at the males on the examination tables. If one male had done that to them, he didn’t think much to their abilities as warriors.
  
  From the tone of his voice, Laarn held the same opinion. “What? Both of them at the same time? Or were they attacked at different times? Ambushed maybe?”
  
  It was a fair question. As Saal knew, walking the streets could be hazardous. Some beings out there desperate enough to take on even a Lathar male for the few coins their belongings would yield on the black market.
  
  “One male,” A’Raant repeated and then swung his arm around to point at Saal. “That male!”
  
  Saal blinked, not bothering to hide the surprise that flowed over his features. “Me?”
  
  He hadn’t laid a finger on them. They’d run off in fear before he could get anywhere near them, and with Lizzie in the state she’d been, he hadn’t bothered to pursue as he normally would.
  
  “Saal?” Laarn asked, sounding as surprised as Saal was. “Are you sure? He’s just an orderly here in the hall.”
  
  Saal bit back his comment at the insult to his fighting abilities. He wasn’t just an orderly. He was a prime warrior, just like Laarn. He was more than able to fight for the empire and glory, and he had the braids to prove it.
  
  “It was… him,” one of the warriors said, shakily. “He attacked us just off the square by Liaanas’s temple.”
  
  Saal looked directly at Laarn, shaking his head. “I was…”
  
  Then he stopped suddenly. He couldn’t say he was in the palace all night. Could he? He didn’t have lodgings here nor any duties that would have kept him overnight. It was hard to garden in the dark and he wasn’t rostered onto the healer’s hall for last night.
  
  Draanth. He was screwed. And not in a good way.
  
  “Saal?” Laarn’s voice was firmer. “Did you attack these men?”
  
  He lifted his chin. “No, Lord Healer. I did not.”
  
  He would have, if he hadn’t been with Lizzie. If they’d hurt her, he’d have tracked them down to the ends of the universe and made them wish they’d never been birthed. Hells, he’d have made their grandparents wish they’d never been birthed either.
  
  “Where were you last night?” Laarn’s voice was low and calm, but the look in his eyes said he knew he had Saal.
  
  Trallshit.
  
  “I was…” Every cell in his body wanted to tell the truth—to announce to all of them that he’d been with his mate, the beautiful little human who had accepted his claim—but he couldn’t, not without breaking his promise to her.
  
  “…I was in my lodgings,” he lied. “Off the northern square. All night.”
  
  “LIES!” A’Raant bellowed. “He followed my kin and attacked them. We have witnesses.”
  
  The other A’Raant warriors hustled two street-traders forward. Not Lathar, one was Aravonian and the other looked to be a Krynassis hybrid of some sort. Both refused to look anyone in the eye.
  
  “Did you see the attack? Did you see this male? Look at him,” the Lord healer barked the order at the witnesses and they jerked their gazes up to Saal. “Is this the male?”
  
  He’d never seen either of them in his life before but they both nodded like their heads would fall off.
  
  “Yes, my lord, sir,” the hybrid muttered. “That’s ‘im.”
  
  “They’re lying,” Saal said bluntly. “I’ve never seen them before.”
  
  A’Raant shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t see him attacking my kin.”
  
  “True,” Laarn commented, dismissing the witnesses with a wave of his hand. Turning, he nodded to the healers behind him. “Take these two into the bays and start healing. Lord A’Raant, you will be notified when they are well enough for visitors.”
  
  A’Raant gave a grunt, arms folded over his chest, and then nodded toward Saal, still frozen in place with his mop in his hand. “What about him?”
  
  “Don’t you worry about him,” Laarn said in a grim voice. “Justice will prevail. I assure you.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  “You CAN’T do this!” Saal bellowed as a troop of guards threw him from the main gate of the palace, his pack and other belongings tossed into the dirt after him. The guards just laughed and shut the door in his face.
  
  Closing his eyes for a second, Saal groaned. He should have seen this coming. Laarn knew he hadn’t attacked those men, but because he couldn’t say where he was last night, couldn’t force the truth from Saal because of his promise to his mate, he’d used the opportunity to remove Saal from the hall.
  
  And that stung. While they hadn’t been friends, precisely, he’d expected more from Laarn. They’d had issues yes, when Jess and the other human females had first arrived on Lathar Prime, but Saal had more than paid for any hurt and insult he’d caused.
  
  No… he admitted to himself. This was nothing to do with past issues. This was solely because he was lower ranked and Laarn didn’t want a J’Qess in the family, certainly not as a brother. So he’d leaped on the first opportunity to get rid of Saal.
  
  The sound of a boot scuffing the dirt had his eyes snapping open just in time to see a street urchin sidle toward his pack.
  
  “Oh no you don’t,” he hissed, grabbing for his belongings and baring his teeth at the circling street brats. While his stuff wouldn’t fetch much, even in the back streets of the city where talk was cheap and lives cost osharin, he didn’t want to lose any of it.
  
  “Get gone with you,” he growled threateningly, and the urchins disappeared into the shadowy side streets.
  
  It was a long walk back to his lodgings, and the two days that followed were even longer. Eventually, sitting in front of the single console in his room, he had to admit that Lizzie wasn’t going to respond to any of the messages he’d sent her.
  
  Growling, he shoved his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face as he looked at the screen. Why wouldn’t she talk to him? She’d read the messages, if the code line on them was to be believed, and the palace system was the most advanced on the planet. Which meant…
  
  He closed his eyes, pain lancing his heart and stealing his breath as he faced the truth.
  
  She didn’t want to talk to him. And she hadn’t wanted anyone to know about them. Forget wanting to keep their relationship to themselves for a few days. He drew in a ragged breath, fist clenched in front of his mouth. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know about them because she’d never been serious about them in the first place. Had she only wanted a bit of fun, a night in the sheets, then… nothing? To forget him altogether? He hadn’t thought humans were like that. All evidence he’d managed to gather said that human females needed an emotional connection to be intimate with someone.
  
  A lone tear streaked down his cheek, splashing unheeded across his bare chest.
  
  She was his entire world… and she didn’t want anything to do with him. He barked out a bitter laugh. He’d fallen head over heels for a human woman, believed they had a future together, and she’d used him. Gotten what she wanted and thrown him away.
  
  Draanthing idiot.
  
  A fist hammered on the door, making him jump.
  
  “Oi! Room’s due!” a rough voice hollered.
  
  With a sigh Saal hauled himself to his feet and began collecting coins from the small stack by the console. There weren’t enough for more than a few days. He’d never bothered to save much of the meager pay offered by the healer’s hall. Some of the other orderlies had a second job, security and suchlike for the bars in town. He’d never needed to. Most of what he needed, food while working and clothing, had been provided by the hall. Besides, another job would only have taken him away from Lizzie. He should have saved at least some of it. But for what? To hang around mooning over a woman who obviously didn’t want him?
  
  Making it to the door, he opened it, leaning in the frame as he nodded to his landlord. He felt like he’d been in combat for days—exhausted, battered and bruised.
  
  “Hey, Malaac,” he said as he handed over his coin. “Heard of any units in town recruiting recently?”
  
  The old lodge master, a veteran of several wars from his scars and braids, looked surprised. “I thought you were up at the healer’s hall?”
  
  Saal shrugged. “Didn’t work out. They let me go. Last in, first out. You know how it is…”
  
  It was a pathetic excuse but he didn’t care. Luckily, Malaac didn’t call him on it, just eyeing him with concern.
  
  “Heard the Warborne were hiring,” he said, naming one of the legendary mercenary units. “They were in the Triple Goddess last night.”
  
  Saal nodded as he pushed away from the door. “Thanks, I might give them a go.”
  
  Malaac’s hand snaked out and caught his arm. The older male’s look was direct and concerned.
  
  “Careful, lad,” he warned. “Once you start down that path, it only ends one way. Blood and death without glory.”
  
  Saal laughed bitterly. “Nothing left to lose, old-timer. Might as well use it earning coin.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  Men were all the same. Lying pigs, no matter what the species.
  
  Lizzie sighed as she lay back on the diagnostic bed and closed her eyes as it hummed around her, scanning her body down to the molecular level. She didn’t bother to look around as she had at the beginning of the week, hoping beyond hope to see a familiar figure among the orderlies. It had been six days and she hadn’t heard hide nor hair from Saal.
  
  She snorted bitterly. So much for “you’re my mate” and “I want all to know it.” Like most of the guys she’d known back home, once he’d gotten what he wanted out of her, she hadn’t seen him for dust. Typical.
  
