Warriors of Phaeton: Paine and Rowe

by Leora Gonzales

  Rolling to her right, she frowned when her cocooned body bumped into something solid.

  Rolling to the left, she grunted when she was stopped by another barrier.

  “What the hell?” she mumbled as she moved to toss the blankets back.

  “Indigo?”

  Indigo froze at the sound of a deep voice saying her name. Gripping the blanket now instead of trying to push it away, she used it as a makeshift shield as the barrier on her right moved.

  “Yes?” she answered, trying not to panic.

  “Can you breathe under there?” the lump on her left asked, making her squeak in fear.

  Holy shit, there were two of them.

  “I don’t think she can,” the right side said.

  “Well then help me get this off of her,” left side snapped, tugging at the fabric. “We don’t want her to suffocate.”

  Indigo clenched her fingers around the blanket, holding it like a lifeline. She didn’t know what the hell had happened between last night and now to result in this involuntary game of tug-of-war, but it must have been a doozy.

  “She won’t let go,” right observed.

  “I can see that. I’m not blind,” left growled.

  “Who are you and what are you doing in my bed?” Indigo interrupted, wanting to gather as much info as possible before she went and ratted them out to the warlords. They’d promised not only her, but all of the rescued brides, a safe sanctuary. That included safety from their own men.

  She’d dealt with a few forward Djaromir males that hoped she’d change her mind about staying, but none of them had the balls to show up in her personal rooms. Overstepping that boundary was something she was not going to let slide.

  When the warlords found out these two jokers were not only in her space, but in her bed? Well, she’d hate to be them. They were about to get their asses kicked.

  “Get out,” she ordered without waiting for a response, surprised how firm her voice sounded but rolling with it. The longer they stayed silent and unmoving the more panicked she became.

  Why weren’t they leaving like she asked? Or as least trying to talk their way out of trouble?

  “Now. Get out of my room.” Nudging the lumps on either side of her, she pushed her arms like a starfish. “Skeedat! Go before you get into even more trouble than you already are.”

  “Sorry, love.”

  Indigo grunted and pushed harder but didn’t feel any type of give from the guys around her.

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Well—” Indigo paused at the unexpected answers and frowned at the blanket. “Why not?”

  “Because we’re not in your room,” the male on her right said.

  What the—

  Indigo, not caring about anything other than proving him wrong, whipped the cover off. Shaking the curls out of her face, she was prepared to give the men a stern talking to when she noticed the ceiling above the bed.

  Where she normally would see the dullness of carved stone above her, instead she caught her reflection.

  Looking up at the polished metal ceiling was like staring into a mirror. The picture they created was amazingly clear, even though slightly warped. She was in the middle of a large bed—most definitely not her own—wrapped in the covers she’d fallen asleep with last night.

  On either side of her were two men that she didn’t recognize. Glancing to her left and then her right, she took them in. Similar yet different, both men sported long honey-colored dreadlocks. The man on her left had three braids starting at his temple where they made their way down to weave into dreads. The long locks were gathered thickly in a band at the base of his neck. The man on her right had a similar look, but his hair was a bit more white than blond, and his braids adorned the opposite temple.

  Each propped up on an elbow, they mimicked each other’s position as they laid on their sides facing her. With eyes that were only few shades of gray apart, they watched her calmly as she proceeded to lose her shit.

  “Eeeek!” she screeched, tossing the blanket back over her head.

  “Indigo?” Mr. Right-side tugged at the fabric again, this time successfully pulling it way.

  Sitting up, she scooted until her back was against the headboard. With her hands in front of her as if she knew karate, she held them up. The man on the right raised an eyebrow at her pose, while the other one snorted in amusement.

  “How do you know my name?!” Curling her hands into fists, Indigo braced herself to start swinging if necessary. “Who are you? Where am I? What’s going on?” she shot out, one question right after the other. The minute she was finished, the familiarity of the situation made her stomach turn.

