Page 2 of Stolen By the Alien Mercenary

Once the second leg unfolded from the small nook, I could clasp the thin ankles with my hands and pull the body free. Heat spiraled up my right arm, my cock surged in my pants, rapidly growing painfully hard, and my heartbeat thudded once and was followed by an echo. A second thud came and those extra beats only increased when I rolled the body to face me.

A tiny female, her eyes closed, her face sunken, and her pale hair a tangled mess around her face. She had to be dead, this tiny human, but still my second heart pounded louder and firmer; a heart that only existed for one reason. My mate.

I raised a hand to my mouth and, with my teeth, yanked off my glove. My bare fingers pressed to the blue vein I could see along her neck, and when I sensed a soft, thready pulse, it was like the world righted itself around me. She lived, barely. My mate needed desperate help. She needed a protector, and she needed vengeance for the bastard who had done this to her.

Despite the rage flowing through my veins like lava, I was infinitely gentle as I wrapped her up in my cloak and cradled her against my chest. I did not rush, not even for the barked commands of my Captain through my com device. She needed to be handled with the utmost care, her body so light and frail, I refused to rush and risk harming her further.

Nobody could tell what I was carrying out of there, her tiny body hidden entirely by my thick black cloak. When they asked, I could not bring myself to say it either, and a lie easily rose to my lips. These were spare parts I wanted to use on the ship, interesting electronics. Nothing of value to anyone but me.

And to me, of the greatest value I could ever hold. A treasure worth stealing from a crimelord, a treasure worth hiding even from my captain. I would not risk the Terafin and his human mate discovering her presence so they could whisk her away. My mate was mine to protect. MINE.

Chapter 1

Mitnick

I paced inside the small confines of my private quarters aboard the Varakartoom. As an officer and the communication specialist on the ship, I had my own place, though small. Right now, it was even more crowded than usual. A stasis pod took up nearly all the floor space except for a small path. Inside the pod, my mate remained slumbering.

Several times, I’d tried to wake her, but she stubbornly refused to open her eyes. Her golden hair lay long and tangle free around her face in gleaming, undulating waves. Under my careful watch, her body had filled out, a painstakingly slow process that had taken months and months inside the pod.

I was no doctor, and I knew in my heart, hearts as my mating heart still beat strong and steady, that Dravion would have already succeeded where I had not. I glared at the pod with frustration when I realized it was running low on the medical fluids again which maintained the equilibrium inside the system. The pod was faulty, and I’d had to tweak it repeatedly to make it assist her in regaining a healthy weight and the fluids her system required.

She was beautiful, and she’d reached a point where I felt certain it would be safe for her to leave the pod altogether. I wanted it; I wanted her to wake so I could make her mine. The circumstances on the ship had never been better for it, either. Now that the Captain had found his own mate, he’d begrudgingly changed his rules to allow his crew to have their own mates aboard.

What should I do? Get more fluids for the pod so I could talk to the Captain first, and then wake her? Or should I risk waking her now… Humans did not sense mate bonds, but I did not want to contemplate the option that she would refuse my claim. I fluttered my wings and ruffled the feathers rising on my head with both my hands in frustration.

This was not the same as the numbers on my datapad; the lines of code on my screens were rational and orderly. Mating was anything but rational, and I did not like that I could not predict what would happen. When the stasis pod beeped in warning, I spun away from my sleeping beauty and headed out the door; more fluids for the machine it was going to be.

It was nighttime on the ship, and only a skeleton crew remained awake at key posts. A handful of males would man the bridge, keeping an eye on critical systems, and someone would be up in engineering, but that was it. No one would see me as I headed for the med bay.

Dravion’s territory wouldn’t be empty, but I was certain the Captain and his human mate would be asleep at this hour. The Captain was extra protective of his Mandy while she was still recovering from her trip through the vacuum of space; a trip she had accidentally been forced to do without the appropriate protections. I was confident I could navigate around both of them.

