Branded By Kesh (2 page)

“Where are you going?” Tor’Arr asked him as they almost collided on their way to the pressure lift.

“To the cargo bay,” he replied.

Tor’Arr gave him a knowing look, “Has the time finally come, my friend? Has Destiny finally caught up with you?”

“It looks that way.”

They stepped onto the lift together and Tor’Arr flashed him a grin.

“Well, I hope she makes you work hard for it.”

Kesh grunted. He expected she would. Nothing that was worthwhile having was ever easy. The best cargos were also the most heavily guarded. The best markets were the hardest to reach. He expected no less of this woman.

In fact, he was looking forward to it.

He hadn’t chased a woman in a long time. He was used to them being all too happy to come to his bed, sometimes for a price, a promise, his word that he’d return for them when he was ready to settle down.

He hadn’t been ready to settle down—not until he’d heard her voice. The sweet music of it made him think of long afternoons spent in bed together, of shared meals, of a future that involved more than just fleeting dalliances.

He and Tor’Arr stepped off the lift and headed down the corridor to the cargo bay. It took up most of the floor and was the largest cargo bay Tor’Arr could have built on a ship this size. It wouldn’t make for very comfortable quarters for the refugees, but it was all they had to offer them. They had a full crew, and there wasn’t a bed vacant in the crew quarters.

The wide doors to the cargo bay slid open, and they walked through. There were men everywhere, moving their cargo around, stacking boxes, and shifting things to make room for the people they had rescued. A small group of people stood to one side of the cargo bay, bags and belongings piled at their feet, arms around each other, hugging and talking softly.

He could understand them, since Tor’Arr had updated all the crew’s interpreter devices to include the human language Tarnee spoke, but these humans wouldn’t be able to understand anyone but Tor’Arr. He was the only person aboard the ship who could speak English.

Kesh wondered who the woman was in that small group that he’d heard across the comm system. The voice that had called to an instinctual part of him, a voice that had him thinking of sex and what she’d sound like when she was moaning his name.

“I should introduce myself.”

Tor’Arr’s voice dragged his attention away from the small group of people.

“Yes, you should. They need at least one person aboard the ship they can talk to.”

They walked towards the small group of people, dodging men carrying boxes, and stopped a small distance away.

Kesh studied the group, looking for the woman who belonged to the voice he’d heard. He listened to the voices, trying to single out the voice that had come over the comm system.

There were ten of them altogether. Two children—the first, a boy who looked to be reaching for adulthood. His gangly body was missing the muscle of an adult’s body, but his height told Kesh that he was only a few years off reaching his majority. The other child was a young girl with dark hair that hung down her back in tight curls who was clinging to the hand of an older woman looking around her with wide bright green eyes. Her gaze landed on him and widened slightly before skimming away.

An older man stood beside the woman and child, his arm around the woman, talking to another person standing beside him. A couple stood a little distance away from the man, woman and child, their arms around each other, talking to three other people. Only some of the small gathering was human.

Kesh didn’t recognise any of the people who weren’t human, but his eyes swept past the couple and came back to look at the woman. Pale green hair complimented creamy skin. Large luminous eyes looked back at him, curiosity in their purple depths.

His gaze locked with that of the woman with green hair. Kesh knew she was the one. He hadn’t heard her voice, but he knew he could feel from her gaze on him that it was she. And
she
was with another man.

The older man broke away from the woman and walked towards them.

“Thank you for coming to our rescue. We had almost given up hope that anybody would hear our message.”

The man held out his hand towards Tor’Arr, who was in the human form he usually used when he was with Tarnee.

“I’m Sol, and these people are my family. We are all very grateful to you.”

Tor’Arr took the man’s hand, a puzzled look on his face as the man pumped his hand up and down.

“Unfortunately, we cannot offer you very good accommodation,” Tor’Arr replied to the man, “We have a full crew at the moment, and all our sleeping quarters are taken. We can offer you bedding, and there is a clean room across the cargo bay.” He indicated a door across the wide expanse of the cargo bay.

