Alien Mine (The Pruxnae: Earthside #1)

Chapter Five

Dyuvad twisted the knob on the portable radio he’d purchased during his and Fate’s supply run into the nearest town the previous day. Static hissed, then resolved into a heavy beat. Metal, Fate had called it, though Dyuvad was more inclined to think of it as a gift from the gods. Whatever its name, it was a welcome accompaniment to his day’s labor. He turned it to a low murmur, loud enough to enjoy, soft enough for conversation, and studied the tools he’d chosen for the day’s work.

Rachel rounded the side of the house carrying a bottle of goat’s milk. She wrinkled her nose as she drifted to a halt next to him. “Do you really have to listen to that caterwauling?”

He chose a scraper and set its edge against the porch railing. “I like it.”

“Really?”

“On my…home, our music is traditional. Stories, mostly. Old legends accompanied by simple instruments, sometimes myths of the old gods.”

“Folk songs.”

“Something like that.”

“I like folk songs.”

“I do, too. This metal makes a nice change.”

“Yeah, I guess it would, if traditional stuff is all you’d ever heard. We’ve got a lot of local bands that play bluegrass and country. Other stuff, too, but…” She shrugged and glanced at the milk in her hands. “I better get this in the fridge. Hot as it is ou tside, it’s liable to spoil.”

She bounced up the steps and into the kitchen. The door had no sooner closed on her than it reopened and Kelly bounced out.

Three days, he’d been on Earth, and most of the females he’d met bounced wherever they went.

Kelly sat down on the top step of the porch stairs and propped bony elbows on knobby knees. “Morning, Mr. Dyuvad.”

He turned the scraper around and scraped away from her, scattering old paint into the overgrown hedge. “Good morning, Lady Kelly. Have you decided what lesson you want to study today?”

“I figure we should keep working on the planets, seeing as how we still got a long ways to go in that book.” She glanced down, scrubbed the toe of her sandal along a lower step. “You reckon me and Tiny can stay up late tonight and maybe practice spotting them constellations we been learning?”

“If your mother says it’s ok.”

Her foot stopped abruptly and her dark eyes went round. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“You’re supposed to argue and tell me all the reasons why staying up is bad for me.”

He glanced at her and arched an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what grownups do.” She wrinkled her nose, exactly the way her mother had. “Are you sure you’re a grownup? ‘Cause you don’t act like one.”

He set the scraper down and keyed up a link to his ship’s AI on his wrist com. “How old is a grownup here?”

“I dunno. Hold on.” She scrambled off the steps and through the kitchen entrance, and was back again just as quickly. “Mama says eighteen is an adult, unless you want a beer, and then you gotta be twenty-one.”

“Nice to know.” He requested a conversion of his age from Abywian into Earth years and showed the display to Kelly. “ Twenty-five years, twelve weeks, three days. Definitely a grownup.”

She plopped onto the top stair and propped her chin in her hands. “Younger than Mama, though, so I guess I really better ask her, huh? Seeing as how she’s older and all.”

“Seeing as how she’s your mother and all,” Dyuvad corrected gently. “Have you finished your morning chores?”

“Yes, sir, me and Tiny both.”

He glanced at the stretch of peeling paint along the porch rail and judged the amount against his patience and the girls’ need to learn. “Can you be ready to study in an hour?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Dyuvad. I gotta help Mama with the goat cheese anyhow.”

She was gone in a flash, leaving Dyuvad to the heat of the morning sun and the day’s growing humidity. He eased around a thorny bush and its fragrant flowers, and scraped another section of porch rail, nodding in time to the music on the radio.

Tiny pushed open the screen door and bounced outside, then settled herself on her knees on the porch and peered through two slats at him. “Mengen arig, Dooda.”

“Myengen dun arig, Lady Bettina. Can you say that in English?”

“Ny,” she said cheerfully, and prattled away in slightly mangled Pruxn?, something about a bad man shooting a gun at the goats, though he couldn’t quite be certain given her syntax.

Talking in his native tongue was one thing he hadn’t anticipated doing while on Earth. How Tiny knew his language was a mystery, though he suspected it had something to do with the reason the Net ‘paths were interested in her. Maybe she was a budding telepath. If so, she could be picking Pruxn? up from his mind. She could’ve been born with it already in her head, though. Who could say? No one knew much about the ‘paths, rumors and speculation aside.

