Alien Mine (The Pruxnae: Earthside #1)

Chapter Two

Dyuvad gingerly prodded his ribs through his new clothing, courtesy of his mysterious benefactor among the ‘paths. In the days following the ‘path’s initial contact, Dyuvad had followed its instructions precisely, from meeting Benar and picking up the resources allocated to his protection duty, to navigating his ship along the exact route given him from Tersi through the frontier into Origin Space.

He’d planted his ship on the cusp of the dark side of the planet’s moon while his ship’s AI studied news vids bounced off Earth’s surface by orbiting satellites. The autolearner programs created from those information feeds had integrated knowledge of the planet’s major languages and cultures into his mind, so deeply they could never be retrieved except through memory. As soon as he’d recovered from the autolearner’s integration process, Dyuvad had readied his supplies and initiated a jump.

Everything had gone as planned except his kraden landing on the girl’s planet.

His ribs throbbed and ached, but they weren’t broken. He pushed himself to his feet and stared down at Rachel, the mother of the child he was to protect. She was more than a head shorter than him and spare with her weight over a medium frame. Her hair swung in loose, burnished gold waves to her shoulders. Pain stabbed unexpectedly through his temples. Honey . Her hair was the color of a native liquid sweetener called honey, the byproduct of insects feeding .

It wasn’t the most bizarre food substance he’d ever heard of, but it wasn’t what he’d expected a post-industrial civilization on the verge of space travel to eat.

Rachel’s wide mouth opened, then closed, and her golden skin flushed pink.

Dyuvad set his curiosity aside for another time. Staring was rude in most human cultures. Maybe it was here, too, or maybe his attention upset her. “My apologies, Lady Rachel. I meant no offense.”

Thick eyelashes swept down, hiding expressive green eyes. “You wanted to see the room.”

“Yes. I would like to retrieve my bag first, please.”

“Um.” She swung toward the white, one-story dwelling her daughters had disappeared into. “Ok. You might as well meet the girls now.”

She clomped toward the house, more determined than graceful, and led him up a well-worn, dirt path from the animal enclosure he’d landed on toward her home. Rusted metal slats capped the roof, their undulating gleam interrupted by two brick chimney stacks. A covered porch wrapped around the exterior, its paint faded and chipped. Flowers of every color were planted in well-tended beds abutting the porch. Their fragrance wafted through the moist air, mingling with the mineral scent of freshly turned dirt and the faint odor of rotting manure.

Dyuvad inhaled deeply. Earth’s flora and fauna were largely different than Abyw’s, but the smells were similar. A sudden longing washed over him, to be at home on his parents’ farm tending molnog, felling trees for lumber, nurturing the land as his father’s family had for generations.

He still hadn’t figured out what he was supposed to protect Rachel’s daughter from, but maybe now he knew why he, or someone like him, had been selected. In spite of their culture’s level of urbanization and technology, Rachel and her daughters appeared to live a rural lifestyle, much as he had for the better part of his youth. Earth itself might be unfamiliar, but the work required to manage a farm such as this one was not. He could easily blend in here, and if he was careful, no one would ever guess his true origins.

His shoulders relaxed as he walked up the steps behind Rachel into her home. Her daughters sat at a small, square table set off to one side of… His temple pinged and the appropriate word popped into his head. Kitchen. Which he could’ve guessed without the pain. Kraden autolearner.

As soon as he and Rachel entered, the little girls scrambled away from his bag planted dead center on the table. The eldest blinked wide, brown eyes at him. The youngest, his assignment, stuck a chubby finger in her mouth and cocked her head to the side.

Rachel drew to a stop behind the youngest girl’s chair and placed both of her square-palmed hands on its back. “Girls, this is Mr. ab Mhij. He’s thinking about renting our spare room.”

“Dyuvad, please,” he said. “There is no need for formality among us.”

Rachel glanced away and her skin flushed again.

His muscles tightened, aggravating the muted throb along his left flank where he’d tumbled into the wooden post. “I meant no offense.”

“None was taken. These are my girls.” She nodded at the eldest. “Kelly, honey, go get dressed. We’ve got work to do. Take Tiny with you.”

“Yes’m.” Kelly slid off her seat and held a narrow hand out to him. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dyuvad.”

He took her hand, bowed, and pressed its back briefly to his forehead. “The pleasure is mine, Lady Kelly.”

