by Viola Grace
She leaned heavily on the block table and waited for her pulse to get back under her control. "That was quite the hello."
"I had to improvise." Artur's dark hair framed his face and his grin sparkled invitingly.
Reesha refocused on the meat and completed her task. She washed her hands and spiced the meat, flipping them with tongs before snugging them onto a plate that she tucked into the chiller.
Scrubbing her hands again, she heard the distinct sound of the storm shutters being pinned back into their normal positions. Swaths of sunlight leapt through the windows as if they had been waiting for the opportunity.
Naedar asked, "Why are you out here during storm season? We didn't see anyone on the coast during our fly by."
"My assistant ordered me to take some time off. I have more than enough stat holiday time accrued to take a few weeks to be by myself." She knew she sounded defensive, but taking time off was still a sore point. As much as she loved the cottage and the silence, she loved her work more.
"Is there anything I can do to help the meal preparation?"
She looked up and out the back window, watching a gout of flame shoot from the fire pit. "Holy…"
She ran out the door and saw Xefir with pursed lips blowing a stream of fire onto a pile of wood in the pit. It was going from wood to charcoal in mere minutes under the constant burn.
The other two were right behind her, walls of warmth at her back.
"How is he…" the flame was shifting along the spectrum and she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"We are dragons, Miss. It is what we do." Artur's amusement was palpable. "Have you ever had a burn?"
Reesha thought about it. Despite numerous encounters with hot objects, she could not remember more than a tingle of reaction from contact. "No. I haven't."
"The active genes from the Horcross race." He grinned.
Seventeen races had donated their genes for the clone project. The Horcross had donated theirs as a joke. While they had no need for the unbiased peacekeeping force, they wanted to see what their genes could do in that kind of a mix.
Unlike the rest of her set Reesha had met Dr. Argent Deveraux, their designer. The doctor had individually placed the girls with families at the age of ten. Her private lab had hosted the girls while they grew in the tanks, and those four with the Horcross markings needed something special. Reesha carried the specific DNA markers that had been taken from her companions on their decanting day. Each of them were a part of her.
The Awaits had taken her into their home and raised her as their own. They taught her what it was to be part of a society and how important it was to not only enjoy herself, but to help others when she could. They had moved from planet to planet while she grew, each time her strength caused trouble, they packed up and moved. Blenders were not welcome on most worlds and having one in schools was out of the question.
When she was twenty, Dr. Deveraux had come to her and explained precisely what she was and why she had had so much trouble in standard civilization. The Horcross blends needed open spaces to burn off their energy.
As she watched Xefir, burning off energy took on a whole other meaning. She was smiling as the heap of wood collapsed and he lifted and swung the grate into position.
She laughed. "You have done that before."
Xefir smiled and dusted his hands on his trousers. "Once or twice. We have been to a dozen worlds and learned a new trick on each one."
Artur's voice was in her ear. "Some of them are even fit for public viewing."
She giggled as a dozen images flashed through her thoughts. Women of multiple races and species flickered through her thoughts and she knew that those thoughts were not her own. Her laughter died when she realized what those images meant.
The budding heat that had blossomed inside her cooled as she recognized those images for what they were. Her guys had slept with a few dozen women. How could she compete with those exotic beauties?
Naedar was on alert, "What is wrong? You shut down."
"I…it's just…never mind." She turned and pushed past them and returned to the kitchen. With single-minded intensity, she prepared the tubers for roasting in the coals and then tore apart a head of greens for a salad.
The door closed softly. When she turned they were all outside and the tubers were gone. Probably something else they had picked up in their travels when they were sleeping around. Her knife jabbed into the tomato and she muttered to herself as the salad came together out of sheer fear.
* * * *
"What the hell just happened?" Naedar was scowling and looking at his second and third.
Xefir started to speak and then stopped.
Artur blushed under his bronze skin.
Naedar narrowed his eyes, "Artur, what did you do?"
The third rubbed the back of his neck. "I may have sent images of women that we have slept with along our link."
Naedar closed his eyes and fought the urge to punch him. "What made you think that was a good idea?"
"Well, Xefir mentioned tricks we had learned and I naturally steered my mind to some of the women we learned them from. I had no idea that she would be able to see them. I thought to send them strictly along the link."
Naedar held Xefir back when he lunged at their third. "You idiot! Women never want to know about those who have come before. If this keeps her from trusting us, I will not let you forget it."
His voice was a low hiss and Artur stepped back. It took a lot to get their second riled, but once he was there, he stayed there.
"Xefir, be calm. She has only retracted slightly. We all have the rest of our lives ahead of us. All four of us." Naedar kept his grip on their second, but the rage was slow to ease. "Now, Xefir, put these tubers in the coals. Artur, start cutting some of the fallen wood into useable pieces."
Xefir placed the vegetable packs in the coals and Naedar breathed a sigh of relief. Artur followed the directions and started hacking at the fallen trees with an axe.
