Protected

by Evangeline Anderson

Strange music that sounded like someone playing a flute and a drum, while someone else yodeled at the top of their lungs drifted through the smoky air. The lighting was dim but I could see enough to make out some of the other people—mostly male. Most were standing around drinking various glowing concoctions from long tubing which seemed to lead directly back to huge vats behind the bar. I saw shimmering hot pink, electric blue, lime green, and neon yellow flowing through the long glass straws.

  It seemed like a strange way to serve drinks—after all, how could you tell how much the person was drinking? But then, what did I know about alien bars? They probably had a system of keeping track.

  We passed a muscular alien with an elaborate mask on, which hid the top part of his face. He was wearing a long, full cloak that seemed to rustle when he moved. Then he shifted and flexed and I saw it was no cape—the guy had wings. Actual wings!

  Grav looked back and saw me staring.

  “Cantor,” he said under his breath, jerking his head at the winged alien. “Unusual to see one so far from Cantorie Two.”

  “Can they actually fly?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Hell yeah. But mostly on their home planet. It’s a light-G world with lots of updrafts.”

  We left the winged alien behind and passed two large males, one with blue skin and one with red. They were both standing at the bar and they had a female between them. She was sitting on a stool and sipping a neon yellow cocktail from one of the long glass straws that led behind the bar while both males looked at her possessively.

  I nudged Grav.

  “Wonder which one she’s going home with.”

  He looked at the group at the bar.

  “Both,” he said mildly. “Those are Denarins. The males find each other early in life and form a psychic bond. Then they search for the perfect female to complete that bond. Sometimes they search their whole life—Denarins are big interstellar travelers because of it.”

  “But doesn’t that make a lot of half-breeds?” I asked. “Who can’t bond with females?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Denarins are the exception to that rule—their genes always breed true so they can mate with a female of any of the other Peoples. They never know where their one perfect mate will be. And sometimes when they find her…she doesn’t want them.”

  “Gee, I wonder why,” I said dryly. One seven foot tall alien was enough for me. I couldn’t imagine going home with two of them at once.

  “It’s sad, actually.” Grav sounded unusually compassionate. “Imagine searching your whole life for that one perfect mate and then when you finally find her…she’s too scared to go with you.” He shook his head. “Fuckin’ tragedy.”

  “Almost as sad as finding a guy you really like who refuses to be with you because he thinks you can’t handle his past,” I said daringly.

  Grav gave me a dark look.

  “Leave that be, darlin’. You don’t know my past and you don’t wanna know it. Besides, I told you—I’m a half-breed. Couldn’t bond you to me even if I wanted to.”

  “And you don’t want to. Is that it?” I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice. Though I had promised myself I wouldn’t think about this—let alone talk about it to Grav—I couldn’t seem to help it. I had never felt anything like what I felt when I was with him and I don’t just mean sexually. There was something between us—an energy I couldn’t explain or describe but it made me want to never leave him.

  I wished he felt the same way about me.

  Grav whirled to face me and leaned down to stare right into my eyes.

  “You think I don’t want to bond you to me? To claim you as mine and keep you with me the rest of my life, darlin’?” he asked in a low growl. “You think I don’t feel it—feel what’s between us?”

  “What is between us?” I demanded, frowning. I was tired of skirting around this issue. In the past I’d told myself I wasn’t free to be with Grav, even if he wanted me, because I was still married to Gerald. But now I was more and more inclined to agree with Grav’s own view that by abusing me, Gerald had effectively terminated our commitment to each other. If a right hook to the jaw equals a divorce, then Gerald was now my ex and out of the picture. I had even stopped wearing my wedding ring.

  Which left me free to be with someone I really wanted—someone who wanted me.

  Only he didn’t want me.

  “I don’t know what’s between us,” Grav growled. “I only know it makes me want you all the time. But damn it, I can’t have you.” He ran a hand through his short black hair in obvious frustration and repeated in a soft, intense voice, “I can’t have you. You’re not for me.”

  “Why not?” I insisted.

