Chapter 6
SIX
“What horrible thing are you going to tell me today?” Cali hadn’t slept that well.
She’d read the material Niir sent to her room.
The destruction of a planet called Rakol had indeed been quite the thing five thousand cycles ago, and her language was so rare, few even knew it existed.
And then there were the images of Warlord Mek-la in his palace with some of his wives.
She ground her teeth together at the images of his lavish life.
The wives wore no clothes, only jewel-encrusted gold body pieces that exposed their breasts and put everything on display.
Clearly, there was enough wealth to provide ample food and warm clothing for her settlement, but only uncomfortable, poorly fitting garments were ever sent.
“I have nothing planned,” he replied mildly. “But perhaps I can be motivated to come up with something appropriately devastating.”
Cali gave him a sour look. She had lain awake thinking about everything that she had no control over.
How were her cousins faring? Would Warlord Mek-la still want her when they were delivered?
Did she want to be one of his wives, now that she knew he had a bunch of them?
Would she be expected to wear one of those uncomfortable-looking jeweled body pieces?
She really didn’t want to. And what had she been thinking with that intense encounter with Niir the previous evening—or whatever time it was—in her room?
She was horribly embarrassed by that. A mistake, probably the result of the chaos she had recently been through.
It made sense: they were plucked from the hellish conditions of the hot moon and plopped in a battleship where this gorgeous male said awful things that turned out to be true, then said nice things that made her swoon, and there she was now, hot-cheeked and glaring at him from across the table.
Also, she’d gotten a little too adventurous with the food dispensary and ordered something that hadn’t agreed with her.
“How old are you?” she asked.
He raised one eyebrow. “Older than you.”
“I know that,” she said. “But how much older?”
“Why does it matter?”
Why did it matter? She didn’t have an answer for either of them. “I’m just curious.”
He tilted his head back. “I am not entirely sure of my age, but I estimate my birth to be between thirty-five and forty tericycles ago.”
“How can you not know your age?”
He shrugged. “My birth wasn’t recorded. I was on my own at a young age.”
“What about your family?”
“I don’t know much about them. They weren’t…
settled.” He was starting to twitch. She saw him shifting in his seat.
Even his tail wouldn’t be still. She made him uncomfortable and yet he still freely answered her questions.
“All I know of my family is that my father was a mercenary who died in battle. I became one, too, for a while, before leaving to join this crew.”
She couldn’t picture him as a warrior. Despite his size and the clear evidence of many fights, he appeared so composed and, well, calm. “That sounds like it was a hard life.”
“It was.” He touched the gray in his hair. “Perhaps that’s where I got this.”
She raised a brow. “It’s not because you’re just old?”
His lips curved into a smile of genuine amusement. “I am as ancient as the ruins of Castara, how is that?”
She’d read about those ruins. They were literally the oldest structures in the quadrant. They were so ancient, no one knew who built them. She smiled, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t think you’re quite that old, Niir.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I am as old as you wish me to be.”
Her mouth went dry. She could think of no appropriate response to that. Anything she said could be construed as flirtation or insult. Perhaps he said what he did to shut her up. It worked.
Niir leaned back and crossed his thickly muscled arms. “Tell me about life on your settlement, Calinae. What did your planet look like?”
“You mean the place we thought was Rakol?” She pressed her lips together. “It was cold. There were two suns, but they were far away and gave off little heat or light. Our domed settlement was simple and most of it was devoted to flower cultivation and processing.”
She found herself talking on and on about the place she had called home for all those cycles.
He gently prompted, and she told him about the climate and the terti flowers that flourished there.
She and her cousins would walk all day gathering the flowers in baskets they wore around their waists, returning to the settlement so others could begin processing them.
Every so often, a transport would come and take the final product—terti powder. It was always in the night.
She hated to think that her settlement unknowingly contributed to the drug trade.
Eventually, the conversation moved back to her betrothal.
She had many mixed feelings about that. “I saw the images and recordings you sent me of my groom.” She sent a sideways glance at Niir.
“What is with those things the wives wear?”
“Ah. Yes. He likes his wives to wear those. Has them custom designed for each body.” A teasing light lit his eyes. “Do you like it?”
“No,” she said, making a face. “It looks uncomfortable and—and so exposed. Do you think he’ll let me wear something else?”
“Doubtful.” Niir gazed at her through his lowered lashes. “All of them have to wear it. It might not be that bad once you get used to it.”
She looked at her lap. “I suppose.”
“So you still want to wed him?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “But I have an obligation to fulfill. I owe it to him after he looked after our settlement our whole lives.”
“He enriched himself off drug credits by making you work the flowers and produce the powder.” His brows lowered.
“The Warlord Mek-la is no hero. He profited from your toils and tossed you enough scraps to keep you all alive. You owe him nothing.” The heat in his voice was clear and took her aback.
“Apologies. I have little regard for those who exploit others for their own gain.”
“What else would I do?” she asked quietly. “Where else can we go? If I refuse him, he will punish my cousins. We have no other home.”
“Other planets and people would happily take you,” he said. “Virilia, in particular, would welcome you all. Most of our females perished from a virus. It’s why Trak’s wife is human. You remember her?”
“Yes,” Cali said. “The red-haired one. So she is not Virilian, but she can…breed with them?”
“It appears human females are fertile with certain other species.”
“But we are not human, either.” She frowned, feeling sick to her stomach. “What are we, exactly, I wonder?”
“I will help you find out, if you wish.”
She looked into the eyes of this strange male. He was gorgeous, ageless, kind. He was turning her life upside down, and she had no idea how to right it again. She was questioning everything, including things that she had accepted as fact and fate long ago.
Worse, she was beginning to like him. If there was anyone in the universe whom she could trust right then, it would be him. It was a sad state of affairs that a male she was only just getting to know was the one whom she now depended on the most.