Kaitlyn O'Connor (22 page)

He heard it. His head whipped her in direction just about the time his opponent slung a meaty fist at him. The blow caught him on the jaw and sent him reeling backwards. Loren clapped a hand to her mouth. Karen and Shara both whipped their heads to glare at her.

Unfortunately, so did the three red aliens. The tallest of the three, waved an arm at them in a shooing motion. “Go!”

Karen and Shara took flight. Loren gaped at him as he headed toward her, too paralyzed to move.

His expression twisted with anger. “You go!” he growled. “No watch!”

Sucking in another gasp, her paralysis vanishing when he kept coming, Loren whirled away from the door as he neared her and nearly fell over Karen and Shara, who
‟
d only retreated far enough to be beyond the alien
‟
s view.

Karen let out a yelp of fright when she threw a frightened look back and saw the alien, and tried to claw her way through Loren. Shara took to her heels and vanished. Buffeted by Karen
‟
s retreat, Loren stumbled against the wall of the corridor.

“Dey work de shame. You go!” the alien said again.

Loren blinked at him in incomprehension, but she wasn
‟
t about to argue with him. The only reason she hadn
‟
t already retreated was because Karen had spun her around and disoriented her.

The moment she realized the „demon
‟
alien was in front of her, she whirled and took off in the other direction. It would probably have worked better if she
‟
d been able to resist the urge to look back and make sure he wasn
‟
t on her heels. Fortunately, she didn
‟
t manage to get up to full steam before she slammed into the wall on the other side and bounced off.

The alien pounced on her before she could scramble to her feet. Grasping her arms and hauling up, he looked her over. “Hurt?”

Loren blinked at him, but if he was offering she certainly didn
‟
t want any. “No! No, thank you!”

His eyes gleamed with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Hurt self?”

She felt heat rise to her face. “Oh! No. I
‟
m fine.”

“Hit hard. Knot here.” He lifted a hand to her forehead and she sucked in a sharp breath when he lightly touched the goose egg. She didn
‟
t even
remember
hitting her head!

“Hit ass, too. Want rub make better?”

Loren felt her jaw go slack with surprise. She met his amused, appreciative gaze and realized abruptly that he was flirting with her—she thought. Her vision seemed to sharpen on his face for the first time when her mind had processed that and she really looked at him.

His face, like his other physical characteristics, were far more alien than the Hirachi, and yet it wasn
‟
t a fright mask—far from it. As strange as his individual features were, she discovered 99

with a jolt of surprise that his face as a whole was attractive—hard, angular and very masculine but appealing. It intrigued her and she met his gaze again. “What did you mean?” she asked hesitantly.

He frowned, but it was as if he was scanning his mind to collect the memory, not angry.

“About the shame?” she prompted.

His expression tightened with anger. She thought it was directed at her for several moments and her pulse jumped up several notches.

“No honor, dem mens,” he growled. “Hurt little tings. Take what no give. Hirachi shame, no protect when gib word. Shame dere honor. Angry.”

Loren had already felt indignation surge through her, because she
‟
d thought he was saying the Hirachi had no honor—and she
knew
better than that! The indignation scattered into confusion, though, when he
‟
d finished and she realized he
‟
d been talking about the assaults on her and the others.

Daeman studied Lau-ren
‟
s features hungrily, wondering absently why it held so much appeal when she looked nothing like his own people, but he supposed it was the exotic look of her that
did
appeal to him.

He supposed, wryly, that it could be argued that any female would considering how long it had been since he
‟
d seen one—let alone had the opportunity to get so close to one—and he had tried to convince himself of that. He hadn
‟
t succeeded, though. The other two were pretty enough he would have been very happy to have had a chance with either if he had not seen Lau-ren.

Once he had, though, all he had been able to think about was her. The thought of touching her had created such a fever in his mind that he had scarcely been able to sleep for thinking of it and he found that he could not resist the opportunity to touch her now to see if her skin was as soft and smooth as it looked.

Loren was so deep in thought she didn
‟
t notice he
‟
d lifted his hand to lightly stroke her bruised cheek until she felt his touch. She thought she would
‟
ve retreated if she had. A jolt still went through her. He dropped his hand to his side. “No be scared ob Daeman. I no hurt.” His expression tightened again as he met her wide, unnerved gaze. “You go now.”

Loren nodded jerkily and backed away and then turned and fled down the corridor in the direction Karen and Shara had disappeared. She nearly ran into the wall again when she cast a look back and discovered he was still in the corridor, watching her.

Karen grabbed her wrist and jerked her around the corner. Her own eyes were as wide as saucers. “What happened?” she gasped.

“I nearly knocked myself out running into the wall,” Loren confessed, abruptly feeling the embarrassment she
‟
d been too stunned to feel before and covering her face. “Oh! I am so mortified! I
‟
m sure it was all he could do to keep from laughing!”

“What he do?” Shara asked breathlessly.

“He helped me up and asked me if I
‟
d hurt myself,” Loren muttered, testing the knot on her head carefully. “Does this look as huge as it feels?”