  “Because you’re too fuckin’ good for the likes of me, all right?” he exploded and I thought I saw the glint of red far back in the depths of his white-on-black eyes. “Because you deserve a hell of a lot better than—”

  “An escaped felon who’s wanted for murder in several systems?” a low voice finished for him.

  Grav whirled around and I saw someone—a big someone—step out from the side of the bar to meet him.

  It was an alien male like none of the others I had seen at the bar. He had hair that was so blue it was almost black…and the rest of him was the same color. Skin, hair, clothes—seriously, he was completely monochromatic. Dark blue all over.

  “Who are you and what the fuck do you want?” Grav growled, frowning at the stranger.

  “Gravex N’gol, I am Captain Kristoff Verrai of her majesty the Goddess Empress’ Imperial Guard,” the male said. For a moment his skin changed from the somber dark blue to something else—a gold so bright it was dazzling. And then he shifted back again, the dark blue color covering him completely.

  “All right—I believe you. No need to flash the gold at me.” Grav frowned at him. “Aren’t you pretty fuckin’ far from Femme 1?”

  “We go where we are needed,” the other male said blandly. “Right now we’re needed here.”

  “If you’ve come to take me in, I hope like Hell you didn’t come alone.” Grav gave him a menacing glare. “I’m in the middle of a mission and nothin’ is gonna stop me—and that includes an Imperial warrant for my arrest.”

  The Captain frowned.

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d like nothing better than to bring you in. You know you’re possibly the most wanted male in the galaxy? But in this case, it’s your goddess I need to speak to.”

  “Huh?” I looked around us. What was he talking about? What goddess?

  “He’s talkin’ about you, Leah,” Grav told me, his eyes never leaving the other male’s face. “He’s Majoran—it’s what Majoran males call their females.”

  “I need to speak to you.” The dark blue Captain stepped towards me. “You have information I desperately need.”

  “Leah doesn’t have anything you need and you’re not gonna lay one fuckin’ finger on her or I’ll break it off and feed it to you.” Grav stepped in front of me, an aura of menace growing like a cloud around him.

  “I don’t want to touch her!” Captain Verrai sounded impatient. “I have no interest in her or any female—look at me. Can you not see I am in mourning?”

  In mourning? I frowned, looking him up and down. Was that what the monochromatic look was about? Maybe someone had died and this was the Majoran equivalent of wearing all black?

  “I just need to talk to her,” the Captain said. “She was shown to me in a vision by the Goddess Empress herself. She has important information about—”

  “About what?” Grav demanded, his voice still a low, threatening growl.

  The Captain looked around. “Can we not speak somewhere in private? I have rented a safe room at the other end of the bar. The news I have to relate is not for public consumption. Not yet.”

  “Not for public consumption, huh? Right.” Grav gave him an incredulous look. “Like I’m just gonna go with you nice and quiet so you can arrest m
e someplace in private? I don’t think so, Verrai.”

  “For the last time, I have no interest in you, Braxian,” the Captain growled. His skin flashed red for a moment and I got the idea he was running out of patience. “I could have brought an entire squadron with me to take you down but I didn’t—I didn’t want you to feel threatened in any way. I swear I just need to talk to your goddess.”

  “I’m not his goddess,” I said, speaking up for the first time. “We’re not…not mated.” I shot Grav a glance which he returned with interest. “We’re partners on a mission to rescue a little girl who’s been kidnapped by a bunch of pirates.”

  “Would those be the pirates led by a T’varri named Arn?” The Captain raised one monochromatic eyebrow at us.

  “Well…yes.” I frowned. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know my squad and I wiped out the entire crew not twenty-four solar hours ago,” Captain Verrai said blandly.

  “You’re fuckin’ lying,” Grav growled. “How could you get a whole squadron of Imperial Guards through the Spider’s Web without the Widow noticing?”

  “Oh, haven’t you heard? The Spider’s Web is dead—or at least inactivated. It has been for some time now.” The Captain shrugged. “So it wasn’t that hard.”

