Alien Fighter's Baby (Captured Science Fiction Romance) (12 page)

S
tarling paced
inside the bio-h while she muttered to herself. “Just slap him and tell him to quit looking at you like a piece of meat.”

What she wouldn’t give to run to Bran for an embrace, which she needed very badly. But still, she wanted to prove she was strong enough to deal with Bran’s team member, who had intense, leering eyes that followed her everywhere.

She was afraid the only thing that kept him from acting out was the fact she was pregnant. Mr. Brooding Cobalt didn’t like that. At all. Holy Jupiter, she’d not even dated before she’d been captured by the slavers, so she had no clue how a woman dealt with unwanted attentions from a man.

Bran had finally found the opportunity to take her aside to explain, sort of, why he’d kept their relationship a secret since Mr. Unwanted There had shown up.

She still didn’t fully understand Bran’s explanation, about his command not allowing its troopers to be involved with civilians. She understood it if he was still in the troopers or under their command, but instead they were lost on an enemy planet.

Only Bran had said he couldn’t be certain what Cobalt would do, and he didn’t want to throw their relationship in Cobalt’s face until he could figure some things out. So Bran had basically ordered her not to let their involvement show around Cobalt.

“And how much easier would it be if Cobalt knew I was with Bran?” she said as she paced.

Alpha-Force troopers were a scary bunch when they weren’t on your side, as Bran was on hers. Cobalt looked as if he could throw her down and take her at any second.

Starling shuddered, then was mad for not being stronger. Well, she might not understand Bran’s orders or like them, but she did trust him. Especially when he slept right outside the bio-h, as he had been doing every night since Cobalt found them.

Bran didn’t trust Cobalt one bit, but Starling couldn’t help being the slightest bit impressed with Cobalt’s resolve and drive. To have survived alone on the enemy planet for that long, just to find her. It was amazing.

An hour later, she was out of the bio-h cutting up different varieties of alien fruits they had been eating for several weeks, when Cobalt walked up and stopped beside her. Starling was proud that she didn’t shudder as she glanced over and up at him. His eyes were like blue fire, and she decided she was done waiting around for someone to clue him in.

“Cobalt,” she said clearly. “I’m not interested and I’ll never be interested in you. Get it out of your head.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked down on her, and she forced her gaze away from him and back to cutting the fruit.

“You might feel differently after the baby drops,” his hard voice echoed next to her ear.

Starling held herself from flinching, but then she did step back, whirl on him, and raise her knife. “My baby,” she spat. “It’s my baby, you idiot, and I will do anything for my baby and to raise my baby. You get that?”

She tapped the knife toward him with each of the last three words. Then she was pleased to see surprise in his eyes. Maybe she was getting through to the big lout.

So she added, “Now get away from here and leave me alone.”

When she turned to cut the next fruit, she didn’t look at him. He stayed for several seconds, then turned and stalked off. Starling expelled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she steadied her shaking hand. Holy Jupiter, she couldn’t have been plainer.

Only there was one thing she’d learned about Alpha-Force troopers, and that was they were incredibly stubborn, so she wouldn’t stop with just that one time telling him; she’d continue to do it every chance she had.

The next morning, she was rounding the back of the Zach, when suddenly Bran was in front of her. Before she could gasp at being startled by his quickness, he’d scooped her up his body and started to kiss her. Then she had a moment to exclaim against his mouth, before they urgently started kissing.

“Hell, sweetheart, I’m dying to taste you,” Bran said, in the middle of their kisses.

“Cobalt?” she asked against his kissing lips.

“Gone to check the river edge for game,” he said, right before his tongue swept into her mouth.

Her arms tightened around him, while she frantically swept his tongue in return. She wanted his hard, naked body against her. But when she began to pull his vest up, he dragged his mouth from hers.

“Not enough time,” he said harshly, then he swore.

“Bran,” she moaned, but he shook his head and set her back from him, while everything on her ached for him.

