Alien Sentinel’s Mate by Mina Carter

2

Human females were so beautiful. Delicate and graceful, even when they were full of fire and sass.

Like his Gracie.

Of course, he knew he couldn’t really call her his. Not yet. Not when he hadn’t claimed her or even asked her to consider his claim.

“When are you going to stop damn well mooning about and bloody well tell the woman?” a voice demanded as Jay Stephens, the sole human male on base, dropped into the chair opposite.

“I am not,” Seren said stiffly, “mooning about. What the draanth does that mean anyway?”

“That you’re in luuuuuuurve. Making cow eyes at her,” Jay drawled, sticking a fork in his mouth while looking at Seren. Whose own hand paused midway to his mouth.

“What are you doing with your face?” he asked with a shudder. “Stop doing it. Human males are ugly to begin with, and that just makes it worse.”

Jay chuckled and began shoveling what he called “pasta” into his mouth. Seren’s lip curled back as he looked at the congealed mess. It was the least appetizing thing he had ever seen in his life. And he’d seen whathis brother ate.

“Why you eat that trall I do not know,” he commented, sectioning down his field cake into neat little squares before eating them in order. “Waste of good ingredients, if you ask me.”

“Didn’t.”

“Huh?” He looked up to see Jay shrug.

“Didn’t ask you,” the human repeated. “And leave my bug pasta alone. It’s the only decent thing to eat in this place. Unlike that sticky, sweet shit,” he added, pointing his fork at Seren’s field cake. “And what’s with the geometry? You always eat like that.”

Seren looked down at his food. He was halfway through one line of squares. “What do you mean?”

“Everything you eat, you section it into little squares.” Jay shoveled more pasta. Seriously, Seren had no idea where he put it. “Do you have something like alien OCD or something?”

“Jay! You can’t ask people that!” Indra, another of the humans, clipped him around the ear as she dropped into the seat next to him.

“Why not?” Seren asked, looking between the two humans.

Even though he’d been around them for months, he still didn’t understand some nuances of their behavior. A lot he did understand, and quite often he forgot that Jay in particular wasn’t just a slightly smaller warrior, but then a cultural difference would crop up that completely confused him. Like why Indra was scowling at a plate full of greenery.

“If you don’t like the salad,” he asked, confused, “why did you pick it?”

“Eating healthy,” the female said, her expression irritated. “Apparently woman can’t live on field cake alone.”

“Actually, it’s entirely possible. Field cake is designed to give a warrior on the battlefield optimal nutrition and metabolic function,” he corrected her, trying for gentle. Indra had a hell of a temper sometimes.

Indra huffed and stabbed at her salad. “You say that, sure. But in my experience, anything that sounds too good to be true generally is too good to be true. And my ass is spreading, so… salad.”

He opened his mouth to argue that if Indra was gaining weight, it wasn’t going to be down to the field cake. But then his gaze clashed with Jay’s and the human shook his head slightly in a subtle warning.

Seren closed his mouth quickly. Of the many tales they’d told him, the one about human females eating males if they were irritated or stressed had stuck with him. He was fairly sure they were lying to him in that strange human way they called “joking” but still, he wasn’t about to take the chance.

“Full of vitamins and minerals,” he agreed, somewhat absently as a delicious scent wound around him like a siren’s call. It tugged at his attention, priming him for action as heat curled lazily in his gut. He had to work to stop his cock from responding.

He didn’t bother to look up or around to see if his companions had smelled it. They hadn’t. Compared to his, their noses were so much less sensitive they might as well have been blind, in an olfactory sense anyway. But for him, that scent and the female it belonged to was everything. A war could have broken out around him and he wouldn’t have been able to pay it any mind.

Gracie.

He tracked every step as she walked toward him, right up to the moment she dropped into the seat next to him.

“Ohh! Cake!” she exclaimed, reaching out to snag some of the squares he’d cut up.

He raised an eyebrow at Jay triumphantly. There were advantages to his methods, ones not always apparent at first. It was the way he was, and his forebears before him.

Jay just stared back, a pointed look on his face. Seren ignored him. He knew what the human was hinting at. The B’Kaar had said Gracie was his mate, their genetics a perfect match for each other, but there was more to it than that.

She needed to know some things before she agreed to become his mate.

“Are you going to eat that?” Gracie asked, eyeing his plate.

