Abducted: Alien Mate Index Book 1: (Alien Warrior BBW Science Fiction Paranormal Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (36 page)

“That’s true,” Grav said thoughtfully. “You can’t just flash your credit and get in the front door. Tazaxx has this idea he’s a classy son of a bitch and he doesn’t want anyone around him that doesn’t meet his ‘standards.’”

“Exactly.” Sarden nodded. “Tazaxx wouldn’t let anyone who wasn’t
someone
into his compound. An
important
someone.”

“What about Baron Van’Dleek of Armitage 3?” Grav asked.

“Who?” Sarden and I said at the same time.

“Van’Dleek’s an emissary from another galaxy—Tazaxx has never seen him. He’s supposed to be among the trillion-credit elite and he’s named as one of the invited guests on the auction list—paid a hell of a lot of credit to get my hands on that damn list.” Grav shrugged. “Why couldn’t ‘Van’Dleek’ come early to get a look at what he’s going to be bidding on?”

“Hmm…it
could
work.” Sarden looked like he was thinking hard. “You have a holo render of him?”

“Of course.” The stone in Grav’s ring was dark red instead of black but it projected holographic images the same way Sarden’s did. I really had to get myself something like that before I went back to Earth, I thought. It put the Apple watch to shame.

The dim booth was the perfect place to project and the image that popped up was clear. Van’Dleek was about Sarden’s size and build—which was good—but he had pale blue skin and was bald as an egg. He was wearing flowing white trousers cinched at his narrow waist, no shirt, apparently so he could show off his chiseled chest, and a big, boxy black jacket that matched the trousers. Also loafer-like shoes with no socks on. I thought he looked like something out of an episode of that old TV show, Miami Vice.

Sitting at Van’Dleek’s feet were two females, both skimpily dressed and looking up at him adoringly. One had orange skin and several long, fleshy tentacles growing out of her head where a human’s hair would be. The other looked like she could have come from Earth—she seemed to be a regular girl with tan skin and long brown hair—until I looked closer and saw that she had three purple eyes, all in a row under one long black eyebrow. Eww.

“He never goes anywhere without a fuckin’ entourage,” Grav explained, gesturing to the adoring girls and the muscular bodyguard who stood at Van’Dleek’s back with his massive arms crossed and an alert expression on his face.

“So much the better,” Sarden remarked. “I’ll play Van’Dleek and you can be my Protector. That gets us both in.”

“I guess that makes me one of the bikini-babes,” I said, gesturing at the holographic projection of the skimpily clad girls.

“Oh, no it doesn’t.” Sarden frowned down at me. “You’re not going anywhere
near
Tazaxx’s compound—it’s not safe.”

“I’ll be
fine
,” I said bristling. “You need me there to make it look real. Look at this guy…” I gestured to the holo again. “He doesn’t go
anywhere
without arm candy. He’s probably the biggest douche-nozzle in the universe and he needs a girl with him constantly to tell him how
amazing
and
wonderful
he is.”

“Douche-nozzle?”
Sarden stared at me.

“Actually, from what I can tell about Van’Dleek, she’s probably right,” Grav said, nodding at the holo apologetically. “About him always having a female or two with him, anyway. I don’t know what a douche-nozzle is.”

Sarden’s face looked like a thundercloud about to break.

“I don’t want to risk you, Zoe. I nearly lost you once—I’m not going to let you walk into danger again,” he growled.

“Look,” I said in a low voice. “I won’t be in danger—I’ll be between you and Grav here, who looks like he could bench press a city bus. Besides, this is the least I can do since you aren’t, you know, trading me away.”

“I don’t know…” he began.

“Come on,” I said. “This is
my
plan—you can’t just cut me out of it. Besides, I might be able to see more than you can. You’ll be playing the big, important man and I’ll be down on my knees adoring you and being unobtrusively nosey.”

“Well, if it means getting you on your knees…” His gold eyes flashed for a moment and my stomach did a little flip. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me but he didn’t—maybe because Grav was sitting right across the table, watching us with interest.

“I’m glad you’re seeing it my way,” I said, trying to ignore the rush of heat his words sent through me. “So let’s get started—the sooner we do this, the sooner we can all go home.”

I regretted my choice of words almost immediately but it was too late to call them back.