“That’s all we can do,” he said in his ordering voice.

Anger rose in her throat. “You need to tell him,” she said.

She watched him scraping a hand through his hair, grown longer than its normal military cut. Somehow, he’d kept the bristle on his hard jaw to just a dark shadow and not a full-out beard. He looked as fierce as Cobalt did, and she’d not noticed it before.

“I have ordered him not to touch you or I’ll kill him,” he said harshly.

Her eyes widened as her heartbeat kicked up a notch. “You told him we’re together—”

“No,” he interrupted her, and he cupped her upper arm, then stroked it as if trying to soothe her. “Just that. We have a pact. I won’t touch; he won’t touch.”

“Jupiter, Bran!” she exclaimed.

“Sweetheart, it’s complicated. You don’t know my world, being in Alpha-Force.”

She’d been readying to blast him some more, but when he said that, she calmed down. Darn, she had to trust him. She’d never known him to do things without a reason.

“Okay, it’s just hard to do,” she whispered, as she cupped her large belly. Then, she added, “He’s kicking.”

Bran’s hard features became instantly softer, and his big hand lifted to press next to hers on her tummy.

“He’s going to be strong,” Bran murmured.

She nodded and tried a smile. “So do you have time to start telling me why it is so complicated?”

Bran sighed as he pulled her toward him and kissed her temple. “I can try, Starling. But even if it doesn’t make sense to you, you have to trust me, right?”

She nodded, then Bran seemed to sense something, and he backed away from her and pointed to the entrance. She scooted back too and looked that way, where she could just see the top of Cobalt’s head coming up the rise on the side of the mountain. Their time alone was gone.

That evening, as they sat around a small fire Bran had been allowing, she learned more about Cobalt’s time trying to survive on the planet before he’d found them. Each of them had a cup of bio-tea, which was about half gone by then, and Cobalt was looking less starved, and, she had to admit, he was looking less rabid. He’d actually kept his distance since their talk, or rather her lecture. But he still watched her when he thought she didn’t know. However, she could feel it.

“They caught me once,” Cobalt said.

That made her sit straighter and look at him with concern.

“How long?” Bran asked, and he didn’t look her way, keeping his gaze drilled on Cobalt.

“Day, maybe a day and a half, before I killed them all—but one got away.”

Bran leaned back with his long legs out in front of him. She tried not to notice how good he looked, and instead regarded the mug of tea warming her palms.

“And they didn’t take you back to their main base?” Bran asked.

“They were too busy looking for her.”

Starling flinched and set her mug down to look at him, startled.

“They wanted me to tell them where the fuck she was,” he said, then lifted the bottom of his stretch shirt, showing off a ripped abdomen, but also burned-over welts like Bran had. Which meant the Grubs had tortured Cobalt like they had done to Bran.

“Tell me you held,” Bran demanded.

“I held,” Cobalt said, looking at her with his intense blue eyes as he slowly lowered his shirt. “They’d have to kill me, because I’d never give her up.”

Starling wanted to thank him and slap him at the same time. It made her grit her teeth through the uncomfortable moment. No one had asked him to follow her or follow them. So he could take his heroics and stuff them.

“That was good of you, but unnecessary, if you hadn’t followed us,” she said, as snottily as possible. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bran raise an eyebrow to her. Well, she’d meant it, and maybe Cobalt wouldn’t find her so damn desirable if she showed her snotty side more.

But the ass laughed. It was a deep rumble, and it made her glare at him harder.

“Eventually you’ll get I’d do anything for you,” he said.

“Cobalt,” Bran snapped, while she choked on an exclamation.

“Truth,” Cobalt said to Bran. “We’ve got no deal on words, brother.”

Starling finally couldn’t stand it any longer, and she exclaimed, “Oh!” It was indignation, as she came to her feet, while holding her overly large belly. “And you’ve got no honor, not leaving a woman alone who has made it clear she is not into you!”

Starling stomped off, with Bran’s voice behind her. “Starling’s right. Clue in, buddy.”

