Alien Mine (The Pruxnae: Earthside #1)

Chapter Fifteen

Rachel’s nerves tightened to the breaking point over the next week. Dyuvad crept around the house and farm sporting a grim frown. Fate brought over a shotgun and ammunition, and exchanged serious looks with Dyuvad, like the two of them were in on something Rachel wasn’t. Even the girls were subdued. Kelly quit asking to look at the stars at night and Tiny clung to Dyuvad like a burr.

The mid-summer heat didn’t help. By noon most days, the temperature reached the high nineties. The humidity shoved the heat index over one hundred and sapped what little good humor was left right out of a body, after all the worrying was done eating away at it.

It was the waiting, Rachel thought as she cleaned Georgette’s teats. Ramirez’ men hadn’t been back as far as she could tell. No damage had been done, leastwise, and Dyuvad swore his ship-to-Earth security system hadn’t been breached by anything larger than the occasional deer.

She’d let the security system pass when he’d told her, had to. What good would it do to argue about what was done? Besides which, knowing he’d been watching out for them this whole time eased a bit of Rachel’s worry and, though she hated to admit it, the fear that crept into her heart when she wasn’t guarding herself carefully.

She turned Georgette out into the pasture, closed the gate surrounding the flock of goats, and leaned against a wooden fence post, too worn out by the oppressive morning air and the tension to work too hard, too fast. Something had to give. Somebody had to make a move against them or do something to bring matters to a head.

But as the days swept by and July waned into August, as the last heady days of freedom passed for the girls and the first day of school drew near, nothing happened. Even the weather seemed to hold its breath. The steady afternoon showers of early summer gave way to a stultifying mugginess, stealing the strength of anybody foolhardy enough to brave the sun’s relentless rays.

One night after the girls went to bed, Dyuvad pulled Rachel down onto the couch beside him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly to his side as a made-for-TV movie played quietly in the background. Rachel nuzzled his chest, hiding a smile. For a guy that came from a society with far more advanced technology, Dyuvad was fascinated by Earth’s, and particularly with humanity’s penchant for turning the wonders of the digital age into a good SciFi Horror flick.

He shifted against her, spread his knees wide, sighed into her hair. “You’re distracting me.”

She huffed out a short laugh. “I ain’t doing nothing of the kind.”

“When your mouth is on my skin, beauty,” he said very softly, “it leads me to dwell on other places your mouth might wander.”

Familiar heat pulsed through Rachel’s nethers. She leaned back, caught Dyuvad’s bemused gaze, and placed a hand over the steady thump of his heart. “And where would you like my mouth to be?”

A slow grin stretched his mouth wide and an answering heat filled his midnight eyes. “I want you to start with my tattoo and work your way down.”

She laughed as her heart skittered and thudded, and desire flooded into her. “Is that—”

A shot rang out, slicing through their play, and the goats’ panicked bleating filled the night. The deepest dread sprang into Rachel, muting the need Dyuvad had roused. He cursed low under his breath and shoved her off his lap into the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

“Stay down,” he whispered, then he was gone, stalking out of sight around the couch toward the girls’ rooms.

Another shot rang out. Rachel jumped and clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing the scream threatening to rip out of her throat. Dear God, what was happening outside? If somebody was on her property taking potshots at the goats or, worse, the house, why hadn’t Dyuvad’s alarms triggered a warning?

He ghosted around the side of the couch, his expression harder than she’d ever seen. “Someone’s standing at the edge of your property outside the area my ship is scanning. I’m going after them.”

She slid her hand away from her mouth and grasped his arm, held on tight when he tried to shake her off. “Don’t be an idiot, Dyuvad. Whoever it is has a gun.”

“Don’t worry, beauty.”

He leaned forward, pressed a hard, lingering kiss against her gaping mouth, and was gone before she could say another word.

As soon as he was clear of Rachel, Dyuvad jumped directly to his ship’s armory. While he stuffed himself into a flexible, armored jumpsuit and a helmet armed with a projectable shield, he barked orders to his ship’s AI, calculating the position of the shooter standing at the edge of Rachel’s property and the coordinates of the next jump.

He hadn’t had a problem getting through a jump without passing out since his first jump onto Earth. Always before, he’d been woozy and had to take time to recover, a fact his mercenary-soldier brother had teased Dyuvad about to no end.

