“You think there’s any possibility there’s anything left of our ship?” Amy asked her neutrally.
Niki looked at her in surprise. “It’s more valuable as a ship than scrap. Why would they take it apart? I imagine they stripped it, but we haven’t stopped anywhere. We could load it again and head to our target.”
“Jesus, Niki! We haven’t been sitting still out here! Do we even have enough fuel to get back on course—assuming we could still navigate from wherever we are?”
Niki sighed tiredly. “One problem at the time, ok? I just can’t handle a lot more than I’ve got right now.”
As she’d suspected, at the end of the day, Kagan and Goran escorted her to their quarters.
She wasn’t even surprised when Kagan dragged her down on his lap with every appearance of wanting to talk. He had the first time. He had shown some interest in her as a human being, a person, and that was why she’d thought it might be safe to talk to him.
This time, though, he seemed pensive. “Tell me why … you angry? Hurt?”
Niki swallowed with an effort, but it wasn’t an easy question to answer. Part of it was her reluctance to spill her guts. Part of it was purely confusion. She didn’t know why she was feeling a lot of the things she was feeling. But she thought, maybe, it, or most of it, would fit under the umbrella of being a captive. A lot of it certainly sprouted from that—the fear and uncertainty. Feeling inadequate, inconsequential. And as hard as all of that would be to explain to a native English speaker who was from the same culture as she was, it seemed absolutely impossible to explain it to an alien, who couldn’t understand more than maybe one word out of a dozen.
And, saying she could, there was his reaction to it to worry about.
He studied her thoughtfully for several moments and stroked her cheek gently and then cupped a hand over her belly. “Madrone woman’s … when baby here, dey crazy,” he murmured with a touch of amusement. “Want kill tings.”
Niki gaped at him, realizing immediately that he completely understood what hormonal fluctuations could do to a woman’s mind.
And as pissed off as she might have been under other circumstances, she was just relieved to have him explain it for her so she didn’t have to stumble around and try. She smiled faintly. “You think that’s what’s wrong with me?”
He met her gaze. “I think you ‘fraid, Niki.”
A knot of emotion swelled in her throat. “Sometimes,” she admitted.
He cupped her head in one hand and pulled her close, tucking her against his shoulder. “I neber hurt you, Niki.”
Unless he was ordered to, Niki thought, and realized that was her real fear. Not that they would just suddenly decide to kill them, but that they would be forced to by the lizards.
He hesitated. “Taurin neber eider.”
She lifted her head to look at him and then settled again, comfortable, lifting her arm to curl it around his neck.
He stroked her arm for a moment and then urged her to get up. Then while she watched, puzzled, he parted his hair in the back and dragged the long, dark locks across his shoulders. Twisting around, he displayed the thing she’d been told about. She’d never noticed it because it was hidden under their long hair—and now that she had she was horrified and realized she hadn’t really believed it was there. “See dis ting?”
Niki nodded.
“Can Erth womens take off? Make not work?”
Niki grabbed his face and kissed him enthusiastically so relieved he’d asked her she felt as excited as she had when she’d first thought it could be something to save them. “Yes! You wonderful man!”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “You take off?”
She frowned. “I need Jackie and Glenda to look at it. I’m not sure what men they’re with.”
“Jackie? Glenda?” Goran repeated.
“Yes.”
Kagan flicked his fingers at him in a dismissive way and Goran left. He pulled her into his arms then. “Now. Say again.”
Niki smiled at him faintly and pretended ignorance. “Say what?”
Instead of asking again, he got up, carrying her with him, and moved to the bunk with her. Sprawling on it with her, he proceeded to torturing her with nibbling kisses—all the way down to Ms Maryjane! And then he kissed her clit until she was screaming breathlessly for him to stop.
He moved over her then and settled against her. “Say.”
Her lips curled. “You wonderful man,” she murmured huskily.
He shifted onto his side then and gathered her against his length, simply holding her.
Niki worried, briefly, that he hadn’t gotten his cookie, but then she drowsed.
Goran roused her when he returned with two sleepy-eyed women.
Apparently completely comfortable with the fact that they’d come in while he was wrapped around her, Kagan got up. “Jackie and Glena?”
Niki shoved herself up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “The electronics engineers?”
“Yes.” They answered almost in chorus.
Niki got up and looked around and finally just suggested that Kagan perch on the arm of his easy chair. Then she parted his hair for him—just for the opportunity to play with it. “Can we take this off without harming him? And without alerting the lizards?”
Both of them moved closer and looked it over. “My god!” Jackie exclaimed. “It looks like it’s wired into his spine.”
Niki felt a wave of cold wash over her. She flicked a look at Kagan and licked her lips. “So you don’t think so?”
They both shook their head, but before Niki could bottom out emotionally, Glenda spoke. “We need to open it up before we could say absolutely one way or the other. We need tools. Hopefully it isn’t booby trapped.”