“We will gladly take whatever you can offer us,” Sol said.

Kesh only partially listened to their conversation, his attention focused on the purple eyes that looked back at him from a short distance away. A stunning clear colour that reminded him of the petals of a flower from his home, they sparkled in the bright light of the cargo bay.

The noise of the men moving the cargo around almost drowned out the conversation that was taking place beside him. Tor’Arr was telling Sol that they were heading to a human station and should arrive in two weeks.

A pink flush crept across the cheeks of the woman with green hair as she glanced away. Her gaze came back to his, only to shift away again, the flush in her cheeks turning a darker pink. Kesh was charmed. He wanted to trail his fingers across those warm cheeks and feel the soft texture of her skin. He wanted to see if her blush spread down her chest and flushed the tops of her breasts the same shade of pink as her cheeks.

The combination of green hair, pale skin and purple eyes was stunning. She had delicately arched brows in a gently sloping forehead, high cheekbones and a pointy little chin that suggested to him that she had a stubborn streak. He was looking forward to finding out. He was looking forward to having those purple eyes look up at him with passion in their depths as her fucked her.

He wanted to hear her voice, the soft musical quality of it. He wanted her to be able to understand him. He needed to take her to Devral in the tech department and have him adjust her interpreter chip so she could understand him. Then he could tell her that he was going to make her his. He could make her aware of his intentions.

“Unfortunately, our cook recently died and we haven’t found another one. So we are stuck eating synthesiser food.”

Tor’Arr’s voice drew Kesh’s gaze back to the conversation beside him.

The whole crew had grumbled about the tasteless food over the months since Ceska had died. Not one of them was happy to be eating synthesiser food, especially after having someone who could cook as well as Ceska.

“I can cook,” a quiet voice came from beside him.

His head whipped around to look down at the woman with green hair.

“Magnolia, are you sure you want to do that?” Sol’s voice filled the sudden silence. Even the crew had stopped making noise. It appeared as if everyone’s attention was on this small woman.

“Yes, Papa. These people have been nice enough to rescue us, it’s the least I can do. And it will only be until we reach our destination.”

Her voice shimmered through him, teasing his senses, sending heat barrelling through him and causing his cock to thicken uncomfortably in his pants. She was going to be exquisite, moaning his name as he slowly fucked her.

Purple eyes snuck a glance at him before hastily glancing away. If he could get her in the kitchen on her own, away from her family, he could get to know her and convince her that she was to be his own mate. If he could get her alone, he could do what he’d wanted to do since he’d first seen her standing across the cargo bay and taste her full pouting lips.

Chapter Three

I snuck a glance at the man standing beside me. He towered over my petite form, almost as tall as the human-looking man beside him who I suspected wasn’t human because of the beautiful swirling silver eyes he had.

“Well, if you think you can handle it, Magnolia, I have nothing against you helping these people,” my papa said.

That settled it, then. I would be cooking for these people who’d rescued us for the two weeks I’d heard the man with silver eyes tell my father it would take for us to reach the station where they would drop us off.

The man beside me spoke something in a dialect my language converter couldn’t identify, then grabbed my hand in his and started to pull me towards the doors of the cargo bay. His deep voice had kindled the fire his gaze had started burning low in my body.

“Kesh is going to show your daughter to the kitchen,” I heard the silver-eyed man say to my papa.

I stared at the back of the man pulling me along, too shocked to do more than follow him. He had the most beautiful intricate swirling designs all over his face, head and hands. I’d never seen anything like them before. Not quite a tattoo, and not a scar, they had grabbed my attention the minute I’d seen him standing with my papa.

The gaze of his dark eyes had met mine across the cargo bay and my heart had started to race. Heat had flashed through me. It warmed me up and sent desire spiralling through my body. A man had never affected me in such a visceral way before from just a glance.

His hand was hot in mine as he dragged me from the cargo bay, sending tingles racing up my arm. I almost had to run to keep up with him—his legs were a lot longer than mine were.

