by Lynnea Lee
“Hello, Dumpling,” Arus purred. “you look delicious.”
Her face tinged pink, giving her a cute innocent look.
“You look pretty yummy yourself, Beefcake.” Then she giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Beefcake!” She laughed again. “It’s just so tacky and cheesy, but hey, that’s what came out of my mouth, so I plan on making it stick! Lucky you!”
Arus didn’t mind. He was happy to let her call him any endearment she wanted.
“I didn’t think you’ll be up so late. Are you having trouble sleeping? You know you could have stayed with me. I would help you sleep.” Arus recalled how she had slept the past two nights, all cuddled in his arms. She snored lightly, and it was the cutest thing.
She smiled as she spoke as if remembering last night.
Then she scrunched up her nose. “I stayed up to deal with some annoying crap. Mom messaged me a dozen times while I was out with Sala. When I didn’t reply, she reported me as a missing person. Luckily, Angie, the lady we saw at the front desk today, sent me a message. I commed the office and got it sorted out.”
“She is very overprotective of you.”
“I know. She was that way on Earth, too. But not nearly this bad. She doesn’t work, and I’m her only child, so when I was growing up, she made my life her job. Now that we are here, I think she’s clinging on to that even harder. I feel bad for leaving her at the dorms alone.”
“She is not alone. There are many humans there.”
“I know.”
“Things might be easier if you had a comm.”
“It’s one of the first things I’m saving up for. It’s like not having a cell phone on Earth. It’s inconvenient for sure!”
“I have an extra comm on the Defiant. It’s an older model. Why don’t you take that one?”
Mia hesitated. She spoke slowly, as if picking her words carefully. “Thank you, Arus. That’s real sweet of you. But I don’t want to be a charity case. I want to buy my own things and care for myself.”
Arus remembered the first evening they met and how she hadn’t wanted to eat with him because she didn’t have the credits to pay her own way. Being able to take care of herself was very important to Mia. Arus respected that.
“What if I sold it to you? For a good price. It’s an older model, so I won’t get much for it anyway.” Needless to say, he planned on setting a steal of a price.
She brightened. “That’s a great idea! I don’t need a new model. I just need something that works. Thank you!”
“I’ll come pick you up after your shift. Get some sleep, Dumpling. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”
“You too, Beefcake,” she chuckled. “Goodnight.”
CHAPTER NINE
Mia melted into a chair in the back room of the Daily Dose and spread her arms to hog all the air conditioning. Usually, she took walks outside during her break to stretch her legs, but today was hotter than blue blazes, and Mia was not a masochist.
Crox was in today, and he was helping Sala out at the bar. He poked his head through the door.
“There’s someone out front to see you,” he said.
Was it Arus? Maybe he was early! She tried to hide her excitement at the possibility of seeing him early.
“Coming!” She peeled her sweaty ass off the chair and fanned at her sticky legs, glad that Crox considered short shorts acceptable attire for serving drinks. Ugh! Why was it so hot today?
She went out to the front and caught the quick look of warning Sala sent her way. Her shoulder sagged in disappointment when instead of one sex-on-a-stick mercenary, she found a red-faced stick-in-the-mud Daniel Ives at the counter. Why the fuck was he here?
“What do you want?” She really didn’t want to see him.
“Mia, I know we got off to a bad start.” His voice grated on her nerves. Did this guy ever speak normally? Every word came out as a whine. “But you really need to trust me and come back to the dorms. It’s important. Right now!”
Trust him? What world was he living on? The man was about as trustworthy as a Nigerian prince! What was he up to?
“Why the hell would I do that? Can’t you see I’m at work? I‘m still on the clock. And even if I wasn’t, I’m not going anywhere with you!” She turned to leave.
“Your mother is ill! She’s sick!” Dr. Ives blurted out.
She paused in her turn. “What do you mean by sick?” she asked.
“She’s got pain in her abdomen. Terrible pain. It’s really bad!” Daniel said.
Crox, who was standing at the doorway to the backroom, narrowed his eyes at her unwanted visitor. Mia sent her boss a questioning glance, and he shook his head inconspicuously.
“Keep talking,” Mia said. “You have ten seconds to convince me.”
“It’s my professional opinion that it’s appendicitis, but none of the Talleans would listen to me.” The lies flowed easily out of the ass’s mouth.
“Do you really think its appendicitis? Did my mother agree?” Mia asked, trying to look worried.
“Yes! Of course, she did. She trusts me!” Daniel answered too quickly.
Gotcha! Mia caught the prick in his lies. Her mother had her appendix out years ago. Daniel was lying through his teeth. She turned around. The look on Daniel’s face was almost victorious. He looked so pleased with himself as if he thought himself worthy of an Academy Award.
“How bad is it?” she asked, pretending to believe him.
“Oh, it’s terrible. She’s doubled over. And she was asking for you,” the snake answered. “And none of the Talleans took us seriously. You need to come back with me!”
She dropped her pretense.
“Get out, Daniel. And don’t come back,” Mia said firmly. “You are a shitty liar, and a shittier person to boot.”