Without hesitation, he slid it toward her. But in a quick movement he palmed the fork, so she had to eat the cake with her fingers. For no other reason than he liked… no, needed to see her lick the sauce from her fingers.

She picked up the smallest bite of cake, popping it between her lips, and he couldn’t look away. Transfixed by the movement of her lips, Jay and Indra’s conversation fell away as he imagined himself leaning forward to kiss away the tiny drop of sauce that clung to the corner of Gracie’s lips. She’d relax against him, nestled against his chest as he fed her more cake, kissing away any drops of sauce until she was full. Then he’d lift her in his arms, happy and full, and carry her to his rooms to sate an entirely different kind of hunger.

“Female.” A rough voice broke into the conversation and both Seren and Gracie looked up to find a B’Kaar in his suit looming over them. “You are unmated. Is this correct?”

She paused, another morsel of cake halfway to her mouth. Did he imagine it, or did her eyes flicker toward him for a second?

“None of your business, buddy. Move along.”

The B’Kaar didn’t move for a moment, a look on his face Seren was familiar with as he worked out the nuances of Terran speech. The B’Kaar’s expression tightened as he figured out Gracie had told him to draanth off.

Indra and Jay had started to talk again, their group turning away as the matter was closed and the B’Kaar ignored. Jay went back to teasing Indra with a forkful of his disgusting bug pasta, and Seren concentrated on Gracie again, offering her another square of cake.

The B’Kaar slammed a hand down in the center of the table, crinkling the metal surface with the force of the blow.

“Females need a mate,” he declared in an imperious tone. “You are unclaimed. I will claim you.”

The two human females froze. Seren leveled a hard gaze at the intruding warrior while Jay groaned softly.

“Please tell me this asshole didn’t claim all women need a man,” Indra said, her voice cool and collected.

“Control your behavior, female,” the B’Kaar turned his head to look at Indra. “This situation does not require your involvement.”

“Oh, hell no.” Jay shook his head, pulling his bug pasta closer. “That’s fucked it.”

“What has this to do with you, human?”the B’Kaar demanded, an edge of irritation in his voice. “You are mated to another. This female is not yours.”

“This female is not anyone’s,” Gracie snarled, pushing Seren’s plate away with a sigh, and then rose to her feet. “Come on then. Let’s get this over with so I can get back to my cake.”

He’d been about to surge to his feet to defend his female from all comers, but her words froze him on the spot. The deck yawed beneath him. She was accepting this draanthic’s claim? Over his?

The B’Kaar blinked, the same surprise flowing over his features. “You accept my claim?”

“In your dreams, asshole,” Indra sniggered. “My girl gonna hand you your ass on a plate.”

His world blinked back into focus again, the horrible roaring in his ears cut off abruptly as anger built. This… this asshole had tried to approach his female, with him right the draanth here. That insult could not be allowed to stand.

“What she said.” Gracie snarled at the B’Kaar. “I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man alive. What I will do is kick your ass from here to Earth and back.”

The B’Kaar frowned. “You humans have a distressing obsession with my posterior—”

“I assure you, it’s not personal. They talk like that all the time.” Seren rose to his full height, a hand on Gracie’s arm. “I, however, mean it very personally when I say I will kick your ass from this life into the next.”

The B’Kaar looked him up and down. “And what is it to you, little K’Vass?”

His lip curled back from his teeth, the hidden fangs of his bloodline punching through his gums. He ignored the sharp pain and what it meant. He hadn’t flashed fang since he was a teen, careful to conceal that side of his heritage from others, but now he didn’t care.

“This female is under my protection. She has said no. That is the end of it.”

“You want her for yourself. Come on then, K’Vass.” The B’Kaar chuckled and stepped back, beckoning with both hands. “When I have killed you, I will take her for myself before your body is cold.”

“Will you fuck!”Gracie snarled, but her ire was directed at Seren as she turned to shove a hand against the center of his chest. Her eyes locked with his. “This is my fight.”

“No, little female, it is mine.” He covered her hand with his and smiled. Fighting a fully armored B’Kaar would be suicide for a normal imperial warrior. But, as much as he tried to be for her sake, he was not a normal imperial warrior. He never would be.

“I’m your tovashian so I must do this. I must protect you.”

