“Breaks over. We need this done before nightfall unless you want to spend the night under the stars with roving animals taking a taste out of you.” Malic called out in a voice that was too cheerful.
It did the trick. There were complaints, but they were all up and working.
Malic walked into their temporary shelter and fell on the bed. It was three hours after sunset, but they had done it. The shelters were up. They had lights, water, working soni, as well as a place to do their business, more than one place. The infrastructure on this planet was amazing. How long had they had the planet and been working on it? When you landed, there was no way to tell what had been done. Not just done, but done in a way that it glorified nature instead of destroying it.
“Everyone okay?” Malic asked when Cassic came through the door.
“They are fine. There were some sprains and bruises, and I needed to do some checkups for patients that I am still treating.” He came and flopped down next to Malic.
Payton walked in, dragging a cooler behind her. Then she left before coming back with another.
“I figured two would do since there are only three of us.”
“May blessings fall on your head and cover your shoulders,” Malic told her.
She laughed. “You’ve been full of blessings all day.”
“We learn them when we’re young.” He stood and then reached a hand for Cassic. “And a part of our lives is spent saying them. When we’re older, they seem to go away naturally. I can’t remember that last thing I had something to be blessed about until now. Today was a blessing I didn’t see coming.”
They set about putting up whatever they brought with them and then taking the food out of the cooler and placing it in a cold storage unit they had.
Cassic took some food, heated it and placed it on the makeshift table for them.
“Now, we’re at the hard part.” Payton took a seat, blowing on a bite of food before eating. Damn, she was hungry, and it was good.
“Hard part?” Cassic asked.
“We have one bed, and there are three of us.”
Cassic turned to look at the bed before going back to his food. “It’s big enough.”
“Big enough?” Payton scratched her head. He couldn’t be saying… naw, why would he say that?
“For all of us. You’re not planning on sleeping on the floor, are you?”
“Why would you do that?” Malic asked.
“Why would you want me to sleep with you? You don’t even like females.”
“We like you,” Malic told her.
“Somewhere, there is an insult in those words,” she grumbled. “It’s just to sleep, right? It’s not like it’s a big deal.” It’s not like you’re me, can I get my blue in warm sexy skin. Make sure it’s over two of the hottest alpha alien shifters I’ve ever seen. Thanks, keep the change. Lord, God. Now she was invoking a deity.
“All three of us are going to sleep in the same bed?”
“Yes,” Cassic and Malic told her.
Alrighty then. “Do we have assigned sleeping spaces?”
They looked at her like she was crazy, and she might just be. “I call the soni shower first. We’re going to talk about this until there are no more words to be said tomorrow.” She was too tired to talk about it any longer tonight.
What she wouldn’t give for a tub of hot water and a bath bomb. A moan left her lips at the thought of just lying back and being surrounded by pleasantly smelling hot water. She had taken the luxury of a bath for granted when she lived on earth. Hell, she had taken the luxury of her life, the privilege of her life for granted when she lived on earth. She should want it all back. Instead, she would take working in the hot sun surrounded by aliens while her muscles expanded and contracted. The sight of their temporary lodging going up and knowing she had helped to build it. Yes, the earth was nice but being needed by the people around her was more than nice, it was a life she never thought to live.
Chapter Eleven
Payton wrapped a towel around her and looked into the reflective surface. She hesitated to call it a mirror because it wasn’t glass. She sighed; she was putting off the inevitable. Her fingers throbbed before she allowed the towel to drop. A body that would not make a model jealous reflected in the mirror. Her breasts were larger than they were before bringing them in at a solid b cup.
Her body, the one she spent so much time on, wasn’t the same anymore. She was heavier, and nothing she could do at this point would make a difference, but she was also in good shape. Well, she was in good shape if you didn’t remember that her leg had been chomped on by a crocodile creature. That meant she had to use a walking stick, but she could still walk. Then there was whatever they did to her, but Cassic thinks they stopped the worse of it.
Her hand spread over her middle. When she was much thinner and looked like she needed to dive head-first into a bar-b-cue pit, according to friends, she hadn’t liked herself. Turns out, being thin didn’t make you like yourself. In the last weeks, she had more things thrown at her and confronted more dirt that lay deep within her core; she also liked herself more. Each time she dealt with prejudiced buried deep within her, she liked herself.
With her eyes closed, every jeer she could remember replayed. She had gone out of her way to make others miserable. It didn’t matter that she was miserable, or that she was passing along what she was getting, just in a different form. She allowed the pain she gave and the pain she received to pass over her. It settled in her bones, reminding her of the monster she had been in her life. Then she did the unthinkable. She forgave herself for her past actions. There was no one to come clean to or say I’m sorry too. No one except Neveah and their relationship was a daily project they worked on. The person who forgiveness she needed was her. Once she did that, she was able to start forgiving others like her father, who hurt her.
None of this was easy, but she could breathe easier. Now she needed to figure out how she was supposed to lie in bed with two smoking hot males.