  “Scans are looking good.” Laarn’s deep voice broke through her reverie and she opened her eyes, the vaulted ceiling of the healer’s hall rising high above her. They were in one of the screened-off bays as Laarn performed the tests. Unlike in a human hospital, most of the procedures took place in the main hall, the space able to be sectioned off by curtains and forcefields if it needed to be sterile.
  
  She wasn’t alone for today’s check-up. Perhaps aware of Lizzie’s gradually worsening mood over the week in a way that twins often were, Jess had been stuck to her side like glue. Sometimes Lizzie was surprised she was allowed to go to the toilet alone.
  
  “So she’s better?” Jess asked, her expression tight with concern as she looked over her husband’s shoulder at Lizzie’s scan results. Perhaps Laarn had been teaching her about Latharian medicine because she seemed to know what she was looking at. It all looked like gobbledegook to Lizzie.
  
  “She is… you are,” Laarn confirmed, smiling at Lizzie as he moved to the side to make room for his mate. He wrapped an arm automatically around her waist, pulling her up against his side with a soft look down at her that completely transformed his rather severe features. Lizzie looked away, a pang of jealousy spearing her heart. She wanted that… wanted a man to look at her that way.
  
  Saal had looked at her like that, a little voice piped up in the back of her head. He had looked at her like she was the sun and stars all rolled into one. Pity it had all been a lie—an act to get her into bed.
  
  “The sleeping sickness?” she asked, bringing her mind back to more important matters than asshole lying aliens. “Is it gone? Am I cured?”
  
  Laarn smiled and nodded. “It appeared to be some kind of long-running viral infection attacking your central nervous system. You’ll need a few more treatments and to ensure you get enough rest over the next couple of weeks but you should be fine.”
  
  She nodded, feeling relief at the news. At least she could go to sleep now without wondering if she was going to wake up in the morning, or to find months had passed.
  
  “Thank you, Laarn. I appreciate it.” She added a smile. “Does that mean I can go home soon.”
  
  “Home?” Jess asked in shock. “Why would you want to go home?”
  
  Lizzie shrugged. She couldn’t tell them the real reason she wanted to get away from Lathar Prime. Yeah, I fell for a lying charmer of a warrior who just wanted a notch on his bedpost and got my heart broken in the process.
  
  “My life is back on Earth. College…”
  
  “Lizzie, please. We just got you back.” Jess hurried to her bedside, her expression so filled with pain and concern Lizzie felt guilty for even mentioning it. “And Mom is here as well. There’s no one on Earth to look after you—”
  
  “I can look after myself,” she said with a smile, patting Jess’s hand. “Honest.”
  
  Laarn cleared his throat, an apologetic expression on his face. “I’m sorry, Lady Lizzie, but you can’t go back to Earth.”
  
  Her hackles went up instantly. “Oh? And why not?”
  
  “A couple of reasons.” He pressed a button and the display around her snapped off. “The least important is that you have a unique marker in your DNA. It’s one that all Lathar and most of humanity are missing.”
  
  “And?” She frowned as she watched him shut down the machine. She didn’t see why a DNA marker would stop her from going home.
  
  Laarn pulled a stool over and sat down next to her bed. His expression was open and honest, the consummate professional.
  
  “We originally thought it was just you and your sister, but it seems all Kallson women have it, which means there are only four beings we know of with this unique sequence. And it’s the only thing between both our species and extinction through plague. Believe me when I say you and your family are the most important women in the entire galaxy.”
  
  “Wow. Okay.” She managed a small laugh. “You sure know how to take the wind out of a girl’s sails.”
  
  “But that’s the least important reason. To us anyway,” Laarn continued, eyeing her with the same mixture of concern as on Jess’s face. “You still need treatment. I wouldn’t be happy about releasing you from my care for at least a couple of months yet. I’ve seen the utter draanthing disaster human medical care is, and the health and wellbeing of my… our family is my primary concern.”
  
  Lizzie bit her lower lip, biting back tears. Seriously, what was wrong with her? Women got their hearts broken all the time. She was nothing special. She just needed to put the big girl panties on and get on with it.
  
  “Yeah?” She couldn’t help challenging her sister’s mate. Divert the pain into anger, and all that. “What if I wanted to settle down with a warrior here who didn’t meet your expectations?”
  
  For a moment confusion shadowed Laarn’s eyes, but then, almost so quickly she nearly missed it, a flash of guilt. It was gone in the blink of an eye.
  
  “You can choose any warrior you like. Can’t she, Laarn?” Jess said with a smile, but she caught the tension between the two of them. “Okay, what don’t I know?”
  
  Lizzie folded her arms and looked at her alien brother-in-law.
  
  “Saal J’Qess.” Laarn sighed. “He was paying too much attention to Lizzie for my liking?”
  
  Jess couldn’t hide her delight as she rounded on her sister. “Really? What do you think of him, Lizzie?”
  
  She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Laarn doesn’t need to worry about him any more either. He got what he wanted and I haven’t heard from him since. Typical, huh?”
  
  To her horror, her voice cracked, tears escaping down her cheeks.
  
  “Oh, Lizzie,” Jess murmured, reaching out and pulling her into a tight embrace. It was too much. Lizzie’s defenses cracked and she broke down in sobs, the wretched cries giving voice to her heartbreak.
  
  
  
  
  
  7
  
  
  
  
  
  The Triple Goddess was packed, which was nothing less than Saal had expected with the Warborne in residence. Pretty much every fanboy in the city was crowded into the taproom to listen to tales of the mercenary unit’s exploits or even just to share the same air they breathed. For the upper castes, Daaynal the emperor was the ultimate warrior, but realists like Saal knew any male from the lower castes could never hope to reach such heights.
  
  Instead, the Warborne and other mercenary crews were their heroes. Anyone could join a team, provided they had the skills. Saal definitely had the skills. Not only had he been born mean, but he was an experienced warrior who’d been training at court for the best part of the last year. That meant he was a whole lot meaner and more dangerous now.
  
  He didn’t need to say any of that, though, as he shouldered his way through the crowded room to the front. Instead, he let the well-used but well-cared-for appearance of his personal weaponry and multitude of honor braids do the talking for him. Males who turned when he bumped into them by accident, hyped up on ale and ready to brawl at the slightest provocation, suddenly backed down and became very solicitous as they allowed him to pass. He kept his smile to himself. There was no honor in doling out beatings to males he knew had no hope against him.
  
  His internal amusement faded as he found a stool near the front. If all went well, from this point onward he wouldn’t need his braids. His life would no longer be about honor. That was the point of him being here. To leave it all behind, to leave Liz— Deliberately, he cut the thought off. He didn’t need the pain thinking about her would bring. He needed to be focused on his own life. To move on.
  
  Frowning to himself, he idly scratched a wrist as he studied the Warborne. Five of them were present although the numbers changed with injuries and deaths. They were commanded by a huge Lathar called T’Raal and if Saal didn’t know better, he’d swear the male was Izaean. He certainly had the massive build of a berserker, the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunching as he arm-wrestled the biggest Krynassis Saal had ever seen.
  
  His eyes narrowed. There was no way the male was just a Krynassis, though. The lizard men, while as large as the Lathar, usually didn’t pack as much muscle and something was going on with the bone structure around his brow and jaw. Probably some kind of hybrid, he concluded, his attention moving on.
  
  Likewise, an interspecies hybrid was the only way to explain the female in the group. Tall and slender, with masses of fiery red hair, the slight hint of scales around her cheekbones and the hiss to her laughter as she spoke with the mercenary sitting next to her said Krynassis but she was female. There was no way the lizards would have let a full-blooded female go. They were too rare and valuable as brood mares. No, she had to be a half breed, no doubt sired by a pack of randy lizards on some poor unfortunate female on a backwater planet somewhere.
  
  “So… what’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
  
  The deep voice caught Saal’s attention the moment before a warrior dropped into the seat next to him. He found himself speared by eyes so pale he might as well have been looking into a snowstorm. White hair was twisted into a thick ridge on top of his head to flow down the center of his back, the sides shaved to the scalp. Saal sucked a breath in, instantly recognizing one of the rarest types of Lathar.
  
  “I could ask the same. What’s a Navarrian doing with the Warborne?” he threw back, not quite a challenge but enough that the mercenary knew he wasn’t a pushover. Dressed as the male was, in combats and tactical gear, there was no way he wasn’t with the Warborne. Not with the aura of danger and lethal grace that clung to him like a second skin. “Thought you guys preferred the deep ocean.”
  
