Page 3 of Warrior Enchanted

Inside the airlock, I could hear the voice of Kitan, our pilot, announcing that we had half a minute to board before he was taking off. Da’vi was the last to follow me in, a wicked grin on his dark face, horns lowered towards our assailants. Yeah, he was ready for a fight, just like me. We wanted to wipe the floor with those pansy soldiers.

The hatch of the ship slammed closed when Da’vi palmed the control panel, followed by the noise of laser fire impacting the hull of the ship. Our mechanic through and through, Da’vi bared his sharp teeth in a hiss at the noise, “That better not have scratched the paint!”

We were the only ones who’d just ducked into the ship, the last two to make the retreat, and we were still cycling through the airlock when we could feel the Vagabond move. The clamps retracted and then nothing, the Vagabond smoothly sailed away in Kitan’s skillful hands. Deflated by the fact that not only had I not found my mate again, but the combat had been disappointing, I headed inside.

Then I perked up. I hadn’t had a proper look at the female Fierce had rescued. Maybe it was her? Jogging toward the med bay, I started to feel more optimistic again. Yeah, maybe it was her. I tried to recall what she’d looked like, but I only had a vague recollection of a slender figure and black hair. I liked that though, black hair, my own species only had hair in that color; it would be something we shared.

I slowed my jog to a calmer walk when I reached the med bay, not wanting to scare all these new people. Though the humans were now definitely outnumbering the gladiators on this ship, somehow I didn’t think that would make them feel better. I clasped my lower arms behind my back in preparation, hoping that would make me look a little less threatening. There wasn’t much I could do about my red skin, but maybe if I hunched a little I wouldn’t appear so big and scary.

There were many voices coming from inside the med bay but the loudest one was Abigail as she welcomed everyone aboard the ship. On a private com channel, instead of the ship-wide intercom system, Kitan announced that we were being followed and that some fancy evasive flying was about to happen. He probably didn’t want to scare the humans with that news so he was reaching out to each of my brothers this way. Surely he’d handle it. Kitan and Chloe were the best pilot-navigator team in the Zeta Quadrant.

Reaching the doorway, I paused just outside and took a moment simply to observe. Da’vi always said I rushed into everything head first without thinking; I didn’t want to do that this time. First impressions were important after all, and that female could be my mate. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself or scare her.

The Doc and Noa were helping humans, going around to take scans to make sure they were in good health after their long stint in stasis. Noa had only recently announced that she was expecting a child but you could already see it. I’d heard Camila say that the Doc’s mate was five months along while laughingly scolding her for hiding it that long. I wasn’t sure how long human pregnancy lasted, but five months seemed like a long time to me and she looked ready to pop, which was a little frightening if I thought too much about it.

The female was wearing a simple black dress that shaped around her gently curving belly. More than one human asked her about it and she’d smile and point at Luka on the other side of the room with a graceful, colorfully tattooed arm. Yeah, that female might have been a little closed off when she first got here, but she was definitely very much in love with her mate.

I rubbed at my chest when I felt something heavy settle there. What if that black-haired female wasn’t my mate either? Was there something wrong with me? Was that why I couldn’t find the right female? I didn’t want to think that, but what if it was true? Maybe I should discuss it with Luka. He could find out what was wrong; he was a super smart doctor.

Then my eyes snagged on a female with long black hair, her arm curled around a smaller male. From the black hair that crowned the male’s head, I was fairly certain that they were siblings. Alright, a little brother, I could handle that. Surely I could convince a young male to like me much easier than a female. Maybe that would be the way into my mate’s heart.

She was talking in a soft, hesitant voice, gesticulating with one slender hand. Her words were directed at the handful of men and women that had gathered around her, they were hanging onto her every word. So she was an excellent speaker, maybe she had leadership qualities, that was good, I liked that!

She never turned around to look my way and I was starting to deflate a little again. If she was my mate, wouldn’t she feel my eyes on her? Wouldn’t she have turned around to look at me by now? I sensed movement to my left and realized Sunder was standing there, near the wall, his wings tucked tightly against his back. His tail was twitching wildly in agitation, and the missing tip made the motion look even more frustrated. What had gotten his temper going? Sunder was the calmest, most patient male I knew.

Then he rolled his shoulders and stepped back and I noticed a female standing with her back against the wall just beyond him. She had this intense look in her eyes and I felt the freckles on my face heat in response, aggression simmering through my body. That female was scared. I could tell that her entire posture was defensive. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, holding closed a far too large black coat. Her legs and feet were completely bare and they were streaked with dirt and what looked suspiciously like the blue blood of a Rummicaron.

