by Viola Grace
Yatal tensed. “You aren’t going to hurt her?”
Koron paused and chuckled. “No. The standard scanners are just not portable. Bring her.” He turned and left the room.
Yatal looked at Lyra, and she must have looked like a trapped rabbit because he pulled her in close. He whispered, “You will be fine. I will make sure of it.”
Yamira chuckled. “My son seems to have attached to you. Consider that a free pass to touch him.”
Yatal exhaled as his mother left the room. “Well, she must like you. She is normally very hostile toward any woman in my vicinity.”
He moved beside her and kept an arm around her waist as he walked her to the door.
Lyra murmured what was in her heart. “Oh. Great.”
Chapter Seven
Her bare feet made tiny thuds on the floor. They walked down the halls and stairways. Lyra finally whispered, “What is going to happen?”
“You know about my father’s experiments?”
She nodded. “I am one of them, after all.”
“You actually are?”
She nodded again. “It is how I can move the unit. My strength and stamina tripled to be able to keep up my duty shifts.”
“What about your dreams, the visions?”
She waved that off. “I have always had those. It’s why I don’t work with people. Too much skin-to-skin contact, and I start seeing things like that vision.”
“If you hadn’t had that vision, I would have been in the line of fire.”
“And for that, I am grateful, but to have that kind of vision with those I am working next to on an assembly line is unpleasant.”
He frowned. “Your visions work by direct contact?”
She nodded. “It has to be.”
“My father will be interested in testing that.”
She flinched. “No offense, but ew.”
“I am fairly sure that he will accept me being the party in contact.”
They walked to a secure door that opened after scanning Yatal.
His father was busy with equipment and beckoned them. “Over here. Yamira, that dress doesn’t have any interfering properties, does it?”
The overseer’s mate was at one of the terminals and pulling up files. “It is fine, Koron. Natural fibres.”
“Miss Lannark, stand here. Yamira has brought up your pre-dose scans, and I want to see what the changes are. This will be minimally invasive. Then, I will draw blood and tissue to compare to the initial results as well.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Um, great.”
Yatal helped her into the machine, and she settled for the scan. The first wave prickled heat across her skin, the second wave burned, and the third wave made her lock up with agony. Tears ran down her face, and she heard Yatal shouting before the beam cut off, and Lyra collapsed.
She was taken out of the machine, and Yatal held her close before Yamira spoke softly and asked him to put her on the med bed.
Koron was quiet until he was at her side for the blood draw. “The settings were for a Nazuan. I did not think to check the calibration needed.”
She nodded. “It isn’t the first time that has happened. So, the scans aren’t supposed to feel like that?” Her voice was weak even to her own ears.
Koron paused. “No. They aren’t supposed to feel like anything if they are properly set to your tissue density. Unfortunately for you, you aren’t dense. The scans literally touch a nerve.”
Lyra hiccupped slightly and nodded. “Oh. Good. That is what it felt like.”
Yatal stroked her hair, and he murmured, “How are you feeling?”
“The same as I always do after a scan. I feel crunchy.” She tried to sit up, but Yatal kept her pinned down with a hand on her chest.
Yamira chuckled.
Koron came over and used a smaller scanner to look over her face and neck. “Amazing. You are regenerating from the damage that the scanner did. Your cells are healing at an astonishing pace.”
“Great. Can I sit up now?”
Koron frowned. “Just a few more tests. My son said you had psychic abilities?”
“Just dreams, but I have always had them. They didn’t come with the enhancements.”
Koron grimaced. “Disappointing.”
He put some electrodes against her skull. “What is needed for you to have a vision?”
She blinked. “Uh. Contact. Skin to skin. It doesn’t happen every time either.”
Koron stood, and his purple features were twisted. “But it does happen. It happened with Yatal.”
She swallowed. “Yeah, but that was a one-off. I haven’t had many visions since I have been here.”
Koron nodded. “Let’s see if Yatal can trigger another one.”
Lyra looked at the guardian, and he was frowning at his father. She sighed and whispered, “Yatal, I really want to tell you...”
He leaned in, and she grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He anchored his hands to either side of her head, and she pretended that they were the only people in the world.
Her brain started to flash. She saw his hands on a pale surface and realized that that surface was her. Another flash and she saw him in a huge boardroom with a raging crimson alien. Another flash, and he was next to her holding her hand. She turned her head, and her enormous belly gave her an idea of what the occasion was.
She jerked her head back, her chest was heaving, and her pulse was racing. She knew it was possible with a Hmrain, but he wasn’t a Hmrain; he was a half-breed Nazuan by legal description.
Yamira was watching the screens. “Fascinating. She has temporal access on contact. She isn’t seeing an actual future, but the most likely one if things remain as they are.”
Yatal’s chest was moving rapidly. “What did you see?”
She blinked and licked her lips. “Uh, you were in a huge boardroom, with a crimson man and his group, and they were getting extremely upset.”
Koron looked at the results over Yamira’s shoulder. “There were two other episodes. What were they?”