  “Looks and brains. I can see I’m gonna have to watch you,” the mercenary grinned and offered a small wink. “Usually we do. But I like my continued existence and the ability to breathe too much to set foot on my home world for the foreseeable future.”
  
  He pulled his shirt aside with a grin.
  
  “You were outcast?” Saal’s eyes widened at the brand. The brand didn’t surprise him as much as the multitude of dark lines it had destroyed. He might not know much about the Navarr, other than they were an offshoot of the Lathar who had split from the main species so long ago that not much was known about them. But he did know that only those of royal blood had their skin marked in such a manner.
  
  “Oi, fin-boy, stop chatting up the local talent and come tell Skinny he’s an idiot,” the female Warborne shouted across the crowded space.
  
  “Fin-boy?” Saal asked in confusion as his new companion sighed and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think the Navarr had fins.”
  
  “We don’t.” The mercenary smiled and levered himself to his feet. Standing, he was a lot taller than Saal with a lean, rangy build that screamed speed and power. “But this lot think they’re funny. First thing you need to know about the Warborne is you don’t get to pick your name. They do. Fin,” he introduced himself. “Pleasure to meet you.”
  
  “Likewise.” Surprise filled Saal as Fin motioned for him to follow as he strode across the room to the table the mercenary group were sitting at. Four pairs of eyes swept over him in rapid-fire assessment as he wondered what the hells was happening. Sure, he’d come here to beg an audience and to ask for a chance to try out for the Warborne, but he hadn’t expected to be singled out so quickly, or even at all.
  
  “Would you look at the braids on that one!” The female whistled, leaning back on her stool, elbows against the table behind her as she gave Saal an appreciative look. Her previous argument with the Lathar next to her, a heavy-worlder by the looks of him, was seemingly forgotten. “How about you come sit down next to me, Talent.”
  
  “Be careful of Red,” Fin leaned closer to warn in a low voice. “She’ll eat you for fucking breakfast.”
  
  “Hey! Talent here is more a breakfast, lunch and dinner, so fuck you! You know you’re not allowed to keep prospects to yourself. He’s just jealous,” Red winked at Saal. “He only made breakfast before I kicked him out.”
  
  “Prospect?” Saal choked, deciding to ignore the rest of the conversation. Obviously Red and Fin had history—one he did not want to get in the middle of. Suddenly, though, he found himself the focus of attention of all four mercenaries.
  
  “Well,” T’Raal said, his voice a deep growl. “A male comes in here dressed like that…” He nodded toward Saal’s leather and weapons. “Then he’s looking to get hired or get fucked. If it’s the first…”
  
  He kicked out the stool opposite him and nodded toward it. “Then take a seat. If it’s the second I’ll leave you to the dynamic duo’s tender mercies. But don’t blame me if you end up getting tag-teamed.”
  
  Saal looked at Fin and Red.
  
  “No offense, guys,” he said and took the seat. Looking at T’Raal, he nodded. “So how do I sign on?”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  He was Warborne.
  
  Saal shook his head, unable to believe it as he stood on the landing pad in front of the Warborne’s ugly ship. Unlike the sleek elegance of latharian vessels, it was squat and blocky but was still lethal. It was black, with thick armor plating and bristling with cannon arrays. There was no mistaking that it was built for war.
  
  “You gonna stand there and drool all day Talent, or planning on coming aboard?”
  
  Looking up, he found Red, the female mercenary, watching him from the boarding ramp. She sat on the edge, one leg dangling and a field gun in pieces in front of her.
  
  “Is that name going to stick then?”
  
  A smile on his face, he walked toward her, his pack slung over a shoulder. Her movements were swift and precise, betraying the ease of long practice as she cleaned the dismantled gun, her attention on him instead of what she was doing. Given the complexity of that weapon, if she was half as accurate firing it as she was handling it, the rest of the universe needed to watch out.
  
  She squinted at him and chuckled, the edge of the sound sibilant. “Yeah, I reckon it will. Be thankful, there are worse names to be saddled with.”
  
  “I guess so.”
  
  Before she could say anything else, the towering figure that appeared at the top of the ramp stole his attention. T’Raal. He folded his arms over his chest, pale gaze flicking over Saal’s clothing and equipment. He’d made sure to remove any latharian insignia, the sash of his former position abandoned back at Malaac’s, but he still wore his combat leathers. He didn’t have anything else.
  
  Sure enough, T’Raal nodded toward them. “We need to get that lot sorted. Don’t want you wandering around like a reject from a BDSM club. What do you think we are… Latharian warriors?”
  
  Saal raised an eyebrow, following the warborne leader as he headed back inside the ship.
  
  “Welcome aboard the Sprite,” T’Raal said as they strode through the corridors. Compared to the latharian vessels Saal had served on, the Sprite was tiny and cramped, both of them forced to bend their heads to avoid hitting the bulkheads at each intersection. The walls and floors were metal, the non-slip mesh allowing a view of the crawlspace.
  
  “Personal quarters run both sides of the ship,” T’Raal motioned to the doors they passed, most closed. The last door near the end of the corridor was open. A glance through it showed a sizable bunk and storage locker on one side, with a desk and shelves bolted to the wall the other. A tiny viewport let in the light above the bed.
  
  “This is you,” T’Raal grunted. “Drop your kit and follow me.”
  
  Saal did as he was told, dropping his single pack onto the bunk before following T’Raal. The door at the end of the corridor opened out on the bridge, the occupants turning as they entered.
  
  “Red’s outside and Fin you know,” T’Raal rumbled, nodding toward the tall Navarr. He grinned and waved from his position at the ops console behind the pilot’s seat.
  
  “…Skinny you also met.”
  
  The heavy-worlder raised his hand, face set in implacable lines as he studied the screen in front of him. That left two males Saal had never met.
  
  “Beauty,” T’Raal nodded to a tall, slender male at the weapons station. A shock of inky hair was cut short into his neck, heavy stubble over his jaw. Like the others, he wore tactical gear. He didn’t have a family resemblance to any of the major clans. Had to have been from a backwater clan before he’d joined the warborne.
  
  “And Zero.”
  
  A big male unfolded himself from the pilot’s chair, but his size wasn’t what drew Saal’s attention. That honor went to his arm. Having worked in the healer’s hall, he was no stranger to replacement limbs, but where latharian replacements were designed to blend in with the body and be unnoticeable, Zero’s arm made no pretense. Metal from his shoulder blade right to his fingers, the limb had armor plate and fixing points down its length.
  
  “Hey Talent, been hearing a lot about you. How’s it hanging?” With a grin, he offered his hand, eyebrow arched.
  
  Saal studied the hand for a moment. Was this a test? He reached out and took the cyborg’s hand, shaking firmly. The metal was warm to the touch. Curious.
  
  “Well met, Zero… all of you. Thank you for offering me a place on your crew.”
  
  Zero grinned. “Believe me, you got my vote right away.”
  
  “Oh?” Saal’s brow winged up.
  
  “You’re from the healer’s hall,” the big cyborg explained. “Which means you know far more than me about healing… so you get to deal with these knuckleheads when they decide they’re fucking invincible.”
  
  He clapped a hand on Saal’s shoulder as he passed, leaning in to stage-whisper. “And watch Red, she’s the worst of the lot.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  “You know,” Jess said conversationally as they climbed out of the high-tech flyer that seemed to be the Latharian equivalent of a car. “I still can’t get over how… normal everything seems. You know? Like if you just took a quick glance you could be forgiven for thinking this was Earth someplace…”
  
  Lizzie dragged her eyes away from the six-legged dog and gave a little nod. “Other than the two suns and the fact everything is XXL?” she asked, managing a small grin.
  
  It was all for her twin’s benefit. Both Jess and Laarn had been treating her with kid gloves after her little breakdown earlier, and she hadn’t missed the worried looks her sister was giving her when she thought Lizzie wasn’t looking.
  
  “Well, yeah, apart from that.” Jess conceded with a smile, linking her arm with Lizzie’s as they walked toward the hustle and bustle of the market.
  
  Jess had suggested the outing to cheer her up. It was a valid plan. So far she hadn’t seen much of Lathar Prime apart from the healer’s hall and the palace.
  
  Even so, she couldn’t stop her hand lifting absently to the pendant around her neck. She should take it off really. It was just a cheap bit of tat. He probably hadn’t even made it himself… just told her that to get her into bed. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to. Jess caught the motion but didn’t mention it, even though Lizzie knew she wanted to.
  