“Oh my god!” Niki gasped, horrified. “You think … you think it could be?”
Jackie shrugged. “They didn’t want them removing them. I wouldn’t even want to guess what the bastards did.”
“But I’m guessing there’s some sort of booby trap,” Glenda said flatly. Then she looked Kagan in the eyes. “Did anyone ever try to take one of these off?”
He nodded. “Blow head off.”
Niki thought she was going to puke or faint or maybe both. And there was nothing objective about it. The moment it was mentioned visions of ‘her’ men flashed into her eyes—Taurin and Jurik, Kagan and Goran—and devastation followed. “We can’t touch it, then,” she said, unconsciously clenching her fingers on Kagan’s shoulder.
He lifted his hand and placed it over hers. “Must. We no hab free till we no hab dese.”
Niki felt like crying. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to any of them. “Well … we’ll just figure out something else.”
Jackie and Glenda exchanged a look. “We’re never going to get a chance to get to whatever controls these. It’s this or nothing.”
“But … it could kill them.”
“And us and we damned well don’t want to die!” Glenda tartly. “We need the tools. When we can get the cover off and have a good look, then we’ll know if we can do anything or not.”
“How in the hell are they ever going to find the tools?” Niki demanded.
Both women thought that over for a few minutes. “They’ll have to sneak one of us into the ship to get them—or wherever they might be now. I don’t see an option. They wouldn’t be familiar with our tools.”
“I should go,” Niki said calmly. “It’s my job as commander.”
“Except you aren’t an electronics engineer,” Jackie said pointedly.
Irritation flickered through Nikki. “Maybe not, but I know what damn tools look like and I have enough sense to see it would take micro tools to work on something like that.”
Both women looked annoyed but resigned.
“Well, you’re in command. I still think it would be better if one of us went.”
“We can’t afford to risk losing an engineer. I’ll go.”
“I don’t think
we can afford to lose our commander,” Glenda retorted.
Niki shook her head. “We’ll settle it later—tomorrow.”
Kagan pulled her down on his lap when Goran had left with the women. “We must do dis, Niki. Is only way.”
She nodded, moving closer and curling an arm around his head and kissing the top of his head. “We’ll figure it out.”
He got up after a moment and carried her back to the bunk and curled up with her as he had before. It took Niki a long time to go back to sleep, though.
* * * *
There was less tension in some ways at the table they shared the following day. In other ways, more.
Taurin turned his translator/communicator off first and dropped it to the table. The other three followed suit. “Can they do it?”
“She had us bring two other women to the cabin to look at it. They have to have their tools to get inside of it before they will know anything. It is connected to the backbone—as we suspected—and that could be a big problem. And, of course, we already knew it was made to blow up if we tried to remove it.”
Impatience flickered across Taurin’s face. “I had feared that might be the case. We will have to risk searching for the tools.”
Kagan hesitated. He did not want Niki taking any risks, but the truth was they were all at risk until or unless something could be done about the devices. “Niki thinks she should go. She knows what the tools should look like that will be needed. She does not want to take the chance that either of the women who could possibly take these things apart could get caught.”
“I see no reason to risk her,” Taurin said tightly. “Why does she think she should go?”
“Because she is their commander,” Kagan responded tartly. “I may not be able to speak their language worth a shit, but I understand it fairly well … now. The delizo are very likely closer to fully grasping it than any of us are and the women cannot … seem to understand that it will be used to monitor them as soon as the delizo have the entire language mapped. Some of them are very careful when they talk and what they say and some are very careless. Mostly they speak about things that would not interest the delizo, but this talk … will get us all killed.”
Taurin was well aware of that. And that meant that Niki was in danger whether she went or not, but it was no easy thing to consider putting her in more danger.
After a moment, he summoned her. She looked confused and then wary, but she got up and moved to him. He shoved his chair back and dragged her across his lap, turning his face to her ear as if he meant to explore it. “Niki decide must be one go?”
She was staring at him wide eyed when he moved back enough to see her expression. “What?”
He tilted his head at her wryly, then moved his lips next to her ear again. Closer. “Tools, love. You get?”
Niki felt goose bumps leapt to life that time and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with anything he’d said. Her nipples stood at attention—and worse, she felt moisture flood her channel. She crossed her legs and squeezed tightly, struggling to redirect her mind to the questions. It was useless. Her body felt Taurin and responded even before the dumbass started breathing in her ear.
And it was no surprise to discover that every damned one of them knew it when she flicked a quick look around the table.
She turned her face to Taurin’s ear, settled one palm on his cheek and breathed in his ear gustily when she murmured the one word question ‘tool?’
He uttered a choked sound and then began shaking with laughter—silent. His eyes were dancing with it when she pulled back to see what he thought about it. Heat flickered there, as well, but he sobered quickly. “Yes?”
She gathered her wits with an effort. “I have to. It’s my job.”