  “What?” Grav growled. “So you just strolled in and killed the lot of them? Why?”

  “Because I was told to look for a female in the company of a wanted felon. And then I heard that Arn and his crew had such a female with them.”

  “Did you find her?” I asked anxiously, breaking in. “Did you find Teeny?”

  The Captain shook his head. “We found nothing but pirates—no females at all. My warriors dispatched the lot of them. I was just having a drink at the bar, considering new strategies when I saw the two of you come in.” He stared at me intently. “You are the one I was shown—I knew you at once. You must talk to me.”

  “Leah doesn’t have to do a damn thing she doesn’t want to do,” Grav growled.

  “Let me just hear him out, Grav,” I said, putting a restraining hand on his muscular forearm. I looked at the Captain. “What do you want to talk about, anyway?”

  “I just need to know the location of your home planet,” the Majoran Captain said. “And your friend—the one with hair the color of sunshine and deep green eyes.”

  A shock went through me—as though I had stuck my finger in a light socket.

  “Charlotte?” I whispered, feeling slightly queasy. “You mean Charlotte? Why are you looking for her?”

  “Is that her name? I must find her!” He took another step towards me but I took a step back.

  “Find her and do what to her?” I demanded. All I could think about was the Alien Mate Index and the fact that those damn blue worms, the Commercians, were abducting and selling unsuspecting Earth girls to any alien male who had enough money to pay for one. I didn’t want that to happen to my best friend!

  “I must find her and—” the Captain began but I was already shaking my head and backing away.

  “No,” I said, feeling a cold finger of fear trace my spine. “No, I’m not telling you anything. You leave Charlotte alone!”

  “You heard Leah,” Grav growled when the Captain tried to speak again. “No more talking. No information, no nothing. You stay away from my female, or you’ll be pickin’ your eyeballs out of the nearest vat of Grungian ale.”

  The Captain looked angry.

  “You’re making a grave mistake. This female I am seeking is of utmost importance not just to me but to the entire galaxy!”

  “Yeah, right,” Grav growled. Turning, he shouldered his way through the crowd, pushing me along in front of him. “Fuckin’ Imperial Guards,” he muttered. Behind us I heard the Captain shout,

  “You haven’t heard the last of this, Braxian. I can return with a Binding-warrant for your arrest—then we’ll see if your female wants to talk!”

  “Get it,” Grav shouted back, looking over his shoulder. “And then see how many Gold Skins it takes to put it on me. I won’t make it easy for you.”

  “Gold Skins?” I asked as we left the bar by a back entrance.

  “It’s what they call Imperial Guards,” he explained, his voice still a low menacing growl. “They serve the Goddess Empress so they’re the only ones allowed to turn their skins gold. It’s a royal color and no other Majoran male is supposed to use it.”

  “Oh.” I took that in for a minute and turned my head to look back at Captain Verrai. Another Majoran male was standing beside him now—clearly some kind of underling.

  “Captain,” I heard him say. “Why don’t we just take him now? He’s just one male.”

  “Are you insane?” Verrai demanded. “He’s a Braxian—they’re berserkers. Do you want to lose our entire squad and most of the innocents in this bar?”

  “I doubt most of this motley lot are innocent,” the underling muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Verrai said. “We’re here on the Goddess Empress’ business—we’ll not kill civilians. No—just send for the Binding-warrant. The faster it gets here the better.”

  “Fast as a hyl’dy up a chula tree, Sir,” the underling promised. “I’ll send for it at once.”

  “Good. See that you do.”

  The Captain said something else but I couldn’t catch it—we were getting too far away. Something about his underling’s words bothered me, though. I couldn’t put my finger on it—just something that seemed to tug at the corner of my mind somehow…”

  “What are they saying?” Grav muttered to me out of the corner of his mouth. “You catch any of it?”

  “Something about Braxians,” I said, frowning. “And they’re sending for some kind of warrant.”

  “A Binding-warrant,” he said. “It’s a coil of energy that wraps around you and saps your strength—completely incapacitates you. I was put in one once before—the first time I was arrested.”

