by Mina Carter
She grinned and then squeaked in surprise as he moved, flipping and pinning her beneath him in one powerful surge. Before she knew what he was about, he’d parted her legs with his knee and settled between them.
“Saal! We haven’t even had breakfast!” she gasped as he slid into her, holding her gaze with his as he filled her completely in a slow, slick slide of pure sensation. “Ohmigod!”
“Who needs food?” He grinned, his hips pumping in an easy rhythm that sent sparks whirling through her veins. She’d never been one for morning sex before, but her alien lover was well on his way to changing her mind.
Even though he’d taken her so many times during the night she’d lost count, she quickly fell under his spell again. Wrapping herself around him, she welcomed each thrust and clenched around him each time he pulled back. Heat spiraled through her blood and she felt the need rising, her pussy aching and her body tightening as she approached her—
“Hey! Lizzie!” Jess called out from the next room. “Are you up? We were worried about you last night, leaving so abruptly.”
They froze, Saal’s gaze finding hers.
“Shit. Jess,” she whispered, but he placed a finger over her lips.
“She’s probably tired,” Laarn’s voice sounded, a little lower. “We should leave her to rest.”
“Shit, Laarn is with her. What do we do?”
Saal cut off her question with a quick shake of his head.
“Lizzie? Are you awake?” Jess called again, her voice closer.
“Crap,” Lizzie hissed. “She’ll come in here.”
Saal watched her face levelly. “Let her. We have nothing to hide. We’re mates.”
She bit back a squawk. “I don’t want them seeing us.”
His expression shuttered, and he pulled out of her. “I apologize, Lady Lizzie. I didn’t realize I would be an embarrassment.”
“No!” She tried to stop him, but he was off the bed in a heartbeat, reaching for his clothes. She scrambled toward him, putting her hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean like that. I just… I wanted to keep what we have to ourselves for a while. Just until I’m used to it. I’ve… I’ve not been in a relationship for a long time.”
He paused, pants already on and one foot in a boot, to look at her. She could see the hurt in his eyes and her heart ached.
“Lizzie?”
“Bear with me. I’ll be right out,” she called out to stop Jess just barging in. While Saal might not have been bothered at her sister seeing his bare ass, she certainly was. Jess had her own alien warrior. She wasn’t having Lizzie’s.
“Please, Saal,” she murmured, all but crawling into his lap naked. “I want to be with you. I’m not ashamed of you. Give me a few days of just us. Then we can tell them.”
“A few days,” he agreed grudgingly, dropping the boot in favor of wrapping his arms around her. “But then we tell everyone. You’re my mate, and I want all to know it.”
She smiled, kneeling in his lap with her arms around his shoulders to kiss him. He groaned as she nestled against him, her bare breasts pressed into his naked chest.
“You’ll be the death of me, Lady Lizzie,” he murmured against her lips and then kissed her quickly and put her from his lap. “Now get dressed or you won’t be leaving this bed any time soon.”
She grinned as she scampered from the silken sheet-covered bed, casting a saucy look over her shoulder as she headed for the wardrobe for a wrap. “Can I get that on a promise for tonight?”
6
Saal managed to make it to his lodgings, get changed and back to the healer’s hall in time for the start of his shift. But only because he ran most of the way, the extra hours he’d put in training working in his favor. If he’d stayed in bed with Lizzie, he would have missed most of it. Even though he hadn’t wanted to leave her, he knew in his heart of hearts that she was right. She was K’Vass, if only by familial connection, and he was J’Qess. He had a long way to go to prove he was worthy of her.
As he began his rounds, he was aware of Lord Healer Laarn watching him. He’d arrived not long after Saal had himself, and he knew Laarn knew he’d been in Lizzie’s room this morning. He didn’t know how since he’d been silent and hadn’t spoken, but by the way Laarn was looking at him, he knew.
