Slow Burn Alien Mate

Prologue

ON THE STONEbrOKE

Tori was waiting outside the galley with her arms crossed.

Dhomhes considered turning around. There were three other entrances, and she could not possibly be guarding all of them.

“I saw you,” she said.

“Then I needn't introduce myself.”

“You're three months late.”

“I'm precisely on time. I simply never told you when I was coming.”

She looked him over, from his polished boots to the tips of his horns, then glanced at the case under his arm. “Tell me you brought something besides excuses.”

"I brought something besides excuses."

“You practice that sort of thing, don't you?”

“On the journey over. I had a very patient pilot.”

She raised her eyebrow.

He continued. “A gift. Is Olmed here?”

She held his gaze for another moment before stepping aside.

The Stonebroke's galley smelled of hot cooking oil beneath the ore dust that seemed to get into everything on a mining ship. A pair of workers argued over whose shift had left a loader unsecured. Someone behind the counter shouted that the next male to steal a clean cup could wash the entire stack.

Dhomhes had eaten in grander places. This one reminded him of home.

Olmed stood at a table near the back. His shoulders filled out his work shirt, and the green of his horns shone where he had recently oiled them. He looked better than he had the last time Dhomhes had seen him. He was still watching the case.

“Gol-Vett.” He clasped Dhomhes's forearm.

“Olmed.”

The grip tightened. Dhomhes let it.

Then Olmed released him and pulled out a chair. Tori took the one beside her mate, close enough that her knee pressed against his. Dhomhes set the case on the table between them.

Olmed's hand stopped halfway toward it.

“What is that?”

The Coalition seal gleamed in its stone lid. Olmed knew perfectly well what it was. Dhomhes wished, briefly, that he had brought it wrapped in something less official.

“Your sentence of banishment has been revoked.”

Tori sat forward.

“Full standing restored,” he continued. “The record is amended. Anyone who looks up your name will find the truth about Barnak and the stabilizers, along with the Coalition's acknowledgment that your punishment was excessive.”

“Excessive.” Olmed said it slowly.

“I suggested other words. They rejected those.”

Olmed rubbed his thumb along the edge of the seal. He did not open the case.

“They signed it?”

“Every signature required.”

Tori put her hand over his. Together, they lifted the lid.

Inside lay a stone-pressed sheet. An expensive, cumbersome way to keep a record, and one of the few occasions when Dhomhes approved of it. Olmed could hold this. He could read it tomorrow and the next day, without requesting access from a clerk who might refuse him.

He read it now, his lips barely moving. Tori leaned against his shoulder to see.

The argument over the loader continued behind them. A cup broke.

“I can go home,” Olmed said.

Dhomhes nodded.

Tori's fingers tightened around her mate's wrist.

“If you want to,” Dhomhes added.

“We like it here,” she said.

“Then stay,” Dhomhes said. “Though I hope you'll visit. Khalzin could use the encouragement.”

Olmed laughed roughly, then looked down at the document again. Dhomhes occupied himself with the tea Tori pushed toward him.

When Olmed finally closed the lid, he kept both hands on it.

“Thank you.”

“I gave you my word.”

“You did.”

For a moment, Dhomhes almost left it there. Olmed should have had the rest of the day to sit with Tori and decide what going home might mean.

But the Galactic Alliance ship would be on Kantenan soon.

“There is something I'd like to ask you.”

Tori set her cup down hard.

“Of course there is.”

Dhomhes slid the case toward her. “That is finished. Whatever he says next, it stays finished.”

She took it off the table and put it in her lap.

“Ask,” Olmed said.

“Khalzin's mating program. You've heard about it?”

Olmed glanced at Tori. “I may have mentioned that mating with off-worlders has been known to work.”

“You may have mentioned it several times,” she said.

“I intend to be unbearable when he proves it,” Dhomhes told her. “Unfortunately, some of our people are less enthusiastic. They're buying information about the program. Travel schedules. Access to Coalition households. I want to know who's paying.”

