He’d ended her willingness to compromise when he’d accepted the admiral position on the airship. Or at least it had been the beginning of the end.
Lots of marriages ended over work. Lots of spouses regretted it afterwards. Nate had deeply been sorry Sheena had disapproved of his acceptance of the position, but he’d had to do what he felt was necessary. When she’d left, he’d let her go without a terrible battle. There had been no other choice.
Until her arrival today, he honestly hadn’t realized how much he’d been hoping the passage of time and some additional maturity would have put their mutual animosity to rest. Instead, it seemed like it might take another century or two before Sheena would be able to speak to him civilly. Thanks to her genetic tinkering on her family and him, their lives might last that long, but his patience probably wouldn’t.
They stopped in front of Brianna’s door. He made himself look at her again. The urge to hug her and reassure her things would work out for the best was so strong Nate could barely fight the urge. He locked his arms at his sides to keep from reaching out.
“Brianna went with Erin to the matchmaking office in the women’s common area. You can wait here in her quarters. I’ll send Darcone to escort her back. Angus and Erin’s quarters are next door. You’re going to want to remain here in Brianna’s rooms if you truly plan to avoid them.”
“Darcone?” Sheena asked, ignoring what she didn’t want to discuss. “He’s still around?”
Nate nodded. “Yes. I think he’s given up anyone choosing him, but he’s stayed anyway. You don’t know what optimism is until you see how many of the aliens choose to remain in the program despite no one choosing to mate them.”
“After all this time, I’m surprised you didn’t just force some poor female to go with Darcone.”
Nate’s sigh was long and loud. “We don’t do that, Sheena. Your parents wouldn’t allow it. That was only done in the beginning which was over four damn centuries ago.”
Sheena pushed open the door. “I know about the five year deadline. Don’t lie to me, Nate. This whole situation is just as fucked up now as it was when it started. You, your mother, and the Guardians see these poor women who come to you for help as commodities. I’m sure telling yourself you’re helping them lets you sleep at night, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re buying planetary peace by bartering human females for it.”
“The mating alliances keep New Earth safe,” Nate argued.
Sheena shook her head. “There are a lot of us who think the price is too high. One day, you and people like you, are going to have to deal with us.”
She pointed to the room and all four of her guards went inside. Sheena looked back at the man who had broken her heart. Nothing about him… absolutely nothing… had changed. Nate was just as handsome, and just as hard-hearted, as the day she’d left.
“We never did agree on this subject and we never will. Further argument will not gain either of us any ground. Thanks for letting me come here to help my sister. After I talk to Brianna, I’ll let you know what I work out.”
Nate sighed as the door closed behind the most frustrating woman he’d ever known. Knowing he still desired Sheena after all this time, and after all the hateful things she’d said to him, made him doubt his sanity. Giving in to McNamara Madness could too easily lead to him doubting every decision he’d ever made… starting with the one where he let Sheena MacNamara walk out of his life a hundred years ago.
“I can’t believe Sheena is here,” Bri said flatly, sighing over the future fight she knew waited for her in her quarters.
“Yes. In your room, she is,” Darcone said, matching her tone.
Brianna looked up at him while they walked. “You speak my language much better than you give yourself credit for doing.” Feeling obstinate, and wanting to slow him down, she looped her arm through Darcone’s and dragged him to a near stop. “Please don’t rush this. I need time to think about what I want to say to her.”
His nod of understanding had her sighing again. Sheena was going to try and get her to leave. But she wasn’t ready to leave. The Erin and Angus clones needed her. Plus, this was the safest she’d felt in a very long time. Being here was a true vacation from the rest of her dangerous life.
She tightened her grip on Darcone and saw him look down at her breast now resting against his arm. “Sorry,” she said, easing away.
Not being a clingy type, she was just as surprised as he was by her action. She was more stunned when Darcone stopped completely and pulled her to a stop with no one than a hand on her arm. She kept forgetting how strong he was.