  Whoa. Talk about déjà vu.

  “I’m Paine,” the man on her left said with a more-than-friendly smile while holding out a hand for her to shake.

  Indigo blinked stupidly at the offered hand, her focus on the blinking silver cuff he had around his wrist.

  She’d seen that type of band before…

  Her tired brain took a few moments to piece together what she was seeing.

  These weren’t a couple of Djaromir that snuck into her room looking to see if she lit their fuse. No, these guys weren’t Djaromir at all. They were Phaeton. The blinking cuff around his wrist was a Phaeton band, a device she’d read about during her application period because she was going to be tagged with one. The band wasn’t the only hint she was dealing with Phaetons either. They had apparent physical differences too. The miners didn’t look nearly as tanned as the Phaetons did. Most likely because of where they lived, but that wasn’t all. Phaetons were not nearly as bulky as the miners they grew on Djaromir. They were still heavily muscled, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as the men she’d been surrounded by the last month.

  “You’re Phaeton,” she breathed. Saying it out loud, it finally dawned on her what that actually meant.

  Her ride home had arrived.

  Tears pricked her tired eyes, making them sting. “I am so glad to see you.”

  Ignoring the funny looks they gave her, Indigo glanced around the room she was in. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten from her bed to here, but part of her didn’t care. The only thing she could think about was that the countdown to the end of her nightmares had begun. The Phaetons had come to take her home, and that was enough for her to know.

  “We’re happy that you are excited to see us,” Paine answered, flashing her a grin that showcased a dimple. Folding his legs in front of them to mimic her, he held out his hand for her to shake.

  Indigo barely contained a swoon at the sight. Not only was he her savior, he also had the most adorable dimple she’d ever seen. She smiled back at him, hoping she didn’t look like a drooling idiot. She might be confused, exhausted, and tired of being kidnapped, but she wasn’t dead.

  The men in front of her were gorgeous.

  “Very happy,” the man on her right said as he mimicked the other. “I’m Rowe, Paine’s partner.”

  “Ahhhh.” Indigo tried to squelch the disappointment that filled her at the news. She wasn’t sure why, but the knowledge that they weren’t available pricked at her.

  “No,” he shook his head, an action that set the three braids at his temples swinging. “Not that type of partner.”

  “Oh no.” Paine waved his hands. “I have no sexual interest in Rowe.”

  “Same,” Rowe agreed. “When I said he was my partner, I meant that we are Skrammon paired fighters.”

  “O-okay,” she mumbled, still having no clue what that meant.

  “You know what Skrammon are, correct?” Paine asked, his dimple disappearing due to the frown he was now sporting.

  Indigo grimaced. The word sounded familiar, but with everything that had happened between her initial Bridal Pact intake intro packet and now…well, they were lucky she’d remembered enough to recognize them as Phaeton.

  “Don’t worry, love. We can explain things as we go.” Rowe gave her an understanding smile. “Paine and I belong
to the Skrammon class on Phaeton, but we’re more than that. Not only are we warriors, we’re part of a small group of elite paired fighters.”

  “The highest ranked, of course,” Paine interrupted with a wink.

  Indigo snapped her fingers when his words triggered her memory regarding the different classifications in their race. “I remember now. The Healson are normally political figures and diplomats, right?”

  “Correct,” they answered in unison with matching smiles, one of them dimple-free but no less tempting than the other.

  “Brakken class warriors are the smarty pants of the bunch. Doctors, engineers, scientists—almost all of them are Brakken,” she recalled aloud, the information she’d read coming back to her.

  “And the Skrammon like us?” Rowe asked, leaning slightly forward into her space. “Do you remember what you were told about us?”

  Indigo blushed at the attention and felt silly. She wasn’t sure why, but the way these two were looking at her made her…aware. It caught her off guard, considering she’d spent an entire month surrounded by hard-bodied males vying for her attention and she’d had no problem ignoring them. Licking her lips and feeling stupidly nervous, Indigo started naming the characteristics that had been listed under Skrammon.