Starling could still hear their voices after she’d slung the bio-h flap opened and closed.

So she heard Cobalt saying, “I’ve got honor. How about the unbreakable rule: no civilians, and no relationships for fighting troopers. You broke that.”

“Oh.” Starling fumed. But she didn’t turn back around; instead, she listened to Bran’s answer.

“I told you we were forced by the Grubs. Your argument is a nonstarter, Cobalt. Seems to me you are the one with the problem of trying to be involved with a civilian, and that civilian has made it clear she isn’t interested in you.” Then Bran added, “This isn’t a battle challenge you need to try to win. A woman says no, you back off.”

“Damn it,” Cobalt said. Then he said something Starling had rarely considered. “We don’t do civilians. It’s a learning curve. But a man sees something like that and…”

Starling couldn’t stop the hot blush that grew even hotter when Bran agreed.

“Yeah, I get that. Out here, after all these years, she’s perfect to mess with a man’s head and his dick.”

Starling didn’t try to hear Cobalt’s answer. She stopped listening. Then she thought that both men needed to cool the hell off. They were making her a problem just for being alive.

S
tarling had changed
, and Bran was surprised. Of course, he’d known the second Cobalt had shown up that it would alter everything. But Starling’s recent transformation was more than that. She’d changed about him too. Whenever he had a chance to get her alone for a second, she would avoid him. Even when they were in front of Cobalt, she was different with him. Before she’d been sweet to him, but now she was a blank wall.

Women … he didn’t understand them at all.

He had to assume it was his orders to keep their relationship on the QT. It hadn’t mattered which way he’d tried to explain to her that it was better to keep it secret; she wasn’t going to understand it. But tactically, if Cobalt found out, it would put them at a disadvantage. Plus it would stir up the hot rivalry he and Cobalt had always had.

He needed to protect his woman and his baby, and he was doing his damndest to do that. It hadn’t been easy to stay away from her. Nearly impossible. What it had done was make him see clearly how much she meant to him.

It was bigger than anything in his life. It was bigger than the troopers were for him, and that was massive. It was also devastating, because he couldn’t come up with a plan that ended with them together.

The military did not let go of its assets. He had no proof, but he’d bet they even had tracking inside him. Maybe barcodes so they could link his body. He’d once heard of a ghost unit called Asset Retrieval that had been rumored to undertake missions that found the bodies of fallen Alpha-Force troopers. Just to be certain. But it was one of those military legends that had come and gone with the wind.

Just then, Bran’s brooding was interrupted by the sound of an argument. He stretched his cramped leg muscles from where he’d been hunched over, and then stood. Beyond the Zach toward the entrance to the cavern, he saw Starling chewing out Cobalt. Bran might have laughed, because Cobalt looked dogged by a petite and very pregnant tigress.

“I shouldn’t have to worry about taking a darn bath. Don’t you know what being a gentleman means, just because you are in the military?” Starling asked.

Bran raised an eyebrow, but he stayed put and watched them.

“You can take a bath,” Cobalt snapped, and gestured to the pools of water.

“And your word is good?” Starling asked sharply.

“I don’t need to fucking lie. I say what I mean,” Cobalt said.

“You have a filthy mouth, captain,” Starling declared tartly, then she turned as if to flounce away.

Cobalt caught her arm, and Bran took one step forward, but stopped as he heard what Cobalt had to say.

“I swear I’ll stay outside the cavern for one hour. Boss man will be with me.”

Starling looked up at Cobalt and nodded, then looked at Bran. He nodded to her. It was a mess that she had to worry about getting clean, which was a thing he knew she liked. Since the steam shower had run out of water, she had been using the pool. But then Cobalt had arrived, and Bran should have noticed that she’d been unable to take a bath.

He felt bad about not noticing, but they never had a chance to talk any longer, so he had to leave it as he went to follow Cobalt out of the cavern.