“Her, you fear?” he asked.
She laughed until his hand lifted and held her chin. She was forced to hold his gaze.
“Am I afraid of Sheena? No. Am I afraid of leaving the airship? Yes.”
“Stay. All good it be,” he said with a shrug.
Bri chuckled at his simple advice and missed his fingers when they dropped away. Darcone was the strangest mix of gentleman and fierce warrior. He made her feel safe. He’d always made her feel that way. Next to her parents, the alien in front of her was the only person who seemed to accept her for what she truly was, even when she was being bad.
They stopped again outside her door and Bri sighed heavily. She pulled her arm from Darcone’s. “Thanks for listening to me whine. I promise to behave with Sheena if you’ll wait and walk me back to Erin after I say hello.”
She grinned when all she got was a shrug for an answer. What if she left with Sheena and didn’t see Darcone again for another gazillion years. Sighing, she shook her head and her strangely sentimental attachment to the alien away. She stared at the door to her quarters with six kinds of dread growing inside her.
“Bri-an-a.”
“What?” Her head whipped back to the male still at her side. Darcone had called her many things in the time she’d known him—mostly mean ones in his own language—but never had he said her actual name in hers. Not until today.
His head dipped quickly and his full lips brushed against hers before she could process what was happening. Her mouth was still tingling from pleasure when one of his hands opened her door and the other shoved her roughly inside. She heard the door click and lock firmly behind her.
Staring from the opposite side of the barrier, Bri glared as reality sank in. Coward. Fucking kiss and run alien coward.
Her flat palm hit the door with all the vicious frustration she was feeling. She was over eighty years old, damn it. Why did he still treat her like a child? And how did Darcone make her feel like one?
“You cowardly bastard,” she yelled as loudly as she could.
Her eyes narrowed to angry slits when she heard Darcone growl in warning from the other side. Everything south of her waist suddenly started aching. What the hell was happening to her? She wanted to know.
She pounded on the door again. “Open this damn door, you growling piece of alien shit. You and I need to talk.”
When everything stayed silent for a full minute, Bri turned a furious glare to her chuckling sister and stalked to the sofa where Sheena calmly sat.
“I’m glad you think my pain is funny,” Bri said.
“Has nothing changed in the last century? You and Darcone still get along about as well as Nate and I do.”
Bri snorted as she fell into a chair. “I just can’t believe the alien bastard did that to me.”
“Did what?” Sheena asked.
Bri studied her sister. Sheena was now digging around in her medical satchel and only half listening. No matter what she said at this point, her sister wouldn’t take it in, or understand. Sheena had given up the better part of herself when she’d left Nate.
“That growling bastard said my name for the first time ever.” And just before he made her tingle in places that hadn’t tingled in a good long while.
However, she wasn’t about to brag to her man-hating sister about her first ever alien kiss, especially from the alien she’d secretl
y crushed on for years. Sheena wouldn’t react well.
“Darcone said your name? Really, Bri. Just because you look twenty doesn’t mean you can’t act like you’re eighty once in a while. I know you’ve had to mature at least a little in all those years.”
Bri rolled her eyes at the chastisement. “Did you come here and face down a man you hate just to lecture me on acting mature? Carleton and Elsa have taken over for Mom and Dad in that area. You don’t have to fill their shoes.”
Sheena snorted. “No. I didn’t come here to lecture you. I came here to save your brazen ass. Now hold out your damn arm.”
“No. I don’t trust your science any more. Look at me. I look like a frigging child,” Bri said, distrustful of the determination in Sheena’s gaze. She held her arms out of her mad scientist sister’s reach.
Sheena held up a biomedical delivery instrument. “When you’re two hundred and still look thirty, you’ll be thanking me. Now hand me your damn arm. I’ve programmed nanos to seek out and neutralize the bionetic tracers you were shot with. It works on all known kinds.”
“Have you tested it on a human yet?” Bri demanded.
