by Roxie Ray
“You must have won your battle,” I murmured as he pulled me in a little closer against the churning tide of the crowd. “Guess I’m not the only one here who thinks you’re a hero.”
“Only by half.” He had to dip his head down to answer me. The crowd was so loud, if Haelian’s lips weren’t within a few inches of my ear, I wouldn’t have been able to hear him at all. “The battle was won, yes. But it would appear that the only ones who are aware that two Rutharians boarded our ship are you and I.” Haelian scanned the crowd, then tugged me toward an exit with purpose. “And for the time being, I would appreciate if we could keep it that way.”
“Could there be more?” I hadn’t even considered that possibility until just now, but the way Haelian was moving us out of the canteen, there was a sudden urgency that suggested we weren’t exactly out of the woods yet.
“I do not know.” Haelian tipped back his drink, then placed it on a table littered with other glasses. “Which is why we must go find Leonix. It would be prudent for us to find out. And quickly, too.”
He held his hand out for my glass. I glanced down at it, then took the entire thing down in one big gulp like a shot, just like Haelian had. The liquid was thick and sweet. Almost like honey, except that it bubbled on my tongue the same way the champagne had on the night of my engagement party. The burn of the alcohol in it didn’t hit me until after I’d already swallowed it all down, but when it did, I coughed and blanched in surprise.
When I finally recovered, I looked up and saw Haelian smirking at me.
“What?” I asked, rubbing my throat and pulling away from him.
He only shook his head. “Nothing. It is only…Amorantia is not a weak liquor. Here on the ship, we only bring it out for the soldiers when a battle has been won.” His smirk grew wider by half. “By my calculations, you just swallowed the equivalent of what I believe to be approximately three Earthen beers.”
“Oh, crap,” I swore. I’d already been a little lightheaded when we came into the canteen. Now, I could practically feel the alcohol slipping into my bloodstream, pushing that sensation a little further still.
As far as my day—or my week—or my year was going, getting drunk wasn’t exactly the worst idea. I’d been attacked. I’d seen Haelian kill two Rutharians before my very eyes. And the kiss we’d shared after…as hot as it had been in the moment, we were both obviously skirting around actually talking about it, and I knew that was going to get pretty awkward pretty fast. As of just last week, I’d been well on my way to becoming a married woman. And now, I was in outer space, making out with an alien warrior who still had the blood of the men he’d killed for me on his jacket and hands and face.
I clung to Haelian’s arm a little tighter as he led me down the hall and through a large set of sliding doors. They opened up into what looked like some kind of command center for the ship, complete with a huge, curved window that took up almost half the room, floor to ceiling. Through it, I could see an entire ocean of comets and stars held within the blackness of open space.
“Haelian? Sawyer?” Everyone in the canteen had been celebrating too hard to stop and notice the blood that Haelian had on him, but Leonix spotted it from all the way across the room. “What happened?”
“Were we boarded?” Next to Leonix on a platform in the center of the room, Nion turned to look at us. Both of their faces were contorted with worry as soon as they laid eyes on us. “How?”
“We were,” Haelian admitted as he helped me over to them. “Two Rutharians. Dead now. It is how that worries me. That, I do not know.”
Leonix turned to the set of controls in front of her, using the tip of one of her claws to flip across a touch screen. “The ship didn’t register a boarding…”
“Yet another concern.” Haelian turned to me, placed his hands on my waist, and lifted me up onto the platform before taking the stairs up to it himself. “But they found Sawyer in the safe room almost immediately. I barely arrived in time.”
Nion’s frown deepened. “But the only ones who knew that Sawyer was in the safe room at all were—”
“You and me,” Haelian finished for him. There was a low, sinister growl in his voice. “I am aware.”
“Surely you do not think that I tipped them off.” Nion’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I was here on the bridge with the rest of the soldiers through the battle. I returned as soon as I delivered her to safety. You saw that for yourself, General.”
“I did. But the point stands.” The way Haelian was staring Nion down like he wanted to dig his claws into Nion’s neck was just like he’d done to the Rutharian back in the safe room.
“If you are questioning my loyalty, Haelian, you should just say so.” Nion drew himself up to his full height. He and Haelian were just about the same size, although Nion might have had an inch on Haelian if you counted the two small, sharp horns poking up through Nion’s dark green hair at his crown. “I have nothing to hide.”
There was a long silence, the kind that I was a little worried might end in a fist fight. But before things could escalate, Leonix stepped between the two men and pushed them apart.
“Your loyalty has never been a concern, Nion.” Her voice was diplomatic but firm. I had a feeling Leonix had to settle little spats like this more often than she would have liked. “But you are correct to worry, Haelian. This is a most worrisome development.” She turned to me, scanning me up and down like she was assessing me for damages. “Were you harmed, Sawyer?”