Saal ignored him, concentrating on his duties. Part of him wanted to march up to Laarn and announce that, yes, it had been him. That it was exactly what the lord healer suspected. Saal was in love with Lizzie, and they were mates. But the more sensible part of him realized that was likely a quick way to a beating in the challenge circles. So he bit his tongue and made sure his cleaning was beyond reproach.
Once he was done with the main areas of the hall, he moved onto the bays, a nod of acknowledgment to the patients in the bays if they spoke to him. Sometimes they asked him for water or to notify a healer of their requirements, none of them caring what his family name was or where he came from as long as he could provide the help they required.
“We were attacked! I want justice!”
Shouting from the main entrance to the hall drew Saal and the healers out from their bays and into the common area to see what the ruckus was. A crowd of warriors at the entrance carried two injured warriors into the assessment area. They were badly hurt, blood dripping steadily as they were laid on examination beds.
Saal’s eyes widened a little as he recognized two of the males who had attacked Lizzie the night before. The third of their number, the one he’d clocked with the scythe, was standing behind an older warrior with flowing white hair. Saal didn’t know him, but it wasn’t difficult to work out from the sigils on his armor that he was Janaar, leader of the A’Raant.
Which meant the warrior behind him, decked out in similar armor was his son. Even though his lip wanted to curl back in disgust, Saal schooled his face to neutral politeness as befit a member of the healer’s hall. While it wasn’t the engineer’s hall he’d wanted to belong to when he was a child, he was still honored to have a place here.
“What happened here?” Laarn demanded, striding forward to examine the two warriors.
Behind him, Saal grabbed a clean mop and bucket, heading around to clean up the floor. The rules were very strict—any spilled blood in the hall was to be cleaned up immediately to mitigate the risk of further accident. Blood-borne infections were no longer a thing in their species due to genetic manipulation, but the rules had been set in stone long before that.
“They were attacked!” A’Raant spat. “Cornered in an alleyway in the city when they were just going about their business and viciously assaulted.”
It couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair, Saal thought as he cleaned the blood up. It was fresh and there was lots of it, indicating whoever had tagged the two A’Raant warriors had gotten them good.
“Must have been a crowd of them,” Laarn commented, his voice sounding absent as he examined the injured males. “These are some pretty nasty injuries. They’re going to be with us for a while.”
“It wasn’t.” A’Raant’s voice was hard as he folded his arms over a broad chest. His expression was furious.
“Wasn’t what?” Laarn didn’t mince his words, obviously not happy with A’Raant’s attitude, especially not here in the healer’s hall where Laarn reigned supreme. Here, not even the emperor could gainsay the lord healer.
“It wasn’t a crowd,” A’Raant spat. “It was one male.”
Saal blinked at that, casting a startled look at the males on the examination tables. If one male had done that to them, he didn’t think much to their abilities as warriors.
From the tone of his voice, Laarn held the same opinion. “What? Both of them at the same time? Or were they attacked at different times? Ambushed maybe?”
It was a fair question. As Saal knew, walking the streets could be hazardous. Some beings out there desperate enough to take on even a Lathar male for the few coins their belongings would yield on the black market.
“One male,” A’Raant repeat
ed and then swung his arm around to point at Saal. “That male!”
Saal blinked, not bothering to hide the surprise that flowed over his features. “Me?”
He hadn’t laid a finger on them. They’d run off in fear before he could get anywhere near them, and with Lizzie in the state she’d been, he hadn’t bothered to pursue as he normally would.
“Saal?” Laarn asked, sounding as surprised as Saal was. “Are you sure? He’s just an orderly here in the hall.”
Saal bit back his comment at the insult to his fighting abilities. He wasn’t just an orderly. He was a prime warrior, just like Laarn. He was more than able to fight for the empire and glory, and he had the braids to prove it.
“It was… him,” one of the warriors said, shakily. “He attacked us just off the square by Liaanas’s temple.”