“I’m not lying,” he blustered. “Do you care so little about your mother that you would let her suffer? You need to come with me right now!”
“Mother would never agree that it’s appendicitis, regardless of how much she trusts you. She had her appendix out as a kid.”
Sala spoke now, “Mia’s right. You are a horrible liar. I can smell the lies on you, and it stinks something awful!”
“Are you going to believe this heathen over me?” Daniel raved. “Oh, I get it now. She’s the one that turned you lesbian! You would rather fuck one of these disgusting monsters than be with a man of your own kind?”
Crox and Sala both growled.
“Did you just call us monsters?” Crox asked menacingly. He tapped on the floor with his talons.
Mia lost her temper and shouted, “Get the fuck out of my face! You lying, no good, piece of shit!”
“You heard the female.” Crox stood up to his full height and walked around the counter. “Get out of my establishment before I call security.” The creases on his cheeks relaxed, and his jaws extended, just slightly, showing off his canines.
Daniel tripped over a chair as he scrambled out of the bar with Crox following close behind.
Crox locked the door and switched the sign on the door to say “Closed.”
The older Tallean male came back behind the bar.
“All right, Mia. What’s all this about? Talk.”
“What? Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry this happened.”
“You apologize a lot,” Sala noted.
“I’m Canadian,” Mia joked, but no one got the reference.
“Do you need protection after your shift?” Crox asked. “I can walk you back to the dorms and make sure you get into your room safely. He would think twice about messing with you.”
“Mia’s staying with me right now. The dorms aren’t safe,” Sala told him.
They explained what had happened the other night to the older Tallean male. Crox was quite perturbed to hear that Mia was attacked once already.
“I will come in the next few days to make sure you are safe here,�
�� he stated.
“You don’t have to do that,” Mia protested. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble.
“I will, anyway.” Then, Crox gave Sala and herself an appraising look, “So, are you two intimate?”
“What?” Mia choked.
She was taken aback that her boss was so candid. But then again, she shouldn’t be surprised. Talleans were very open about sex. It was probably a very normal question.
“I’m just staying in her spare room,” she clarified, then said to Sala, “I think you are pretty, and you’re an amazing person, but I’m not interested in females. No offense.”
“None taken. I prefer males myself.”
“That’s too bad,” Crox shrugged. “Would have been hot to see.”
Sala punched him in the arm. “You dirty old male.”
“I’m old, not dead,” Crox countered defensively. “And I’m not even that old.”
A customer jiggled the door. Realizing they had locked the door, she knocked and then waved.
“If you need help keeping any unwanted males off you, you just come to me,” Crox said as he went to unlock the door. “I’m not at my prime, but I’m still plenty strong enough. I used to work guard duty.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mia promised.
The rest of the afternoon went by quickly. The hot weather brought in plenty of patrons looking to beat the heat with a cool drink.
Near the end of their shift, all the comms in the bar beeped simultaneously with a colony-wide warning.
“Not again!” complained one customer. “We’ve never had so many fence outages in such a short period of time.”
“New colonist area again, doesn’t really affect us. But seriously, they need to get that fixed,” his friend replied.
Another fence failure? What was up with that? Weren’t Arus and Vore helping the colony figure that out?
Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sala shoved her comm in front of Mia’s face and told her to read. It was a message from Vore. They were both called in to investigate the fence, and Arus wouldn’t be able to join her after work. Arus would contact her after they were done.
“You still seeing him?” Sala asked. “I thought we agreed it wasn’t a good idea. What if he develops a mating bond?”
“I figure it’ll be okay if it’s just a booty call,” Mia said guiltily. “I plan on coming back to your place right after. No cuddling. No holding each other close. None of that sappy stuff.”
“You’re playing with fire,” Sala warned, but she seemed mollified. “But you may be right. If you avoid staying over so he can’t hold you all night, it may be safe.”
“That’s the plan,” Mia agreed.
Arus watched as the human males on the screen tore up sections of the fence with plasma tools and then sprayed the area down with a canister. There were four humans in total. He recognized the male who had attacked Mia the other day.
Someone must have provided the humans with plasma tools and the canister of olfactinull. Here was proof that the new colonists had help from outside their group. Ryek had been furious. He hated troublemakers in his colony.
The security team had raided the rooms of the males involved. It was an easy task, and none of the suspects put up a good fight. But they nabbed only three of the four men in the video. The human who had attacked Mia was still at large. They traced him through scent and cameras to the docks at the port but lost the trail there.
No matter how many times he reviewed the footage, Arus couldn’t find any more clues. He tapped his claws on the floor in annoyance.
The door to the security office opened. Vore stomped in, devoid of his usual cheerfulness.
“Get any useful information out of our new friends downstairs?” Arus asked, hoping Vore made more leeway than he had.
“They confirmed that a Tallean was helping them sabotage the fences, but weren’t able to tell me much more,” Vore said.
“Can’t get them to talk? You must be losing your touch.”
Vore scowled. “They had no problem talking. They just said nothing useful.
“No descriptions?”
“Nothing we can use. I questioned them all separately, and they all gave the same useless description.” Vore sounded tired.