“Um, they involved Yatal and were of an intimate nature.”
Yamira nodded. “The last one elicited a bonding chemical in your bloodstream. What was it?”
“Embarrassing.”
“Ah, so you were involved with Yatal in that one. Interesting.” Koron made some notes. “Was it full sexual contact or something else?”
Yatal was looking at her, and though his black eyes were difficult to read, the smile on his lips was easy.
“It was something else, caused a bonding response, and involved Yatal’s future. Ah. A child.” Koron chuckled, and Yamira stared at Lyra.
She blushed crimson. “It is just likely, right? So, if I go back to work as soon as I can and he gets back to his thing, this won’t happen.”
Yatal’s features were set in a scowl. “You don’t want to be my mate?”
She glanced at his parents. “It has nothing to do with what I want. Your mother is trying to bore holes through me with her mind, and your father is looking at me like I am an insect he wants to take apart.” She tried to ease off the table. “I just want to get back to the barracks and get to work tomorrow.”
Yamira frowned. “Gentlemen. Out.”
Lyra hopped to the floor and looked at the woman who had a resting-hostile face. Yatal and Koron did as Yamira asked, and they were soon alone.
The older woman walked over to the door, and she slammed it with her fist. There was the sound of scuttling a moment after.
“Now, little rodent.” Yamira rounded on her. “You are trying to get your hooks into my son.”
Without the guys to witness it, Lyra stood straight, and she scowled. “I am not trying to do anything. I like him; he likes me. He keeps finding me wherever I go.”
Yamira took a swipe at her with a fist, and Lyra went into automatic. She ducked, hit the other woman with an uppercut, swept h
er leg, and knocked her to the floor with Lyra’s hand around her throat.
Lyra looked at Yatal’s mother, and she straightened. “Apologies, madam. It was not my intent to strike you.”
Yamira extended her hand, and when she attempted to assist her in sitting up, she tried to pull Lyra, but Lyra crouched and only slid forward a few inches. She stood again. “Would you actually like help, or do you want to continue to play?”
Yamira nodded. “Help would be nice.”
Lyra straightened and pulled Yamira to her feet.
“So, built like a flower, trained like security. I am impressed. Your intake file didn’t mention any of that.”
Lyra leaned back against the med bed and peeled off the monitors on her scalp. “I did most of my enhancement during my transport but didn’t get to use any of it until I was out and had started training. At that point, it just became standard medical updates about increases in speed and weight tolerances.”
She shrugged. “I have two years and four months here before I am left to plot my own future.”
Yamira blinked. “You don’t say. What will you do then?”
“Keep working until I can travel, either on Nazua or elsewhere.”
That seemed to surprise the other woman. “Even after what you have seen?”
“Our future is what you make of it. I stand out here. I want to just walk in the empty places where no one will stop and stare, and I can be alone with my thoughts. Don’t worry. My lifespan is really short compared to yours, so I won’t be around long.”
Yamira’s brows drew together. “What do you mean? Of course, your lifespan is shorter. I am bonded to a Hmrain.”
“No, far shorter than that of a Nazua. I had this discussion already with some locals.” She laughed. “They were appalled.”
“The Nazua used to have a shorter lifespan. Disease was rampant, and our population was down to four hundred and fifty thousand, and a Hmrain arrived. He was grouchy, brusque, and treated us as his experimental subjects, but he protected us. We healed; we grew strong. I was born to the first generation after Koron’s arrival. I was twenty-seven when we met, and he waited three more years until I was a full adult before he demanded me as his mate. My town demanded that he make the city his headquarters and that all who agreed to his experiments get a pension for their towns and families that would help them survive in case his subjects didn’t.”
Lyra frowned. “You were at his side throughout this?”
“I was one of his subjects. He was trying to see if he could artificially create the effect that the Hmrain had on their mates without actually doing it. I was with him as his assistant and subject for three hundred years before I told him that if I didn’t become a proper mate, I was walking. I would find the most distant part of the world and bury myself in studies, or I would leave Nazua and seek my fortune in the stars.”
“I bet he didn’t like that.”
Yamira chuckled. “Understatement, but I got my mate, and then, I got my son, and now, my son is looking for another woman. It is a large step. You are so fragile. So delicate, and your species hasn’t gone through what mine went through to become as they are.”
“No, we were just given a choice—leave or die. If we were lucky enough to be near any kind of communicating devices, we got the pickup zones listed. Some were picked up by shuttles. All were bonded before they left the surface, and after the education contract, we signed our work contracts. Those who couldn’t get to a pickup point continued the process of dying.” She spread her hands. “For me, it was this or death. First, I survive, then I get myself comfortable. Survival hinges on me completing my contract.”
“So, you are eager to return to fulfilling your contract.”
“I am. If I go into default, I lose my chance at freedom. That isn’t something that I want to happen.”
Yamira nodded. “I can see how that would be awkward. What did you really see as your final vision?”
Lyra shrugged. “Yatal holding my hand, my belly huge with a baby. He was looking worried, and I was trying to calm him down.”
