Kicking Ashe (4 page)

His gut said this deployment stank more than a lying Zelk. And it made less sense than a woman. Was it likely those in command would risk both his father’s sons? And yet that is what they’d done. Worry about Timrick tightened his throat so that the threat came out through gritted teeth.

“If you are lying to me—” Something in her expression stopped his threat.

A wry smile twitched her mouth before she sobered.

“I don’t think I can lie to you, Vidor Shan.” Her wide and seemingly direct gaze met his with no obvious signs of guile. Her scent drifted in the hot air, clear and free of taint.

He frowned now. “Of course you can’t lie to me. I can smell deception.” Was he bluffing? Possibly. Would she know it?

Her eyes widened, surprise coming back to her gaze and her scent. “Really?”

She sounded more curious than dismayed. No surprise for a woman to be curious, but if she didn’t mean scent parsing, what did she mean? And how did she know his name? To ask was to expose weakness. Unless one found the right question, one that netted information without exposing ignorance.

“Show me,” she said, challenge and curiosity deepening the color of her eyes. She stepped close, presenting her neck as if she didn’t know he’d been scent parsing her already. “I’ll say one thing true and one not. You guess which.”

“He won’t need to guess, Lady,” Eamon said, leaning against a boulder, letting it take the weight of his pack containing the falling she’d called an automaton. Cadir crossed his arms as one about to be entertained.

Her gaze traveled the small circle, her teeth abusing her lower lip. “Hmmm.” She grinned. “Truth or lie. When I visited Keltinar—”

“Lie,” he stated, relieved at this one truth. She couldn’t lie to him. “You have never visited Keltinar.”

“You’re sure about that?” Her brows arched.

He secured her arm, lifted it to his nose, his gaze locked on hers, and sniffed. “Yes.”

She didn’t blink. She did smile. It hit him like a kick to the gut. But worse was the sense he that he’d seen her look that way before. That it was not possible did not mitigate the certainty of the sensation.

“You’re right. I’ve never visited Keltinar. Wanted to, but haven’t yet.”

“You would not be allowed to visit.” He gritted his teeth. “And now you will speak truth. You will tell me why you are here.”

She tipped her head back a bit, her hair falling away from the crisp lines of her face. “What does the truth smell like?”

“Better than a lie,” Eamon said, “though your lie does not stink as much as a Zelk.”

Shan hid his sigh at this revealing statement. He was still young. And he had yet to learn just how vile the stench of a Zelk could be.

She grinned at Eamon, but her gaze swiftly returned to him. She leaned in, reversing his hold on her arm, her fingers closing around his wrist now. She lifted his wrist, bringing her nose close to his pulse point. “Is that true?”

“No.”

She shook her head, her mouth tipping down. “Shame on you, Vidor Shan.”

He frowned. “You can scent parse?”

“No.”

Truth.

“There are less stinky ways to detect lies.”

He wanted to ask. Didn’t. He turned her hand over, studied the way her fingers curled around his wrist. It should have looked wrong, pale lavender against brown. Cool against warm. His pulse surged against the soft pads touching his skin. His pulse. It surged again, as if to confirm his suspicion.

Her lips curved up again, slow and knowing. “What else can you smell?”

Cadir grinned. “When a woman wants you.”

Eamon shoved him. “Like you’d know.”

She laughed, but without breaking her gaze from his. “Interesting.”

His pulse stuttered at the scent of pheromones mingling with her musk. He fought what his body wanted to do in response to this provocation—a problem he should not have with inhibitors in place—felt the sharp honing of his senses at the complexity of her scent. The fine grain of her skin misted with sweat. Her breath brushed his face, soft as a breeze. It cooled his skin but sent heat spiking everywhere else. Her fingers banded his wrist, the slender fingers not long enough to encircle his wrist. The pads were soft as silk, but seared where they touched. Scent sense had always dominated, but now he’d swear he heard the soft sound of her breathing, the pump of her heart. His turn to reverse the grip. His fingers closed around her wrist once more, his fingers long enough to easily circle it. Her skin felt no different than theirs, except that it was soft like his mother’s. And it did not affect him like a mother. If he looked away, he could believe she was like them. Not that he could look away.

