Page 22 of Alien Mercenary's Wife
He shifted his weight, double-checking his lines of sight and firing arcs. Their enemy had positioned themselves well. They’d covered all the main approaches, which would force any extraction into a narrow corridor between the container stacks. Professional work.
Footsteps approached from his left. Two sets, one lighter than the other. He turned toward the sound and?—
Draanth.
His brain shut off as the woman with Tank stepped into view behind Eris. For a moment, there was nothing but her… the sharp intelligence in her dark eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw, and the way afternoon light caught copper highlights in her dark hair.
His stomach dropped like he'd missed a step. Heat slammed through him, pooling low and urgent, as it headed straight for his cock.
Fuck. This was not the time.
Training reasserted itself with brutal efficiency. She moved like Eris—there was something in her gait, a particular rhythm he'd noticed in Eris but never seen in other humans. Sparky moved like the fires and explosions he loved to set, Nat moved with feline lethality, while Eric… he was in a class of his own. But this woman was something different. She moved with the controlled power of someone trained for something else entirely.
Scorperiopilots. That's what he was seeing—both Tank and this woman were trained to fight in massive combat mechs, the training still written in how they moved.
But she was hurt. He saw it in the careful set of her expression and the slight hitch in her left leg. Hard lines under her pants legs said there was more than just skin underneath, and his sensitive hearing picked up the faint whir of motors. He frowned. She was hurt, like Tank had been when she first joined the Warborne, and she was using some kind of mechanical assistance to hide it.
"Captain," Eris said, tension crackling in her voice as she scanned the surrounding containers. "I'd like you to meet T'Raal. He's?—"
The woman tilted her head toward Tank, but her gaze didn’t leave him. He approved. He was the unknown threat at the moment.
"You didn't mention when you said help that you meant a Lathar." Her voice was hard, with an undertone that suggested the Lathar ranked somewhere below intestinal parasites and were about as welcome.
He snorted. Fair enough. He didn’t like the empire either. "I'm not Lathar. I'm worse. I'm Warborne."
She looked him up and down, and he couldn’t help but puff his chest out slightly, even though he knew her assessment had nothing to do with him being male. Instead, he knew she was cataloging weapons, stance, and probably calculating his threat level and potential usefulness. When her eyes met his directly, it felt like the earth ricked beneath his feet.
"Good for you, handsome. Whatever the fuck that means."
The casual dismissal should have stung. Instead, he bit back his smile. Most people either cowered when they heard the Warborne name or tried to impress him. This woman had called him handsome and dismissed him in the same breath.
He liked her. Hemorethan liked her.
"It means we're very good at killing people who need killing," he replied.
"T'Raal and his crew are the best in the galaxy," Tank cut in. "They saved me, and they'll do the same for you."
The Captain studied his face with professional intensity. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, the tension dropping out of her shoulders.
"And what's the price for this rescue operation?" she asked, glaring at him again. "No one does anything for free."
His head lifted as voices drifted between the containers, growing louder. Close. Too close.
They needed to move. Now. "Tank asked me for help. That's all that matters."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." He met her gaze. "You're family to her, which makes you family to us. The Warborne take care of their own."
Something flickered across her expression… surprise, maybe. Before she could respond, the sound of light footsteps reached them.
"We can argue about this later," he said. "We've got company converging from three directions. Time to go."
Her demeanor shifted instantly, sharpened. "How many?"
"At least eighteen, probably more." He gestured toward the maze of industrial wreckage. "They've been setting up containment for thirty minutes. We're about to be in the middle of it."
"Exit routes?"