“Please, female, you were clearly in a fight,” Sunder was saying. “Just let the Doc check you to make sure you are not hurt.” Then Sunder made a gentle hand movement in the direction of her neck and she flinched back into the wall, the back of her head thudding against the panel. “Let him take off that pain collar. You’ll feel much better once it’s gone.”

I twitched at the sight of the offensive thing that clung to the delicate column that held up her head. One of my upper hands reached for my own throat to reassure myself that my own collar was gone. It was the one thing that I could still wake up from in a cold sweat at night, with the phantom sensation of the collar tightening like a noose around my neck.

A growl rumbled from my throat without my say-so; the desire to protect that female overpowering. I forgot all about keeping my lower arms tucked behind my back, my muscles tensing and swelling. There was no target here, but that didn’t take away the desire to kill whoever had tried to hurt her.

At the noise I made, her eyes swung wildly from Sunder’s face to mine. Her dark brown eyes locked with my yellow ones and electricity jolted down my spine. The freckles on my face had turned purple with anger and aggression, but I could feel the shift in color the moment we connected. My mate!

Chapter 3

Meena

The giant, winged creature called himself Sunder and he talked to me the entire way to our destination. I only paid attention to him with half a mind. Mostly, I was focused on my surroundings, on the crowd we were walking through. The dazzling view of stars above my head once we reached a part of the space station that Sunder called the docks.

“Look, the Vagabond is right over there. I’ve called for my mate to meet us at the airlock. She’s human,” Sunder said, the electronic box dangling from his belt translating with that cold, computer-generated voice. You’d think that advanced aliens could generate a better voice than that. Heck Alexa or Siri sounded more welcoming than this one.

I thought he’d been talking about his mate for most of our walk, about how she was from Michigan and a schoolteacher. That she was taken from her home just like I was. I suspected he thought it was reassuring to hear that, that he’d rescued a human before. All I could think about was that he’d made this poor woman his mate. Was that any better than being some sick bastard’s sex slave?

Then I spotted a human woman standing in front of a set of gray metal doors. Those doors led into a gray tube and beyond that, I could see the great shape of a sleek silver ship. This woman was a little older than me, maybe nearing forty. Her brown hair was tucked into a neat bun and a radiant smile graced her face at the sight of us.

“Sunder!” she yelled out, waving wildly with one arm. Her other arm was holding a pink and purple baby on her hip and two boys were standing right in front of her, eagerly jumping up and down and waving their arms. They were yelling their own welcomes but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. What was more worrisome, one boy was completely blue, while the other was as gray as my companion, with a set of wings to boot. Were these all kids from this guy? They each looked so different.

“Hey, Aggy!” Sunder responded, but he didn’t quicken his pace, keeping his steps short and careful so I could keep up with him on my bare feet. I could sense that something was hovering just behind my back, his wing stretched out around my shoulders without touching. It made me feel trapped, but it also shielded me from the sight of the many aliens working on the docks.

“Who’ve you got there?” the woman asked when we got closer. Her eyes were warm as she scanned me, a gentle smile on her face, her expression overwhelmingly kind. The kids with her left the safety of the airlock she was standing in front of, eagerly running toward Sunder. He ducked and caught each boy in an arm, easily lifting them to settle one on each hip.

“I found this brave one in an alley a couple of streets over from the house of the male that bought her,” Sunder said. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to the woman’s mouth, followed by nuzzling the pink and purple baby on the crown of her head. “She took care of him all on her own,” he added, his slate-gray eyes shooting my way. Ugly as he looked with his exaggerated features and tusks, there was something kind about how he looked at me.

I sighed, struggling to make sense of my own feelings. Seeing this weird ass family looking so happy together was reassuring, but… I just couldn’t shake this feeling that the other shoe was about to drop. When I stepped aboard their ship, would I be trapped again? It wasn’t just that my experience with that creepy alien and with the auction house was making me distrustful. I had a terrible track record when it came to trusting the right people.

“I’m Aggy,” the woman said directly to me, reaching out a hand in a normal handshake. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Those brown eyes held nothing but patience and kindness as they met my own. I wanted to believe that this motherly woman was good and kind, that I could trust this. But seriously, who had this much luck after being abducted by aliens? To stumble into safety by chance like this? It just had to be too good to be true.