The strange green of her irises, the flecks of gold that seemed to shift and pulse puzzled him—the pupils widened, masking all but a rim of green and gold. Her pulse kicked against his fingers, the curve fading from her lips, leaving a half pout behind. Her scent and his cycled between them, as if wrapping them in a—

Eamon coughed once and then again, louder the second time. Shan dropped her wrist as if burned, stepping away from her alien enticement. She almost looked hurt and then her lashes slid down. When they lifted her gaze was cool, a bit wary. He had a sense she’d retreated further than his step back. She turned away, directing a false smile at Cadir and Eamon.

“So, tell me about these Zelk things. You said they’re reptilian? Do they have four legs or what?”

Both seemed eager to give her information, though they looked to him first for permission as they resumed their hike toward the camp.

“They have the form of humans—”

“They are bipedal,” Eamon put in.

“—but their skin appears to be thick and scaly, like a reptile.”

“Appears?”

“They self destruct rather than allow themselves to be captured and studied,” Eamon said.

“They fight fiercely.” Cadir had good reason to assert this, as he’d barely escaped his last contact with them.

“That’s not a shock,” Ashe said. “Survival is a huge motivator.”

It was not the only motivator, though the knowledge that the Zelk were chameleons was a closely guarded secret. Shan knew because he was one of few who had engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a Zelk patrol and lived to talk about it. The Authority had decided to suppress the information to prevent the populace from panicking. Shan did not agree, but he knew better than to do so openly.

“Are you—” Cadir stopped, flushing.

“Am I—” She prompted with a slight smile.

“Really Garradian?” His flush deepened.

She stopped and held her wrist out his direction. Cadir jerked back, almost losing his balance.

Ashe half stepped forward to steady him. Shan grabbed her arm and jerked her back.

“It is forbidden for him to touch you.”

“And I’m supposed to know that how?” She turned from Shan. “I’m so sorry, Cadir.”

He looked shaken, but managed a grin.

She rounded on Shan. “Would you really have killed him when it wasn’t his fault?”

“How did you know—”

“I have eyes, even if my nose isn’t three parts bloodhound.”

“It is our law.”

She seemed about to say something, but stopped. “Why can you touch me and not die?”

He hesitated, but could see no reason not to admit, “I took responsibility for you.”

“He is your protector,” Eamon added.

Her gaze turned assessing, flicking up, then down his length. “My hero.”

He knew, he did not know how, that this was a question, though she did not phrase it as one. “While you are on this planet, in our camp, you are under my protection.” He could not promise more than this.

“I see.” Her voice chilled, her gaze, too. “I would imagine your people would be quite excited at the chance to…study a real, live alien. Be quite a coup for you.”

Anger flared, sharp and hot. He clenched his teeth on a denial.

“He would not!” Cadir sounded shocked.

“He would not follow his orders?” Her cool tone contrasted with the heat of her gaze boring into his.

That silenced Cadir. Eamon shifted with unease.

“I hope they’ll sedate before vivisection.”

His hand curled into fists.

“But perhaps, they’ll want to see how I deal with pain.” She spoke as if it were someone else under discussion. “And other things. Depends on how creepy they are.”

Despite the defiant angle of her chin, strain cut grooves into the edges of her mouth and eyes.

“I’m just an alien. Not human. Not worthy of rights or real protection.” She paused, then said it again, “My hero.”

Her words hit him like a fist to the jaw. She
was
human. She deserved his protection and not just because Cadir and Eamon looked at him like he had grown a second head. And not because of that other thing, that he didn’t like feeling or admitting. That he knew her. Which left him with a very large problem. “You are trouble.”

Wry edged her slight smile. Her shrug, the graceful lift of her almost bare shoulders made his thoughts stutter like his pulse.

“The Commander will figure it out, Lady,” Eamon stated, yanking Shan back to the moment. Both he and Cadir relaxed into grins, the matter resolved as far as they were concerned.