  “Hey, do you think Mom would like something like that?” she asked, nodding toward a nearby stall filled with delicately carved hair combs. The sisters flitted closer. As befit their status as members of the Imperial Family, they were accompanied by palace guards, grim-faced warriors surrounding them to ensure no one bothered their little shopping trip.
  
  Mostly, it worked. Lizzie and Jess wandered through the stalls, their owners more than happy to have two of the rare human females as customers. By the time they were halfway around, though, Lizzie was convinced they’d all taken the same sales courses as second-hand car dealers back home. She turned, a small ornament in her hand that looked like a strange, skinny penguin.
  
  Which was when all hell broke loose.
  
  Gunfire erupted around them, the air peppered with lasers and smoke. She screamed, and then Jess grabbed her, pulling her down to shelter behind an upturned stall. Her expression was tight but calm as she looked out. The market was in chaos, stall owners trying to gather up their wares or scrambling for cover as armed men poured into the market square. They attacked the imperial guards with a brutality that took Lizzie’s breath away.
  
  Lizzie jumped, stifling a scream as one of the guards was shot dead, falling lifeless to the packed dirt of the square right in front of them. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. His face was so peaceful, as though he was asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams… but the rapidly spreading pool of scarlet told a different story. Blood, her brain informed her numbly. He’d bled out in seconds, his life’s blood draining away into the dirt.
  
  “Lizzie, COME ON!” Jess yelled, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. “We need to get out of here.”
  
  They were on their own, all their guards killed, as they raced down side street after side street, the skirts of their gowns like banners behind them. Lizzie tried to keep up, holding onto Jess’s hand tightly. At least one of them seemed to know what they were doing.
  
  “Shhh,” Jess warned as she pulled Lizzie into the shadows of a deep doorway. She nodded, trying to keep the heavy rasp of her breathing down. Hell, lying in bed for so many months had really taken a toll on her fitness level. And she was surprised the hammering of her heart hadn’t announced their location better than a blinking neon sign.
  
  “I think we lost them,” Jess whispered softly after what seemed like an eternity.
  
  Before Lizzie could answer, there was a low chuckle from the darkness behind them. “Think again, little human.”
  
  And darkness descended in the form of rough, woven bags thrust over their heads.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  The next hour of Lizzie’s life was a confusing, terrifying jumble of darkness, sounds and shoves that made her stumble in whatever direction their captors wanted her to go. All that kept her from losing it completely was the reassuring grip of Jess’s hand in hers. Whatever else happened, she knew one thing. She would keep hold of her sister’s hand no matter what.
  
  Finally, they stopped moving. Lizzie’s breath rasped, the rough fabric in front of her face moving. She daren’t say anything, drawing as close to Jess as she could. They weren’t alone in the room, that much she knew. Unable to see, her other senses had heightened. She could sense the two men behind her, smell their sweat and a slight herbaceous scent that must be the base for whatever they used to clean themselves. To keep herself calm, she set about trying to identify it—anything to avoid giving in to the panic clawing at her.
  
  A door opened in front of them, the creak of the old-style hinges unmistakable. That in itself should have told her they weren’t in the palace anymore. They both jumped at a sudden, low growl.
  
  “For draanth’s sake, I told you to pick up one female, you idiots!”
  
  There was a telling silence and she could almost see the two men behind them exchange glances.
  
  “Yeah, but which one?”
  
  Both women gasped as the bags were whipped up and off their heads. Lizzie blinked, squinting in pain as the sudden light assaulted her sensitive eyeballs. When she managed to focus, a warrior was standing in front of them.
  
  It was the warrior who had cornered her in the garden. She almost gasped in recognition but Jess’s hand tightened around hers warningly. Keeping a blank face, she just looked at him as he studied the two of them. She knew that look. They both did. It was the one they always got when someone was trying to work out which sister was which. It was also usually the clue for one of them to say their name, to give the confused party an easy out.
  
  Neither of them spoke. This asshole was getting no clues. At all. Ever.
  
  “Draanth!” Their captor looked over at the two men behind them. “One! The unclaimed one, I said! Make sure to get the unclaimed one! Do you know who…” He pointed at Jess, then Lizzie, and back again… “This is?”
  
  “No, Lord A’Raant!”
  
  A’Raant sighed, his expression the facial equivalent of a facepalm. “No names,” he groaned. “Not here.”
  
  Lizzie bit back her amusement. Didn’t look like things were going A’Raant’s way at all.
  
  “Which one of you is the lord healer’s mate?” he demanded.
  
  “Holy draanth!” The exclamation behind them was quickly smothered.
  
  Jess smiled and shook her head. “You are fucked.”
  
  “You are so fucked,” Lizzie added, joining in the game. Apart from their mom, Laarn, and—her heart ached—Saal, no one had ever been able to tell them apart. This A’Raant had no fucking chance.
  
  He seemed to realize this, looking at his inept henchmen. “Gather the men.”
  
  “How many do we need?”
  
  “For draanth’s sake,” A’Raant hissed, a purple flush rising up his neck. “You just kidnapped the lord healer’s mate. How many do you think? ALL OF THEM!”
  
  
  
  
  
  8
  
  
  
  
  
  His quarters on the Sprite were no larger than the single room in his lodgings at Malaac’s. At least he had a view, even if it was two inches high, and not one of a brick wall. And, another bonus, he wasn’t above the generator, so… blessed silence.
  
  He moved out of the doorway, heading to the bunk and opened his pack. Putting away his stuff only took a few minutes. He didn’t have much. Once his personal weaponry was stowed in the trunk under the bed, he just had some clothes to go into the locker. Training and workout gear, some looser clothing for relaxing, and one old pullover.
  
  His hands lingered on it as he placed it on its own shelf. He’d arrived at the foundling home wearing it after his parents had died. It hadn’t fit him for years, but it was precious to him. He had no idea if his mother had made it herself or not, but he liked to think so and that her love had wrapped around him every time he’d worn it. He’d put such fancies away a long time ago, but he still couldn’t get rid of the thing.
  
  The last thing out of his pack was his tool roll. Barely looking at it, he dropped it on the desk opposite the bed. The last time he’d used it was to make the necklace for Lizzie. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever made.
  
  But there would be no more halls for him, either in healing or engineering. His life was here now ... with the Warborne.
  
  He sighed and turned, shoving a hand through his hair. Movement registered in the corner of his eye. Looking up, he discovered Beauty leaning in his open doorway, lips quirked in a slight smile.
  
  “It’s always claustrophobic at first,” he commented, his voice a lot more cultured than Saal expected as he indicated the room. “But you get used to it.”
  
  “How’d you know I found it claustrophobic?” Saal asked. Most warriors wouldn’t admit to such a weakness, but he’d spent the last year in the healer’s hall. He’d long since learned that fear didn’t make a person weak, it was how you dealt with it that mattered. And besides, he was more interested in how Beauty knew. Was he enhanced like Zero? And if so, were all the Warborne enhanced?
  
  The quirk at the corner of Beauty’s lips appeared and disappeared again. He gestured toward the door.
  
  “Open. It makes it easier to cope. I used to do the same thing.”
  
  The admission surprised Saal. Few would admit weakness to another. But, if they were going to be fighting together…
  
  “Boss said you needed new threads.” Beauty held out the bundle over his arm. It looked similar to the tactical gear the rest of the Warborne wore. “You’re broader through the shoulder, but these should fit you until we hit up resupply.”
  
  “My thanks.” Saal took the clothing and shook it out. Then frowned. “Is it just me, or does this look very terran?”
  
  He hadn’t seen them himself, all the females at court dressed in latharian attire, but he’d viewed footage from the initial contact with the humans. Their warriors wore equipment that looked very similar.
  
  “I can neither confirm or deny that,” Beauty smirked again, tapping the side of his nose and turned to leave.
  
  “Hey… wait.”
  
  The other merc paused, looking over his shoulder. Saal motioned toward his short hair. “Anyone on board good with a pair of shears?”
  
  Ten minutes later, he found himself sat in the Sprite’s galley. Barely big enough for all of them, it was crammed in between the dual deck engine core and the gym. He suspected the latter was two storage bays knocked through into a single space. Possibly by Zero with that cybernetic arm. Dents in the bulkheads would support that theory.
  