“No, but things went very well in the lab simulations.”
Bri snorted. “Get the hell away from me, Dr. McNamara. I am not a damn simulation.”
“I know. That’s why I spent the last three days looking for anomalies. I found none. Now give me your arm, Brianna. No sister of mine is going to have to sell herself to some horny alien just to keep living.”
“That’s better than being internally disassembled by nanos run amok. I’ve seen that happen,” Bri argued.
Sheena sighed aloud. There was no need to hide the full truth of things from her younger sister. They knew all there was to know about each other… good and bad.
“As soon as the bionetic tracers are neutralized, the nanos will attach themselves to the genetic remains and be flushed out of your system where they will die without leaving a trace.”
Bri hated having a genius for a sister. She could feel herself weakening the more Sheena talked. Only her family members ever had this much control over her fate. Outside MacNamara lines, she was considered a rebel.
“Okay, but letting you do this doesn’t mean I’m coming to work for your alliance of rebels,” Bri said firmly.
Sheena nodded. “Understood.” She scooted down the sofa until she could reach her sister. “Arm, Bri.”
Sighing louder than her sister had, Bri reluctantly held out her arm. The multiple needles hidden in the delivery device punctured her so rapidly that pain receptors in her brain had no time to report it. The cure felt exactly the same as being tagged with over a hundred bionetic darts at once. God only knew how many credits the nanos now inside her had cost Sheena to create.
Bri watched her sister carefully repackage the delivery device and return it to her satchel. She was not surprised that it wouldn’t be going into the recycler. Sheena was very careful with what she created.
“If your body’s reaction follows the simulation closely, you should be free of the bionetic tracers tomorrow. You might need a bit of extra rest when those nanos start flushing that crap out of you.”
Bri nodded. “Thanks. I guess.”
“As for the job offer I also brought with me, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk to some of our people. You don’t have to work for Nate’s mother. The Province rulers aren’t the only ones serving the Guardians. It’s time you looked at the bigger picture and at your full range of choices. If you’re going to risk your life on a daily basis, at least do it for someone who has the actual good of this planet as a motivation.”
Bri shook her head and rose. She and Sheena were worlds apart in their political views. She went to the kitchen and made herself a stimulant drink. She hated being reliant on chemicals, but it was better than Sheena whisking her away on some trumped up sick clause. She grabbed a bottle of oxygenated water for her sister.
Bri sat, sipped her drink, and then looked her sister full in the face. “Even if I was interested in working for Novus Prime, which I’m not, frankly I don’t want to leave this airship yet. I like it here.”
Sheena lifted her hand and pointed at Brianna’s neck. “How can you like it here? You’re a prisoner. Don’t think I didn’t notice the restraint collar and cuffs.”
“They match my jewelry… and I volunteered to wear them. Nate doesn’t trust me.”
“It’s not you. It’s him. Nate doesn’t trust his own fucking judgment. I don’t know how in hell he runs an airship,” Sheena said bitterly, drinking the water.
“You need to cut Nate some slack on this one. I sort of gave him a reason not to trust me this time. When I came here and asked to be let in, Nate said no at first. He told me to call you and ask you to retrieve me. I fought a few of his alien guard dogs until he had no choice except to lock me up. My instincts were screaming this was where I needed to be.”
Bri snorted when Sheena’s water bottle lowered slowly to her lap. Once again she’d managed to shock her sibling.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know I’m like that, Sheena. I’ve been staying in the cells below deck. Darcone has been babysitting. The new versions of Mom and Dad came…”
“Do not call them that,” Sheena chastised.
Bri glared and went on. “Hush. This is my story. The new versions of Mom and Dad came, and after talking to them, I decided getting to know them was better than hiding out in a cell.”
Sheena huffed. “They are not new versions. They are not even real clones. Some gene hacker helped Nate create them, but I’m sure they’re not viable for the long term. They could die any day, so whatever the hell you do, don’t get emotionally attached to them, Brianna.”