With Reesha inside slaughtering a salad and his second and third each trapped in sullen irritation, it was going to be a fun night.
Chapter Four
Lunch faded into dinner and as the sun set, they sat around the table, making polite chit-chat.
"Thank you, Reesha. Everything was wonderful."
She fought a grin at the sincere compliment. Artur had been on delicate manners all afternoon. She had to guess that he had been responsible for the images she had been treated to. Xefir was cordial and Naedar was trying to force conversation, but it wasn't working.
Reesha wanted to cry. Here she had waited all her adult life for her set and in that one moment, Artur had pinned the focus on sex and not on the lives that they would have to lead together. She took a deep breath. "I won't leave Worrik. I like it here, I like my job and I am staying."
They looked at her in shocked silence. Naedar smiled in a bemused kind of way. "That is good to know. We are here on a three-year contract for our services right now, but there is no reason that we can't extend it. That, and the homesteading clause, of course."
She smiled softly. "I had forgotten about that. They have to let you stay as long as I am with you."
Dr. Deveraux had been a sly one. She had put it in the initial contract that if any of the clones were able to reproduce, by whatever means, then they would be allowed homesteading rights on any of the worlds belonging to the races in the project. When the races submitted their DNA, they were agreeing to that clause.
The moment that they became a foursome, any of the planets with a base in the seventeen races was duty bound to offer them a home and land enough to support their family.
Family. That idea thudded through her over and over. She had a mother and father, courtesy of the network of volunteers her designer had at her disposal. Reesha wasn't sure if the Awaits were donors of genetic material, but they had delighted in both her skills and her strengths as she grew. A more loving set of parents had never been had.
She counted
her lucky stars that she had been assigned to the Awaits. A life of love and laughter was behind her and it made for a good base to start another life with her set.
"You are welcome to stay the night in the guestrooms. I do have to ask, are you going to return to work? There must be other cottages damaged by the storm." She started to collect the dishes.
Artur leapt to his feet and helped her. The large comfortable dining area seemed small with the three huge men in it. She chuckled as he scraped and washed the plates while shooing her back into the dining room.
Bemused, she sat with the others and started another conversation. "What did you do for the project planets since your decanting?"
Xefir smiled. "Surface to air protection, or air to surface, depending on the attack in general. Artur may not have the sense that the stars gave an apple, but he is deft at snagging missiles out of the air."
Naedar grinned. "Do you remember the time we were running protection on the air caravan on Garnel, and Artur led off the heat seeking weapons? I have never seen him move so fast as when he tried to lead that strike craft away and a missile fired in his face."
Xefir chuckled. "He went ass over tea kettle for a mile, in a tumbling spiral, but he blasted out a stream of fire that kept the attackers away and allowed us to get our charges to safety."
Reesha knew what they were up to. "Artur is going to have to do a lot more than dishes to get back in my good graces. I know that you had a life before today, but since I have not engaged in that sort of social activity, it was a little startling. Well, that and I am not interested in women."
They looked at each other for a moment before they burst out laughing. Xefir calmed and sat back in his chair. "You have no idea how happy we are to hear that."
She snorted and chuckled on her own. Reesha yawned as a wave of fatigue overwhelmed her. "I have to check the fire and do a quick check on the property."
"We can do that." They got to their feet as she did. The woods outside were coming to life around the cottage. Small amphibians called for mates and insects sang to their ladies with dogged persistence.
Artur wiped his hands on his trousers as he joined them. "What are we doing?"
"Checking the exterior of the house for damage and nesting avians. They like to snug up under the eaves at dusk." With her set around her, Reesha brought out her party trick. She clapped her hands together and parted them. Light bloomed in a globe and she blew it gently to hover in front of them. She repeated it over and over until the path around the cottage was well illuminated and her dragons were staring at her in shock.
"I had no idea you had a talent." Naedar shook his head.
"How could you? I didn't tell you. This is one of my favourite light tricks. Now, let's go check the eaves to see if we have any nesters." She led the way around the house once again and when she saw the telltale signs of claw marks and feathers, she steered the nearest globe up until the bird was clearly visible.
"Can any of you reach that?" Her comment was to the men at random. Three streams of fire struck the bird and it hit the ground in under three seconds. It never even had time to squawk.
She kicked the bird over to the coals and she turned to Naedar, "Can you incinerate that?"
It burst into flames and was charred to ash in seconds. "Thank you. It never pays to leave carcasses around. Attracts other ground predators."
Naedar sidled up to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. "What about flying predators?"
His hands settled on her hips and he gently pulled her against him.
She looked up at him and the other two faded into the background as Naedar's intensity focussed her attention. "I never have problems with flying predators. I stay out of their way, they stay out of mine."
His lips lowered to hers and he murmured, "You just haven't met the right predators."
He teased her, brushing his lips against hers until she was seeking his in response. When she pressed upward to complete the kiss, she felt his smile, but only until she threaded her fingers into his hair and pressed her breasts against him. His smile faded in a hurry.