Rachel came outside carrying a blue tube and a glass filled with a pale yellow liquid. “Go on inside and get your sister, Tiny. She’s about to pull the pool out so y’all can play in it this afternoon.”

Tiny obediently pushed herself upright and ran across the porch, her small feet a rapid patter against the worn wood.

Rachel set the glass down on the porch rail as the screen door slammed shut behind her youngest daughter. “Lemonade. Good to cure thirst on a hot day.”

“Thank you, Lady Rachel.”

“Just Rachel.” She held up the blue tube. “Fate can’t work outside without using sunscreen. He blisters something fierce.”

She pursed her lips together as a faint blush rose on her cheeks.

Dyuvad paused his scraping, curious about that blush and its cause. “He’s working with his bees right now.”

“Yeah, I know. Thing is, it’s not a good idea to be outside for long without sunscreen on. UV rays.”

He stared blankly at her, trying to piece together her conversation into something that made sense, much as he had with Tiny. Like mother, like daughter, he was beginning to suspect.

“Too much sun causes skin cancer,” she blurted out in a rush. “Your skin’s dark, but it’s not that dark, and I thought maybe you’d like some sunscreen to protect it.”

“Ah.” He set the scraper down on the porch and walked slowly up the stairs, like a normal, non-bouncing human. “You are a considerate landlady.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Her blush deepened and her eyelids fluttered down. “You’re already sweating. Go dry off. And put on some shoes. God a’mercy, Dyuvad, you’re gonna get a nail through your foot or something.”

He shook his head, but he went, the same way Tiny had. Obediently, as Rachel’s tone demanded in the way of women everywhere.

He snorted at his own compliance as he entered his room and snagged a towel out of the bathing chamber, also called a bathroom or restroom, or men’s or ladies’ room, depending on who was talking. His mind continued supplying descriptors for the tiny room as he padded back outside on bare feet, drying his skin. John, toilet, head. So many words expended on naming one room when there were a host of more important things to describe. Different kinds of laughter, microfluctuations in the weather, the innumerable emotions expressed in a woman’s glance.

Yet the Earthlings living in this section of the planet wasted words on a room used to eliminate waste from the human body.

And people thought the Pruxn? were odd.

When he came out, Rachel was scraping paint off the porch side of the railing. He snagged her wrist, halting her. “What are you doing, woman?”

“Helping. It’s my house.”

“It’s my work.”

She yanked her wrist and scowled when he tightened his grip. “I’m not sitting idly by while you work yourself into the ground.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” He twisted the scraper gently out of her hand and set it on the porch rail. “But where I come from, the woman manages the family’s holdings, directing the man’s activities around their property. That is not sitting idly by. It’s an equal contribution where it does the most good, in the thinking and planning, not the raw labor.”

“I’ve never heard of such.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “So the man does what the woman tells him to.”

“Within reason.”

“But she’s the boss.”

“On those matters, usually with his input. It’s more of shared responsibility than it sounds.”

Her suspicious expression eased into a wry smile. “I’d love to have that kind of setup here. Usually, it’s me doing the managing and the work, even when there’s a man around.”

Resignation echoed the fatigue in her voice, and for a moment, anger darkened Dyuvad’s heart. Her former husband had been a fool to jeopardize his family’s welfare the way he had, leaving Rachel alone to rear their children, run a business, and maintain her property. Though he couldn’t speak for other cultures, and wouldn’t, there was a reason marriages were undertaken among the Pruxn?. One person wasn’t meant to handle the responsibility of caring for a family alone, and shouldn’t have to.

Dyuvad gripped her chin and tilted her face toward his. “As long as I’m here, I’ll perform the labor of your husband.”

“I’m not married.”

“If you were, then. Consider me a substitute, without the intimate benefits marriage brings.”

“Intimate…” Her eyes went wide and her cheeks flamed red. “Oh, sweet merciful Heaven, Dyuvad. You’re determined to walk with the devil, aren’t you?”

He laughed and let her chin go. “Tell me about this sunscreen. What do I do with it?”

She slapped the tube into his palm. “You slather it on every inch of exposed skin. I should make you do it yourself as payback for your tomfoolery.”

He flipped the tube’s cap open, squirted a thick, white goo onto his palm, and sniffed. “You put this on the girls at the lake.”

“They’re only half Hispanic. Don’t want their skin to burn.”

