Protected: Alien Mate Index Book 2: (Alien Warrior BBW Paranormal Science fiction Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (2 page)

“So this Grubbian asked for a
La-ti-zal
and you showed them the two girls?” I growled. “Even though their contracts had already been paid for by Sarden?”

“For demonstration purposes only!” Char’noth took an alarmed step back. “We have recently added special scanning equipment to the Alien Mate Index which enables us to pick out those females who are specially gifted. The two that Lord Sarden paid for shine the brightest of all.”

“Shine the brightest?” I said. “What in the Frozen Hells of Arnoth does that mean?”

“See for yourself.”

Char’noth made a motion with two of his blue, clawed hands, causing a light-screen to appear in front of us. It was split in two parts and each half showed one of the females I was assigned to protect.

I had seen them before in Lady Zoe’s memory cube but I had to say, her memories, while beautiful, didn’t do them justice—especially not the little
morada
who she called “Leah.”

She had pale skin, big brown eyes, and long, silky brown hair my hands itched to touch. I could imagine the soft texture of those strands, sliding over my fingers. Braxian women usually have extremely short hair. Any female with hair past her shoulders is considered exceptionally beautiful and this little one called Leah had hair that went down to the curve of her lower back.

You’re only here to protect and serve,
I reminded myself sternly, reeling in my libido.
And even if you weren’t, a female this gorgeous—not to mention a Pure One and a La-ti-zal—wouldn’t want anything to do with an ex-con murderer like you. Also, she’s already got a mate. So get a grip, Grav.

Yeah, I’d like to get a grip on her,
whispered a lustful little voice in my brain, completely ignoring my stern self-warning, as Leah bent over.

She had full hips and a lush ass too, which was good. I don’t like females that are too skinny—nothing to hold on to. I saw she was surrounded by young ones, some playing and some sitting quietly. She seemed to be concentrating on one in particular—a small male with thick oculars covering his eyes. Hadn’t Lady Zoe told me something about her working with them? Young ones with some kind of disability, I thought, but I couldn’t remember what exactly. Something that made them non-responsive at times. But the small male seemed to be responding to Leah well enough. In fact, she seemed to really have a way with him.

It made my heart ache as I remembered my last ward, Teeny. She had been older than the young ones I saw surrounding Leah on the light screen, but her beloved grandmother had been killed right in front of her. Then she had been captured and kept in a cell by the infamous gangster, Tazaxx of Giedi Prime. Sarden and Zoe and I had managed to rescue her but her big eyes were haunted and she had cried and cried when her grandfather canceled my contract with her and decided to send her to an all-female planet for finishing school.

I wondered how Teeny was doing now. In all probability, I would never find out since her grandfather was a fuckin’ idiot. Poor kid needed counseling and to be with people who cared for her—not to be shipped off to some ridiculously expensive finishing school for the ultra wealthy of the galaxy. But what can you do? Though I had sworn my oath to Teeny, her grandfather had revoked it. Still, she would always be in my heart, even now that I had two new females to guard.

“Do you see the glow?” Char’noth said, motioning to the light-screen.

I dragged my eyes away from the little
morada’s
curvy behind and looked at both females with clear eyes. It was true that both of them had a kind of aura around them. Leah’s was a pale, lovely translucent blue. But the female named Charlotte—well, her glow was something special.

Most males with Vorn DNA can only see colors when they meet a female they could call as a mate. But though I am half Vorn, my eyes favored my Braxian side. And, as I told you that Braxian eyes can see every spectrum of light—even those invisible to most other species.

The female called Charlotte was putting out rays that would have blinded a normal male. A golden glow suffused with every color of the rainbow surrounded her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. Clearly she was something special.

It was fucking amazing and yet…my eyes kept getting drawn back to Leah with her big brown eyes and pale blue aura.

“The glow, right,” I said, frowning. “So did the Grubbian merchant offer to buy them?”

“Of course he wished to purchase them,” Char’noth said. “Especially this one.” He pointed to Charlotte. “She has the brightest and most complex glow we have yet seen. Clearly she is extra-blessed by the Ancient Ones—a
La-ti-zal’s La-ti-zal.”