He only needed three guesses as to what had changed, four if he counted Fate. Having a family, being its primary protector and caring for someone beyond himself, was apparently the cure Dyuvad had needed all along.

In that moment, clarity struck. This is what had motivated his mother to become a mercenary-soldier. This is what motivated his brother Benar still, this determined duty to protect at all costs the lives of those who couldn’t protect themselves.

For his mother and brother, those lives had largely been strangers, but for Dyuvad, the people he protected had, between one breath and the next, it seemed, become so important to him, he’d do anything to keep them safe.

Anything at all.

Two minutes after jumping onto his ship, Dyuvad flipped the jump for Earth. He landed in a crouch not eighteen ceg from the last known position of the person shooting across Rachel’s property. The night was starkly silent around him, contrasting sharply with the cacophony on the nearby farm. The insects and other creatures pervading the forested hillside were inaudible over the screams of Rachel’s goats. A half moon shone above him, scarcely visible through the thick canopy. Its light filtered through the trees and did little to pierce the blackness surrounding him.

Infrared , he murmured against the helmet’s sub-vocal com. Instantly, thermal images bled across the visor. A human figure crouched against a tree, one hand clasped around the barrel of a still-warm rifle.

A cold smile stretched Dyuvad’s lips. Gotcha .

He slipped a specially made jump chip out of a recess in the armor, fitted it deftly to the end of his gun. The intruder shifted his grip on the rifle. Dyuvad sucked in a breath, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. The intruder jerked. The rifle slipped out of his hands, and down he went into a crumpled heap onto the forest floor.

The smile broadened into a pleased grin as Dyuvad remotely activated the jump. A low buzz reverberated through his wrist, signaling the intruder’s successful ground-to-ship transfer. Now they were getting somewhere. Later, he’d check on his prisoner, held safely in his ship’s brig awaiting questioning. But for now, he had more urgent matters to attend, like checking on Rachel and the girls, and figuring out exactly what that winyu runner had been shooting at.

It didn’t take long to make sure everybody was safe, round up some strong flashlights, and head outside to assess the damage. Rachel insisted on coming along once the girls were settled back into bed, and Dyuvad didn’t stop her. It was her property. True, its protection and maintenance fell under his purview, but she was the owner. She had the most at stake.

He headed out to the pasture while she walked slowly around the house running light over the outer siding. The moon slid behind a cloud, deepening the darkness, and Dyuvad slowed his steps along the worn path, studying the ground under the strong beam of light as he walked. The goats had subsided to quiet, mournful bleats. Their panic seemed to have dissipated, though their agitation had not. As Dyuvad approached the fence, Billy rammed his forehead into a post. It quavered under the blow and the wires attached to it shimmered in outward ripples.

Dyuvad held out his hand and murmured softly to Billy, risked combing a hand across the top of the ram’s rock-hard head. Billy’s bell clanked as he butted Dyuvad’s hand, then he turned and scampered off. Dyuvad slid a beam of light into the enclosure. There on the ground, a goat lay, her blood-stained side heaving as she struggled to breathe.

His heart sank. Georgette, one of Rachel’s prized milkers, a sweet-tempered creature beloved by Kelly and Tiny. They doted on her, had since she was born. Fed her by hand when her mother died during the birth, Rachel had told him, and raised her to adulthood.

Losing her would hurt all three of them, and maybe that’s why the intruder had chosen the goats. They were Rachel’s primary source of income, yes, but they were also part of the family. Was that the message the shooter had wanted to impart? That nothing was safe, nothing was sacred?

Would the girls have been next, or Rachel, if she’d gone outside to investigate the shots?

Anger rose swiftly in Dyuvad, tightening his own breath. By Fryw, that would never happen, not while he was there. With every ounce of strength he possessed, he would protect them, fight for them, love them as long as his heart beat and energy imbued his limbs with strength and purpose.

Love them .

He shoved the thought aside as he opened the gate, slipped inside, and closed it behind himself. There was no time now to worry about the feelings he’d developed for Rachel and her family, nor whether they were reciprocated.

But as he knelt beside the injured goat, he knew it was too late to save her. She turned her head toward him, kicked her legs weakly. Her eyes were wide and luminous in the circle of light thrown by the flashlight, and held mute fear. Dyuvad ran a soothing hand down her throat, attempting to calm her, but his heart was a wicked knot in his chest, tangled with the sorrow of losing her, knowing he could do nothing to save her. Him, with some of the galaxy’s most advanced technology available on his ship, was helpless in the face of certain death.