“Uh.” She peeked at her mother over her shoulder and lowered her voice to a quavering whisper. “Mama?”

“He’s being polite, that’s all,” Rachel said. “Go on, now. You, too, Tiny.”

Kelly slid her hand out of his and left. Tiny clamored off the chair and toddled out of the room behind her sister.

Rachel snagged his bag and handed it to him. “Sorry about the girls. They’re not used to being around men outside of family.”

“I am not accustomed to being around young girls,” he admitted.

“They won’t bother you unless you let them. Come on.”

He slung his pack over one shoulder and followed her back outside. She led him around her abode along the covered porch and opened a door on its adjacent side. “It’s not much, but you’ll have your privacy and can come and go as you please.”

He ducked into the room behind her and studied its sparse furnishings. A wrought-iron bed wide enough for two was tucked into the far corner, covered by a patchwork quilt in blues and golds. A free-standing lamp sat on a short wooden table next to the bed. A battered chest of drawers stood at the foot of the bed, separated by enough space to pull out any of the four drawers. A small couch was against the wall to his left, facing the bed over another wooden table, this one much lower to the ground.

A waist-high metal cabinet was in the remaining corner. Dyuvad opened its door. Cool air drifted out, and he grunted. A refrigeration unit. Handy.

Rachel pointed to the two doors set in the wall opposite the entrance. “There’s a full bathroom behind the door on the left. The other one is a small closet. There are some good restaurants in town when you get hungry or you can eat with us for a little more money each month and some help with the chores.”

“I would prefer to eat with your family.”

“We’d love the company,” she said with a small smile. “And to be honest, I could use some help with the fence.”

The fence he would’ve fixed anyway. Kraden jumps. At least he hadn’t landed on one of the creatures inhabiting Rachel’s farm. They looked uncomfortable and had the bleat of a crazed screxhound pursuing its prey. “Show me the tools and I shall fix it.”

Her eyebrows shot up, arching high on her smooth forehead. “You’re a fancy talker, Mr. ab Mhij.”

“English is not my first language,” he said stiffly.

“No kidding. Well, stick with Kelly. She’ll shake that formality right out of you quicker than spit. Speaking of, I’d better get back in there and round them up. I’ve promised the girls waffles for breakfast, and you’re more than welcome to your share.” She rattled off a figure for the room’s monthly rent, then placed her hand on the doorknob. “I didn’t hear a vehicle drive up.”

“I arrived by another method.”

“So you don’t have a car?”

He prodded his memory, and finally, an image of a primitive, motorized vehicle popped into his head. “Not here, no.”

“Then you can ride into town with us if you need to. It’s too far to walk and the road’s dangerous between here and there, besides.”

He bowed. “Thank you, Lady Rachel. Your generosity is boundless.”

Pink flashed into her cheeks. “Fence won’t fix itself,” she muttered, and whirled away from him and out the door.

He stared after her, bemused. Tiny’s mother was a strange woman, though she seemed like a good one. He riffled through the contents of his pack and carefully counted out enough local currency to purchase six Earth months of rent and meals. Being on the far-flung planet might be an inconvenience, but it had its benefits, too. Rachel was attractive, her daughters lively and bright. It had been a long time since he’d been around children, even longer since he’d been around a whole family of females. The next few months should prove interesting, provided he could figure out what danger young Tiny was in before it affected her and her family.

Rachel kept her back to the handsome stranger sitting between her girls at the kitchen table. True to his word, Dyuvad had helped her fix the fence, and done most of the work, truth be told.

Course, he’d stripped off his t-shirt to do it, and hadn’t that been a sight ?

She opened her waffle maker and carefully pried a crisp cake away from the metal cooker, ignoring the blush staining her cheeks. Lordy, that man had the nicest chest this side of the Mississipp’, broad and heavily muscled and very, very yummy. An intricate tattoo of a stylized deer of some kind circled his upper left arm, not like anything she’d ever seen before, maybe a tribal tattoo or something. Against all reason, when she’d eyed his inked skin, butterflies had erupted in her stomach and her privates had tingled something fierce.

Tattoos, for goodness’ sake. Those weren’t supposed to be a turn-on for a respectable, church-going woman.

Too bad he’d put his shirt back on after he’d washed up.

