Chapter 3
Trove
Their unexpected guest was sitting in one of the many meeting rooms they’d found in this old recycling center. There was nothing left in there with her but the chair they’d offered her. And that person was definitely a her. Her shapely body, especially generous in her hips, was extremely feminine.
And familiar…
Trove allowed her to keep her helmet on as he watched her, gun leveled at her chest, waiting for the others.
He’d commed Rok – who had insisted on remaining awake and on his watch shift despite Trove offering to replace him.
Rok was now going to get their captain. Tanin would be the one to decide what happened to her next.
She said she had a job for them. She hadn’t elaborated.
She’d been silent and cooperative, making no sudden moves, obeying his commands completely and promptly, as he led her here.
But the fact that anyone had found them was insane, much less someone who would pop up and just announce she had a job.
No, Tanin needed to be woken. Meanwhile, Trove was just keeping her controlled, behaved, and watched to be sure she wasn’t a threat.
But she just sat there. Hands on the arm of the chair. Making sure she kept them both not only in view but away from her body. Giving him absolutely no chance of mistaking her movements as a threat and prompting him to pull the trigger.
A model prisoner. One with a deliciously tempting body. Her breasts were small, but that she even had any narrowed down which species she might be from slightly. Not all females had breasts, and some only had them at certain times.
What really caught his eyes, however, were her hips.
Wide and luscious, they were positively salacious.
They connected a hind end that was just as generous and still bounced when she walked despite the restrictive envirosuit she wore.
He wanted to stroke those hips. He wanted to hear her whimper and scream and cry out her pleasure.
This was a female not part of his crew. One he didn’t know. One that didn’t know him. He could work out the frustrations and tension in his brain on her. Make her scream for him, squirm for him. Break her mind and body and then-
The door to the room slid open and in stepped Tanin.
Their captain, a gray skinned s’skree male, was half dressed, clearly just roused from bed.
The quills on his head were flat, showing his lack of concern for this situation.
His expression, however, was stoic and unreadable.
Tanin always looked like that. It was a wonder to Trove, who couldn’t imagine always controlling his features so severely.
Just behind him, the huge, hulking figure of Rok lumbered into the room.
He was a four-armed baemoth male, probably about twice as wide as Trove, and four times as strong.
He had a horn curved back over his head, beige brown skin, and bright yellow eyes.
He also had a great many black and teal scales all over his skin.
Baemoth males were judged, aesthetically at least, by the amount of scales on their body.
In that respect, Rok was probably considered one ugly novi.
But he had normal facial features and was probably the nicest guy on their crew.
But he was also the most intimidating, and Trove knew that the female thought so as well, because the sight of him made her tense up.
“Found her wandering around the entrance hall,” Trove said by way of greeting as Tanin stopped beside him, keeping Trove’s line of sight clear. “She’s unarmed. She’s behaved. She says she has a job for us.”
“Oh, really,” Tanin said, voice calm and unimpressed. Like this was something they dealt with every few days or so. “Female, what is your name?”
“Chee,” she replied immediately.
“Chee. And what are you doing here, Chee?”
“I am a representative of my employer. He sent me here with a job offer for the crew of the Humble Delivery Service.”
“I see. And how did he find us?”
“He didn’t tell me. He only told me where you would be and that I should give you this offer of employment. That you’d need it.”
“What is the name of your employee?”
“Hyde.”
Trove’s eyes darted quickly to Tanin then back to his target – he wouldn’t look away for too long until they were certain she wasn’t a threat. But he wanted to see if Tanin recognized the name. If it was someone they might know or trust.
No one should know they were out here. They hadn’t even known they were going to be out here. The swing that brought them here had been decided by Alred, their ship AI, completely without their input or aid and under extreme conditions.
And they’d been here for many tendays already. Had it taken that long to track them down? Even if it had, how were they able to be found at all? And why? What job could possibly be worth following them all the way here?
But Tanin showed no sign that he knew the name Hyde. He didn’t react at all. Just grunted once in understanding before saying-
“Take off your helmet.”