Saal looked directly at Laarn, shaking his head. “I was…”
Then he stopped suddenly. He couldn’t say he was in the palace all night. Could he? He didn’t have lodgings here nor any duties that would have kept him overnight. It was hard to garden in the dark and he wasn’t rostered onto the healer’s hall for last night.
Draanth. He was screwed. And not in a good way.
“Saal?” Laarn’s voice was firmer. “Did you attack these men?”
He lifted his chin. “No, Lord Healer. I did not.”
He would have, if he hadn’t been with Lizzie. If they’d hurt her, he’d have tracked them down to the ends of the universe and made them wish they’d never been birthed. Hells, he’d have made their grandparents wish they’d never been birthed either.
“Where were you last night?” Laarn’s voice was low and calm, but the look in his eyes said he knew he had Saal.
Trallshit.
“I was…” Every cell in his body wanted to tell the truth—to announce to all of them that he’d been with his mate, the beautiful little human who had accepted his claim—but he couldn’t, not without breaking his promise to her.
“…I was in my lodgings,” he lied. “Off the northern square. All night.”
“LIES!” A’Raant bellowed. “He followed my kin and attacked them. We have witnesses.”
The other A’Raant warriors hustled two street-traders forward. Not Lathar, one was Aravonian and the other looked to be a Krynassis hybrid of some sort. Both refused to look anyone in the eye.
“Did you see the attack? Did you see this male? Look at him,” the Lord healer barked the order at the witnesses and they jerked their gazes up to Saal. “Is this the male?”
He’d never seen either of them in his life before but they both nodded like their heads would fall off.
“Yes, my lord, sir,” the hybrid muttered. “That’s ‘im.”
“They’re lying,” Saal said bluntly. “I’ve never seen them before.”
A’Raant shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t see him attacking my kin.”
“True,” Laarn commented, dismissing the witnesses with a wave of his hand. Turning, he nodded to the healers behind him. “Take these two into the bays and start healing. Lord A’Raant, you will be notified when they are well enough for visitors.”
A’Raant gave a grunt, arms folded over his chest, and then nodded toward Saal, still frozen in place with his mop in his hand. “What about him?”
“Don’t you worry about him,” Laarn said in a grim voice. “Justice will prevail. I assure you.”
* * *
“You CAN’T do this!” Saal bellowed as a troop of guards threw him from the main gate of the palace, his pack and other belongings tossed into the dirt after him. The guards just laughed and shut the door in his face.
Closing his eyes for a second, Saal groaned. He should have seen this coming. Laarn knew he hadn’t attacked those men, but because he couldn’t say where he was last night, couldn’t force the truth from Saal because of his promise to his mate, he’d used the opportunity to remove Saal from the hall.
And that stung. While they hadn’t been friends, precisely, he’d expected more from Laarn. They’d had issues yes, when Jess and the other human females had first arrived on Lathar Prime, but Saal had more than paid for any hurt and insult he’d caused.
No… he admitted to himself. This was nothing to do with past issues. This was solely because he was lower ranked and Laarn didn’t want a J’Qess in the family, certainly not as a brother. So he’d leaped on the first opportunity to get rid of Saal.
The sound of a boot scuffing the dirt had his eyes snapping open just in time to see a street urchin sidle toward his pack.
“Oh no you don’t,” he hissed, grabbing for his belongings and baring his teeth at the circling street brats. While his stuff wouldn’t fetch much, even in the back streets of the city where talk was cheap and lives cost osharin, he didn’t want to lose any of it.
“Get gone with you,” he growled threateningly, and the urchins disappeared into the shadowy side streets.
It was a long walk back to his lodgings, and the two days that followed were even longer. Eventually, sitting in front of the single console in his room, he had to admit that Lizzie wasn’t going to respond to any of the messages he’d sent her.
Growling, he shoved his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face as he looked at the screen. Why wouldn’t she talk to him? She’d read the messages, if the code line on them was to be believed, and the palace system was the most advanced on the planet. Which meant…
He closed his eyes, pain lancing his heart and stealing his breath as he faced the truth.