“Whatever that means,” I grunted. “So what did you tell him?”

Char’noth drew his little wormy body up to its full height of around three feet.

“I told him no, of course. That these females were already paid for and were unavailable for anything but display purposes.”

“As of now, they’re not available for that either,” I snapped. “Except by me. I’m here to make sure they’re safe and you’re honoring your end of the bargain.”

“But how will we show that our equipment can spot a
La-ti-zal?”
he demanded in his high, squeaky voice. “No other females shine so brightly!”

“Too fuckin’ bad,” I growled. “Stop displaying them
now.
As much as possible, they need to be left alone to live their lives. Well…” I cleared my throat. “Except for one thing. I need to go down to the planet’s surface and deliver these crystal message cubes.”

I extracted them from my pouch, both square cubes cupped in one palm like an oversized pair of dice.

“It will not be possible,” Char’noth said, hissing disagreeably. “Our transport facilities are only able to send living tissue. Unless you are able to conceal these communication devices somewhere inside your body, they will not be able to travel with you.”

“Fine,” I growled. “Then I’ll go down myself in my own ship.”

“Negative.” He hissed again. “The Earthlings have extremely primitive technology but they
are
able to detect foreign ships entering their atmosphere and they have the weapons to blast them out of their sky. Why do you think we have hidden our station amongst their space junk? We cannot allow you to risk our commercial operation by exposing our position.”

“You don’t own this planet,” I pointed out. “You’re just harvesting the females. Which I don’t fucking approve of, by the way. Females should be protected and cared for—not sold like chattel.”

“We have first rights to this planet.” Char’noth was getting really upset now. “And we have every right to harvest it. Though it was locked by the Ancient Ones, the inhabitants of Earth foolishly dissolved the protective barrier left in place, tearing a hole in their own ozone layer. Thus legally opening themselves to outside contact with other species.”

Okay, this was getting us nowhere. Clearly I couldn’t fly down to the planet in my ship—the Earthlings would detect it and might shoot me out of the sky. But I was also not going to be cramming the memory cubes—and everything else I needed to bring, including clothing—up my ass just to bring it with me through the Commercians’ transport.

“Try this,” I said to Char’noth, whose little blue back was still up. “Can you send living and non-living things
separately?
Could you send the cubes and my other equipment down in one shipment and me in another?”

He paused, apparently deep in thought.

“You ask the same question the Grubbian merchant did.”

“And what was your answer?” I growled impatiently.

“That it is possible,” he squeaked reluctantly. “Though the transporter must be reconfigured between each transport. Do you wish to send your possessions down first and then go yourself, or go first and wait for us to send your possessions.”

“Seeing as how a naked blue alien appearing out of nowhere might startle the Earthlings, I prefer to send the fuckin’ things down first and follow after,” I said. “That way I can get myself together as soon as I’m down there instead of waiting naked in the bushes. Or whatever kind of vegetative cover they have on Earth.”

“Very well.” He nodded. “We shall reconfigure. But it will take some time.”

“Reconfigure away,” I said, making a sweeping gesture with one hand. “I got time.”

He made a motion as though to dismiss the light screen with the two girls but I stopped him.

“No—leave it. At least, leave the one with the
morada—
the long haired female,” I said. “I’ll watch while you work.”

“As you wish, Lord Grav.” Char’noth bowed stiffly and turned to go, but I called him back.

“What poor female did you end up selling to that Grubbian merchant, anyway?” I felt sorry for her, whoever she was.

He shook his wormy head. “None. He wanted no females if he could not have the two you came to watch over. He did, however, order a male.”

“A male?” I frowned. “But they can’t be
La-ti-zals,
can they?”

“Assuredly not,” Char’noth said. “But he requested a male anyway. A powerful, rich male with all of his personal accoutrements, actually. Though I do not know why he wished such a thing.”

“And you found him one?” I asked.