Once again, she didn’t hesitate. She still moved with that deliberate slowness as she tilted her head forward so she could reach up and back. She pressed the button on the seal, separating the helmet from her suit. Then, she grabbed it with both hands and lifted it up.
A wave of gleaming, golden red hair, frizzy and wavy and wild, came cascading out.
It fell down her back, fluffing up after being confined within the helmet.
She lifted her head, looking at them through stormy, gray-blue eyes, clear and harsh and framed by more golden red lashes.
A cute, slightly upturned nose sat over a pair of plush, pink lips.
Her rounded, lovely face was framed perfectly by her voluminous hair.
Her cheeks were stained red, though he didn’t know if it was from heat or nerves or whatever else made human females turn that shade.
But she met their gaze evenly and bravely as she set the helmet down on her lap.
Oh.
That was really the only thing Trove could think as his pistol lowered. All other thoughts, rational or otherwise, completely fled at the sight of her.
Instead, it was replaced with a horrible new understanding.
A deep knowing, a primitive enlightenment that went beyond simple instinct.
His eyes knew what his brain immediately tried and failed to reject, overwhelmed by the sudden rushing of blood through his body.
His heart thumped loudly, almost painfully against his ribs as it raced.
His mate.
His. His mate.
No.
This couldn’t be!
No!
But she was. He knew it. As immediately and certainly as he knew the heat of the sun. The pull of gravity. The agony of fire licking at his skin.
He needed her. He wanted her. He hated her.
He hated this.
Why…
She wasn’t looking at him, and that hurt something deep in his chest. How could she look at anything else? How was she not just as obsessed with him now as he was with her?
Human. She was human.
That was what felt so familiar to him before. A seductive body, a short female, someone whose very walk swayed her hips in the most sensual way. She could only be a human.
Trove wasn’t even pointing his weapon at her anymore.
It was one he’d crafted himself while he was here.
It was extremely basic, hurtling projectiles like he was some barbarian tossing rocks.
But it hurtled them very fast and deadly all the same.
It was more than sufficient as a weapon, but it was doing nothing aimed at the ground as it was.
But he couldn’t force his hand to come back up again. He didn’t know if he was just too weak, too stunned to do so, or if some instinctual part of his brain absolutely refused to aim at his-
His…
No, he couldn’t have a mate. This couldn’t be happening.
She was maintaining eye contact with Tanin, watching him calmly as Trove’s mind and body were broken down and remade in an image he couldn’t recognize.
Had there ever been a more enticing face?
Besides the red, her cheeks were also high.
Leading down into a cute little chin. She had a red mark as well, deep and rough.
It spread over her right forehead, temple, and down her cheek.
It kind of clawed a little around her eyes, and he didn’t quite understand it.
Was it makeup? Some kind of human mottling?
It was lovely, either way. Really bringing out the red in her hair and highlighting the gray in her eyes while also-
A scar.
It was a scar, he realized stupidly, far too late.
He was fawning over the beauty of a large scar across her face.
The clawing around her eye must be from where she had clenched it tightly shut when whatever hurt her had burned her skin.
For that was surely a burn scar. Wide and warped, similar to the burn scars that covered the right arm of Tebros, one of Trove’s other brothers.
Scars that once adorned his own skin before they had been healed away.
Someone had burned her face, and quite badly to leave behind such a violent mark on her skin. It was old, very well healed, but it was still obvious. Why had she not gotten rid of it?
Right. Humans didn’t have that technology.
But she wasn’t on her human planet anymore. She was in Coalition space. She worked for someone. Surely, she could afford to have that scar removed.
Not that she wasn’t still beautiful, but it must itch. It must bother her. Even if just for her vanity, she could restore her face to its former state.
All those thoughts ran rampant and wild through his head in the short time it took for her to slowly set the helmet aside and focus back on Tanin. Either time had slowed or his thoughts were rushing so quickly they were moving that fast in his brain.
But none of that mattered, because he had a mate and someone had burned her beautiful face and he had a mate and she had somehow managed to track him down in the middle of nowhere on a lifeless planet and he had a mate!