Before she could argue, he stepped around her and around the table. All honor fights took place in the training hall, the occupants of the dining room already filing out to head that way.

Jay stopped him with a hand on his arm. Seren paused to look at him, expecting an argument from the male or a warning this was, in fact, suicide.

“Mate… I get it. He looked at your woman,” Jay murmured. “But before you lay the smack-down on him… remember you got a fork stuck to the inside of your arm.”

The hint of a smile curved Seren’s lips and he winked. “I know.”

Then he stepped around the human male and followed the B’Kaar as he headed toward the training hall.

* * *

“What the…”Gracie breathed as the tall, handsome Latharian warrior stepped around her and headed for the door. “What the hell is a tovashian when it’s at home?”

“Not a clue, but we need to move if we don’t want to miss the fun.” Indra leaned forward to snag the last square of cake before they headed out of the room.

“I thought you were on a diet?”

“What?” Indra shrugged. “It looked lonely there all on its own.”

Gracie managed a chuckle as they hurried down the corridor, having to fight their way through as warriors piled out of other rooms, all headed toward the training hall. News of a challenge fight traveled fast, especially when most of the base’s population were jacked into the main system. Since they were all Lathar, interest in a fight was always high.

“What’s going on?” Indra’s mate, Nyek, appeared beside them, growling and barking orders to clear a path for them through the warriors to get into the training hall.

They were all B’Kaar, some in armored suits and some not. To a man, though, they concealed either interest or wariness when they looked at the small group—interest when it came to the women and wariness when it came to Nyek. The big paladin’s reputation preceded him and no one, not even a B’Kaar, seemed to want to go up against a warrior who could pilot two drakeen without training.

“One of the tinheads made a move on Gracie. Rude fucker he was too,” Jay commented as he joined them to one side of the circle on the floor that even now Seren paced like a caged tiger. Watching, waiting, as his opponent stood opposite, seemingly unmoving in his kasivar exosuit. “Seren took exception to it. Said he was her tovashian.”

Surprise flared in Nyek’s dark eyes. “He did? Then it is his right.”

Gracie’s eyebrow winged up. That hadn’t been what she’d expected from the paladin. He rarely ever agreed with anyone, especially on matters of protocol. “What? How? What’s a tovashian?”

Nyek folded his arms over his broad chest, watching the occupants of the painted circle on the floor with a hard gaze. “If he has claimed that role, it is his truth to tell, not mine.”

“Fucking Lathar,” she hissed, running a hand through her hair. She had no idea why she was so rattled. She’d seen Seren fight before, and not in a challenge fight like this but for real. “Always with the godsdamned riddles.”

“Actually, that term is not Lathar.” Nyek’s voice was low, but he didn’t take his eyes off the two combatants. “It’s older. Far older. From the time before we became Lathar.”

Before they were Lathar. She frowned. To hear them tell it, the Lathar had been around since the dawn of time. Warriors had spewed out fully formed during the Big Bang or whatever had formed reality itself.

“What do you mean older? What could be older than the Lathar? I thought your empire was like… thousands and thousands of years old?” she asked, but before Nyek could answer the fight started.

The B’Kaar’s ke’lath flared for a fraction of a second. Then he launched himself at Seren, the metal boots of his suit crashing against the deck plating as he thundered toward the leather-clad warrior.

Seren didn’t move. He didn’t even raise his fists into a guard position or draw one of the multitude of weapons she knew he carried—both visible and hidden. Instead, he just watched the fully armed and armored cyber-warrior race toward him as though it were nothing more than entertainment, rather than an actual threat.

“Seren, move your ass!”

Gracie screamed the warning as she leaped forward, only to be stopped with a hard arm around her waist. Only her awareness of where everyone around her had been standing stopped her from slamming her elbow up and back into her friend’s face.

“Indra! Let me go, you asshole!” she hissed, but the former ganger had a grip like iron, her arm clamped around Gracie’s waist as she wrestled her back away from the edge of the circle.

“Not a chance,” Indra hissed in her ear. “That idiot wants to put himself in front of a fucking tank-wearing asshole like that and get turned into space jam, that’s his decision. You ain’t doing it!”

“You… bitch!”Gracie shot back.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s my middle name. Don’t wear it out,” Indra replied.

Gracie sighed but then relaxed. Indra was right. She clutched at the other woman’s arm and shoulder as they watched the events unfolding in the circle in front of them.