He grunted. “I didn’t see you do it.”

“You don’t know everything, Mr. Smarty Pants. Here.” She snagged the tube and moved behind him. “You do your front while I do your back.”

Or he could wait until she’d finished so he could savor her hands on his skin, willingly placed there under her own aegis. “Do you enjoy touching me?”

She coughed out a strangled laugh. “What brought up that question?”

“Curiosity. Did you like our kiss?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

He peered over his shoulder. As he’d suspected, her cheeks were bright red. “This must be where Kelly gets her penchant for procrastination.”

“I do not procrastinate.” Rachel smacked her palm onto his back and rubbed briskly. “I never procrastinate. Why would you even say such a thing?”

Because she’d been hesitant to touch him. He turned back around and fixed his gaze on the rolling hills surrounding the pasture, gentle hills cloaked in deciduous green, so unlike the jagged, snow-covered mountains on Abyw. “I enjoyed kissing you.”

She snorted and muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like horny toad .

An image of a leather-skinned amphibian popped into his head, accompanied by pain stabbing through his temples. He closed his eyes until it dimmed. Kraden autolearner. The program must’ve malfunctioned prior to implantation into his mind. It hadn’t matched the right image with the correct terminology, unless Rachel was comparing him to a warty frog.

Which made no sense at all. Then again, English wasn’t exactly a logical language, and she often used local idioms.

Her hand slid to another section of his back, along his right ribcage. Her touch was lighter now, not as firm as it had been when she’d started, and it tickled a little. She drifted lower and brushed her hands over his hip above the waistband of his shorts, and he hissed in a sharp breath as her touch shot tingling heat through his skin.

Her hand retreated immediately. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m almost done.”

“Take your time.”

He wanted her to take all the time she needed, especially when her innocent touch was arousing him. He shifted into a wide-legged stance and focused on the work he wanted to get done that day. Studying the solar system with Kelly, coaxing Tiny into speaking English, scraping paint and helping with supper, and maybe sitting under the stars with Fate and Rachel and her girls at the end of the long day.

It didn’t help. She refilled her hand and shifted her touch to the opposite side of his back. His skin tingled under the ever-gentling sweep of her fingers, spreading heat through him, and his manhood stirred behind the fly of his shorts. She’d looked her fill two days ago while helping him choose swimming gear, right before she’d caught herself and slammed the door on his nudity. But she’d looked, and she’d kissed him, and now, she was touching him of her own free will.

If she kept looking and kissing and touching, he’d never be able to hold on to his discipline long enough to protect her and her girls from the threats posed by this world.

And still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask her to stop.

Her hands fell away from his back. “All done. Oh.”

“What?”

“Your tattoo. It’s changing.” She stepped around beside him and traced a fingertip along part of the design. “It did this yesterday, too, when we were, uh.”

He grinned down at her. “It’s called kissing.”

Her eyebrows snapped into a scowl. “I know what it’s called, Dyuvad.”

“Then call it what it is.”

“I’m gonna call you something in a minute.” She rubbed a thumb across his tattoo, shooting lightning through his nerves, and gasped. “It just got brighter.”

“The ink is keyed to my emotions.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s a custom of my mother’s people, particularly among mated pairs. They tattoo matching designs here and here.” He flicked a finger over two spots at the top of her neck, along the pulses beating steadily on either side of her throat. “The first one when they’re courting, the second when they mate. The markings change color according to the strength of the couple’s emotions.”

“That’s…unusual.”

“Aren’t most customs?”

“True. So why did you get a tattoo using this special ink?”

“To honor my mother. She was a soldier before she mated my father and came to live with him on my…in his land. It’s a way of remembering her contribution to my heritage.”

Rachel’s thumb stilled on his arm. “But you could’ve used regular ink instead of this stuff.”

“Domorian ink.” At her blank expression, he added, “The people who make the ink reserve it for my mother’s people. It seemed fitting to use it.”

“Oh. Right.” She tapped his arm and frowned. “How do these people link emotions to the ink?”

“No idea.”

“Right.” She dropped his arm and stepped away. “I shouldn’t have been so nosey.”