He wished Khalzin success. Olmed and Tori were sitting in front of him; he could hardly argue that it never happened. But Khalzin spoke as though a male might take one look at a stranger and lose every intention he'd brought with him. Dhomhes had never found desire so difficult to manage.

Olmed's smile disappeared.

“Barnak's people?”

“Possibly. You knew the freight lines better than most. Was there anyone we missed?”

“I gave you the names I had. Cargo inspection. The dock supervisor.” He tapped a finger on the table. “Anyone else would be a guess.”

“Then don't give me a guess.”

“We found the stabilizers,” Olmed said. “The ones stolen from us and the copies made off-world. Don't let anyone tell you that was the whole trade.”

“The copies are still secured,” Dhomhes said. “Your statement and the freight records too. I have the people who moved the equipment. I don't have everyone who paid for it.”

Kantenans had learned how to extract and refine citricite without destroying the workings around it.

The machines were part of that knowledge.

Whether the off-world copies could be used safely remained unanswered.

Olmed had brought him specimens, not proof that someone else had mastered the process.

“There was a buyer.”

Dhomhes waited.

Olmed looked annoyed with himself. “That had nothing to do with the stabilizers. I don't know why I thought of it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Years ago, I brought a sample out of a survey shaft. Deep workings. We'd gone below the assigned line because the foreman wanted a better yield to report.”

“Did you log it?”

Olmed gave him a look.

“I thought not.”

“I kept it in my kit. Pretty thing. Wrong color for where I found it, heavier than it looked. I meant to have someone assess it.”

“And then?”

“Then I needed passage money. After the banishment. A broker found a buyer for me.” Olmed shrugged. “Off-world. Paid more than I asked. I didn't argue.”

Dhomhes lowered his cup.

“How much more?”

Olmed told him.

That would have bought considerably more than passage.

“The buyer asked nothing about it?”

“Not through the broker. Took it as it was. I thought I'd finally had some luck.”

Dhomhes tried to recall the old survey maps. Abandoned workings, conflicting names. None of it explained that price.

“Could you find the shaft again?”

“It was fifteen years ago.” Olmed leaned back. “I could try. The schedule was false to begin with, and the foreman—”

He stopped.

Tori looked from him to Dhomhes.

“What?”

Olmed's eyes had gone to the case in her lap.

“The tribunal that banished me moved fast,” he said. “I gave them reasons. I know that. But enough to send me away forever?” He looked up. “Would they have done it for a piece of rock?”

Dhomhes had no answer he liked.

“I don't know.”

“You think it's possible.”

“I think someone paid a great deal for something you couldn't identify. I want to find out why.”

Olmed nodded once. He was rubbing his thumb against the table now, over an old burn mark in its surface.

Dhomhes took out his comm and sent him a private contact route.

“If you remember the foreman's name, the survey date, anything about the broker, send it directly to me.”

“And you'll tell us what you find,” Tori said.

“Yes.”

She studied him. He allowed her the time.

“Good.” She stood, tucked the case under Olmed's arm, and came around the table.

Dhomhes rose too, expecting another warning.

She hugged him.

His hands hovered uselessly over her shoulders. Across the table, Olmed's mouth twitched.

“Thank you,” she said against Dhomhes's jacket. “For letting him choose.”

He patted her back once, carefully. Across the table, Olmed was still smiling. When she released Dhomhes, she went straight back to her mate.

Dhomhes left them with the case in Olmed's hands.

In the freight corridor, a loader rolled past carrying stabilized citricite. The operator stopped at a marked line to check the restraints before proceeding. Dhomhes waited until the man finished, resisting the familiar urge to examine the fastenings himself.

His father's safety procedures. Every container, every transfer.

He had been eight when the accident killed his mother. He could still remember Ruthak coming home in work clothes, the white dust in the creases around his eyes.

The loader moved on. Dhomhes went to his waiting shuttle.

“Back to Kantenan?” the pilot asked.

“Yes.” He took his seat and brought up the old survey records. “And tell me when we're within range of the Protectorate network.”

His father's crews would know where to start looking.