No clue, with another shake of her head, she grabbed a pair of shorts and a tee that she picked up on one of the planets she visited. They wouldn’t pass as shorts or a cami on earth, but this was as close as she could get, and she liked them.
Cassic and Malic were sitting on the low bench; they dragged into the room. They stood when she came in and flashed her a smile before the two of them headed toward the soni. She took a deep breath and moved toward the bed. This is where she decided if there was a part of her that was utterly different; it was everything she went through. It was her thoughts; all she could do was try to blend in until she could getaway.
Her hand trembled as she placed it on her middle. A nauseous feeling made her want to run outside and lose everything she ate earlier. Her palms ran over her shorts, leaving a wet streak. Her tongue licked her dry lips as her eyes went over the bed more than once, trying to picture her lying there with two males. She didn’t know if she liked the idea or loathed it. There were so many reasons; this was a bad decision.
Then she thought of Cassic and how he treated her when she was in medbay. His eyes caressed her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Not once had he looked at or treated her with disgust. Not even after hearing the foul words that came from her mouth or the actions that at one point, she couldn’t control. Malic talked to her like she was an equal, even as he got used to the fact that all women weren’t bad. He liked to caress her with his eyes too.
This might not be the best decision, but it wasn’t the worse. This time, it wasn’t a requirement that she sell her soul to go with the company policy. Now that she had her pitiful soul back, she was beginning to realize she liked having one. She crawled onto the mattress and decided she would start by lying against the wall. Her breath slowed as she waited for them to come from the soni. The hard work of the day snuck up on her, stealing consciousness from her long before they walked into the room.
*~*~*~*
“She’s asleep.” Malic looked her over.
>
“How is it that she’s so beautiful?”
“I think it must be a power that women have or maybe just one that earth women possess. I can still remember seeing her lying on the floor of that ship. Part of me thought she was dead while you were running your scanner over her. She’s beautiful, wasn’t my first thought. I’m not proud of my first thought.”
“That’s both of us, I think. We were taught the same thing about females. The need to distrust them and to eradicate them from the universe is ingrained deep within us.” Cassic moved closer to the bed; his hand reached out before he drew it back. The desire to touch her was there, but there was still a fear deep within him. To touch her would mean that he had indeed parted ways with his people.
“If we crawl in that bed with her,” Malic shook his head but didn’t continue.
“There is no going back for us. Malic,” Cassic turned to look at him. “There is no going back for me either way. You can still get out of this. We’ll find someone to break the bond, and you can go back home.”
“Listen to yourself. My home is in your arms. Without you, there is nothing to go back to.” Malic walked over and took his mate into his arms. “We live or die together. We are a unit, mates, and no one will tear us apart.”
Cassic blinked rapidly before he buried his head into Malic’s chest. “I don’t know who she is to us. If she were our other mate, Sassy would have told us.”
Malic nodded, but he didn’t care what Sassy had to say about Payton. “I want to get closer to her, and I don’t care if Sassy said she’s not ours.”
They looked at each other, and the words weren’t necessary. They had been together long enough to read each other. Cassic climbed onto the bed, first moving toward Payton but leaving an inch or two between them. Malic climbed on behind him. He molded his front to Cassic’s back. Cassic reached out a hand, and with several fingers, he placed them against Payton’s arm, creating the first real connection between the three of them. Exhaustion took over, and they joined Payton in the rest that all richly deserved.
“I should be freaking out right now,” Payton said when Cassic opened his eyes to look at her.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Five maybe ten minutes, not that long.”
“You could have crawled out the bed and left us here sleeping.”
“I could have, but I didn’t want to.”
“Is that good?”
“There’s a time when I would have said no, this isn’t good at all. Now, I think it’s good. I wanted you and Malic to wake up with me still in the bed. I haven’t wanted much in quite some time.”
Cassic smiled at her. His teeth were the blunt human teeth, and still, his smile did something to her heart. The jewels around his eye were flashing along with the ones on his wrist. She didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t scare her. It felt strange to her, but she felt safe around them. It wasn’t because they were the ones that found her or helped her; it was more. There was something fundamentally profound within her that said as long as they were close, she would be protected. If the feeling stopped there, maybe she could have shrugged it off, but it was more. She knew that she was willing to fight for them.
She hadn’t been willing to fight for the husband she was supposed to love. In the end, he had never really been worth the effort she put into him. Cassic had taken his time to show her how to help people, and Malic had given her quick lessons on the computer system here and how to work a hammer. A smile quirked her lips as she thought of the hammer-like instrument she used yesterday when helping to build their shelter. Neither of them had told her she was useless or too big to help. She had felt like she belonged. How many nights had she cried out for that elusive feeling?
She shivered when Malic propped himself up to look over Cassic’s shoulder. All he did was smile at her, but there was so much promise in that smile. She felt butterflies, those mythological things that women felt when they saw a male who turned them on and made their knees weak like jelly. She never believed they existed. There was a first time for everything.