  “I’m only getting my hair cut,” he said as the rest of the Warborne crowded into the room with them. Red and Skinny squeezed onto a bench, although to be fair, the big heavy-worlder would crowd anyone. Zero leaned against the counter by the food prep units, arms folded. Beauty was smirking in the corner next to Fin, who just grinned.
  
  “Not every day a warrior sheds his braids,” T’Raal, standing behind him, rumbled. “Sure about this, kid?”
  
  He took a deep breath and nodded. “Time to move on.”
  
  The clippers snapped on a second later, and pressure at the back of his neck forced him to look down. His hair fell on the metal floor in swathes like silk. He’d already removed his braids, so at least he didn’t see them scattered around him. For a male who’d dreamed of becoming war commander, it would have been too much. He closed his eyes as T’Raal clipped his hair short, only opening them when the clippers shut off.
  
  “Even more handsome.”
  
  He glanced up to see Red standing before him, hand extended. “Welcome to the team, Talent. Looking forward to working with you.”
  
  “Thank you.” He let her pull him to his feet. She was stronger than she appeared, no doubt down to her krynassis blood. “Glad to be here.”
  
  Zero was right behind her, his grip a hair off punishing. “Welcome to the dark side…”
  
  “If you start on about fucking cookies again, Zero, I’m tossing you out the airlock the next time we get spaceside,” T’Raal groused, then offered his own hand. “Welcome to the team, kid.”
  
  Saal grinned as Zero muttered under his breath and moved off. His hand would drop off after this, but he wouldn’t pass up a welcome he hadn’t expected. He’d thought it would take a while for the Warborne to accept him, perhaps a few battles and near-death experiences at least.
  
  “Good to have one normal person aboard,” Finn greeted him, then winked. “My cabin’s next to yours… just sayin’”
  
  Beauty rolled his eyes as he shook Saal’s hand last. “Ignore lover-boy there, he’ll crack onto anything with a pulse. Caught him trying to chat up a bot on Trenaxis Four the other month.”
  
  “Hey! It was a pleasure model!” Finn argued, flicking the bird at Beauty.
  
  “Yeah! Once. It was on garbage duty, and you were so drunk you were making eyes at its fucking reflection in a shop window!”
  
  Saal grinned at T’Raal, who sighed and shook his head, his expression all kinds of ‘see what trall I have to put up with?’
  
  “Okay, okay!” The Warborne leader announced. “Welcoming party’s over. We have a departure slot in less than an hour. Get your shit stowed and then report to duty stations. Dismissed.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  To borrow a human phrase… he’d fucked up, good and proper. He knew the phrase well. Mostly because Jess had yelled it at him repeatedly. For hours. He’d never seen his normally calm mate so furious. Well, except that time she’d blown up the main labs in the healer’s hall.
  
  But this was worse. Way worse. She’d told him he’d better “unfuck” the situation between Saal and Lizzie or, and he could quote, “he’d better get used to as much action as a fucking monk in the bedroom.” Since he was fairly sure that human monks were celibate, he assumed that meant she wouldn’t welcome him into her bed for a long time. As mad as she was… perhaps ever.
  
  Which was why he was in a run-down area of the city, keeping a hand ready for his blades while looking for the cheap lodging house listed as Saal’s place of residence on his personnel files. Finally, he found the place and strode through the front door into a small taproom. A grizzled warrior looked up from cleaning tables.
  
  “You the owner?” Laarn demanded.
  
  “I am Malaac. I own this place, yes.” The warrior drew himself up to his full height and nodded. “Who are you?”
  
  Laarn declined to answer and Malaac snorted, slapping his cleaning rag down on the next table.
  
  “Well, it’s obvious you ain’t here fer a room,” he groused and then nodded toward Laarn’s scars. “Guessing from them that you’d be looking fer Saal?”
  
  “I am.” Laarn nodded. He’d deliberately not worn his sash to avoid being recognized as lord healer, but there was no way he could conceal his scars. Nor would he want to. They were part of him, part of his identity.
  
  “Well, you’re too late,” Malaac said shortly. “Kid joined up with the Warborne. Left about an hour ago.”
  
  “Draanthing hell!”
  
  Laarn had certainly not expected that news. The Warborne were a legend in their own lifetime—the toughest mercenary unit in the galaxy. If Saal had left with them…
  
  “Yeah. Exactly,” Malaac said, looking Laarn up and down dismissively. “An’ you can tell that asshole lord healer of yours that he lost a good one there. Honest. Didn’t need shittin’ on like he was.”
  
  Laarn stood frozen, stunned by the verbal dressing down. No one had dared talk to him that way for years.
  
  “Do you know who I am, old-timer?” he asked, his voice dropping dangerously low.
  
  “Son, I don’t care if you’re the emperor ‘imself. Saal was a good kid… loved working at that hall. Loved one of them human females too.” He barked a laugh at Laarn’s expression. “Yeah, he thought I didn’t know. Youngsters these days. I had a mate. Loved her more than anything in this life. I know that look in a male’s eye.”
  
  Laarn looked at Malaac’s wrists. One was concealed by a well-worn bracer but, sure enough, faded mating marks wrapped around the skin of the other.
  
  “Lost her in the plague, like everyone else,” Malaac commented, his voice low. “But humans don’t get the plague, so the kid didn’t need to lose his female. No, you assholes did that fer ‘im. And drove ‘im out.”
  
  Laarn felt sick. Malaac was right. He’d done this.
  
  He’d known something was going on between Lizzie and Saal but he hadn’t been able to see past the warrior’s lower caste. Hadn’t wanted a J’Qess in his family group. But Lizzie’s heartbroken sobs when she’d thought Saal had abandoned her had damned near broken his heart.
  
  “The Warborne, you say?” he asked over his shoulder, already turning to go.
  
  “Aye. But you’ll not get there in time to stop them taking off now… unless you run,” Malaac said, walking toward the door. “Take the alley behind the Litaan Axes,” he pointed out an inn halfway down the street. “That’s the quickest way.”
  
  Laarn nodded. “My thanks.”
  
  Malaac grinned a gap-toothed grin. “You’re welcome, my lord.”
  
  A bark of laughter escaped Laarn as he set off the way Malaac had indicated. The wily old-timer had known who he was all along.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  He made it to the spaceport just as the Warborne ship’s engines began to cycle for take-off.
  
  “Stop that ship on imperial orders!” he bellowed, pointing toward the mercenary ship as he stalked toward it. Port staff scrambled to obey his orders and within seconds the engines cycled down. The boarding hatch disengaged with a clunk, a huge Lathar storming down the ramp as it descended.
  
  “What the FUCK is going on?” he demanded, roaring over the sound of the engines. “We had launch authorization!” His furious gaze latched on to Laarn, now flanked by port officers. “Who the fuck are you?”
  
  “Lord Healer,” Laarn replied, his voice clipped. He knew T’Raal and the Warborne’s reputation, but he was in no mood to mess about. “You have one of my staff on board and I want him back.”
  
  T’Raal folded his arms over his massive chest, looking down at Laarn. A lesser male might have been intimidated, but Laarn had K’Saan blood running through his veins. He bowed to no one, apart from his uncle and even then as little as he could.
  
  The big mercenary nodded and shouted over his shoulder. “Hey, Talent! Get your ass out here. Someone wants to talk to you.”
  
  He looked back at Laarn. “I didn’t seen any indenture brands on him so if he doesn’t want to come with you, we’re leaving with him. Even if we have to fight our way out.”
  
  Laarn nodded. “Seems fair. I have no claim on him. He’s a free male.”
  
  His bracer buzzed and he tore his attention from the mercenary leader for a moment to check the notification. As he read, his blood ran cold.
  
  “You wanted to see me?” He looked up to find Saal in front of him, standing next to T’Raal, and his expression was just as forbidding. He was dressed as a mercenary, his leathers replaced by combat pants and a tactical vest. And his hair was cut short, all his honor braids gone. He was no longer a warrior. He had made that choice to be apart from them.
  
  With surprise, Laarn realized that the Warborne were outfitted very similarly to the Terran forces he’d met. Yet to Laarn’s knowledge, none of the mercenary units had been anywhere near human-held space. Laarn flicked a glance over Saal’s weaponry. He was outfitted for war.
  
  “Come on,” he said. “Some draanthic kidnapped Jessica and Lizzie. We need to get them back.”
  
  
  
  
  
  9
  
  
  
  
  
  “How? When?” Saal demanded, Laarn’s words drilling all the way down to his soul.
  