The hands that had been gentle but firm, gripped tightly. Their lips pressed, parted, teased and caressed until she released him.
Her entire body was humming with energy, she knew that her skin was gleaming in the light she generated and the globes were glowing brightly, throwing the harsh planes of his cheekbones into stark relief.
"Ahem. I think we need to finish checking the rest of the house and then I will go to my room and you will go to yours."
She pushed away from him only to stumble into Xefir's grip. He didn't kiss her, but he stroked her cheek and ran his thumb along her lip. Out of a reflex she didn't know she had, she took the digit between her lips and flicked it with her tongue. He hissed as if scalded and the jerk of his erection through his trousers told her why.
Artur slid between them and pressed a soft kiss to her neck. She shivered and he moved away with a soft smile on his lips.
"That is a good introduction for this evening. At least you know we are not ravening beasts only interested in sex. I mean, we are interested, but we can wait." Naedar had his breathing back under control, but his eyes were suspiciously bright.
She nodded but didn't speak. Her hormones were running riot with that heated but chaste kiss and her urges were telling her to strip and fling herself on the men in her yard. With a deep breath for control, she nodded again and walked into the house. It was going to be one restless night.
Chapter Five
Reesha felt like hammered manure the next day. Her body had kept her awake long into the early hours and the bliss of sleep had only visited for two hours before the door to the cottage opened and closed.
She slithered into a robe and followed an unfamiliar scent into the kitchen. There was someone cooking in there.
The broad back littered with scars greeted her as a humming Artur prepared a plate and put it on the elevated countertop. "What happened to you?"
He glanced up casually as if he had felt her watching. "What do you mean? The other two are doing a fly over to take care of the rest of the urgent storm damage."
"Oh. What is this?"
"Where I come from, it is called breakfast. You don't have to eat it all." His grin indicated that he knew it was far too much for her, but he dished up his own plate and took a seat next to her.
"Why are you the one left behind?" She prodded at some of the unfamiliar foods and then took a deep breath and took a bite. It was surprisingly tasty.
"Because I needed to apologize for sending you those images. In the heat of the flirtation, I didn't stop to think about your personal tastes or experiences. I am very sorry that I caused you discomfort. It was not my intention."
She sighed and turned to face his profile. "I can probably tell you from experience that few if any of those women would have greeted a detailed description of the previous ones. Well, aside from those women who enjoyed the dog pile effect."
Her shudder got the point across.
"I apologize again." The words were sincere.
An image opened in her mind, budding flowers bloomed and she swore that she could actually smell them. Each petal gleamed as if carved from crystal. The beauty almost blinded her from within.
"Kryos flowers. They only bloom once a decade." She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensory image.
"We were on an assignment and we landed in a patch of green. As we settled, it bloomed and opened around us. We all memorized each sensation in the field so that when we found our fourth, if we found our fourth, we could share it with her." His words were quiet, but he kept the flowers in her mind until tears trickled from beneath her lids.
She wiped the tears away and smiled as she returned to her breakfast. Words didn't need to be spoken, she had fed him her emotions as he sent her the image, the link went both ways.
After a charmingly quiet meal, Artur took her leftovers and cleaned her plate. It was amazing that he could put
that much food away, but she supposed that the dragons had large appetites. The very thought sent a blush to her skin so she quickly busied herself.
Her body hummed with nervous energy and here, in her oasis away from the growing city, she could let it out.
"I am going grab a shower and then enjoy a hunt. You are welcome to come with me on the hunt." Reesha smiled as she held up her hand to forestall his eager acquiescence.
"Spoilsport. Yes, I will come with you on the hunt."
She nodded and sashayed away, "But don't get in my way. This is how I blow off steam, and things have been humid here since you arrived."
His laugh followed her into the bathroom, but she locked the door as she leaned against it before pulling out her unscented soap collection. It was always best if she took off the scent of predator before she went on a hunt.
Whether she liked it or not, she was a predator to her bones. Even being with the men of her set, her mind was working on techniques to separate them from the herd and climb them like her own personal forest.
She set the water to the cool side and stepped under the spray. The soap covered her body and removed the heady pheromones that she was producing. With two out of three of her triggers flying down the coast, she should be fine to bring in some of the large birds for the pantry.
The wildlife tended to go running when she got hot for some reason.
She finished sluicing herself clean and dried in an unscented towel. Normally she enjoyed the light citrusy scent of local flowers, but during a hunt, she needed to just be herself.
Wrapped in the towel, she pulled her leathers from the storage unit in her room and tugged them on over damp skin. Her boots covered her feet and laced tightly to her calves. She braided her damp hair and tied it with the same leather that made up her vest and trousers. Her golden skin gave her a natural camouflage when combined with the dark brown of her clothing.
Humming happily, she went to the weapons cupboard in the dining room and, with Artur watching her every move, she took out the bolo and her hunting knives as well as a length of braided leather rope.