“No. I’m fine. Like Haelian said, he got there in time.” I wrapped my arms a little tighter around Haelian’s bicep and shook my head. “More creeped out than anything, actually. I think…” I sighed. Haelian, Leonix and Nion had all been so nice to me, I’d been avoiding saying it so far, but if there was any time to come clean about my plans for the future, it was probably now. “I think I’m really looking forward to going back to Earth, though. Not that your hospitality hasn’t been appreciated or anything, but all of this…” I shivered as I remembered the cold, slick feeling of the Rutharian’s tongue against my neck. I needed another shower. This time, I didn’t think I’d even mind the way the water burned my skin. “It’s probably for the best if you do the memory wipe thing on me as soon as you can so you can send me home.”
Whatever tension had been between Nion and Haelian quickly shifted into something else entirely. Haelian looked hurt, which was fair. As far as I knew, with the lack of women on his planet, that kiss we’d shared could have been his first. As for Leonix and Nion, they shared an uncomfortable glance.
“Ah…that may not be as possible as we previously believed, unfortunately,” Leonix said after another long silence.
“What?” The word burst from my mouth like a bottle rocket. “Why?”
Nion raked his fingers through his hair, then shook his head. “Show her.”
“Show me what?” My pulse sped up as Leonix looked down on me with a tinge of sympathy, then turned back to the controls.
“Our intelligence only just returned these broadcasts to us…” Leonix pulled up a blurry window on the screen of her console, then looked to Haelian. “May I, General?”
Haelian glanced down at me, then nodded. “If it is relevant to Sawyer’s situation here, then I believe we should all see it.”
“Of course.” There was hesitation in Leonix’s voice as she tapped the screen again. The blur on the screen was set into motion—a video. But of what? And what the heck did it have to do with me? “But I will warn you now…it is not exactly good news.”
10
Haelian
She wanted to return to Earth.
She wanted to go home.
As Leonix played a video on the console’s screen—an Earthen news report covering Sawyer’s car accident—it was not Leonix’s promise of bad news that was on my mind. It was Sawyer—the thought of losing her—the knowledge that we would only have such a short time together before we would be forced to find passage for her on a ship that would go n
ear Earth.
Then, she would be gone. Out of my life forever and for good, without even a memory of me as she returned to the life she had once had. I had known her only for a short time—such a short time, in fact, I’d barely had a chance to know her at all. I knew her smile, the little dimples in her cheeks and the straight white flash of her teeth. I knew the color of her eyes, cool blue swirled with silver ice. I knew her hair, silken, spun gold, and the way she smelled, always soft and inviting even at her worst. But I did not know her. Not really. Not yet. I did not know her life beyond the little bits and pieces I had gleaned in passing. That she had been a kindergarten teacher of cubs. That she had been betrothed to a man back on Earth.
Her fiancé, she had called him. Of course, she would want to return to him. It should not have surprised me in the least that she did not want to stay.
But even that made me tense with jealousy. It had been a spur of the moment decision, made as my blood ran hot in the wake of battle, yes. But now, I knew something else about Sawyer. I knew the softness of her lips as I crushed them beneath mine. I knew the scent of her breath as she exhaled, delicate and sweet. I knew the way just the thought of her made my chest flush, stiffened my cock and made my body yearn for release.
I knew that I wanted her, and I knew that I did not want her to go. But I also knew that these were selfish wantings. Carnal ones.
Which was exactly why I could not ask her to stay.
I was drawn from my thoughts as Sawyer gasped at my side. I had been so concerned by the thought of her leaving us, I had not even been paying attention to what Leonix was showing us.
On the screen, a body-sized blue bag atop a stretcher was being rolled into the back of a large white vehicle with flashing lights, red and blue. An older human female stood close by, crying into the arms of an older male. A second male, one of Sawyer’s age, patted the sobbing female on the back as tears of his own streamed down his cheeks.
And there, at the bottom of the screen, were words in the human language. I blinked and my translator chip shifted their letters so I could read them.
When I did, I had to fight back a gasp of my own.
SAWYER ANISTON FOUND DEAD the headline read.
“I…I don’t feel so good,” Sawyer whispered. She leaned on me and I shifted my arm around her. If I had not, I feared she would have collapsed again. Her cheeks were paler than I had ever seen them. A single tear trembled on her lower eyelashes. Her breathing was rapid but faint. She looked to Leonix. “I’m not dead. Obviously. So how…?”
“We do not know for certain.” Leonix tapped the screen and the video disappeared. “But knowing what we know of the slavers who have been abducting human females like yourself…”
“It is high-level technology,” I told Sawyer. “But it is possible. They must have taken a sample of your DNA. Created a body double of you.”
“Planted it there on Earth to cover their tracks,” Nion finished. His lips were pressed into a thin, firm line. “They did not want anyone to look for you, so they ensured that a body that appeared to be you would be found.”
“No. No…No.” Sawyer shook her head furiously and pulled away from me. It did not seem right to hold her against her will, but she still did not have the energy to stand on her own. Instead, she tumbled into Leonix’s arms as a sob wracked her slender frame. It sounded as through her grief was tearing her apart—and I could not blame her for that.
No one said it. It did not need to be said out loud. We all knew it, and none felt it as much as Sawyer herself.
Now that the other Earthlings believed her to be dead, there would be no going home.