“Home. Yes, I did promise to take you home,” Sarden mused, the heat leaving his eyes abruptly. “And I
will
keep that promise, Zoe—I swear it.”

“I know you will,” I said, feeling suddenly miserable for no reason I could really name. “But we have to take care of this first. We have to get your sister.”

“And Teeny,” Grav put in. “I’ve sworn to retrieve her or die trying.”

“Wow.” I looked at him appraisingly. “You really take this bodyguard stuff
seriously
.”

“A Protector is more than just a guard,” he said, frowning. “I told you—I lay my life on the line for my wards. That’s why I’m very fuckin’ careful who I take as a client.”

“Duly noted,” Sarden said, nodding at his friend. “Hopefully we can get both our females back.”

“There is just
one
thing…” Grav cleared his throat. “I picked Van’Dleek from the auction list because he’s coming from a different galaxy and it’s a pretty sure bet Tazaxx has never met him before. But he’s Frellian.”

“So?” Sarden shrugged. “What does that mean to me?”

“Nothing, except, well, take a closer look at his clothes—his trousers.” Grav fired up the hologram again and made it bigger, zeroing in on the loose, white trousers. Now that he had zoomed it up, I could see what he was talking about.

“Hey—there’s no fly in those things,” I protested. “His, uh, junk could just fall out at any time. Why is that?”

“Frellians…” Grav coughed. “Uh, they
expose
themselves as a type of greeting to their equals. It’s considered an insult not to.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “They literally have a dick measuring contest every time they meet someone? That’s insane.”

“No—that’s Frellian,” Grav said. “Fuckin’ weird but what are you gonna do? Different cultures, right?”

I had a sudden mental image of Sarden opening a pair of loose, white, Miami Vice-type trousers and flopping out his dick while saying hello to the infamous Tazaxx. I couldn’t tell if the idea was horrifying or funny. Maybe just scary, considering how freaking huge he was down there. To my surprise, though, Sarden didn’t look the least perturbed.

“So, he’s Frellian. So what?” he said, shrugging. “Tazaxx isn’t—he’s Gord. Why should he care about the social conventions of a business partner?”

“Good point.” Grav looked relieved. “You probably won’t have to do it. I just wanted to, uh, lay it out there before we got started with this.”

“No pun intended?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Grav grinned, his white fangs gleaming.

“Right.”

“Is there anything else I should know?” Sarden asked.

Grav shook his head. “That’s it for weird Frellian customs as far as I know.”

“All right.” Sarden slapped the table with his palm. “Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s go back to
The Celesta
and prepare.”

Sarden

I still couldn’t believe I was letting Zoe come with me. Bearding Tazaxx in his den was damn dangerous and I didn’t want to risk her again. I wouldn’t have done it if it was just the two of us alone. But I would have Grav with me and no male could ask for better backup than that.

I watched him from the corner of my eye. He was in the corner of my room, putting on the disguise Al had synthesized for him. It wasn’t much—just two black leather straps with spikes that crisscrossed his bare chest and torso. We’d decided to leave his face unmasked because he looked fucking terrifying enough as himself. Also, if Tazaxx’s facial recognition tech picked up on him, it would show his checkered past. And the male I was impersonating, Baron Van’Dleek of the Tig’o’bah system, seemed like the type who would hire a Protector precisely
because
of his violent reputation.

I looked away from Grav. To say I’d been surprised to see my old friend was an understatement—especially since I’d been under the impression he was serving three consecutive life sentences for his crimes. I wondered how he’d gotten early release—I would bet my left nut it wasn’t for good behavior.

The crime he’d committed was the worst thing you could do on Vorn 6. In fact, if he hadn’t been underage at the time he’d committed it, he would have faced immediate execution. I had never believed my friend could do such a thing but he admitted it freely—as he had during the trial, I remembered now.

Grav had never denied his guilt or the savagery of his actions. He had stood before the High Court and laid his crime out for the three judges like a bad hand of cards, never even trying to pretend he was innocent of the gory violence he was accused of. There was blood on his hands and no mistaking it.

Which made it all the more surprising that he’d decided to become a Protector.