Karen blinked at her. “It matches the rest of your face now,” she said distractedly. “What else did he say?”

Loren
‟
s lips tightened. “Beat it. Go away. I think I
‟
ve lost interest in exploring. I
‟
m going back to the bridge.” When she
‟
d peered around the corner and discovered Daeman had propped a 100

shoulder against the doorframe and was
still
staring in her direction, she jerked her head back.

“He
‟
s still watching,” she mouthed.

Karen and Shara stared at her wide eyed for a moment and then peered around the corner themselves. They jumped back. “You
‟
re right!” Karen mouthed at Loren. “Let
‟
s go this way.”

“But the lift is the other way!” Loren hissed at her.

Karen stopped. “Are you sure?”

“We lost,” Shara stated the obvious. “No pay attention.”

“I
‟
m sure it
‟
s that way,” Loren said a little uncertainly.

“I
‟
m going this way anyway,” Karen said firmly. “The corridors have to intersect somewhere, right?”

Loren and Shara both looked at her doubtfully, but they shrugged and followed her.

They hadn
‟
t gone far when Karen slowed until she was walking beside Loren. She glanced at her a couple of times, apparently trying to decide how to broach the subject uppermost in her mind. “It seemed to me that you talked with the demon guy a lot longer than it would
‟
ve taken to ask if you were hurt,” she prodded.

Loren sent her a vaguely indignant look. “What are you suggesting?”

Surprise flickered in her eyes. “I wasn
‟
t suggesting anything! I was just wondering if he told you anything.”

“Oh.” Loren wrestled with whether or not to repeat it and finally dismissed her qualms. It wasn
‟
t as if Karen and Shara weren
‟
t going to notice. “He said they felt shamed because they
‟
d promised to protect us and failed…and that was why they were fighting.” She shrugged. “I guess they needed to work off their anger. Dakaar was really, really angry when he noticed the bruises.” Her chin wobbled. “I know he figured it out because he found fingerprints on my thighs.”

Karen stared at her, her mind obviously working that over. “Men!” she snapped irritably after several moments. “If
we
blamed them, I could see why they might feel bad about it, but I certainly didn
‟
t! I
‟
ve never been more happy to see anybody in my life! It wasn
‟
t as if they could help it that they were locked in!” She considered it. “In fact, I don
‟
t know how they managed to get out and get to me as quickly as they did.”

“
I
certainly didn
‟
t complain!” Loren said. “I
‟
m like you. I don
‟
t see how they could
‟
ve gotten there any sooner than they did. I didn
‟
t figure out what was happening myself until those guys grabbed me—
not
that there would
‟
ve been anything I could
‟
ve done about it anyway. They were right behind Lecur when he unlocked the door and let them in. There was no place to run.”

“Feel tings not always reasonable. No just men,” Shara offered.

Loren glanced at her unhappily. “I don
‟
t think they
‟
re going to work it out, although I suppose it might help some to have an outlet. If they
‟
re ashamed of their performance, though, they aren
‟
t going to want to hang around any of us, you know, not when they
‟
re reminded every time they look at us.”

“That is so unfair! That
‟
s almost as unreasonable as blaming us for getting assaulted.”

Loren sighed. “I suppose any time anything bad happens that you can
‟
t accept you always think there must have been
something
you could
‟
ve done to prevent it. Maybe, in the back of their minds, they think the same thing about what happened to us? That we could
‟
ve prevented it if we
‟
d tried harder?”

101

Karen released a huff of breath that was part anger and part resignation. “I guess this means we won
‟
t be getting any dick—not for a while anyway.”

Loren bit her lip to refrain from smiling.

“Not that I
‟
m not glad in a way. I
‟
m still sore as hell, but I think some good loving would go a long way toward helping me put that horrible episode behind me. I need some cuddling at least…even if they
‟
re afraid sticking their dick in would…like taint it or something.”

Loren
‟
s amusement vanished. “Yes, well I hadn
‟
t even figured out how to try to smooth over the last upset. I
‟
m beginning to think it
‟
s hopeless to think we could work anything out.”

“You can
‟
t think that way! I mean unless you just want to give up?”

“I don
‟
t want to. I just don
‟
t know what to do,” Loren said.

Karen hesitated. “You seemed…a little touchy about the conversation you had with the demon guy.”

Loren glanced at her irritably. “I know this going to sound weird,” she said finally, “but I think he might
‟
ve been trying to flirt with me.”

Karen gaped at her. “Are you serious?”

“I probably just imagined it.”

“Well, what made you imagine it?”

“I don
‟
t know. I guess the way he looked at me and…he invaded my space…just seemed a little too close, and…it was just a feeling, I guess.” She frowned, struggled a moment and finally shrugged. “Actually, I had the feeling he was the one that offered to protect me before if I
‟
d be his woman—not that I
‟
m sure! I know it was one of them, but it scared the shit out of me and I didn
‟
t really look, if you know what I mean.”