  “The Skrammon are the most skilled fighters out of all the Phaeton classes. Appearance wise, most of them—errr, you—have tattoos, although I don’t see any on the two of you.” Indigo bit her tongue before she could ask if they had any they were hiding underneath the leather outfit they were both sporting. Squashing any type of flirtation had been her main goal the last month, and she didn’t see a reason to stop now. There was no sense in starting something she wasn’t going to be able to finish, so she moved on. Gesturing to their hair, she pointed to their temples. “The dreadlocks and braids stand for something specific, but I can’t remember…”

  “They represent our ranking. The young warriors keep their hair short, while we wear ours like this.” Tipping his head to the side, Rowe pointed at the braids. “Each temple braid represents one tier of training with the three being the highest level.”

  “Soooo, it’s like a blackbelt type of thing,” Indigo said mostly to herself.

  Rowe looked over at Paine who shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, lacking the energy to explain the comparison. “Skrammon are different physically though, too, right? You’re stronger and faster than the others and have—” Indigo stopped speaking when she remembered what they did indeed have.

  Paine raised his brow at her pause, the smile on his lips tempting her to tease him with her own. “What do we have, love?”

  “Teeth,” Indigo chirped nervously at the endearment, her pitch obnoxiously high even to herself. “Sharper teeth.”

  Both men grinned at her, flashing the canines in question. Indigo was surprised when the action made her panties immediately damp.

  That was a new one.

  She’d never been into biting before, not even when all her friends had lost their minds over that sparkly vampire Edward. Nothing about it, or him, had been a turn on for her. Judging by the dampness in her drawers, her tastes had changed.

  Or maybe it was just them.

  The idea she was attracted to the men in front of her—both of them—made her more uncomfortable than she liked.

  “Which is weird, right?” she began to nervously ramble. “On the other hand, you both just picked me up from a planet overrun with male alien miners who like to mark their mates with hickeys, so who am I to judge.”

  “What’s a hickey?” Rowe asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

  Indigo’s face heated at the direction her mind automatically went.

  Would they like her to show them?

  “Yes,” Paine smiled at her, almost making her choke on her own spit before she realized he wasn’t answering her internal dialogue. “What is a hickey?”

  “Ummm,” she mumbled. “The Djaromir—ummm—a hickey is when someone—” Indigo looked everywhere in the room but at the two men sitting with her. “A hickey is when someone sucks a bruise onto your skin,” she finally answered, trying to stay as clinical as possible.

  “Really?” Rowe leaned forward slightly, reminding her how close they all were sitting.

  “Yeah,” she breathed. “Normally, it’s on the neck, but it can be anywhere. The miners like to do it a lot.”

  The men stiffened.

  “Not to me,” she said in a rush, unsure why she felt the need to reassure them but doing it anyways. “That was just an observation I made. Junie had them all over—not that she seemed to mind much. Same goes for Lottie. In fact, I think I saw Saber walking around with a big one on his neck last night just before I left the dining hall.”

  Chapter Ten

  Rowe let out a sigh of relief at her clarification. That bit of knowledge saved him the time of figuring out how to properly dispose of whoever had hickeyed their mate.

  Indigo’s face scrunched as if she were deep in thought.

  “What’s wrong, love?” he asked, fighting the urge to smooth the furrow between her brows.

  “I can tell we’re not on Djaromir anymore,” Indigo said, looking around. “But where exactly are we? And where are the other women? There was a whole group of us going back to Earth.”

  “What do you mean going back to Earth?” Paine asked, voicing the confusion Rowe was feeling before he was able to do so.

  Indigo’s face fell. “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean?’ We were told that you guys were going to pick us up and take us home. That is what’s happening still, right?”