“Christ,” Cobalt muttered, as they walked side by side. “Is she always this complicated?”

Bran held his chuckle, but tried an aggravated look with an added nod. Maybe Starling’s idea to make herself look less appealing had merit. And there was no way in hell he’d ever tell Cobalt that making love with the woman was worth putting up with anything, snotty or sweet.

Cobalt kept muttering until they’d reached the stream halfway down the mountain, where they startled a herd of deer-like creatures across the water. Before he’d started hunting them, they would have startled, moved several paces, then stayed in place. But he watched them as they raced down the stream, in the direction he had decided was north.

“Is that what we have been eating?” Cobalt asked, after he’d sat on a bolder by the edge of the stream.

Bran planted his hands on his hips and looked both directions, as he nodded to Cobalt’s question.

“I’d take the chance on testing out more variety, but with the baby due soon, I’m not taking the chance. Two of the alien-type fruits tested okay on the toxicity meter, but the skin test rose welts.”

“Those damn meters are crap,” Cobalt said, then asked, “So you’re taking the whole baby thing seriously?”

Bran stopped scanning their surroundings and looked at Cobalt, who did not have an asshole expression, but looked surprised. Bran crouched, facing Cobalt.

“Yeah, man, of course. It’ll be a birth. Can anyone be more vulnerable?”

Cobalt scraped his long blond hair. “I’m terrible at this shit,” he muttered.

Bran held his smile. “Yeah, I’m learning too.”

“So you have a plan?” Cobalt asked. “You always have a plan, man.”

Bran picked up a rock and fiddled with it. “I have a medi-log and the AI med-pack. Luckily for me, they have a program for birth. Step-by-step instructions with monitors.”

Cobalt surprised him by looking relieved.

“Good,” he said, nodding. He tilted his head up the mountain. “Does she know that?”

Bran barely held back a flinch. Damn, he was an idiot. He and Starling had talked about the baby many times, but he’d never thought to clue her in. Cobalt must have read his face, even though he’d been trying to keep it immobile.

“Better tell her,” Cobalt said.

“Surprisingly thoughtful, coming from you,” Bran said.

Cobalt smiled. “I have seconds of inspiration, but then they disappear.” He stood and walked to the stream, which put his back to Bran, and said, “Must be crazy thinking that’s your kid.”

Instantly, Bran wondered what Cobalt’s angle was, so he trod carefully. “It is what it is. I have to accept it.”

“They won’t, though,” Cobalt said. “It won’t matter shit to them how it happened. That it’s yours.”

Bran knew who “they” were. It was their command. The higher-ups that ran their military lives. “I almost get why they only allowed us sex bots,” Bran said, as his way of agreeing.

Cobalt turned to him with a serious expression. “They’re not going to put all that money and time into their war boys, then let them get a hint of freedom or a taste of what a life could be like. They need their investment to pay off.”

“Damn it,” Bran said, agreeing. He stood and walked to Cobalt’s side. “I just need to find her a place that I know will be good.”

Cobalt nodded, looking grim. “Yeah, I’m starting to see the light.”

Bran hoped so, but there was one thing he knew from being Cobalt’s commander for so long, and that was the man was complicated. Bran would never stop watching him. So they turned their discussion to the camouflage he wanted to use to hide the cavern entrance.

“With you here now, we can do it,” Bran told Cobalt.

“You should have done it already,” Cobalt said, and not nicely.

But Bran knew he was right, so he ignored the dig.

“We’ll go tomorrow morning, at what goes for dawn around here,” he said.

Cobalt nodded and crossed his arms. “Shouldn’t be gone more than a couple hours.”

Bran hoped it wasn’t too long to be gone from Starling, but he felt strongly that it needed to be done. When their hour was up, Cobalt stayed out to hunt, while Bran went back to the cavern. Starling wasn’t around, but when he went to look in the bio-h, he saw she was curled up asleep and her hair was still wet.

