ity of her words, the absolute conviction behind them made me angry. “You are Zara of Trion. You are strong and fearless and beautiful.” And mine. I fought with myself not to speak the last two words aloud. I could not make promises I knew I could not keep. She had shared her body with me but had not surrendered her heart, and that was for the best.
No matter that everything within me hated the knowing. Wanted not just her heart but her soul. Everything. I wanted everything.
Guess my father had been right. I was just a selfish bastard after all. I had nothing to offer this beautiful female. Nothing. I shouldn't even be touching her, fark, speaking to her. She was well out of my reach.
Telling my conscience to shut up, I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. She shivered and melted into the warmth I offered. While I liked her bare, the ship wasn’t thermally set to her small body. The adrenaline of the chase was wearing off, but I had never experienced the withdrawal bare.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now we go to Transport Station Zenith and meet with Ivy and Zenos.”
“Are they your friends?”
“Ivy is from Earth, like you. And Zenos is from Rogue 5. Astra legion. They have no love for Cerberus. If anyone can figure out what might be going on, it’s those two.”
9
Zara, Canteen, Transport Station Zenith, Sector 437
“Do people grow taller in space because of less gravity or something?” I asked as another giant passed, my sense of humor firmly in place. We’d arrived at this new place, a transport station Isaak informed me, parked the spaceship and were supposed to go directly to what sounded like a regular, old-fashioned bar. Canteen it was called. Whatever. Isaak promised me they served drinks. Food. People came from all over. He also swore there would be more uniforms and less… blue.
“Atlan.” His one-word answer had me turning around to stare. So, that was one of the beasts I’d heard about. I’d seen the other one on television, on that alien bachelor show. But somehow, the true size of that one hadn’t quite made it through the TV screen.
“Holy crap. He’s huge.” And hot. Wisely, I kept the second part of my opinion to myself.
Isaak chuckled. “You should see their cousins, the Forsians. Even bigger.”
He was holding my hand—my other held my titan stick—and every time a big, bad alien passed, he pulled me closer and a bit behind him. I didn’t even think he noticed, but it was…sweet. I was used to looking out for myself, but I wasn’t going to complain. Not after Bertok murdering my mate, the blue lady, the getaway, the orgasms, and the shoot-out in space. I had taken a bit of a nap on Isaak’s ship, but to be honest, my nerves were fried. Besides, it was nice to let someone else take the lead for once. Not that I had plans to get used to it. Isaak had made it very clear that he was taking me to Ivy—an Earth girl—and that would be the end of it. I was going back to Trion. Isaak was not.
End. Of. Discussion.
Isaak had his gun strapped to his thigh, but he was relaxed. Maybe his calm was the result of all that hot sex. Whatever the reason, he didn’t seem too concerned about being shot at or chased. Although after the whole attack in space situation, I needed another orgasm or two to calm down. I’d been in fights at home. Hell, I’d even fought it out under The Omega Dome and stabbed the scaly, poisonous lizard man with his own cattle prod. But a shootout in space? Naked?
Never.
Take that, Star Trek.
I’d never been in a shootout quite like that before, but I’d seen them on TV. Not one had it where the actors were bare assed. As for Isaak’s fine body and big cock, he was impressive, and he could walk around with everything on display for all I cared. The man should be proud of what he was packing—and I wasn’t talking about the gun in his thigh holster—and want to show it off.
I followed Isaak down a long corridor, this one much cleaner than the one I’d run down in the dome. Here, the air didn’t smell like unwashed bodies, animals and nasty body fluids. The walls were metallic and shiny, the results, no doubt, of the odd circular robotic creatures that stuck to the walls like snails inside a fish tank. They had rotating brushes that looked like half mop, half broom, and left a pleasant, fresh air kind of smell behind. Walking up and down the halls were mostly males, huge males of various races I’d not seen before. Some had fangs, some wore black and gray armor with the Coalition Fleet insignia I recognized from my time at the Interstellar Brides processing center. Some, like Isaak, just walked around like they owned the place.
Some looked human, but I wasn’t fooled. Even if they looked like us, I knew damn good and well these males were not men. They were aliens. Tall, bulging muscles, intense stares and almost every single one noticed me before Isaak. Their eyes would flash from my breasts—where the nipple rings and chain were clearly visible through the tunic Isaak had given me—to the collar around my neck. Satisfied, they did the man thing—lifting their chin or tilting their head at Isaak—to let him know they had assessed the situation with the female and would not interfere.
Like I wasn’t even there.
At first, I hated them all. Then I decided I didn’t mind their assessment. If it had been Bertok dragging me along, or the blue lady, I would have more than welcomed some hot alien interference.
Isaak would tell me their species after they passed—and after I had asked him about twenty times in a row. Viken. Prillon. Atlan…and boy oh boy, those boys were big. There were Hunters, whatever that was, and then there were the gangsters from Rogue 5. I stopped asking about them. Every single one of them looked different—hybrids, Isaak informed me—and they all wore arm bands. Different colors but easy to see. Steer clear, that was my policy when it came to those creeps.
Yep. I was still in space on some kind of gigantic, floating space station in the middle of nowhere. I had no clue where we were other than the name, so I had to trust him that we were safe. That the chasing and shooting was over. And that there really would be a woman from Earth at the end of this walk.
The canteen doors were three times the size I was used to back home, but when two of the Coalition guys walked through, side-by-side, I realized the size was a necessity.
“Prillons.”
“They mate in pairs, right?” That’s what Warden Egara and the pamphlets back at the bride testing center had informed me. Two of them. One woman.
Wow. That was a lot of man. Or alien.