A hand landed softly on Dyuvad’s armored shoulder. Rachel knelt beside him, reached out her other hand, and placed it on top of his. “She won’t make it.”

It wasn’t a question. Dyuvad couldn’t have answered even if it had been.

“The girls will be devastated. Georgette—” Rachel’s voice broke and she lowered her head, and Georgette, perhaps knowing her mistress was there to comfort her, dropped her head onto the hard earth and sighed out her last breath. The blood bubbling out of her side trickled to a stop, and all around them, the night creatures slowly resumed their songs.

“You found the person who did this.”

Another statement, but this one, Dyuvad had a response for. “He’s in the brig.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Dyuvad draped an arm around Rachel’s shoulders, pressed his mouth against the top of her head. Breathed out his grief even as she relaxed into him and his heart soared at the trust and affection imbued in the simple gesture. “On the morrow, when the girls wake.”

She nodded and eased away from him. He let her go, then followed her into the shed to retrieve two shovels, and together, they dug a fitting grave for the goat who’d been part of Rachel’s family.

They trudged toward the house, sweaty and covered in muck. Halfway there, Dyuvad’s wrist com buzzed. He swore under his breath as he checked the com, then broke into a jog, spurred by worry. The girls were in there alone, unprotected, defenseless. By Fryw, what had he been thinking to leave them there like that tonight of all nights?

“What is it, Dyuvad?” Rachel called.

“Perimeter breach,” he said. “Somebody’s in the house.”

They burst through the back door, Dyuvad two strides ahead of Rachel, and skidded to a stop on the linoleum floor. An Hispanic man wearing a baggy orange and white striped shirt and matching pants was sitting on the couch, calmly flipping through a magazine.

Rachel froze with one foot across the threshold and breathed, “Juan.”

Juan turned toward her, and between one breath and the next, Dyuvad reacted. He whipped his gun out of the holster attached to his still-armored thigh. With his other hand, he yanked Rachel out of the doorway onto the porch, then held her there while he took careful aim at their second interloper of the night.

Juan raised his hands to shoulder-height and stood slowly. “Hey, man. Don’t kill the messenger.”

Rachel pushed against Dyuvad’s restraining hand, then glared when he refused to let her enter the house. Her words, when she spoke, were gritty and low and full of a bitter anger. “What in tarnation are you doing here, Juan? You’re supposed to be in jail. ”

He nodded. “One of the deputies owed me a favor. He’s parked down the road a bit, keeping an eye out.”

She snorted out a tired laugh and muttered, “Musta been a big favor.”

“Life or death,” Juan said. “I ain’t all bad, Rach. Who’s the gun?”

Dyuvad held his aim steady, centered square on the man’s chest, exactly where it would do the most damage when fired. “You have thirty tick to answer Rachel’s question.”

Juan’s eyes zeroed in on the end of Dyuvad’s gun and his skin paled under his natural coloring. “Ramirez is on his way.”

“Somebody’s already been here,” Rachel said. “Shot at the house.”

“No, Ramirez is on his way,” Juan repeated. “And he’s not alone. Heard he’s got a small army with him.”

Dyuvad swore low and long under his breath. The kraden shooter had been a distraction. Why hadn’t he realized? “How long?”

Juan’s shoulders lifted and fell under the loose fitting shirt. “Don’t know.”

Rachel shuddered against Dyuvad’s hand. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

The kitchen phone rang, cutting shrilly through their conversation. Juan’s eyes drifted to it and his mouth tightened. “Asked the deputy to call if he spotted anything fishy. That might be him.”

Rachel glanced up at Dyuvad, silently pleading for release, and with a sigh, he let her go. Her ex-husband hadn’t made a move toward her, and if Juan was right, if he did indeed have an ally watching the road, it might be the only warning they got.

Rachel slipped into the kitchen and answered the phone, and her quiet uh-huhs grew more tense with each repetition. At last, she hung the phone up, but by then, Dyuvad could hear the rumble of cars approaching on the nearby road.

His wrist com vibrated, and he swung around, cursing as he glanced between Juan and the darkness shrouding the back yard. The perimeter had been breached.

At that moment, Juan leapt toward Dyuvad. A rifle’s report echoed outside, and Rachel’s scream erupted into the air between them.