“You asked honest questions. I gave honest replies. I truly don’t know how the Domorians do what they do. I know how it works, though.” He lifted his arm, exposing the edge of the tattoo on the interior of his biceps, and pointed to a section halfway between his shoulder and his elbow. “Blow here.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

She eased hesitantly forward and blew gently on his skin. Sensation rippled through him, amplified by the ink, and he shuddered. The tattoo changed colors, from dim greens into a bright, blazing red and, Wode help him, his half hard manhood stiffened to rigid attention as if she’d breathed on it instead of his arm.

He shoved down a sudden need to have her there, controlling it ruthlessly. “Strong emotions, strong colors.”

Her gaze was locked on the tattoo. “What kind of emotions?”

He blew out an exasperated sigh. She couldn’t be that na?ve. “Your breath touched a sensitive area. What kind do you think?”

“Oh.” She blinked once, twice, and the natural color in her cheeks deepened. “Sorry. You shouldn’t have let me do that.”

“I enjoyed it.” And he wanted her to do it again, maybe sooner than was wise. They’d explored enough for one day, though. He dropped his arm and held his hand out for the sunscreen. “Has Kelly talked to you about staying up late tonight to study the constellations?”

“She mentioned it in passing.”

“And?”

“We’ll see how tired she and Tiny are after supper.” Rachel squirted sunscreen in his hand, then leaned her firm ass against the porch railing. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before Kelly comes out looking for me, just enough time for you to tell me all about those Domorians.”

He coated his skin with sunscreen under her watchful gaze and chose his words carefully, sharing what he could of the alien culture as desire faded along with the bright colors of his tattoo.

The day zipped by in a fit and flurry of activity. Kelly settled down long enough to help Rachel start making goat cheese, then slipped out of the workroom before lunch for study time with Dyuvad and Tiny. By the time Rachel had finished what she’d set out to accomplish that morning, he’d settled himself and the girls on the porch steps with sandwiches, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to take care of them.

Juan had never taken care of Kelly that way.

Rachel bit the thought off and plopped onto the bottom step next to Kelly in time to catch the tail end of Dyuvad’s story.

“Tyornin was unhappy with his sister’s feat,” Dyuvad said, “and like brothers will do, he pulled Tyel’s hair.”

Kelly wrinkled her nose. “I’m so glad I don’t got no brother.”

Dyuvad winked and tugged the ends of her messy ponytail. “You should be.”

“Catch me up,” Rachel said. “Who’s Tyornin and why was he mad at his sister?”

“They was having a contest. Tyornin hit his hammer into the ground and made a big crater.” Kelly bunched her hand into a fist and smacked it into her thigh. “Then Tyel said she could do one better. She pushed the land into mountains with her bare hands, just like that. She’s better’n Wonder Woman and Storm combined, Mama! ”

Rachel pressed her lips together, hiding a smile. “Sounds like it. What happened next?”

“Wode banished them to an underground cave where the twins argue to this day,” Dyuvad said. “And let that be a lesson to you.”

Kelly’s chocolate eyes widened. “Don’t knock holes in the Earth?”

Rachel laughed and smoothed a hand over her eldest’s hair. “Don’t fight with your sister.”

“She ain’t big enough yet.” Kelly looped a lanky arm around her sister’s slender shoulders and hugged her playfully. “‘Sides, she don’t talk right enough to fight with nohow. Why, she was talking some such about flying in a spaceship or something when we woke up this morning. Ain’t that right, Tiny?”

Dyuvad’s expression blanked as Tiny babbled out a long string of made up words. He took her empty paper plate and stacked it together with his, then stood slowly, stretching out to his full height. “Kelly made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for you, Rachel. It’s inside on the kitchen counter.”

Rachel stood and brushed the seat of her shorts off. “I can get it. Girls, you go on now and get ready for a nap. Yasmin’s coming over after work. Fate’ll probably be by, too. I thought we could have a cookout and maybe catch lightning bugs and watch the stars.”

Kelly pumped her fist in the air. “Yes! I knowed Mr. Dyuvad could talk you into letting us stay up late.”

She scrambled up the stairs into the house, taking Tiny with her. Rachel jogged up the steps and caught the screen door before it could slap shut, then held it open for Dyuvad. She entered the house behind him and secured it against the heat of the day.

Dyuvad dumped lunch’s trash in the garbage. “Thank you for letting Kelly stay up tonight.”

“Thanks for teaching her about the stars. She’s always wanted to visit them.”

“Maybe someday she can.”

Rachel laughed. “Are you kidding? The way our space program is going, we’ll be lucky if we reach the moon again in her lifetime.”