  “What’s happening?” Fin and T’Raal appeared at Saal’s side, looking down the ramp at the Lord Healer. Even though he was barely a member yet, they had his back already.
  
  “This is Lord Healer Laarn K’Vass,” Saal explained quickly before one of the Warborne did something unwise, like shoot him.
  
  “Our females were taken, kidnapped, during a shopping trip to the market,” Laarn said quickly, looking between Saal and his two companions. For the first time since Saal had met him, Laarn looked worried. He glanced down at his bracer-mounted computer. “They were attacked, all their guards killed. One managed to survive long enough to raise the alarm.”
  
  Fin looked down at Saal in surprise. “You have a female? Why the fuck did you want to sign up with us?”
  
  Saal shook his head, keeping the panic running through his veins down to a dull roar. “I don’t have a female. That’s the problem. I thought I did but after—” He cut himself off and then shrugged. “Afterward she didn’t want anything to do with me. Human females are very different. She wouldn’t even answer my messages.”
  
  “Sorry, man,” Fin clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “That’s really rough. I feel for you.”
  
  “She didn’t get the messages,” Laarn ground out. “The palace systems intercept anything sent to the Earth females. For security reasons.”
  
  “Say what?” Saal blinked, his brain refusing to process Laarn’s words at first. Then… “She never saw them?”
  
  Hope blossomed. She hadn’t answered him because she hadn’t even seen the messages.
  
  Laarn shook his head.
  
  “Never read then. She thought you’d abandoned her.” Guilt crossed his autocratic features. “She was in a state this morning. Broke down in tears. Jess took her shopping while I came here to fetch you.”
  
  T’Raal had been silent during the conversation but now spoke up, looking at the comms-plate on his wrist bracer. “Looks like there was a hell of a fire-fight in the central market.” He angled his bracer so Saal could see the screen. The imperial guards were easy to spot but the other warriors weren’t wearing any insignia. They could have been with anyone. Then he caught sight of a face he recognized and his lip curled back from his teeth.
  
  “A’Raant,” he snarled looking at Laarn. “They attacked Lizzie the night of the ball. I couldn’t say anything because I promised her I wouldn’t.”
  
  “Draanth!” Laarn hissed, shoving a scarred hand through his hair. “And I played right into his hands by exiling you. Now they’re both missing. Palace troops are tearing the city apart to find them but if they’ve been taken out of the city…”
  
  Saal didn’t allow the panic that thought warranted to take root. He shoved it away so he could think.
  
  “Laarn,” he said suddenly. “What was Lizzie wearing when she went to the market?”
  
  “Wearing?” Laarn frowned, obviously confused. “A silver gown and a light wrap. Why?”
  
  “Was she wearing any jewelry?”
  
  Saal held his breath as he waited for the answer, hardly daring to hope.
  
  “Errr… yes!” Laarn exclaimed. “She had on some kind of star pendant.”
  
  Bingo. Saal smiled and turned to T’Raal. “Can the Sprite’s computer isolate the location of an inactive comms crystal?”
  
  T’Raal’s face split into a grin. “If it can’t, then Zero sure as fuck can.”
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  “Keep it together. Watch the females. There are palace troops everywhere… we’re only going to get one shot at this.” The rough voice of their head “guard” sounded right behind Lizzie and Jess.
  
  The hoods had been put back over their heads, but no force in the universe had been able to persuade Lizzie to let go of Jess’s hand, even though their wrists were now manacled together.
  
  “Where are they taking us?” she breathed, edging closer to her sister.
  
  “Quiet, females!” the guard hissed, shoving her shoulder.
  
  “Don’t know. Out of the city,” Jess replied, her voice so low Lizzie could barely hear her. Neither could the guard, if his lack of reaction was any indication. “Be ready.”
  
  Lizzie frowned at that, not sure she’d heard right. Be ready? Be ready for what? What could they do? They were tied and blindfolded. The situation was hopeless. They’d be spirited out of the city and forced to marry and bear children to the assholes who had kidnapped them.
  
  A tear streaked down her cheek. She felt for Jess. Her sister would never see Laarn or her daughter again. It wasn’t so bad for Lizzie. She’d already come to terms with the fact that Saal didn’t want her.
  
  “Please,” she said, suddenly, letting go of Jess’s hand and turning. “You want me. I’m the unmated one. Let my sister go. She’s the lord healer’s mate.”
  
  “Lizzie!” Jess gasped, horror in her voice. “No! Don’t do this!”
  
  “I have to.”
  
  Lizzie fought back tears and reached up to tear the hood off her head. She met the gaze of their captor and pleaded. “Let my sister go. They’re after her. I’ll go quietly and do what you want.”
  
  The guard looked confused, wary as though he expected it to all be a trap, so she pressed her advantage. “They won’t stop looking for her. You’ll never get out of the city. Leave her here and you can escape with me.”
  
  “Lizzie! No!” Jess argued behind her, her voice thick with tears. “Don’t listen to her. You’ll never get out of the city! You’re dead already for daring to put a hand on either of us!”
  
  “No! You will! Leave her here,” Lizzie begged, not allowing herself to look back at her sister even though it was tearing her apart. Terror and pain flowed through her. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to leave Jess. But if the price for Jess returning home to her family was her own freedom, she was willing to pay that price.
  
  There was no choice.
  
  The guard made up his mind, reaching out to wrap a beefy hand around Lizzie’s upper arm.
  
  “Leave that one here,” he ordered, cutting Lizzie loose and hauling her up against him. She collided with his bigger body, automatically recoiling in disgust. Just being near him, being near any man other than Saal, made her feel sick on a soul-deep level. She closed her eyes and pushed the feeling away. She had to do this.
  
  “Well, well, well…” an amused voice drawled.
  
  Lizzie twisted in her captor’s hold to see a tall Lathar leaning nonchalantly in the doorway. His white hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, the sides of his head shaved to the scalp. It was the least Lathar haircut she’d ever seen, as was his clothing. It appeared more high-tech soldier than the usual combat leathers she’d seen them in.
  
  “I’m sorry, boys, but you seem to have something there that doesn’t belong to you,” the soldier drawled, studying his fingernails. “I’m gonna have to take them back.”
  
  “What the draanth’s this got to do with you, merc? This ain’t your business.” Confusion and annoyance laced the voice of the guard, his companions snapping their weapons up to train them on the newcomer. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelid at the arsenal pointed his way.
  
  “Oh, I think it is,” another voice sounded from behind them. Unlike the mercenary’s, this one was familiar. “Because I’m Warborne, and that’s my female you have there.”
  
  Lizzie gasped as her captor whirled them around, her heart leaping at the handsome warrior behind them. He was dressed differently than before, like the mercenary, and his long hair had been cut short, all his braids gone.
  
  “Saal!” she cried out, reaching for him. She couldn’t believe he was actually here. He’d come for her. Come to rescue her.
  
  “Not so quick,” her captor hissed, yanking her back against him and jamming the muzzle of his pistol under her chin. She froze, eyes wide as she looked at Saal. Fear sent ice down her spine.
  
  “One step closer and I’ll blow her brains out,” her captor warned. “Now you’re going to step back, and me and the lady here are just going to walk out of the door.”
  
  She saw the fear in the backs of Saal’s eyes as he glanced at the pistol under her chin. She saw the anger and the need to get to her. She swallowed, not wanting to think about what would happen if her captor pulled the trigger.
  
  “Lizzie, look at me,” Saal ordered, catching her attention. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you out of this. Trust me.”
  
  She nodded, unable to stop the tears coursing down her cheeks. She never thought she’d see him again. Had thought he didn’t want anything to do with her. Yet here he was, calling her his female.
  
  “I do. I trust you,” she whispered, her heart pounding in her chest.
  
  He nodded, and the look of heartbreak and regret in his eyes made more tears spill over. He was saying goodbye. There was no way out of this.
  
  “Close your eyes.”
  
  She didn’t want to, shaking her head. If she was going to die, she wanted the last thing she saw to be him. The man she loved. She blinked, his image in front of her watery. She loved him. She loved Saal and had since the moment she’d heard his voice in her dreams.
  
  “I said weapons down!” the guard snarled when neither Saal nor his mercenary companion moved to obey. “Or I’ll blow her pretty little head off.”
  
  “Close your eyes, kelarris,” Saal repeated softly. “I don’t want you to see this.”
  
  She nodded, tears now spilling down her cheeks unchecked as she did as he ordered. She held his image in her mind instead. If she couldn’t look at him when… the end came, she could at least be thinking about him.
  