Lady.
Just calling her that gave her status. Was it a response to his claim or the lady’s manner? They were young in seasons, but canny warriors, veterans of many space clashes with the Zelk. Did they sense his unease about the mission? Had it made them trigger-eager? It was unlike Cadir to shoot against orders. How had they missed the female in the silver humanoid form? The sight had…disconcerted them all and what had followed had not helped restore balance. Custom did not give unmatched men much familiarity with females. He’d heard stories of places where a man might go to gain this familiarity, but it was dangerous. Penalties for misuse of a female were severe, though he suspected some of his strata knew the way around such prohibitions. Power tended to corrupt. And if a female, an alien without legal rights or protections came into Authority possession? Vivisection might not be the worst that could happen to her.

As they pursued their course again, Eamon and Cadir moved as close to her as tradition allowed. They weren’t just trigger-eager. They were also women eager as their time of partnering approached.

No question she was a woman that could scramble young brains. Silver outlined every line and curve, except where it didn’t. Eamon and Cadir seemed unable to look past where it didn’t, though when the path forced them to fall back, they did not appear cast down. Not a surprise, since they had never seen a female so displayed, not even when they were young. When the time came for their partner claiming they’d be brought into contact with a suitable woman screened by family, and from their strata. This one was not suitable by any standard, in any way for them or their world, which was why he’d stopped them touching her, stopped them stepping into her scent circle and taking responsibility for her, or worse partner claiming her. Had he found her scent repellant he’d still have acted to protect them. He’d known she was trouble before he knew how much trouble.

Until this day, he believed trouble made life interesting. Duty, well, it was a pain in his ass, though his duty for this deployment was to his family as well as Command. The reason for the communications blackout was less clear and fed his unease that some move against his family was behind the disappearance of the
Zalistria
. The blackout did give him time if he could figure out what to do with it. Had she not been so obviously alien, her status as a female might have helped. Hard to comprehend there had been a time when females were plentiful, when male births were prized over female.

Ashe trailed a finger across a bundle of leaves, her head angled his direction. “So, what’s Keltinar like?”

What kind of question was that? Incomprehension must have shown on his face.

“What would I see if I walked down a street in one of your cities—”

“You could not!” Cadir sounded shocked.

“It is not safe!” Eamon echoed that shock.

Her brows arched, though her gaze was laced with humor. “Are the streets of your cities so wild and unruly? No wonder you dress like pirates.”

Shan sighed. “Our streets are not wild or unruly. They are safe enough.”

The brows arched higher. “So only I’d be unsafe? Because of my skin? The Garradian thing? Because I’m an alien?”

“You would cause a sensation,” Cadir said with youthful relish, a bit too intrigued by the idea.

“Because you are female,” Eamon tried to explain. “Though the alien part would also cause much excitement.”

“Are you saying that no women walk your streets?” Her eyes widened. “Ever?”

It must seem strange to a race that sent their women into space, into danger.

“We do not spend our women carelessly. They are a limited resource.” This was a slight exaggeration. Females were not as plentiful as their leaders would have liked, but they were no longer at the crucial low experienced by his grandfather. Unlike his father, Shan would have the choice between two, possibly even three females when his time of partner choosing came. The ratios were even higher among the lower strata, though those in the middle stratum were still limited to one female per male.

“Let me guess. Everyone wanted a boy until someone figured out that without girls, no one would get boys?”

“The Garradians had a female shortage?”

“Kind of cycled in and out of the mindset,” Ashe said. “Lots of races seemed to swing one way or the other at some point.”

“You mean they wish for girls more than boys?” Eamon’s eyes were over wide at the thought.

“Isn’t that what you do now?”

Cadir looked doubtful.

“It is more about balance,” Shan said, though the word felt less than precise. The agency that managed female ratios was as shrouded in secrecy as space exploration. There were rumors that politics ruled more than necessity, but without penetrating the enclaves—an act punishable by death—how was one to know?

“There’s only balance if the power is shared equally. Do your females get to vote? Choose their own guy?”

Shan did not have to look shocked. Cadir did it for all three of them.