Dyuvad washed his hands, dried them on a paper towel, and threw it away. He leaned against the kitchen counter and settled that speculative look of his on her. “What if I told you there was a way for Kelly to get her wish?”

“I’d say you were privy to something nobody else knows, that or a pure plum fool,” Rachel retorted. “Don’t get her hopes up on something you can’t deliver. She’s had enough of that in her life.”

“I’m not her father.”

The sound of gravel crunching under tires came from the front yard, interrupting Rachel’s train of thought. She swallowed down a bitter reply and walked into the living room, Dyuvad close behind her. One peep through the sheer curtains covering the plate glass window overlooking the driveway and her heart leapt into her throat.

Miguel Ramirez was getting out of the back of a spiffy, new Lincoln Town Car, accompanied by three other men.

“Oh, no,” Rachel breathed. “Get the girls. Keep them in their rooms.”

Dyuvad leaned around her and flicked the curtains aside. “Who is it?”

“That gang leader I was telling you about.” She shoved his arm down and pushed him toward the back of the house. “Go. Please, Dyuvad.”

His eyes drifted toward the window and his mouth hardened. Finally, he nodded, pivoted on the ball of one bare foot, and left.

Rachel pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Fate as the men approached the house. The phone rang three times, then dumped into voice mail, and Rachel cursed under her breath. Fate was working with his bees. Why hadn’t she remembered that and called nine one one instead?

She shoved her phone back into her shorts pocket, opened the front door, and stared Miguel down through the closed screen door. “Y’all can stop right there. I don’t want you on my porch.”

Miguel backed away from the steps leading to the porch and grinned, flashing a dimple. The other three men were swarthy skinned and flat nosed, in direct contrast to Miguel’s creamy complexion and thin nose. His features were even, regular, and his nearly black eyes canny under straight, thick brows. All four men wore dress slacks and polos, and looked for all the world like they were on their way to the country club for an afternoon of leisure, except for the prison and gang tats inked into their forearms and necks.

Miguel spread his hands wide. His grin was steady and not quite friendly. “Rachel, chica. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

“If you were an old friend,” she gritted out, “you wouldn’t have come here when Juan was thrown in jail and tried to force me into hooking for you.”

“Debts must be paid.”

“When I owe you something, I’ll pay you back. Until then, you get off my property.”

Miguel tucked his elegant hands into his slacks and his expression hardened. “Your husband—”

“Ex-husband, thank you very much, and his debts are not mine. He owes you something, you get it from him.” One of the men eased toward the side of the house. Rachel snapped her fingers at him. “Don’t you take another step, mister, unless it’s back to the car.”

“Pablo was simply going to look for your daughters,” Miguel said, his voice smooth. “Beautiful girls. A shame they inherited their father’s coloring.”

Rachel’s blood chilled in her veins and her heart boomed in her chest. She curled her fingers around the edge of the door, steadying herself. “You leave my girls alone, you lowdown son of a gun.”

Miguel shrugged. “Is it so wrong to be concerned about the children of one of my employees, when they have only their mother to protect them?”

“Stick around a minute longer and I’m gonna demonstrate exactly how well I can protect them. Now, I’ve already told you as many times as I want to. Get off my property.”

“When—”

A red beam of energy zinged through the air and popped into the ground at Miguel’s feet, burning the summer-dry grass. He yelped and jerked backwards a step, and all eyes swung around to the beam’s origin.

Dyuvad stood at the side of the house holding a strange looking gun pointed directly at Miguel’s chest. His midnight eyes were deadly and his hands rock steady. “Lady Rachel told you to leave. You will do so now.”

Relief rushed through Rachel. She stiffened her spine, holding herself erect against the urge to sag. “What are you doing, Dyuvad?”

“What I came here to do.” He ran the pad of his thumb down the side of the grip and adjusted his hold. The point of his gun never wavered. “That was a warning shot. The next one won’t be.”

Miguel held Dyuvad’s hard gaze for a long, tense moment, and Rachel waited, for one of the men to draw the guns she knew they had hidden away, for Miguel to race up the porch stairs and force his way inside, for Dyuvad to do Heaven only knew what with that contraption he held.

At last, Miguel held his hands up, palms out, and grinned his sharky smirk. “We’ll go. For now.”

“You will not return,” Dyuvad said flatly.

“We’ll see.”