He knew she’d been sleeping more the larger her belly had gotten, and he snuck in to cover her. But he stayed for a few moments stroking her damp, sweet-smelling hair. Man, he loved her. After all the months they’d been together, she had become necessary to him. He was going to love his son too. Even though he couldn’t be with them.

Bran silently vowed to find a way to support them. Even though Alpha-Force had his life, they still paid, thinking the troopers would use the credit for the rare furloughs they were given.

He’d not been on furlough in two years, so he had credit built up. If Wisetech did come back for them, they’d find a good place for Starling to live and raise their child. Maybe with time, he’d figure a way out. But he wondered if that would be fair to Starling … to make her wait for him.

He couldn’t imagine her on her own. She was too beautiful not to be desired, and who would be around to keep men from trying to claim her? Bran’s fingers curled into a fist with the thought as he looked down at her delicate face. How could he keep her free to make her own choices, if he wasn’t there to ensure it?

He’d never had a harder predicament, and he couldn’t see his way clear of it.

“Bran?” Bran focused on Starling’s face … he hadn’t been aware that she’d woken. “It will be all right,” she whispered, and she cupped his tight jaw.

“You know if I could, I would stay with you both,” he said tightly.

Her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. “I know,” she said softly.

He gathered her up and pulled her against him. “I just want you safe, baby,” he said.

Later that night, they’d eaten alien deer steaks. Cobalt had killed and dressed one, then cooked the thick steaks for all of them. Bran was glad to see that Cobalt had finally stopped acting as if he was going to carry Starling off at any second. And Starling had noticed it, which had made her loosen up. Not all the way, but enough that she laughed over the story Cobalt had been telling.

“The space was three meters wide. I had your boyfriend’s dick in my face, while my ass was in Lee’s face, and Jammer had Lee’s face under his armpit.”

Starling giggled and Bran watched it light up her green eyes. “Lee is the woman soldier, right?”

“Yeah,” Cobalt said. “There were Grubs right outside the door. But we knew if we tried to open it, we would get too tangled to get any shots off, and then the worst happened.”

“The worst?” Starling asked, sitting forward. The small fire played golden light across her long hair.

“Jammer farted.”

Starling busted out laughing, and it made Bran chuckle as she looked surprised and held a hand over her mouth in a very feminine gesture. “What happened?” she asked through her fingers.

“We all held our breath,” Cobalt said, trying not to laugh.

“But the smell,” Bran said on a chuckle, “was so bad—”

“The Grubs, um, noticed it,” Cobalt said, laughing.

“Oh no,” Starling exclaimed. “Hopefully no one got hurt.”

“Nah,” Cobalt said. “After enduring that smell for our country’s safety, we still had to bail out of that compartment. But the smell must have confused the Grubs, because we got the upper hand right away and blasted them.”

“Since then,” Bran said, “we call all tight spaces Jammer Funk and we razz the hell out of him.”

“I can see why,” Starling said, laughing.

After they’d chuckled over that, they all became quiet for a while, watching the flames. Starling was stitching something that looked as if it could be for the baby, while Cobalt poked the fire.

Bran stretched his legs before he said, “Cobalt and I are going first thing in the morning to set up the camouflage over the cavern entrance.”

He waited for Starling’s reaction, which was unpredictable on that subject.

“Both of you?” she asked.

He nodded. “Only be gone a couple hours.”

She looked at Cobalt. “You must think it is important.”

Cobalt nodded. “Standard encampment procedure.”

Bran felt a little tug that she’d ask or take Cobalt’s explanation. He didn’t like her looking to another man for anything. He stretched, and then loosened his shoulders from the distaste he felt. There was no way she even liked Cobalt.

“I know it’s not much, but if you need the Zach or something, I can do that,” she said.

“You can’t take it up the mountain. It won’t go,” Cobalt reminded her, but he said it gently.

“I’ll never be a soldier,” she mumbled.

“Be glad about that—I am,” Bran said, before Cobalt could comment.

The glow he received from her was worth it.