  “You’ll never leave this place alive,” Jess hissed. “No one lays a hand on a K’Vass woman and lives to tell the tale.”
  
  Shots rang out, deafening her. Lizzie jumped, squeaking as something warm and wet splattered across her face. The gun under her jaw fell away, and a loud thud right behind her made her jump.
  
  She gasped, her eyes snapping open. Saal stood there, pistol in hand and a hard look on his face. The expression made her shiver, a tremor of fear rolling through her. He looked lethal and ruthless. He was so gentle with her, but she knew he could be dangerous. Had always known he could be dangerous…
  
  Before she could track the movement, he holstered the weapon and was across the space between them to haul her into his arms.
  
  “Ohmigod, ohmigod, I thought that was it,” she whispered, shuddering as she burrowed closer against his chest. “That he would…”
  
  “Shhh, it’s okay, my love. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore.” Saal held her close, pressing a kiss against her temple. “I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
  
  She shuddered, his touch easing something deep in her chest she’d thought was shattered beyond repair. “I thought I’d lost you. That you didn’t want anything to do with me after…”
  
  Her words dried up. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. That she’d thought he’d gotten what he wanted and was done with her.
  
  “Hey.” He cupped her face, leaning back to look into her eyes. “Look at me. I’m right here, love. And there is no reality where I do not want you. I promise you that.”
  
  She searched his face anxiously. “You didn’t contact me. Never came to see me. I went to the healer’s hall and they said you’d resigned.”
  
  His jaw worked, sudden anger in his eyes, but before he could answer her, another voice broke in.
  
  “That was my fault, I’m afraid.”
  
  She turned in surprise to find Laarn behind them, Jess wrapped in his arms. His expression was contrite, and his gaze steady on the two of them.
  
  “Ohmygod, Lizzie!” As though Laarn’s words had broken a spell that held her in place, Jess raced toward Lizzie. A moment later her sister crashed into her, enfolding her in a tight hug.
  
  “Why did you do that?” she demanded, tears to match Lizzie’s streaming down her face. Her expression fierce, she pulled back to grab Lizzie’s upper arms, shaking her. “Never sacrifice yourself for me. Never!”
  
  Lizzie smiled sadly, tears overflowing again. Seriously… she was like a bloody broken tap at the moment. “How could I not? You have a mate, a daughter. I couldn’t let them take you away from that. Not if I could stop it.”
  
  “Oh, Lizzie…” Jess’s eyes filled with fresh tears and she just wrapped her arms around Lizzie in an embrace that needed no words.
  
  Gently Laarn disentangled the two sisters, pulling Jess back against his chest.
  
  “Laarn, what did you mean, it was your fault?” she asked, as Saal pulled her into his arms. The restrained anger was easy to feel in the stiffness of his frame. Automatically she smoothed her hands over his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension there.
  
  “I inadvertently kept you and Saal apart,” Laarn admitted haltingly, as if the words were dragged from him. “There was an incident at the healer’s hall. He was accused of assaulting two males. I used it as an excuse to remove him from the hall but didn’t realize he had no way to contact you.”
  
  Some of Saal’s anger transferred to Lizzie as she looked at her sister’s mate. “You what now?”
  
  “There’s a lock on all communications coming into the palace addressed to any of the human females,” he explained. “I didn’t realize Saal’s name would be removed from the allowed list when he was banned from the hall.”
  
  She blinked. “You sent his messages to fucking spam?”
  
  Laarn nodded, for once not asking for clarification on the human phrase. Figured that even out here in outer space, they had spam. It was the herpes of the communications world, no matter the planet.
  
  “I’m not proud of my actions and I apologize unreservedly,” he continued, somehow managing to pull off a small courtly bow with Jess still in his arms. “I hope you and your mate will find it in your hearts to forgive me.”
  
  The look in his eyes was so miserable and concerned that all the anger drained from her in a deep sigh. Exchanging a glance with Saal, she nodded. “A word to the wise, though. Stay out of other people’s relationships… okay?”
  
  He nodded with a graceful inclination of his head, but she wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. Instead, she turned to face Saal. For some reason she was a little shy. He’d seen her cry and fall apart… while he’d been so calm and collected, putting a bullet right between her captor’s eyes without batting so much as an eyelid.
  
  He made a sound deep in the center of his chest and hooked a strong finger under her chin, making her look up at him. She had no more words, but he smiled and spoke.
  
  “I thought I’d lost you. Thought you didn’t want me and I was leaving…” He indicated his new attire and haircut. “I thought getting as far away from you as possible would help with the ragged hole in my chest.”
  
  “Hole?” she managed, looking puzzled. Her hands flitted over his broad chest as panic surged. “Were you hurt? Wounded?”
  
  “No, I’m not wounded,” he murmured as he placed her hand palm down in the center of his chest. “I’m talking about the hole where my heart used to be because leaving you meant I had to leave it behind. It’s yours. It’s always been yours, since before the first moment I met you.”
  
  “Oh…” She bit her lip as his words sank in.
  
  “And,” he leaned closer to whisper against her lips, “if that still isn’t clear enough for you, my beautiful, amazing, brave and selfless little mate, how about this? I love you.”
  
  And then he kissed her.
  
  It wasn’t heated or torrid. He didn’t try to deepen the kiss or touch her other than his hands at her waist. Instead, it was the sweetest, most heartfelt kiss she’d ever been given and it blew her away. It was a promise of love and commitment all rolled into one single caress—the sort of kiss that came straight from the heart and went right down to the soul. By the time he pulled away, she had her hands wrapped around the straps of his tactical vest and her breathing was definitely compromised.
  
  He grinned as she looked up at him, feeling more than a little stunned.
  
  “That clear enough for you, my love?”
  
  She nodded and pulled him down for another quick, hard kiss. Behind them a voice whooped and catcalled. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
  
  Saal chuckled as he broke the kiss, grinning as the white-haired mercenary joined them. His pale eyes swept over Lizzie and he winked.
  
  “She’s as pretty as you are, Talent. Sure I can’t convince you both into my bed?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows comically.
  
  Saal barked a laugh and pulled her closer. “Not a chance, Fin-boy. You get your own mate. This one’s mine. Aren’t you?”
  
  She nodded, smiling as she looked up at him. “I am. Now and forever. And Saal?”
  
  “Yes, beautiful?”
  
  “I love you,” she murmured. “Now, please… take me home? I don’t care where that is. Wherever you are… that’s my home.”
  
  He smiled and scooped her up against his broad chest.
  
  “My lady, your wish is my command. It always will be.”
  
  
  
  
  
  10
  
  
  
  
  
  “It’s so tiny!”
  
  “Thanks kelarris, that’s exactly what a male wants to hear from his mate.”
  
  Lizzie grinned as she turned from her perusal of Saal’s… their… new home to find her handsome man leaning one shoulder in the doorway.
  
  “Sounds like she’s got your measure, Talent!” The voice of Fin, the big mercenary who’d helped Saal rescue her floated to them from along the hallway. “Darlin’ if you need a little ‘extra’ my door is always open. You can even bring your mate…”
  
  She laughed in delight, mostly at Saal’s pained expression and called out. “No, thank you, Fin. We’re all good here. He’s all the male I need.”
  
  “I should draanthing hope so.” Saal punched the button at the side of the door. It slid shut behind him as he advanced on her. Her heart hammered in her chest, butterflies in her stomach at the look in his eyes. This wasn’t the gentle healer’s apprentice she remembered. Now he was someone else.
  
  “And just so you know?” he growled. “I don’t share.”
  
  He reached her, his hand sliding around the back of her waist to haul her up against him. She landed against his broad chest, a small gasp escaping her at the impact. No further words seemed necessary, which was a good thing since she’d lost the ability to frame a coherent thought. There was only heat… need… and an overwhelming desire to touch him.
  
  Her hands spread out over his chest, her breath catching in the back of her throat at the solid muscle she felt there. Muscles she remembered the feel of, pressed against her as they moved together… or her breasts mashed against them as he pinned her to the bed. Her cheeks burned as she looked up and caught his gaze.
  
  His eyes blazed with heat as he hooked his fingers under her chin and tilted her head to just the right angle. Leaning down, he claimed her lips. The kiss scorched her, hard and voracious. He kissed her like she was the only woman in existence. His lips caressed hers, then parted them with a decisive sweep of his tongue. Growling in the back of his throat, his tongue slid against hers.
  