Miguel and his men backed slowly away. They got into the car one by one, slamming the car’s doors behind themselves. The engine purred to life, the driver executed a k-turn in her driveway, and finally, the car pulled out onto Warwoman Road and was gone, taking Juan’s past with them.

Dyuvad lowered his gun and jogged across the yard and up the steps. “The girls are in Kelly’s room in the closet. I promised not to leave them there long.”

Rachel opened the screen door and stood back while Dyuvad slipped inside. “You weren’t supposed to leave them at all. Honestly, Dyuvad, what were you thinking? Those men were carrying guns. They could’ve killed you.”

He grunted and set his gun down on the scarred coffee table. “Not before I killed them. Secure the entrance, woman.”

He was gone in a heartbeat, down the hallway as silently as he’d crept around the side of the house. Jittery humor flashed through Rachel and she nearly laughed around the nerves shaking her bones so hard, her hands trembled on the locks. Dyuvad had saved her and the girls a world of heartache. The certainty landed in her gut like a rock thrown into a pond, splashing gratitude into the last of her relief. He’d saved them this time, but what about the next, when he was long gone and Miguel decided no wasn’t good enough?

She slid her phone out of her pocket, bobbling it in her haste to open it and dial the police. They couldn’t do anything, but at least she could file a report. Maybe, just maybe, it would add a nail to the coffin she hoped Miguel filled one day.

Fate arrived an hour later, sweaty and full of choice words about Miguel Ramirez. “That sorry piece of gutter trash. I thought we was shed of him months ago. You set him straight, now, Dyuvad, didn’t ye?”

Dyuvad tapped into his wrist com and checked the progress his ship’s AI was making on setting up long-distance surveillance around Rachel’s property. He’d initiated the process as an early warning system moments after Miguel’s vehicle pulled out of her driveway. It should’ve been done by now. Earth’s atmosphere might be interfering or maybe his ship was simply too far away to efficiently set up such a system.

Resigned to waiting, Dyuvad set his scraper a foot higher against the side of the house and shoved it along a wooden board. “He’ll be back.”

“Yeah, likely. Ain’t a durn thing we can do to keep him away, neither.” Fate frowned and tapped the edge of his scraper against his thigh. “Reckon I could move over here again, maybe keep a closer eye on the place.”

“I’m working on that.”

“Are ye, now? Hunh. You mind if I ask the particulars?”

“High tech security system. Around the clock surveillance.”

Fate whistled. “Rach won’t like that none a’tall.”

“She’ll learn to live with it.”

“Yeah, you keep thinking that, ol’ son.”

“If it keeps her safe, she’ll agree to it,” Dyuvad said mildly. And if she didn’t, he’d kiss her into acquiescence. “I want to open up the sealed doorway between her closet and mine.”

Fate grunted. “The old back entrance to the house. You ask her about that?”

No, and Dyuvad didn’t intend to. He needed a way to get into the house without having to go through two locked doors, his and the kitchen, separated by a stretch of open, unprotected porch. “She will agree,” he repeated, and grinned when Fate whooped out a laugh loud enough to bring Kelly running around the side of the house, curious to know what the two men were up to.

Yasmin arrived in early evening carrying a covered dish full of homemade potato salad. Rachel welcomed her warmly, in spite of the jumpiness she’d exhibited each time a vehicle had whizzed by on the nearby road. Her nervousness had driven Dyuvad into a dark mood by the time he and Fate finished their allotted work for the day and replaced their tools in Rachel’s shed. By Fryw, a woman should feel safe in her own home. This gang leader needed to be dealt with, and not just for Tiny’s sake, either. Rachel needed the peace of mind, and Dyuvad needed, for some reason he refused to examine deeply, to provide it for her.

Later, they cooked hamburgers on the grill, a delicious treat of ground bovi meat nestled between two slices of specially made bread. He discreetly tapped into his ship through his wrist com and relayed a basic recipe to his father via the Net. Ketchup and mustard, he had no way of explaining, but grilled meat and bread were easy enough to replicate on most worlds.

After the meal was eaten and cleaned up, Fate built a bonfire. The four adults gathered ‘round it and talked quietly while Rachel’s young dragged out pointed sticks and roasted marshmallows on the open fire. Tiny offered the sweet treat to Dyuvad, burnt to a crisp, and he had to admit, it tasted better than it looked.