When the pod started burning through the fluids that sustained it over the past three months, I’d acquired a stash of my own on Strewn. Now that I’d run out of it, I’d been raiding the med bay whenever I needed more. I felt only a hint of guilt at doing so. Dravion kept a supply, but we didn’t use the handful of working stasis pods in storage. They were emergency backups in case Dravion’s fully kitted-out med bay could not work miracles.

I reached the med bay and snuck in after I’d assured myself that Asmoded was asleep and curled around his mate on the medical cot. His breathing rose and fell in an even pattern, and I dared to turn my back to him as I quietly opened the supply cabinet I needed. So far, my luck held, but I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that this couldn’t last. Even if it worked this time, I needed to wake her, and I needed to introduce her to the ship, no matter how badly I wanted to keep her all to myself.

I’d just send a drone up into the air to help me quietly view the med bay’s occupants while my back was turned when my captain spoke. “What are you doing?” he demanded in a deadly voice, pitched low so he would not wake his mate. I heard the anger, and the command in that tone anyway, and flinched guiltily.

Turning around, I clutched the vials I’d taken against my chest and met his green-eyed stare with a raised chin. “My mate needs help,” I said, and I felt like a weight lifted from my shoulders now that the secret was out. The captain’s glare intensified, but his head tilted at an angle as he appraised my tense posture. When he glanced back over his shoulder at the sleeping human on the cot behind him, I knew he understood what I was feeling.

“Show me,” he demanded. I had to turn around and lead the way back to my quarters. He took one look at the stasis pod and my sleeping beauty and raised his com to wake Dravion. She was slipping from my grasp. That’s how it felt. But I felt relief too, at no longer being responsible for her healing. Dravion was the best doctor in the quadrant; he’d fix her.

When they hauled her pod from my room, I could not rise above my instincts and listen to the rational reasons why this was right. “No! Don’t take her!” I roared and leaped in front of Dravion, blocking his access. “She’s mine, don’t touch her!” My whole body shuddered from the strain as I tried to control my rapidly spiraling feelings and the dual thudding of the two hearts in my chest. So much adrenaline, so much extra power flooding my body to help me protect, to help me fight.

My wings spread over the pod to cover it protectively, my breathing rapid as I faced off against two predators. One was a long sinuous snake of black and gold, with vibrant eyes that seemed to hypnotize. The other was a many-tentacled creature of gray, blue, and pink. I knew that one instinctively as a predator unparalleled anywhere in the quadrant, a Grolarnx.

“Enough!” the snake barked at me with a furious hiss. “Let Dravion do his job!” I fought him when his tail lashed out to restrain me, a feral growl rattling from my chest. My drones flew into the air at my instinctive commands. A hundred small laser shots went off inside my quarters; destroying my things, scorching my walls, but buzzing harmlessly off the armor my opponents wore.

I fought the snake with my claws and my fangs, batting him with powerful blows of my wings and my arms. The Grolarnx only focused on the pod, pulling it away from behind me with sneaky moves of his tentacles and that enraged me more. I never saw the third one coming, just the flash of silver before the Sineater’s symbiont pounced. It was lights out in seconds from the blow to the back of my head. As my body collapsed, the world spun crazily around me and all I could focus on was the sight of my mate’s sleeping body as they stole her from me.

No! Come back! Don’t take my Novi from me… I vowed I would make them pay.

***

Harper

I blinked open my eyes sleepily; sticky crusts clinging to my eyelids. It felt like someone had scooped the entire Sahara desert into my eyes. My mouth was equally parched, but that was no surprise. My last memory was of my slow decline in that vault without food and only scarce amounts of water. How long could a human go without food? Two weeks? Three?

The ceiling above my head was white, and that seemed impossible. Had I died? Then why was I so freaking thirsty right now? The last ceiling I’d stared at had been gunmetal gray, bisected with narrow vents too small to escape through. There had been a fan that softly whirred, a sound that was engraved on my mind for eternity.