  She crowded closer, gripping his t-shirt in her hands as she moaned into his mouth. His hand cupped the nape of her neck as he walked her backward. She broke the kiss on a gasp, pulling at the fabric.
  
  “I miss your leathers,” she complained. “This covers too much.”
  
  His grin was wicked against her lips. “Well, nothing’s stopping you taking it off, kelarris…”
  
  She wasn’t ashamed of the tiny moan of need that escaped her. Yanking on his t-shirt, she pulled it free of his pants. His breathing caught, abs bunching as she slid her hands over them.
  
  His growl made her laugh with delight, the sound soft in the room, but then he kissed her again. It was hot, hard, and possessive. Instantly, she melted against him, her hands trapped between them as his slid down to the back of her hips, holding her against him. His tongue swept into her mouth at the same moment the thick, solid bar of his cock pressed against her.
  
  Heat spiraled through her. She kissed him back, open-mouthed and needy, as she pulled the shirt up and over his head, breaking the kiss for a second.
  
  The back of her knees hit the bed. A second later, they tumbled down to the soft surface. Hands pulled at clothing, hers or his, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she needed to touch him, kiss him, more than she’d ever needed anything in her life. He was her man, her husband.., her mate and there would never be a time she didn’t want him or welcome him.
  
  Her dress disappeared. She shivered as a callused hand swept up her side. A thumb traced the curve on the underside of her breast, and she arched upward, offering more of herself to him. Offering him everything she was.
  
  He groaned, muscled thigh between hers to part them and bent his head to enfold her nipple into the warm cavern of his mouth. Heat lanced from the beaded tip down to her aching clit, and she pressed against him, her hand driving into his short hair. She mourned the loss of his flowing locks, but she really liked this new, more ruthless version of him.
  
  He growled as she gripped and nipped lightly, making her hiss in pleasure before he moved to the other breast. Lavishing attention on the twin mounds, his hand sliding down between her legs, kept parted by his muscular legs. He was still half-dressed, the rough fabric of his pants abrading the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs.
  
  She got his belt undone and his zip halfway down before it hit her. “These have a zip…”
  
  He paused, his fingers sliding between her pussy lips, and looked down at her. “Uh-huh. You want to discuss clothing options now? Or can we do this…”
  
  He found her clit and she whimpered. He knew how to touch a woman… her… in precisely the right way. Her movements stalled for a second as he kissed along her neck, circling and stroking… teasing and tormenting.
  
  Then she managed to get his pants open. His cock sprang free. Wrapping her hand as far around him as she could, she stroked. He groaned, his actions between her thighs faltering, but then it was game on.
  
  They stroked and teased each other, each trying to make the other break first until he growled. Shoving her hand away, he dropped his hips and set himself against her. Their gazes connected as he pushed forward. She bit her lip at the pressure, then her breathing hitched as her body parted, stretched wide around his thick cock. Her hands found his upper arms. Gripped as he pushed more. As he filled her…stretched her.
  
  “Oh god,” she murmured, her head dropping back. “That feels so good.”
  
  “It’s about to feel even better,” he promised, his voice a low rumble.
  
  His hips moved, pulling back before he surged forward again. Then again and again. Working himself into her, bit by bit. She moaned, the sound sharp in the silence of the room. Turning her head, she made to stifle it, but he growled.
  
  “No. I want to hear your pleasure,” he ordered, bracing himself with one arm by her head and sliding the other under her hips. “You’re mine. My mate. And I want everyone to know it.”
  
  She gave a small smile at the possessive note in his voice, but it was wiped away as he surged forwards again, filling her to the hilt. Her hands tightened on his arms, nails biting into his skin. He’d already paused, throbbing deep within her.
  
  “You’re mine, Lizzie,” he told her again, leaning down to nuzzle his nose against hers. “And more than that… I love you. I have since the moment I saw you, since the moment they brought you into the healer’s hall, asleep. I knew then that I loved you.”
  
  Her heart melted. “I loved you from the moment I heard your voice in my dreams. When I woke up, I needed to find you.”
  
  He leaned down and kissed her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But I promise you, we’ll never be apart again. I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy, my little human kelarris.”
  
  She grinned against his lips and rolled her hips against him. “Good. How about you start right now?”
  
  And he did… All night long.
  
  
  
  
  
  Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  “Are you sure about this, kelarris?” Saal murmured to his little mate as they stood at the back of the Sprite’s bridge. Through the viewport in front of them was a small group; Lizzie’s sister, Jess, with her baby daughter in her arms, and her mate, lord healer Laarn with his arm around her shoulders. Next to them was Amanda K’Vass, Lizzie’s mother. Her family. Come to see her off. The two women were already crying, even though they waved and smiled.
  
  “I mean, you’ve not been awake long. We can stay longer if you need time with your family.”
  
  The ship’s engines whined as they cycled in preparation for take-off. Lizzie shook her head, looking up at him with a soft look. “I will always miss them, but… my place is here, with you. My home is where you are.”
  
  Warmth filled Saal’s chest and spread outward through his body as he hugged his little mate closer. Out the corner of his eye, he didn’t miss the approving look T’Raal, the Warborne leader, sent Lizzie’s way. Latharian hearing was far keener than human, so he had no doubt the rest of the crew had heard his mate’s words.
  
  And approved.
  
  He sighed in contentment, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head as the engines engaged, and the ship lifted off. The farewell party dwindled to ants, the view giving way to the upper atmosphere and then the blackness of space.
  
  They’d left Lathar Prime. Rather than feeling sadness as he’d expected, he was happy.
  
  Finally, he’d found a family, a home… and a mate he would adore to the grave and beyond.
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  Thank you so much for reading KISSED BY THE ALIEN MERCENARY!
  
  I hope you loved reading Saal and Lizzie’s story.
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  The next book in the Latharian universe will be ZERO’S HEART coming in June 2020!
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
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  Also by Mina Carter
  
  
  
  
  
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  Lillian's life is... dull. The highlights of her day, other than her skinny hot chocolate, are the hunky guards who work in the military wing. It's classified and way above her pay grade, but she can't help feeling sorry for the hollow-eyed men and women they shuffle past reception. Then a late night emergency is wheeled in, his abdomen shredded and covered in blood. They’re not an emergency room but she can’t turn him away and risk a death on her hands.
  
  Unable to get the handsome soldier out of her mind, Lillian sneaks into the restricted area and finds herself thrust into a world where nothing makes sense. A world where men aren't always men, the dead walk, and her handsome soldier is way more than he seems...
  
  Her scent calls to him. She's his. Now he has to keep her alive.
  
  Jack Harper was a soldier, a good one... then the Project decided to play god. Now he has permanent anger management issues and a monster living inside him. Used as a weapon, he's been waiting for a chance to strike back. But the Project are onto him.
  
  Ruled unstable, a kill order is passed down on Jack and his squad and they are transferred to St.Margarets. Play-things for the head docs until a bullet to the back of the head deals with them for good. But Jack isn't going down that easily, not when the delicate scent he'd been waiting for all his life wraps around him.
  
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  He's one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy... so why can't she keep her hands off him?
  
  A junior nurse aboard the Combined Fleet Ship Valkyrie, Samara's days are usually filled with minor bumps and scraps and the occasional health or workspace check. But when a dangerous prisoner is transferred aboard, she finds herself on brig duty. Dealing with the big, lethal looking military grade cyborg should be terrifying, but one look into his green eyes and she can't think of anything other than what his big, hard body would look like under the grey ship suit...
  
  She's small, soft and fragile... he should keep his hands to himself and forget her.
  
  Captured and en route to a medical facility for dissection and study, cyborg Lyon expects nothing but pain and degradation from his captors. But Samara isn't like the others, treating his wounds with care and igniting a fire deep within. When she neglects to ensure his cuffs are locked tight, all hell breaks loose. A hot, sensual hell against the cell wall. When his team arrives, Lyon knows he should walk away...but he can't. His little human has gotten under his skin. He'll take her as payment for his suffering, keep her in his bed and pleasure them both for as long as it takes for him to lose interest.
  
  However, the universe, and the Fleet, have other ideas. A tracker on board brings a horde of fleet ships down on their heads. Can Lyon and Samara survive betrayal, a fleet attack, or will their happily ever after disintegrate under fire?
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
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  About the Author
  
  
  
  
  
  Mina Carter is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of romance in many genres. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and a bossy cat.
  
  
  
  
  
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