  Rowe felt his stomach sink at the panic he heard clearly in her voice. Not only had her pitch increased but so had her volume.

  “Indigo…” Reaching out, he pulled back when she flinched. Holding his hands up, he showed her his palms. “I’m not going to hurt you, love. I simply want to comfort you.”

  “Start by telling me what’s going on,” she ordered, her face no longer relaxed as it was before.

  “All right.” Rowe nodded, preferring her angry over scared. “Where would you like me to start.”

  Indigo bit her lip, the action innocent yet tempting all the same.

  “How did I get here?” she asked after a bit.

  Rowe sat back with a sigh. “That’s a long story.”

  “I still would like to hear it, so start talking,” Indigo said, chewing on the tip of her nail nervously.

  “I’ll tell her,” Paine mumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. “After all, it was my idea that got us into this mess.”

  Rowe nodded.

  Paine was the one responsible for the situation they were in right now. Not that Rowe had any regrets over the general outcome; he just wished they hadn’t gotten caught.

  “When we found out that Warlord Matrix planned to introduce you—and the others—to more of their men, we may have acted…somewhat rashly.”

  “Wait.” Indigo looked confused. “More men were arriving? When? We were supposed to be leaving right after breakfast.”

  “Warlord Matrix was waiting for them when we landed during the night. They were going to be introduced to everyone tomorrow morning before our ship was scheduled to arrive.” Paine nodded towards Rowe. “I convinced Rowe we needed to find you before then, so that’s what we did.”

  “Dear Lord. I should have known they would try to bring even more of them over. I’ve met so many of them I lost count, and they still keep coming.” Shaking her head, she gave them a curious look. “I have a feeling Matrix didn’t tell you where I was, so how did you find me?”

  “My partner had the smart idea to follow the heat,” Rowe said, giving credit where it was deserved—even if luck had played a bigger part than either of them wanted to admit. “We know how much more sensitive to temperature humans are. Paine figured the miners would have tucked you somewhere close to a heat source.”

  “I can’t believe that worked.” Indigo’s face was a mixture of e
motions. She seemed shocked yet also impressed at what they’d managed to do by instinct alone.

  “If I hadn’t heard you crying, it may not have,” Rowe said seriously. “Paine got us close enough, but it was your cries that led us to you. At first, I thought the sounds were coming from an animal of some sort. Maybe one that had been wounded and needed help or mercy.”

  Indigo gave them both a horrified look. “Gee. Thanks.”

  “Once I was in your room, I tried to help calm you, to see if there was a way I could ease your pain,” Rowe continued.

  “And?” she prompted, looking uncomfortable.

  Rowe chuckled. “You climbed on top of me.”

  “What?!” Indigo gasped, covering her face with her hands. Her cheeks turning a delicious shade of pink. “I didn’t, did I?”

  “You sure did. That’s exactly what happened.” He shrugged. “You climbed into my lap and wouldn’t move. Don’t worry, though, because I didn’t mind at all, especially since it seemed to help. Your crying stopped immediately, and you fell right back to sleep.”

  “What is going on with you, love?” Paine asked, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder. His concern was obvious. “Are you sick? Once we get back to Phaeton One, we can get you into a regen bed immediately. Our medical facilities are some of the most advanced in the galaxy. We will find out what can be done to make you better.”

  Indigo was shaking her head even before his partner had stopped speaking. Her face was filled with embarrassment as she looked down into her lap. Fiddling with the blanket there, she didn’t look up again. Even as she began speaking.

  “That’s not necessary,” she said quickly. “Once I’m back home everything will be okay.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Rowe asked, frowning at both her words and demeanor.

  Gone was the spitfire they’d encountered earlier—the one who’d had her fists ready to swing if they’d gotten too close. In her place was someone tired and ready to yield.

  “Saying what?”

  “That you’re going back to Earth.”

  Indigo hands froze as she looked up slowly. Dark amber eyes moved from him to Paine and then back again.