Alien Mine (25 page)

"Probes?" Zacar demanded.

"In place. They won't surprise us," Zurian said.

Zacar nodded and they all went back to what they were doing. Natalie was torn between amusement at that small nod from Zacar and disquiet over the conversation.

Then the import of their words hit her. Yesterday Zacar had told her that Azagor was attacked by the raiders at the pass, but with her worry over Azagor's condition, it didn't really register. Now, her heartbeat sped up and she clutched her middle. Hundreds of raiders were camped at the pass.

She ran to Zacar and grabbed his arm. "Did Azagor kill all the raiders at the pass?" She tugged at his arm and he looked down at her hands, as if trying to figure out what she was trying to do. He took her hands in his.

"He is a Zyrgin warrior." Pure arrogance ran through his statement.

"And that means, of course, he killed them. Don't you realize that Murdoch will send thousands now in retaliation?" Tugging her hands from his, she grabbed her hair and walked away. She stopped and swung around when he spoke.

"We will kill them, too."

"You can't kill every last raider."

He looked at her, simply cocked his head and looked at her.

"What about the town? What if they hurt Julia?" It was easy for him to talk about killing raiders. He didn't have friends that would be endangered by his actions.

Something frightening moved in his eyes. "They will be too busy trying to get away from us to harm your friend."

"That's your solution? Just kill them and the problem will go away?" Fed up with him and his violent stance on everything, she stormed to the entrance of the cave and pressed her palm to the panel in the wall. The door opened and she rushed outside. She walked up to the end of the force field, placed her hand against it and felt slight shocks, almost pleasure shooting through her palms. This was the first time she'd come here since she'd seen Zacar talk to the hologram. She gazed out at the snow-covered landscape to escape the suffocating feeling she got more and more lately. The thought of being trapped in this cave year after year for more than seven months at a time depressed her.

The hair at the nape of her neck lifted. Zacar heated her back as he stood behind her. As if he understood her mood, he didn't speak, just simply stood and looked at the savage landscape in front of them while his body warmed hers.

***

That night while she watched the cell cast, she sat tense, caged between Zacar's legs as usual, waiting for news that the town had been attacked by raiders. Shivers ran down her spine where he absently stroked a long finger up and down. Even though he always kept them retracted in her presence, she always waited for that moment when she'd feel his claws emerge and scrape across her skin.

She'd just started to relax when the chime announcing breaking news rang, jerking her upright again. Natalie pressed her nails into Zacar's thighs and prayed that Julia was spared.

"This just in. Our correspondent in Washington obtained the first picture ever seen of Murdoch, the infamous leader of the raiders."

This was unexpected. Everyone had speculated for years about the identity of the man. He came on the scene about four years ago and rumor had it that he'd killed Karl, the previous leader and founder of the raiders. His likeness flashed in the air and hung there with obscene clarity.

Natalie shook her head in disbelief. "It couldn't be him," she whispered.

"Who?" she heard Zacar ask through the buzzing in her ears.

The face of the man in the hologram was rougher than she remembered, broader, a few scars marring his chin. His once beautiful blue eyes were bloodshot and locked eerily onto hers. His nose was crooked, as though it had been broken and healed without the help of a doctor. But still, she knew it was the man she'd been engaged to six years ago, the man who broke her heart, but at the time he'd called himself Andre Smith.

She drew in a shocked breath. "How is this possible?" she asked, covering her mouth, as though the action would somehow lessen the shock.

"You know him?" Zacar's body vibrated with tension around her.

"I used to date him a very long time ago." She tried very hard to sound casual and uncaring.

"Does that mean fuck?" The finger stroking her back now had a claw for half a second before it retracted.

Natalie dropped her head into her hand and shook it. "Not always," she muttered through her fingers. "Dating means you see a guy exclusively and do things together." No way was she telling him she almost married the man.

"Did you fuck together?" he insisted.

She hesitated. Would admitting that she'd had sex before make her damaged goods in his eyes? "Yes, we did. But it was many years ago, so please stop asking and stop saying that word," Natalie snapped at him.
Really
?
How can he fixate on this one thing
? He should be worrying about why Murdoch was looking for her now.

"He took you to his camp?"

"No. I met him through my father. He was the lawyer for the company my father used to work for. But he just packed up and left one day."
Right after I had a serious asthma attack.

At least now she knew why the raiders were looking for her. Murdoch had to know about her father's formula. She remembered catching him going through her father's books once. At the time, she'd accepted his explanation that the paper books fascinated him. But something in his attitude that day had always nagged at her.