He dragged me down the corridor and into a lift. I barely had time to catch my breath before he was pulling me off the lift behind him and down another corridor. All painted a pale grey with a darker grey carpet, the corridors looked all the same and I hoped I wouldn’t end up getting lost on this ship. I hoped it was easy to find the kitchen and get back to the cargo bay.

He pulled me through a door. This wasn’t the kitchen. The room we had entered had counters covered in all sorts of mechanical things, computer parts and tools. Two huge screens covered one wall and a man sat in front of them, his fingers flying over the keys of a keyboard, or what I thought was a keyboard. It was unlike any kind of keyboard I’d ever seen before.

The man holding my hand spoke, and the harsh tones of his language felt alien to my ears. Deep and guttural, it sounded almost like he was eating his words. His voice did strange things to my insides, turning me liquid with desire.

The man at the keyboard looked around, and I was momentarily stunned. He was human, or appeared to be human. He was the first person I’d seen from the crew who appeared to be human. He pushed the keyboard, away and swung around in his chair.

He spoke to the man beside me using another language my implant couldn’t decipher before getting up from his chair. Something about him was different, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I studied him as he moved to one of the counters and picked up a tool. It was as he reached for the tool on the counter and the light shone across his arm that I realised what was different about him. It appeared he had his arms encased in metal. His hands and fingers were the same shiny silver metal as his arms.

He was a cyborg. Rumours had been floating around space for years that there were cyborgs out there, but my family had never come across one. My brother would be fascinated.

He’d drawn picture after picture of what he thought they might look like and pinned them to the wall of his room—pictures that had left me feeling cold on the inside. I’d hoped his pictures were just a case of an overactive teenage imagination and the real thing was nowhere near as gruesome as the drawings he’d done.

As the man with the metal arms walked towards me, I stared up into his deep orange eyes and felt—nothing. Not even a glimmer of the heat I’d felt when I looked into the dark eyes of the man standing beside me.

When Kesh looked at me, it felt like he was branding me. Heat sizzled through me, turning me molten with desire. I’d never had such a strong reaction to a man before. Even Jaxxon, who I was in a relationship with, didn’t cause fire to light up my veins with a mere look.

I’d have to tell Jaxxon about my attraction to Kesh, but he’d understand. We’d talked about my desire for an open relationship and he’d whole-heartedly agreed.

The man with the metal arms lifted the tool up towards my ear and I realised what he was going to do.

“This one,” I said pointing at the other ear. I turned my head giving him access to the ear that had my language converter in it and waited patiently for him to upload to its database.

It had taken me a long time to grow accustomed to hearing different things in each ear. It could be confusing when you first had one put in. It was like listening to two conversations at the same time. After a while, you learned to single out the conversation you could understand and ignore the one you couldn’t.

The man beside me spoke, that same guttural language and I looked up into his dark, dark eyes. They were black, as were the thick eyelashes that surrounded them, giving his eyes an exotic cast. There was a question in those black eyes, a question I didn’t understand.

“I can’t understand you,” I said quietly.

He spoke to the man with silver arms and I caught a glimpse of sharp canines. A conversation started up between the two men, then finally the man with silver arms shrugged his shoulders and they both fell silent.

I studied the man with the markings as I waited patiently for the upload to finish. His skin was a smooth golden brown under the darker markings. Black brows slanted in harsh slashing lines above his dark eyes, making him look a little sinister. The sharp ridges of his cheekbones stood out and accentuated the strength of his jaw. Soft full lips hid the sharp canines I’d seen and gave a hint to his sensual nature. I wanted to feel those lips moving over mine, I wanted to taste him and acquaint myself with what I suspected would be a heady masculine flavour.

To be able to talk to him and the crew would be a huge benefit if I was going to cook for them. I’d need someone to tell me where the kitchen was and maybe even tell me what the things in the kitchen were. I had to find out how many people I’d be cooking for, how often they ate and if they ate all together or in shifts. Was I to provide every meal for them or would they make their own breakfasts as we did on our ship, one morning out of every five so I could have a morning off? If they had a large crew, I might need someone to help me, and I’d need to be able to talk to them.