And at last, the sun dropped below the horizon. Yasmin and Fate said their separate goodbyes and departed for the night, and Dyuvad was alone with his temporary womenfolk.

Tiny had long since climbed onto his lap and drifted into a sound sleep, exhausted by the long day, her cherubic face smeared with melted sugar and dirt in equal portions.

Kelly sidled up beside him, her brown eyes coy as only a child’s can be, and said softly, “You reckon we got time to study them stars now, Dyuvad?”

Rachel pushed herself out of the rickety folding chair she occupied and held her hands out for Tiny. “Studying stars sounds like a good way to close out the night. I’ll get a blanket while I’m inside putting Tiny to bed. That’ll make for cozy viewing.”

Dyuvad arched an eyebrow, earning a small blush, and turned to watch her go inside carrying a limp Tiny. Stars weren’t the only thing he wanted to study that night. She’d learn that as soon as Kelly went to bed, if he had his way.

Kelly clamored into his lap and settled her head on his shoulder, eyes trained on the stars filling the night sky. “That cloudy thing is the Milky Way, right?”

Dyuvad dutifully followed the sweep of her finger across the sky, tracing the edge of their galaxy. “Yes. Where is Orion?”

Her finger shifted. “There. The stars on the belt are Alnitak, Alinilam, and…”

“Mintaka,” he prompted gently. “But those aren’t the brightest stars from here.”

She shook her head. “Nope, them is Betelguese and Rigel. Shoulder and foot. Tell me the story again. Please, Mr. Dyuvad?”

What man could resist such a sweetly worded plea? He tucked her closer and related what he could remember of the tale of Orion the Hunter and how he’d been placed in the night sky, there forever after to guard it. When the tale was finished, they moved on to other constellations, hopping their way across scattered points of light.

Rachel joined them during their discussion of Ursa Major and Minor, and spread the blanket out beside them and the slowly dwindling bonfire. Kelly scrambled off his lap in favor of her mother’s, and Dyuvad climbed down after her, settling down with Kelly between him and Rachel.

And at last, the young girl’s enthusiasm waned and she yawned. Rachel sent her in with a soft, “I’ll be there soon, sweetheart.”

As soon as Kelly had stumbled into the house, Dyuvad rolled over and on top of Rachel, pinning her to the ground with only the blanket to protect her from the dew damp grass. She squawked out a laugh and hit him on the shoulder, and he grinned and rubbed his hips against hers, teasing them both.

She clucked her tongue at him, the expression in her green eyes hidden in shadow. “What are you up to, Dyuvad?”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you. I oughta hit you again for taking liberties.”

“But then you wouldn’t get another kiss.”

She sighed out a gentle, “Oh,” and softened under him. Her fingers toyed with the lettering on his brand new t-shirt, hand-selected by her for his use. A woman’s duty. A wife’s.

He touched the tip of his nose to hers, breathed in her scent, children and laughter and starlight, and she smiled and curled her fingers into his shirt, welcoming him in her own reserved way.

“We have a tradition,” he said. “My people.”

“Oh?”

“One kiss for every star shining in the sky.”

Her eyes flew to his, round and luminescent, and her breath stuttered out. “That’ll take all night!”

“Where I come from, the stars are few and far between, obscured by heavy clouds.” He brushed his lips across hers, tasted her sweetness, and hummed his pleasure against her skin. “Men usually settle for one. ”

And he took one then, before her mind could discern his mild prevarication, the exaggeration of a custom long forgotten and only practiced among young lovers aching for the old ways. Star cast, the Pruxn? had been, long ago after the Great Migration, when humans fled Origin Space under the ruin and destruction of its greatest civilization.

Maybe only the one Pruxn? had made it back between then and now, after the domestication of Terra’s bovi and the delicacies it provided.

The possibility startled him out of the kiss and into laughter. He eased back, pressed a chaste kiss to Rachel’s nose. She wrinkled that nose and stared up at him, and finally asked, “Kissing me is funny, huh?”

“No, beauty.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Truly, it isn’t.” He shifted his hips against hers, demonstrating exactly how she affected him, and earned the pleasure of her eyes widening and her hips rolling reflexively up into the proof of his desire. “Would you like another?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I reckon one more would about do it.”

And so he complied, as a man does when a woman was soft and willing under him, with the stars lighting their passion and a million possibilities spread out before them in the future yet to be.