“Anything is better than nothing,” Arus assured him.
“No, this description is worthless. They said the person helping them is a Tallean male, tall, well-built, with green eyes and dark brown hair. He wore a tank top and boots and spoke in a low voice.” Vore gave Arus a look that screamed, “I told you so.”
Arus blew out a breath. That description matched almost every Tallean male in the colony, aside from the hair color. A few Talleans, like Vore had lighter brown hair.
“Did they notice any distinguishing features? Age? Scars? Insignia on their clothing?” Arus continued.
“According to them, all Talleans look alike. They can’t tell one from another.”
Holden came into the office and melted into a chair.
“Stars, it’s hot today. Of all the days to send us running around after a bunch of delinquents, it just had to be on the hottest fucking day of the year,” he said. “I got some more shitty news. Two things. We’ve got a missing female. Human. Her roommate hasn’t seen her all day. With the area locked down, they confirmed that she is not anywhere she should be.”
Arus knew it wasn’t Mia. She already cleared up the misunderstanding yesterday, and she didn’t live in the dorms with a roommate any longer.
“Maybe she’s staying with a male and didn’t mention it to her roommate. Humans are private with their sex life.”
“Maybe. She is middle-aged, tall, with red hair and glasses. We are to keep an eye out for her regardless, the reason being the second bit of news. We just received multiple reports of dragus sightings in the area.”
Vore sat up straighter. “Dragus? Multiple reports?” He sounded almost excited.
Holden shrugged. “We have orders to stay put until there is a confirmed pack near the bridge. They don’t want us chasing after rumors. It might leave some areas undefended.”
“Damn, I was hoping to hunt us some dragus,” Vore huffed, disappointed.
“Who the fuck would want to hunt anything in this heat?” Holden asked.
“Vore lives for the hunt. Both for beasts and for females.” Arus knew his friend well. There were only two things Vore got excited about, and those were fighting and fucking. Arus knew it sounded stereotypical, but it was true.
“I hope this one reads human females better than you,” Holden said to Arus. “How did you get on with Mia?” Holden asked.
“I’m supposed to be getting on with her again right now,” Arus grumbled. “Troublemakers and dragus fucked up my plans.”
“It won’t be so bad if we get some fighting in,” Vore suggested.
Holden ignored him. “That’s why I’ll never survive as a mercenary. I know it pays well if you are in with the right crew. Definitely more than a guard position on a colony this far out. But I’ll go crazy out in space for that long without access to females.”
Vore chimed in with his two cents. “That’s why I try to get as much fucking in as I can whenever I’m planetside. I’m not meeting my quota this time, though.”
“It’s getting a mate that’s the problem.” It came out gloomier than Arus wanted.
“A mate?” Vore eyed him questioningly. “Didn’t know you were looking for one.”
“I didn’t know either,” Arus admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Shit. That’s why you’ve been so stuck on Mia,” Vore surmised. “You think she’s your mate?”
Arus stayed silent. He didn’t think it, he already knew it.
“Fuck, Arus. That bad?” said Holden. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He blew out a breath. “Females rarely agree to stay on board a ship with their mates, and ma
ny refuse to mate a male stuck in space. And Mia’s human. She won’t form a mating bond at all.”
He hated the desperate tone in his voice. It was considered a curse when the bond formed only on one side. Sometimes, the bond would form on one side first, but time together ensured the second bond developed soon after. A permanent single-sided bond meant a lifetime of chasing and a lifetime of unrequited love. The idea terrified him.
“Just cook for her,” Vore suggested. “Human females aren’t too much different from our own. Make her some fancy dish and tell her some romantic story about it. Food and sex are sure bets. Unless you are no good with sex, then I can’t help you.”
“Oh, fuck off!” Arus swore, but there was no venom in it. “Great food and amazing sex aren’t enough for everyone, Vore.”
His friend grumbled, “It’s enough for me.”
Holden laughed. “I think humans would call you easy.”
Vore got serious then. “Zey found a female who agreed to stay with him. He has Ashe. And Sidas has Moira. The Defiant is one of the best ships to live on. Don’t give up before you even try. Ask her. You will regret it if you don’t.”
Arus looked at his friend, surprised at how honest Vore sounded. They’d been through so much together. Life in the academy. Escaping Dominion rule. Life as mercenaries. They trained together. Took leave together. If Vore found his mate, Arus would do anything to help him win her. He would want his friend to be happy. Vore wanted him to be happy, too.
“Besides,” Vore continued, “I don’t want to deal with your sorry ass if you don’t. Two days of Zey moping over Ashe was enough. If I ever found my mate, I wouldn’t hesitate to claim her. None of this beta-as-fuck does-she-want-me-does-she-not bullshit like the two of you.”
The monitor beeped then, showing a half dozen dragus entering the area.
“Fuck, yes!” Vore exclaimed gleefully.
“Fuck, no!” Holden groaned.
Arus was grateful to have something to kill. He wasn’t used to dealing with feelings. He would rather hack something apart. He stood from his seat and strapped his weapon to his hip.
“Let’s go skin us some dragus.”