“We should probably check on the camp.”
“They can do without us for a couple more minutes.”
Cassic leaned closer to her, and her tongue came out, moistening her lips, in case she was reading his move correctly. Those butterflies had multiplied, and she wanted to be kissed more than a thirteen-year-old.
“Can I?” It was a whispered question.
“Yes,” she had to reply, he asked for consent as if she was worth listening to.
His lips touched hers, softly at first. Her eyes slid closed, not because she didn’t want to see him. There was pleasure and heat, and she needed to savor it, to commit it to memory, in case it never happened again. Then his tongue licked along the seam of her mouth, and she opened on a moan.
Different, alien, there wasn’t toothpaste or even a morning breath taste. She wasn’t sure how to classify it. The thought didn’t last long. His tongue moving over s was making her nerves come alive. Her very dry pussy was opening like a flower that was suddenly being blessed by both the rain and the sun.
Cassic pulled back, leaving her panting, wanting more. Her eyes drifted over to Malic. Her mind screamed, no, this is not what you want. She ignored her mind; it needed to catch up. She wanted, maybe needed, to kiss Malic as much as she had kissed Cassic. How was she going to tell them that?
“May I?” Malic’s eyes were bright as he watched her for an answer.
“Yes, please.”
Cassic moved around until he was in the small space between her and the wall. Payton found herself in the middle and for once wasn’t nervous about being surrounded by males.
She leaned over, meeting Malic’s lips. The pressure made the butterflies in her stomach sigh with pleasure before her mouth opened, inviting him inside. Once, the alieness of his kiss swamped her. He was different from Cassic; they didn’t taste the same. She loved that she knew who was kissing her by the touch of their hands and the tastes of their mouths. Not that she was planning to kiss them again. Of course, she wasn’t going to kiss or sleep with two men. She knew right from wrong.
Did she know right from wrong? Malic wrapped his tongue around hers, probably sensing he was losing her. She lost herself in the kiss. Later, she’d worry about everything else. Right now, she was going to let two beautiful blue aliens kiss her like tomorrow wasn’t coming.
Chapter Twelve
Payton sat back as she watched Leela pull herself up to address her people. There wasn’t a lot of them, but they chose to follow the teen. Now she was stepping into the role that she learned to play from the cradle. A smile hovered over Payton’s lips watching Leela take control made her feel good. There was the female power that she believed didn’t exist. Now she knew better. It was on earth; it was part of the stars, and finally she was partaking in that power.
When the assignments were given, she realized there was nothing for her to do. In the past, she might have felt left out. That wasn’t what was happening now. They were working on a farm and their homes. There were three months to get it all done before the rainy season. Having nothing to do, she went for a walk.
The beauty of the planet astounded her. When she walked past the house that she knew belonged to Captain Rale and his mates, she stopped. It fit in so well; it was like a natural part of the scenery. A house like that would make her happy. She wanted to work with her surroundings. It felt like she wandered for hours, but she made sure not to go too far away. When she came to a lovely plot of land, she stopped sinking to the earth. Her bird whom she hadn’t seen all day picked that time to show up.
“This planet is beautiful,” she told him when he flew to her shoulder. “This plot of land feels mystical. I think I’ve lost it. Old Payton is finally off her rocker. I bet I’m in a white jacket somewhere, and all this is happening in my head. That should scare me, but it doesn’t. If this is my fantasy world, I prefer it over the real thing. Maybe one day you an
d I could build a house here. What do you say? I swear I think you can talk, but you’re just holding back.”
“Maybe the four of us can build a house here?”
She turned around to find Cassic coming out of the tree line.
“I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but you were talking loud.”
A charming blush lit her cheeks. “I thought everyone was busy.”
“It seems that they would rather I doctor than swing a swis-al.”
Ahh, that was the hammer-like thing she was using yesterday. “That’s probably a good idea. If I remember correctly, and I do, you were worse with that thing than I was.”
His hand moved from the top of his head to his feet. “I was built for beauty, not practicality.”
Payton’s eyes grew so large she was scared they were going to fall out. Then there was a rumble in her stomach and some unfamiliar sound coming from her lips. Then there was wetness on her cheeks. My Lord, she was laughing so hard she was crying. Cassic sat across from her, his rumble of laughter joining in with hers.
She gasped until she could finally moderate her breathing. The big smile on her face went nowhere as she looked at him.
“It has been… too many years since I laughed like that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The warmth in his eyes made the day a little brighter, and she wanted to sit closer to make sure she could absorb it all. If there were a way to catch it and store it, she would have.
“This is a beautiful spot.” She nodded to drive her point home before she laid back. “This is close enough to the town they are developing as well as to Captain Rale and his mates, but far enough away for privacy.”
“Will it be too far away in the rainy season? We would have to be able to get supplies, and neither of us will want to have to be indoor all day. I’ll have to be able to treat anyone who is ill.”
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