Char’noth nodded. “We found a rich and well recognized one—though I am not certain how respected he is. The Grubbian left most pleased and said he might be back for a female later.”

“Let me know if he returns.” Of course the Commercians had no chairs that would hold my weight, but it didn’t matter. I settled myself on the floor in front of the light-screen, watching Leah as she worked with the little ones. I was used to waiting patiently when I warded females. And watching Leah was a pure pleasure, though I knew well enough she wasn’t for the likes of me.

I wondered what I would say to her when I brought down the cube—or if I would speak at all. It might just be best to leave it in a place where she would find it. I didn’t want to scare her, after all. Even with the
saphor
juice to change the color of my skin and the smart-fabric mask which would make me appear more or less human, I wouldn’t be able to disguise my size or musculature.

Well, time enough to decide the details. In the meantime, I watched the sway of her hips and the way her long, silky hair fell around her shoulders and dreamed.

Leah

It had happened twice before, but this time was the worst.

I could tell by the look in Gerald’s eyes when he came in the door that a storm was brewing. He’d been gone on a business trip for the past few days and he often came home in a bad mood whenever he had to leave me for an extended period of time. I don’t know why—he said it was because he loved me so much he couldn’t stand it when we were apart.

But that wasn’t it.

I think it was because he didn’t like the idea of me being on my own—of me having a life without him to control every aspect of it, not even for the length of time it took to go on a short trip.

Never should have married him,
I thought as I took his coat and kissed his cheek, waiting for the storm to break.
Never should have let him talk me into moving so far from my family.

But I had, and now I was stuck.

I think I let Gerald talk me into getting married and moving because of what happened to my best friend, Zoe. Around six months ago, she had disappeared. Literally vanished into thin air.

My other best friend, Charlotte and I, were on the phone with her when it happened. One minute she was complaining about her horrible boss and the next we heard some strange, blaring trumpet music and then her voice cut off and she was gone.

Just
gone
.

Of course, we went to the police and they investigated. They couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere.

Her awful boss was a suspect at first—he had, after all, thrown a stapler at her head just before she vanished. But a secretary at the law firm where Zoe had worked confirmed that he was in his office at the time of her disappearance. In fact, everyone in the place was where they were supposed to be, as the security cameras her firm had had installed clearly showed.

The only place they didn’t have a camera was where they really needed one—in the bathroom. That was where Zoe had disappeared from and she hadn’t been seen since.

Zoe didn’t have any parents or family to fight for her but Charlotte and I tried everything—petitions to the police, calls to the FBI, picketing her law firm…we even hired a private investigator neither of us could really afford.

We came up empty handed with every effort. Zoe was simply gone—vanished from the face of the Earth as though she’d never been there in the first place. As though she’d never called me and sung me silly songs to cheer me up when I was blue or hosted Girl’s Night at her apartment with never-ending margaritas and chick-flicks. As though we’d never shared the cherry chocolate cheesecake at Ivarones and told each other every single secret and loved each other like sisters since we met in college.

Just gone.

Her disappearance tore out a piece of my heart—and Charlotte’s too. My other best friend hid her grief as she always does—in work. She was already a physician’s assistant to one of the most prestigious orthopedic doctors in Tampa, but she decided to go back to medical school and get an MD herself. I knew it was her way of grieving but it felt like another loss, especially since she had to move to Gainesville to attend med school.

That left me all alone in Tampa with my family and my fiancée, Gerald. And somehow I let him convince me to get married and move to another state away from my mom and sister. A fresh start, he said, and it was.

The start of a nightmare.

Don’t think that way,
I told myself as I tried to smile at him.
Maybe it won’t be like that this time.
But there was something about the set of his shoulders and the look in his sharp gray eyes that put me on edge.

“How was your trip?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I stowed his coat in the closet. Gerald had moved us to Virginia, a state much further north than my native Florida. It was March and though the weather was already too warm for a coat down in the sunshine state, here in Virginia you still needed one to go out. I missed the warm weather but it wasn’t just the chilly wind blowing outside that made me feel cold. It was the way Gerald was looking at me.