She didn’t want to talk to him. And she hadn’t wanted anyone to know about them. Forget wanting to keep their relationship to themselves for a few days. He drew in a ragged breath, fist clenched in front of his mouth. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know about them because she’d never been serious about them in the first place. Had she only wanted a bit of fun, a night in the sheets, then… nothing? To forget him altogether? He hadn’t thought humans were like that. All evidence he’d managed to gather said that human females needed an emotional connection to be intimate with someone.
A lone tear streaked down his cheek, splashing unheeded across his bare chest.
She was his entire world… and she didn’t want anything to do with him. He barked out a bitter laugh. He’d fallen head over heels for a human woman, believed they had a future together, and she’d used him. Gotten what she wanted and thrown him away.
Draanthing idiot.
A fist hammered on the door, making him jump.
“Oi! Room’s due!” a rough voice hollered.
With a sigh Saal hauled himself to his feet and began collecting coins from the small stack by the console. There weren’t enough for more than a few days. He’d never bothered to save much of the meager pay offered by the healer’s hall. Some of the other orderlies had a second job, security and suchlike for the bars in town. He’d never needed to. Most of what he needed, food while working and clothing, had been provided by the hall. Besides, another job would only have taken him away from Lizzie. He should have saved at least some of it. But for what? To hang around mooning over a woman who obviously didn’t want him?
Making it to the door, he opened it, leaning in the frame as he nodded to his landlord. He felt like he’d been in combat for days—exhausted, battered and bruised.
“Hey, Malaac,” he said as he handed over his coin. “Heard of any units in town recruiting recently?”
The old lodge master, a veteran of several wars from his scars and braids, looked surprised. “I thought you were up at the healer’s hall?”
Saal shrugged. “Didn’t work out. They let me go. Last in, first out. You know how it is…”
It was a pathetic excuse but he didn’t care. Luckily, Malaac didn’t call him on it, just eyeing him with concern.
“Heard the Warborne were hiring,” he said, naming one of the legendary mercenary units. “They were in the Triple Goddess last night.”
Saal nodded as he pushed away from the door. “Thanks,
I might give them a go.”
Malaac’s hand snaked out and caught his arm. The older male’s look was direct and concerned.
“Careful, lad,” he warned. “Once you start down that path, it only ends one way. Blood and death without glory.”
Saal laughed bitterly. “Nothing left to lose, old-timer. Might as well use it earning coin.”
* * *
Men were all the same. Lying pigs, no matter what the species.
Lizzie sighed as she lay back on the diagnostic bed and closed her eyes as it hummed around her, scanning her body down to the molecular level. She didn’t bother to look around as she had at the beginning of the week, hoping beyond hope to see a familiar figure among the orderlies. It had been six days and she hadn’t heard hide nor hair from Saal.
She snorted bitterly. So much for “you’re my mate” and “I want all to know it.” Like most of the guys she’d known back home, once he’d gotten what he wanted out of her, she hadn’t seen him for dust. Typical.
“Scans are looking good.” Laarn’s deep voice broke through her reverie and she opened her eyes, the vaulted ceiling of the healer’s hall rising high above her. They were in one of the screened-off bays as Laarn performed the tests. Unlike in a human hospital, most of the procedures took place in the main hall, the space able to be sectioned off by curtains and forcefields if it needed to be sterile.
She wasn’t alone for today’s check-up. Perhaps aware of Lizzie’s gradually worsening mood over the week in a way that twins often were, Jess had been stuck to her side like glue. Sometimes Lizzie was surprised she was allowed to go to the toilet alone.
“So she’s better?” Jess asked, her expression tight with concern as she looked over her husband’s shoulder at Lizzie’s scan results. Perhaps Laarn had been teaching her about Latharian medicine because she seemed to know what she was looking at. It all looked like gobbledegook to Lizzie.