He’d been right when he told Zoe a Protector was more than just a guard. They trained for years to earn the title and swore an oath when they took on a new client. Something like…
“Your blood is more precious to me than my own—I spill mine willingly before a drop of yours is shed. Your flesh is my flesh—may I be pierced a thousand times before the blade shall even scratch your skin…”
I frowned, trying to remember the rest of it.

“Well? What do you think?” a soft, feminine voice said, interrupting my ruminations.

I looked up and felt my eyes widen. Zoe had insisted on having a say in what kind of disguise she wore and she and Al had been holed up in the synth closet for almost an hour when we first got back to the ship.

I had wondered what was taking so damn long—Al had made the clothing for my own disguise in next to no time, although the mask had taken a little longer since it had to be an exact duplicate of Van’Dleek’s face. My skin I was going to tint with
saphor
solution, which allows the user to change his or her epidermis to any color they choose, but only for a certain amount of time. We would have to get in and out of Tazaxx’s compound pretty quickly.

Now, looking at Zoe, I saw why she had been taking such pains with her own clothing—it was eye-catching to say the least.

The top was two intricately curved bronze cups which held her full breasts in place while showing a generous amount of her pale, creamy cleavage. Her midsection was bare, showing the soft curves of her sides. A metal belt was cinched low on her lush hips and from it hung two long, shimmering strips of fabric which barely covered her sex and her luscious ass and left her legs bare. A pair of small sandals which showed off her tiny feet completed the outfit but I confess my eyes didn’t linger there for long—I was too busy looking at the rest of her.

“So do you like it or what?” Zoe asked again, twirling so that her long, red curls glittered in the overhead glows. “I figured if you could dress like Crocket and Tubbs I could be ‘Slave Leia.’ It’s perfect, right?”

“It’s…you’re…” I found I couldn’t finish my thought. Though I had seen her naked on several occasions—and almost naked in the Ma
jor
an clothing—this particular outfit seemed made to emphasize her curvy beauty. She was absolutely breathtaking and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It made me glad I had closed the slit in the ridiculous white trousers which were part of my own disguise—if I hadn’t, my feelings about her outfit would have suddenly become a lot more obvious.

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” Grav said. “Hell of a lot better than that damn Grubbian disguise you were wearing at the port lounge.”

I tore my eyes away from Zoe long enough to see that my friend was looking at her admiringly. I felt a possessive growl rise in my throat—Vorns don’t share their females like Denarins do—but he held up his hands in a gesture of peace.

“I’m just stating the obvious, old friend. You’re a lucky son of a bitch to have found such a beautiful, smart female to call your own.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that Zoe wasn’t mine—that she was a free female—but somehow I couldn’t make myself say it. That was because part of me rose up inside and growled that she
was
fucking mine and I would kill any male who tried to take her away from me. That I would kill or die for her as surely as Grav would kill or die for his female ward to whom he had sworn his oath.

“Thank you.” Zoe was blushing prettily, her pale, freckled cheeks flushed with pleasure at the compliment. I noticed she hadn’t denied being mine any more than I had, and wondered about it. She’d been quick to point out I didn’t own her before I had given her her freedom, but now she wasn’t so quick to mention it. Did it mean anything?

“Any more like you back home?” Grav asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female quite like you before—where are you from, anyway?”

“A closed planet called Earth,” I said, speaking up at last. “It was locked by the Ancient Ones after they seeded it so the inhabitants have never mingled with races outside their own planet.”

Grav’s white-on-black eyes grew wide. “A Pure One? She’s a
Pure One?”

“And a La-ti-da,” Zoe added. “A Lat-ti-
zal
, I mean. Whatever that means—I’m still not completely sure.”

“Really?” Grav’s eyes grew even wider and he looked at me. “I can see why you wanted to protect her, Sarden. She’s fuckin’ priceless.”

“She is,” I murmured, looking down at my little Pure One. “In fact, this is beginning to seem like a really bad idea, flaunting her in front of Tazaxx.”

“No, if anything it’ll add verisimilitude to our story,” Grav protested. “Van’Dleek would
definitely
have a female like Zoe on his arm. And Tazaxx won’t be able to resist taking a closer look at her.”

I tore my eyes away from Zoe to look at him.

“Excuse me?
Verisimilitude?”

He shrugged and gave me a sardonic grin.