Bri shrugged. “Too fucking late for that. I like them both… a lot.”
“Brianna…”
“Shut up, Sheena. You’re super intelligent, but you do not know everything there is to know. I’m telling you it’s like Mom and Dad put them here. They readily admit they aren’t them. They seem to know things they shouldn’t know as clones. If they’ve been replicated, whoever programmed their memories did a damn good job. Their story is that they’re our ancestors.”
Sheena snorted. “Genetically impossible. They’d be more like our children.”
Bri held her hands wide. “That’s what I told them. They just laughed at me.”
“For all we know, Nate and his gene hackers used some of our fucking DNA to make them. The Guardians do a lot of things they outlaw for the rest of us.”
Bri shrugged. “You look like her… or Erin looks like you. Take your pick. You really should meet them and see for yourself. Whatever they are, they’re amazing.”
“What I’d really like to do is test their DNA,” Sheena said, deciding that was the only way to put her mind at rest on the matter. She told herself it was necessary in order to protect her sister. “If you stay, some alien is going to abscond with you and turn you into his fucking baby maker. I can’t live with that, Bri. How the hell can you?”
Bri’s eyes went wide and then she laughed. “Well the fucking part sounds pretty good if you want the truth. I haven’t had time for a relationship of any sort in about a decade. I slept with a target once, but don’t worry, I let someone else take him out. I’m not that cold yet.”
“Must you be so callous?” Sheena demanded.
Bri chuckled. “Your disgust is kind of ironic for a woman who only dates married men.”
“They all have open marriages. I check before I sleep with them,” Sheena declared.
Bri chuckled again and rolled her eyes. “I don’t see how sleeping with a target who’s going to die is any worse. It’s not like I’ve ever found anything close to a happy ever after. At least you had one of those for a while.”
Sheena sighed and hung her head.
Bri set her cup on the table and sighed too. “Shit. I’m sorry, Sheena. That was too mean, even for me.”
Sheena waved the apology off. “No. It
’s okay. Seeing Nate brought the whole thing up again for me anyway. He was always married way more to this blasted airship than he ever was to me. I couldn’t help being jealous of the fact. Once he got permanently attached to this floating can, I was no longer important to him. Neither was our twenty three years together, so I’m not sure my relationship to him counts as anything close to a happily ever after scenario.”
Bri frowned as she shrugged. “Then how much worse off am I going to be with an alien? At least they value the women they get. That’s more than I’ve gotten from any New Earth man. Sheena…” She leaned forward until her sister met her eyes. “Coming here was a mature decision for me. Even if your nanos remove the bionetic tracers, I’m tired of doing other people’s dirty work. No one is going to let me move to the mountains and start weaving baskets. I’d be dead in a year if I left what I was doing. We both know that.”
“Bri,” Sheena said, reaching out her hand. When her sister took it, she closed her eyes. “You’re all I have left in this world that I care about other than Carleton and Elsa.”
Bri tightened her grip on her sister’s fingers. “I feel the same way. So help the new matchmakers change the rules before I have to choose my mate. The new Angus and Erin are stirring shit up and getting by with it. I don’t know why Nate is afraid of them, but he is. And Sheena… they’re both honest, good people. They’re a lot like Mom and Dad, except they don’t get along as well.”
Sheena snickered. “You mean they weren’t programmed to be legendary lovers?”
Bri snorted and let go. “No. They bicker over everything, but it seems to be healthy conflict. I think something must have gone wrong in vitro though. Their speech has reverted to accents that haven’t been heard on this planet in thousands of years. I find it charming, but strange because speech patterns are a learned behavior. I suppose they could simply be imitating something in their subconscious wiring, but by hearing what? I have a trained ear and their voices sound completely authentic—like they’ve been speaking that way all their lives.”
Nate's Fated Mate: Aliens In Kilts, Abduction 2 Page 2