Yamira chuckled. “I have been giving some thought to being a grandmother, but the women that he has sex with are never the staying kind.”
“You are aware of all of his connections?”
“What a polite way to put it.” She chuckled. “No, we are trying to make sure that he doesn’t attract assassins. He has not gotten anywhere near a lasting bond with any of them. In fact, after the day that you shot him in the face, he hasn’t had a lover and certainly not after your day out with him.”
Lyra winced and covered her eyes. “Don’t remind me. It was strange to be the focus of that attention. Even weirder when he asked me what I wanted to do and took me there.”
Yamira cocked her head. “What did you want to do?”
“Get my hair done. It has been years, and I like the new colour. It used to be a muddy brown.”
The other woman came up and looked. “Huh, I thought it was black. That’s an interesting touch. It looks very thin.”
“It is.” She sighed. “Would you like to touch it?”
Yamira nodded. “Please. I want a guess at what kind of hair my grandchild would have.”
Lyra grimaced and unclipped her hair, the strands slid into Yamira’s palm, and she smiled in delight as the locks fell across her skin.
“Yatal has felt this?”
“Yes.”
Yamira raised a lock to her cheek. “No wonder he’s focused on you. I have never felt anything as soft.”
Lyra felt Yamira’s hand move across her cheek and neck. “I hadn’t noticed it before, but you are a sensory delight.”
The door opened, and Koron poked his head in. “Is anyone dead?”
Lyra grimaced. “No, but your mate is groping me.”
Koron chuckled. “Yami, what did you find?”
“Come here, you have to feel this!”
Lyra yelped and flipped over the exam bed, putting it between her and the two curious elders.
Yatal came in and took in the scene. He looked at his mother and grimaced. “You were touching her hair, right?”
Lyra looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged and grinned. Apparently, to the Nazua, her hair was an aphrodisiac.
Chapter Eight
Yatal eased her away from the curious researchers and out into the hall. He spoke to his parents calmly. “I am sure that she will allow you to examine both her hair and skin at a later date.”
He wrapped his arm around her and walked her down the hallway to an open space where she could smell food. “So, why did your parents act like that? I mean, I saw how you and Lemil reacted, but I thought it was just a texture thing.”
He smiled and stroked her bare arm. “Every part of you is exceptionally touchable. Almost intoxicating. I can’t imagine why my father didn’t get more of your species for Nazua.”
She shivered. “Based on your reaction, I think he knew we would become toys. Well, that, and we aren’t sturdy and don’t last long, so it wouldn’t be worth the funds.”
He tightened his arm around her. “Stop saying that. With the enhancements, you currently have over one hundred and twenty active years ahead of you. My father and I checked on it while you were with my mother. Did she injure you?”
“No, my speed beat her ferocity. Also, while she has combat training, I use mine daily.”
He chuckled. “You are the only woman in decades who has dared be alone in a room with my mother.”
“Did the enhancements she got make her more aggressive?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Yes and no. She is constantly defending her position as my father’s mate in Nazuan tradition, even though he would never look at another woman while she was alive, and she plans on living for a very long time.”
She grinned. “It sounds like they are a good match.”
He continued to steer her toward the scents of food. “They are. How they
ended up with such an even-tempered charmer as myself is anyone’s guess.”
“I don’t find you nearly as charming as you do.”
“And yet, you have kissed me twice. Your species must have different criteria for charm.”
She groaned. “I was trying to distract you both times.”
He grinned. “I look forward to many more attempts.”
“Are you really going to be that close to me? I mean, I am going to be going back to the security unit. Right?” She exhaled it in a blurt.
“You are going to need a new bot. Unit six was trashed. I will show you the vids later. Even the reporters are commenting on the speed of your move, almost as if you knew the blast was coming. It is drawing out every conspiracy theorist that we have. The extraction of you from the unit, obviously near death, means that no one is looking for you. Your team is aware of your survival but not your status.”
She stopped, and he turned toward her. “What is my status?”
He smiled. “Undecided. Your skills with bot control are obvious. Your silky-smooth hide is a problem that can be solved with a little research.”
“The body insulators work very well to hide most of me. The bot does the rest of the work.”
“The shielding on your uniform saved your life.”
“Oh. That too. I used to think about hiding my snacks in there, but I never got around to it.”
He grinned, and they continued on into what ended up being the kitchen. “Iula, this is Lyra. Lyra, this is the woman who has kept me alive throughout my growing years. I literally owe half my height to her cooking.”
The Nazuan woman chuckled. “I am very pleased to meet you, Lyra.”
She paused, and her eyes widened. “From the ice blading!”
Lyra turned hot pink. She could feel it. “That might not have been me.”
Iula laughed. “Based on your face, the hair, and the way he is nearly hovering next to you, I think you are the one that he came home and talked about.”
Lyra was steered toward a countertop, and Yatal put her on a chair.
Yatal smiled. “Iula, Lyra is in need of something to raise her healing. She got shot in the chest today.”