She slid the waffle onto a plate and loaded the waffle maker with more batter. That her new renter had pitched right in and helped out was a pure blessing. She hadn’t expected to find somebody who had money and was willing to lend a hand both, yet there the man was, sitting at her table dividing his attention between Kelly’s polite chatter and Tiny’s unintelligible rambles. And there the money was, burning a hole in the front pocket of her shorts, more than enough to pay the land taxes when they came due at the first of the year, right about the time he’d be leaving.

The screen door screeched open. Rachel glanced over her shoulder and stifled a sigh. Her brother stood in the doorway framed by the early morning light, his strawberry blonde hair a curly halo around his head. Wasn’t it just like Fate to show up after all the hard work was done, right on time for a hot meal?

Fate’s eyebrows shot up in his thin face. “Didn’t know you had company, Sis.”

“Fate, this is Dyuvad. He’s renting my spare room through the fall.” She turned back to the stove and prodded the sizzling bacon. “Dyuvad, this is my brother Fate. He lives next door, in that big house around the curve coming from town.”

A chair scraped back along the linoleum and Dyuvad said, “A pleasure to meet you, Fate.”

“Likewise,” Fate said. “Come here, Tiny girl. You can sit on my lap and share a waffle with me.”

Tiny clapped her hands. “Melex.”

Rachel bit her lip around a smile. Chances were good Fate wouldn’t be sharing a waffle. He’d eat a whole dang one on his own, bless him. “You calm your dogs down, Fate?”

“Yeah. Sorry about the barking. Don’t know what got into ‘em.”

“My apologies,” Dyuvad said in that low voice of his. “I crash landed on Lady Rachel’s fence, creating havoc among her animals.”

“Lady Rachel, huh?”

“Leave it be, Fate,” Rachel said mildly. Lord knew, she’d about given up on getting Dyuvad to call her plain ol’ Rachel. No matter how many times she asked, he reverted to the title like she’d done something to deserve it. She checked the waffle, judged it done, and gave it its own plate. “Here now, boys. Get your breakfast while it’s warm.”

A soft footfall landed on the floor behind her, then Dyuvad appeared at her side. “It is customary here for women not to eat with men?”

“It’s customary for the people sitting at the table to eat first while the cook finishes the meal.” She handed him a waffle-laden plate and jerked her chin at the bacon cooling on another. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you, Lady Rachel.”

She bit back a sigh. At least he was polite.

They all crowded around the table, Kelly on Rachel’s right, Fate and Tiny on her left, Dyuvad across from her. He ate in precise bites, sampling his food carefully. After the third time he mmmd over the bacon, her curiosity got the better of her.

“You act like you’ve never had bacon before,” she said.

He set his fork down on his plate and dabbed a paper napkin to his mouth. “I have not, Lady Rachel.”

Fate snickered, and Rachel kicked his shin under the table’s protective cover. “I can fix you something else, if you don’t like it. ”

“That is unnecessary. The bacon is delicious. The melex as well.”

Kelly’s fork dropped out of her slack grip onto the sticky, syrup-covered waffle on her plate. “Not you, too.”

“Melex,” Dyuvad said, enunciating the syllables, “is a sweet cake, a specialty of…my home.”

Rachel gaped at him. “You understand Tiny.”

“I understand melex. It is very similar to this delicacy you have prepared.”

Fate fed Tiny a sliver of bacon. “You musta lived a hard life if waffles is a delicacy.”

“Not at all. My father is the…leader of the province I’m from, and my mother a former soldier. They provided a good life for me and my brothers.”

Fate leaned toward Rachel, his Carolina blue eyes twinkling, and lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “Israelite. Shoulda knowed, what with that foreign coloring of his.”

Rachel threw her napkin onto the table beside her plate. “For goodness’ sake, Fate. Dyuvad’s origins are his own business, you nosey ol’ coot.”

Dyuvad turned a slow smile on her, and heat shot from her warm cheeks straight down to her toes, hitting a couple of mighty interesting points along the way. “I am not from Israel,” he said, “though I am alien to this land.”

“And that’s all you need to know about him, Fate,” Rachel added firmly. “There’s plenty more batter if anybody wants another waffle.”

A chorus of pleases rang out, and Rachel pushed her chair back, away from her sexy renter’s relentless gaze. Lordy, she was in a bad way if a stranger could turn her on with a simple smile.