  The way he talked about his criminal past so matter-of-factly made my stomach turn over a little bit.

  “Grav,” I said tentatively. “Is it true you’re, uh, wanted for…”

  “For murder?” he said bluntly, turning around to face me. We were in a quieter part of the bar now but he still pitched his voice low—for my ears only. “Yeah, darlin’—it’s true.”

  “I…so you…” I didn’t know what to say.

  Grav gave me a ferocious grin that wasn’t the least bit happy. “See? Told you that you were too good for the likes of me.”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to say. He had admitted in the past that he’d done some bad things—and even that he wasn’t sorry for them. But surely he couldn’t be as bad as all that. Could he?

  “Was it…did you kill a prison guard?” I asked. “Maybe by accident when you were trying to get out of jail? Maybe trying to get free so you could clear your name?”

  Grav gave a short, barking laugh.

  “I see you’ve got a pretty little fantasy all worked up about it in your head. Let me set you straight, Leah. Yes, I’ve killed people—plenty of them and yes some of them were guards when I was breaking out of the slam. And I wasn’t shut up in there for no reason or because somebody framed me either—I was locked up for murder. A murder I absolutely committed and wouldn’t hesitate to commit again.”

  “I…I…” I didn’t know what to say to that. When he laid the facts out on the table like this—so baldly with no “pretty little fantasies” as he put it to dress them up or make them look better—it was shocking and more than a little scary.

  “I…but I thought you were a Protector,” I said at last.

  Grav sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I am. I presented myself to the Mendeket of the Order of Protection after I got away. At first I just thought it was a place to stay out of sight. The Gold Skins were looking high and low for me. But after he heard my story, the Mendeket agreed to take me in and let me train to become a P
rotector. And that’s what I’ve been ever since.”

  After the Mendeket heard my story… I wished I could hear it—the whole story. I felt like there was still something missing. A lot missing, actually. Like who had he killed in the first place to be put in jail? And why was he so adamant that he would do it again?

  Grav had been watching my face while I thought over his words. Apparently he didn’t see what he wanted because his own face went dark and cold as granite.

  “C’mon,” he said shortly. “We still have a job to do.”

  “What about the pirates?” I said, glad for the change of subject. “Do you believe he really killed them all? And if so, where’s Teeny?”

  “I don’t know,” Grav growled. “But we’re damn sure gonna find out.”

  Grav

  “It’s true—the Spider’s Web is dead or inactivated these many days.” The T’varri nodded and took another sip of the bright blue Grungian ale I’d bought him. T’varri are straight-forward people so I felt I could trust what he had to say.

  “Is that why the Haven is so crowded?” I asked. We were speaking in a private safe room I’d rented at the back of the bar for this exact purpose. It was bare with nothing but a table, two chairs, and a drinking hole with a long straw coming out of it.

  It wasn’t exactly the most luxurious accommodations, but I didn’t care—it wasn’t like I expected to be there for long. I wanted to get in and out quickly before the fucking Imperial Guards came back. Just my luck meeting them in a place where I had least expected to—I hoped it took Captain Verrai some time to get his fucking Binding-warrant.

  “Probably.” The T’varri nodded. He had the elaborate living tattoos of his kind. They crawled up and down his arms and over his broad back like restless snakes. “Plenty of ring miners in the crowd, waiting to see if it’s really safe to go harvesting the rings again. Of course…” He took another sip of ale through the long straw that led to a hole in the wall. “There’s probably going to be a mad rush now.”

  “Why is that?” Leah asked. I’d had to bring her with me into the safe room, even though I disliked letting her be in such close quarters with a T’varri. They’re a race of sexual dominants and anyone with submissive tendencies tends to attract them like Gennian bees to Deloshin honey. Leah was getting better about standing up for herself—case in point, the fight we’d nearly had out in the main part of the bar. But she’d spent years under the thumb of that asshole of a mate of hers and some of her old, meek mannerisms still showed through at times.