Page 26 of Havik: Warlord Brides
“Wanna be?”
The noise of the station fell away in that moment, leaving only himself and the female. Nothing else existed beyond the burn of his tattoos and the quirk of her lips. He wanted to say yes, to prove he could be a good mate and regain his lost honor.
“Absolutely not,” he said, perhaps louder than necessary.
She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of surrender, familiar to him from his ex-mate. “Worth a shot, and I’ll have you know that this feast was purchased with my allowance, daddy.”
“That is not my name,” he growled. This female had a way of irritating him like sand in his tail. “I witness you lifting credits.”
“Won’t deny it, but the Mahdfel gave me some spending cash.” She held out her right hand. A small incision, still red and angry, marred her thumb. “It’s all above board. I wouldn’t want to corrupt a space cop with ill-gotten gains.”
He reached for her hand without thinking, cupping it with his own. A jolt of awareness surged through him when skin met skin. Her hand appeared so small compared to his. His thumb brushed against her palm, intrigued by the contrast of his red skin against her colorless beige. Surprisingly, he found her skin rough. She gave a squeeze, demonstrating a strength he would not have expected from such a small appendage.
At his wrist, the black ink glowed with a subtle silver light.
He glanced up from their joined hands, only to find the female—Thalia—studying him.
“Oh, good. You already know each other,” an authoritative voice announced.
Chapter 7
Thalia
Havik jerked his hand away, like embarrassment at being caught holding hands with her burned him. That hurt, more than Thalia expected. They were strangers. The only thing between them was his baffled response to her outrageous flirting.
Shame. He had nice hands. Not so sure about his personality, though. At the moment, Thalia classified him as a recalcitrant killjoy. Still a total danger bang, though, just more of a law-abiding goody-two-shoes than a bad boy.
Three Mahdfel men approached. Correction, one stalked forward with grim determination and the others followed. To her surprise, she recognized two of them. One was the security officer who gave her a new ID chip and the other had a distinctive missing horn. Thalia recognized him as the one who put the rescued women on a shuttle and basically told them to get the eff off his ship. Not in so many words, mind. It was more in his glowering and barking orders. All the other aliens hustled to follow orders, including Havik, who seemed to stand at attention. Back on the ship, they called him the warlord.
The third looked like Havik because he had a brick-red complexion. Slimmer and shorter, he had a forelock of pure white hair.
“You,” the warlord said, looming over her seated at the fountain’s ledge, “are meant to be on a flight to Earth.”
She shoved another piece of the fried almost-fish in her mouth to buy herself time before answering. The scary alien warlord looked angry enough to march her to the next ship heading to Earth and strap her into a seat himself, just to prevent any shenanigans.
I should fear him, she thought distantly,because all I’ve ever heard is how the Mahdfel are more muscles than brains.
The man with one horn looked angry. Maybe that was how his face always looked. She knew she should be afraid. Trembling, even, but she attributed her lack of fear to a lingering side effect of the stasis.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
The warlord tapped a spot just behind his right ear.
Oh. The translation chip. “I always thought the rumor about using the chip as a tracker was bullshit. Guess Nicky was right after all. You got a name?”
“Paax.”
Thalia wanted to tell Paax she had been told his name once but the fog in her head made her forget and that she had met his wife, who had been impossibly sweet. She didn’t know how such a kind woman fit with such a frowny, serious guy like him, but she was glad they had each other. What came out of her mouth, however, was, “I’m not going back. There’s nothing for me there, and the people who screwed me over are just going to do it again. Not to mention that I’m worried that the guy who bought me will come looking for me.”
“You are one of the rescued females?” Havik asked.
“I am not concerned with your travel plans. I delivered you to the Sangrin authorities, who were to make arrangements for you,” Paax said, ignoring Havik’s demand for more information. “I do, however, have a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening.” She kept her voice from wavering, not an easy task considering she had four massive aliens standing over her. One looked annoyed, the other kept a neutral expression, another had an amused smirk on his face, and Danger Bang just looked pissed. If what the warlord had to say resembled getting her on an Earth-bound ship, she’d run. Somehow. They probably weren’t going to stuff her in another stasis chamber, which meant she had some time to figure it out.
“Help us capture those who took you,” Paax said.
Her shoulders slumped. “I already told you everything I know. I didn’t see or hear anything.” The medics said that her stasis chamber ran uninterrupted for three years. The smugglers didn’t wake her up for tea parties and divulging nefarious schemes.