I retired to my captain’s chambers while Leonix returned Sawyer to her rooms. There was little I could do to comfort her in her current state, especially since she had pushed me away. Instead, I grumbled with frustration as I booted up my video communicator. This new development, along with news of the ambush and the Rutharians sneaking aboard our ship, would need to be reported to Kloran.
Unfortunately, I did not believe any of this most recent news would please my friend and cousin’s ears.
“Haelian! Kaliope has missed you.” When Kloran’s image filled my screen, he had his chubby baby daughter bouncing on his knee. Her tiny fingers were curled around his much larger one. He lifted her hand up to give me a little wave, which made her giggle with delight. “How goes your mission, my friend?”
“We have recovered three human females,” I told him. Best to start with the good news. There was enough bad to come after, the celebration of that victory would be short-lived. “No casualties. We should be back home with all three of them within a week’s time.”
“Well done, General.” The smile on Kloran’s lips was broad and genuine. “I knew you were the right man for this job.”
But his smile waned as I told him of what else had transpired. A Rutharian ambush—obviously a distraction. The boarding, which should not have even been possible. The way they had known of Sawyer’s whereabouts on the ship, even though the only individuals that had been party to that information had been me, Nion, and Sawyer herself.
Kloran’s brow wrinkled in confusion at this news. “You surely do not believe that Nion—”
“I do not know what to believe,” I told him honestly. My shoulders slumped in exhaustion. It had been a long day—and it would be an even longer week if I could not clear Nion of any involvement in the Rutharian boarding. “But that is not all that I have to report, I’m afraid.”
“More bad tidings?” Offscreen, a shadow passed over Kloran. I caught a glimpse of Bria’s braid as she leaned in to take Kaliope from his arms. “Tell me.”
“The slavers who are abducting the humans from Earth are playing their game with care,” I revealed. “One of the humans, a female by the name of Sawyer, was initially reported missing by her family. Her body—or a body that the humans are convinced to be hers—has since been discovered on Earth. The humans now believe her to be dead—and I doubt that she is the only one.”
“Blood,” Kloran swore. He ran his hand down his face, then thumped his fist against the arm of his chair. “And this cannot be undone?”
“Not without communicating to the Earthen authorities what is transpiring, no.” A pang shot through my chest at the memory of the way Sawyer had shaken with tears in Leonix’s arms. To have been stolen away from her home, her family, the man she had been promised to, only to end up so far away from her own planet knowing that all those she cared for now believed her to be dead…It was a greater cruelty than I could fathom. A far greater cruelty than what someone as sweet as Sawyer could have ever deserved. “Her family appears to already be in mourning. To return her to them now, when they have already been told that she is deceased…”
Kloran nodded. “It is a terrible thing, but I understand your meaning. This puts us in quite the moral quandary. Does this Sawyer wish to return home?”
I shrugged. I could not speak for Sawyer, but I knew the ramifications of returning her to her people now that they were already grieving her could be great. “She is distraught, and rightfully so. Before Leonix revealed this to us, she seemed to have every intention of being taken back to Earth. But now…”
“I will brief the high council on this matter.” Kloran tilted his head to the side, then let out a humorless laugh. “Likely, they will be more pleased by this development than they are horrified by it, though. If the human females cannot be returned home, they will be more likely to wish to find mates here on Lunaria. Terrible as it may be, this travesty for the abducted humans will be something I expect they will see as Lunaria’s gain.”
Though I loathed to admit it, I could not help but agree somewhat. Perhaps if Sawyer was to abandon her desire to return home now—if she knew that her chosen mate thought her dead and she accepted that she could not return, she would be more interested in pursuing a life on Lunaria. A life, perhaps, with someone like me instead.
I banished the thought as soon as I had i
t, though. Sawyer was beautiful, yes. She was charming, in her own way, and I desired her. Of course I did. I had felt that as soon as I first laid eyes on her. But it was not right to think of these things when even as I spoke with Kloran, she was no doubt shut in her own room, sobbing herself to sleep. I could not allow myself to take joy in this tragedy, knowing how much it must be hurting her.
“I should go check on her,” I told Kloran. “The other two females have been left in stasis while we make our return, but Sawyer came aboard the Avant Lupinia conscious and mostly unharmed. She may need to be…comforted. As captain, it is the least I can do.”
“Instead of celebrating two victories against the Rutharians with your men?” Kloran arched an eyebrow. Despite all of the misfortunes I had told him of, I could see the ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Do you perhaps have feelings for this Sawyer female, Haelian? Admittedly, I am surprised—you have never made yourself out to be the type—but perhaps, if you are as fortunate as I was when I met Bria…”
“No,” I told him pointedly. I did not want him getting the wrong idea—even if, technically speaking, perhaps it was the right one. “Not in the slightest. Believe me, Kloran. My thoughts on marriage and love have not changed since we last spoke.”
Kloran’s smirk finally flickered onto his lips. “If you say so, cousin. But take it from one smitten man to another—these things are oftentimes more obvious than you would like them to appear.”
I said my goodbyes and turned off the communicator in a huff. Of course, I would have liked to celebrate with my men, but with Sawyer upset, I hardly felt like celebrating anything at all.