His lips tightened. His hands tightened on her. “I go with,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Chapter Thirteen
Niki did her best not to read anything into the encounter, to close her mind to the fact that Taurin had called her love. She didn’t believe he knew what it was. Maybe he had learned the word and thought he knew the meaning, but she doubted he actually did.
It was pretty much a cultural term—although she was sure very few people really thought about that. She supposed it had grown out of the respect and admiration and affection people had attained at some point after they’d been forced to marry someone they didn’t know at all in the arranged marriages that had come for centuries before the concept of love spawned marriage.
And before that, before they had made contracts to seal the deal, it had just plain out been fucking and mindless reproduction like it was with the ‘lower’ order of animals.
It had captured her imagination, though, and would not allow her to put it down or shove it deep into the recesses of her mind.
It buoyed her far more for the remainder of the day than the ‘excitement’ and fear generated by the discovery that he meant to see it done, their plan to achieve freedom.
And she was still surprised when it was Taurin and Jurik that walked her back to their quarters at the end of the day.
That time, Jurik left.
It knocked the breath right out of her when she met Taurin’s gaze and realized why he’d sent Jurik away.
He held her gaze while he stripped. She felt heat and tension coil in her lower belly as soon as he began to pull his clothing off. He hesitated for a moment when he was naked and then reached to take her hand and led her to his bunk. Settling her between the wall of the room and the wall of flesh that he was, he stroked a hand over her, tweaking each nipple lightly until they tented her T-shirt and then stroking down the center of her body till he reached her belly. He cupped the slight roundness there.
“I know you think you mean nothing to me, Niki. I am sorry that I am so poor at this, too stupid to learn the words I want to give you. But I do not want to try this dangerous thing without doing my best to tell you that you mean everything to me.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips, palm up and placed a kiss there. And then he moved it down to his chest and placed it against his heart. “This warrior’s heart … you hold here.”
Niki stared at his face and then his hand over hers and tears abruptly filled her eyes.
He swallowed audibly. And then reached toward her and placed his palm over her heart. “Belong to Kagan, yes?”
She burst into tears then, realizing to her horror that she couldn’t say that it belonged entirely to him. They had cut her into pieces.
No. She loved them all—with whole heart.
And they would never accept that. She knew it.
She knew she couldn’t have if it was her.
“Don’t hate me,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t help it.”
He hesitated and then he pulled her close to him. “No hate, love. Will not. Niki still hab warrior’s heart. Cannot take back.”
She sniffed and struggled to get her arms around him, clinging tightly. “I do love Kagan—and also Goran and Jurik. But I love you most.”
Taurin struggled with his anger and disappointment … and pain, feeling sick in knowing that he had thrown away what he really wanted because of his sense of loyalty to his own people, and his men.
Fool that he was, he had not realized, then, that she meant so much more to him than anyone else.
Even his duo.
And the madrone believed no one could be closer to anyone than they were to their duo—because they were, in essence, part of a whole. The same. Extensions of one another.
He could not explain that to her, though, and she would likely not understand if he could, because her culture was not the same.
She did care about him, though. He would have to settle for that or have nothing and nothing sure as hell did not appeal to him—appealed less than something.
It rankled that he would have to accept that.
But then again, it was something entirely new to him—most of the things she had made him feel.
Kagan was right in that
little memory remained of their world and people, but the customs—he was right about those.
It was so rare as to be almost legend that a warrior ever gave his heart to a woman. And few really believed it had ever happened. It was almost more of a cautionary tale—the disaster that could result from a warrior giving his heart to a single female.
He could only pass himself through one line, then, and that could be disastrous to all of the people if he was a superior warrior.
He was not certain he would ever grow accustomed to sharing his woman with another, but he could always hope that Kagan would spurn the offer and then he would only share her with his duo—which was basically not actually sharing at all because Jurik was his duo.
But he could give himself to her with the certainty that she felt the same as he did and he thought that would bring him contentment.
It would have to.
He was not going to give her up to that bastard Kagan so that he could have her all to himself.
Shifting her in his arms after a moment, he nuzzled her face in search of her lips. She sniffed and lifted her face to meet him, offering what he sought, kissing him back with a hunger equal to his own when he covered her mouth with his and delved inside for a taste of her. It went right to his head as it had from that first time when he had claimed her.
She was his woman, he thought, and she knew it as well as he did.
Mayhap, if they lived, he would oust the others from her heart and have it all to himself.
Because he was greedy. He wanted all of it, all of her. It should have been enough that he felt certain that no other entered her mind or heart when she was with him. In a sense, it was.
And yet … that was only part of her time.
Of course, he thought, their babe would take a piece of her away from him.
And the next.
Mayhap, he thought wryly, he should try to get used to the fact that he could not have her all to himself? It would be no easy thing. Mayhap he would never master it, but he needed to try.
Alien Warriors: Invasion Page 12