She bit her lip, her heart in her throat as the B’Kaar reached Seren.

His armored fist swung in an unstoppable arc toward the K’Vass warrior’s face. Rather than an explosion of blood and bone as it hit, though, Seren moved. Not far, little more than an inch backward, but it ensured the metal fist didn’t connect. Instead, it whispered through the air in front of his face.

Without the contact he’d expected, the B’Kaar was a victim of his own momentum. He spun like a child’s toy with his arms flailing. His head snapped around as he tried to keep his opponent in sight. At the last moment Seren exploded into movement, slamming a hard blow right into his opponent’s ribs where the suit didn’t protect him. Then he was gone again, dancing away. The B’Kaar snarled, his expression tight as he refocused on his target.

“Draanthic…” he snarled. “Lucky shot. You’ll pay for that, you pathetic little K’Vass.”

Seren shrugged but didn’t speak. Eyes on the B’Kaar, he made a “bring it on” motion with his fingers. Gracie watched him as they repeated the same song and dance. Each time the B’Kaar attacked, Seren turned or stepped back, simply not being where the B’Kaar’s fist was headed. It was like a lethal dance between them, awe-inspiring and scary all at the same time.

She held her breath, sure at any moment he would misjudge it and the B’Kaar would manage to land a blow. In the big, armored suit, just one blow would pulverize Seren. Tear flesh and break bone.

But he didn’t get anywhere close and her admiration for the long-haired warrior increased. She’d known Seren was fast. When she and Indra had been kidnapped by Nyek’s insane family, fanatics who planned to use them in some sick breeding program, he’d fought what seemed like hundreds of warriors until they’d nearly disemboweled him. He’d been fast then, going up against overwhelming odds, but this was something else entirely.

“Smooth moves,” a new male voice said. Gracie spared a glance to find Berrick, the B’Kaar’s second in command standing next to them. “Saait is a goddess-damned idiot if he thinks he could beat that male. But I guess I can understand him trying.”

“Really? Why?”

The B’Kaar looked at her for a second and then chuckled with amusement. He looked away for a moment to holler encouragement to the combatants. One or both, she couldn’t work out which.

“What do all warriors want? Other than a female to call their own?” he asked, glancing her way again. “Saait came up as a partial genetic match as a mate for you. So of course he’d want to take out the other, better match and get rid of his competition before K’Vass could claim you.”

He looked at her again and took a breath. “I have an apology to make. We used your genetic material without permission. It has been pointed out that that was a… dick move?” he asked, his brow creased over the human term. She nodded and waved her hand, giving him a “move it on” gesture.

“Yes, well. Warrior K’Vass… well, he wasn’t amused and pointed out that such an action could cause issues with the treaty our emperor is tryin’ to forge with your people.”

She nodded. All most of the B’Kaar had spoken about since they had arrived was their genetic matching program, one that supposedly analyzed DNA and selected matches between human women and Latharian warriors.

“I assume you managed to scrape my DNA from a surface I touched?” she asked, focusing on him for a moment.

Any anger at the invasion of her privacy was negated somewhat by the very genuine-seeming apology. Since they’d arrived, she’d liked Berr far more than his boss. Even more so after Keris had admitted that the big, bearded cyber-warrior had warned her that their attempts to block the B’Kaar’s surveillance could be spotted.

She wasn’t surprised that they’d found her DNA somehow. What she wanted to know was what they’d found out from it. But… she doubted any official record from Earth would show her as anything other than a colony commission agent. If it did, and it wouldn’t, her whole unit would be in jeopardy.

“The program is working properly now then?” she asked, half-distracted as Seren feinted to the left and then snapped a foot out to slam into the B’Kaar’s armored leg. Just under the knee joint, he focused not on the limb itself, but the clamps that held the warrior within. She froze as Berr’s words registered. “Wait, what do you mean? Better match?”

The B’Kaar frowned, a deep groove forming between his brows. “Warrior K’Vass didn’t tell you? You’re a perfect match for ’im. Genetically speaking. I thought… well, I assumed he’d have claimed you already…” The big B’Kaar broke off at the expression on Gracie’s face, her head whipping around to glare at the warrior still dancing around his opponent in the circle.

“No,” she said, folding her arms. “He did not.”

And he certainly had some explaining to do.