"It was long ago. I haven't even thought of him again until they showed his picture." No need to tell him about the lonely nights she'd cried her heart out. Or her despair at the realization no man wanted to live with her asthma. Although, at least back then she hadn't lived with the threat of a man killing her for it.

His breath tickled her nape when he bent lower. "Why did you leave him?"

Natalie turned around and smacked her fist against his chest, but immediately regretted it. She flexed her sore fingers. "Are you deaf? I said he left me." It was embarrassing enough to remember without talking about it.

"Why? You are a good breeder."

"Owww." She simply had to stop hitting him when he said things like that. It hurt too much.

He took her hand and massaged it. She glared at the doctor when he made to come and look at it.

"Not all men regard women as breeding machines," she snapped at Zacar.

"Earth men are weak. They cannot provide for breeders."

She pushed him back and, jumping up, stormed off to their bedroom, still shaking her sore hand. It galled her that she couldn't have left his lap if he didn't want her to go.
Iron-skinned idiot
! Was that the only worth a woman had to him?

"Doesn't he care about intelligence, or even something as superficial as looks?" she muttered. "Earth men are weak," she imitated furiously.

Loving a woman, respecting her, discussing things with her like her father used to do with her mother was not being weak.

"Why are you mad?" he said from directly behind her and she rushed into the tent, trying hard to ignore him.

She should've known he'd ignore her body language shouting the need to be alone. How many times did she have to explain to him that she objected to being called a breeder as if she was an animal? As if her only worth was in the amount of babies she conceived? She wanted what her parents had, the loving glances, laughter, and closeness.

"What am I to you?" If he said breeder, she'd find that harpoon and stick it through his cold heart.

A puzzled silence descended before she was lifted and turned. In the blink of an eye, she found herself face to face, with her straddling his lap while he sat on their bed. She stared up at him. The man really moved fast.

"Explain."

Being this close to him in almost exactly the same position she was last night when they made love distracted her. His thighs flexed beneath her, warm and seductive. The hollows in his cheeks and the crinkles around his eyes fascinated her. She moved, a slow sinuous seductive roll of her hips she couldn't control. She frowned up at him, trying to remember what they were arguing about.

"Do you feel anything at all for me?" She bit her lip. Exposing her feelings like this was like standing naked in front of a crowd of strangers, intent on criticizing her.

"I protect you." Clearly lost, he stared down at her as if waiting for her to explain the great mystery of emotions.

She wanted him to tell her he cared for her, at least without her having to prompt him. And she wanted reassurance that she mattered more to him than just as a breeding machine. She heard her voice ask the question she didn't want to know the answer to. "If I never had any children again, would you still protect me? Would you stay with me?"

"You refuse to have my little warriors because you want to breed for Murdoch?" His voice was soft, almost reasonable, which was worse than if he'd roared.

"No, that's not what I'm asking."

Now he bent down to hiss in her face. "You want to breed Murdoch's warriors?"

She should be frightened, placate him and get his mind off the subject before his jealousy made him do something she'd regret. Instead, she studied the roof of the tent while she counted to ten. "Of course that's why I asked." Her sarcasm went right over his head. Grabbing his cheeks, she lifted his face up a bit so she could stare straight into his eyes. "I would kill myself before I allowed him to ever touch me."

"No need. I kill him. Soon."

Oops. She didn't doubt for one moment that Zacar would walk into the raider camp and kill their vicious leader. She simply couldn't think of him as her ex fiancé anymore. That evil thing in the holograph wasn't even close to the man she thought he'd been.

Zacar bent his head and kissed her, the discussion over as far as he was concerned. He nibbled her lips and his fingers at her waist stroked over her hipbones in a caress fraught with danger. She moaned and rolled her hips again. Her alien did enjoy making love to her, and she enjoyed being made love to. His lips were as dangerous as his tongue, burning over hers and spreading a fire inside her body that made her moan and twist against him. Suddenly her clothes were too tight. She wanted them gone, wanted to be skin to skin with him.

He lifted his head and looked down at her with red eyes that, more and more, had come to represent the essence of passion to her. "Tell me you want me. That you want only me."

"I want only you, Zacar."

"And I want only Natlia." He bent his head and gently kissed her neck then, lifting her shirt over her head, moved down the slope of her breast. "Tell me you would never go back to Murdoch."

She giggled helplessly. Did he seriously think she would want to go to the leader of the raiders? "I want only you, Zacar," she repeated. "Forget about Murdoch. He will get his just desserts for being evil."