The Admiral and the Wildcat: Scifi Alien Romance Read online

  “Ahh, Colonel Rhade.” He kept his voice level and polite as he dropped into the chair in front of the desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Arita Rhade considered him from the other side of the screen. A formidable woman, she was from a warrior race like his little kitten, or in Rhade’s case…two, the heritage of both written in ridges that ran down the centre of her forehead right onto her nose. Her eyes, almost snakelike in their intensity, studied him without blinking.

  “Admiral Buchanan.” Was it just him or did her eyes flick down to the nail marks Kelis had left across his chest during their third…or was it fourth…session? Her expression didn’t alter as she looked him in the eyes. “I just wanted to inform you that a new, enhanced security detail will be with you in around ten hours.”

  “Oh?” He leaned back in his chair, keeping his face as poker-straight as Rhade’s. “And what if I don’t want a new security detail? Vann is proving more than capable.”

  There was the flick downward of her gaze again, and this time, Rhade’s lips did almost quirk into a smile. “So I can see. However, Vann was only on loan to us for a short period. She’s being recalled to her own unit.”

  Crap. She wasn’t fleet. If her own wanted her back, there wasn’t much he could do about that. Not wanting to discuss it with Rhade, Gabe just nodded.

  “Understood. As soon as your team arrives, she is free to leave.”

  * * *

  Buchanan was an animal in bed. Even now, hours after they’d left his quarters for court, Kelis’ knees were still weak.

  Standing to one side of the courtroom, she gave every impression she was paying no attention whatsoever to the proceedings. Instead her focus on the room and its occupants was as a good little bodyguard should.

  Which she was, but in a quiet courtroom on a mostly secure planet with only two exits that she could clearly see, she could relax a little. It wasn’t like she had to protect him in the middle of an enemy-infested trench system that was both booby-trapped and open to air strike. She swept an eye over the people who sat in the rows nearer the back of the room watching the trial. Like the jury and administrative staff, each one had been scanned and searched for the presence of any kind of weapon and had come up clean. If any of them were a serious hand-to-hand threat, she was a Hasang’s uncle.

  Which meant she could relax a little and watch Buchanan out of the corner of her eye. It seemed every movement he made as he questioned the defendant was designed to tease and torment her. Who would have thought such a sexual beast lurked beneath the well-cut suit? He’d been insatiable, his stamina easily a match for hers, even with her years of battlefield experience. They’d done it against possibly every surface in his room, and in the shower as well. Just the memory made her flush a little and she shifted her stance.

  That half second of inattention, though, was enough to bring everything crashing down. As she looked up, she caught sight of a movement from the back of the room. A little old lady in Sanlian robes stood, her movements way too smooth for her seemingly advanced years, and pulled something from her purse.

  Kelis’ eyes widened as she recognised the snub-nosed design of a particularly nasty tripoly-ceramic blaster. The things were so experimental she’d only seen blueprint sketches on one of the weaponry sites she frequented on the Alliance system’s comms net, but it would easily fool the scanners.

  “Shooter! Down,” Kelis bellowed as the woman lifted the blaster, already hurtling herself across the gap between her and Buchanan. The rest of the people in the room weren’t hers to protect, just him, so she had to put them from her mind as she collided with his solid body, spinning him so that she took the blast across her shoulder.

  There was no pain at first. Just the same sort of feeling as when she’d been caught in an explosion in a trench years ago. Jury-rigged explosives had ripped through the section she’d been clearing, funnelling the blast her way. With no warning and no ability to take cover, she’d had to run, catching the tail end of the explosion across her back. It had been like being hit with a shuttlecraft. There was a body-wide jolt and numbness as she half-fell across Buchanan.

  Instinct and decades on a battlefield had her back on her feet in a half-second to shove him down out of the line of fire. Her left side wasn’t working right, so she used her right hand to flip a table over to provide cover, pulling her pulse pistol in practically the same movement. Looking over the edge of the table, she spotted the shooter and returned fire.

  Energy bolts sizzled through the air—from her pistol and the old woman’s blaster. Her side was on fire but she kept firing, aware that her breathing came in short pants. She could deal with the pain. She had to. If she didn’t, there was nothing between Buchanan and the asshole trying to kill him.

  Not happening. Not on her watch.

  Her breathing shortened even more. The idea of him dying sent a new kind of pain lancing through her. One that resonated on a soul-deep level.

  “Kelis, give me the gun,” Buchanan ordered from beside her, but she shook her head.

  “Can’t. It’s DNA locked,” she replied shortly, beads of sweat forming on her brow as she continued to pop up to return fire. She could do this, her body would regenerate and she’d be okay. So why was the room greying around the edges? It shouldn’t be doing that…

  The doors behind the shooter exploded inward and black-clothed figures with ink decorating their arms burst through. A wave of relief rolled through her as she recognised a Wildcat unit and the loud voice of her father bellowing orders.

  Grimly, she tried to keep upright, but the grey overwhelmed her, whiting out Buchanan’s face as she slid to the side and, finally, lost consciousness.

  7

  “Kelis? Shit,” Gabe muttered as the beautiful blonde warrior curled up almost gracefully into unconsciousness.

  Pulling her close, he hunkered protectively over her and plucked the pistol from her lax hand. Fear rolled through him, fighting the anger for the asshole who had done this to her. She’d be fine. She had to be fine. Her species were built for war, weren’t they? He couldn’t bear to think of any other outcome than her being okay.

  She had to be okay.

  Popping his head up over the edge of the table, he glimpsed the new arrivals, frowning when he realised that they were Saragosian warriors. How the hell had they gotten this far into a fleet installation? Whatever, he didn’t care…they’d engaged the initial attacker and the other two who’d revealed themselves, so he didn’t care how they’d gotten here.

  Taking aim at the one still firing at him and Kelis, he pulled the trigger, only for the weapon in his hand to give a dull pfft.

  “What the f…?”

  Shit. She hadn’t been kidding about the DNA lock. Thinking quickly, he reached down and touched her back. His fingers came away slick with her blood…which contained DNA. It was the work of a second to cover his gun hand, and his gut clenched hard at that amount of blood. No one could lose that amount and be healthy. He needed to get her to a medbay. Fast.

  A bellow of rage erupted from his lips as he leaned out of cover and aimed. It took a few shots for him to get his aim, but once a marine, always a marine, and the old skills came flooding back.

  The Saragosians, obviously realising they had a friendly in the room, altered their plan of attack and within a minute, the attackers had either been cut down or apprehended.

  “Vann?” The big warrior leading the attack headed toward them, his expression somewhere between concerned and annoyed. “What the hell, girl? You had the shot several times there, what the fuck happened?”

  “Hey! Asshole!” Rage burned brightly in the centre of Gabe’s chest, so bright he was surprised it didn’t spill out through his pores. Standing up straight, he held Kelis’ pistol in the hand loosely at his side, ready to level it on this arrogant SOB if he started in on the injured woman. “She can’t hear you, so lay off…”

  Transferring his attention, he barked at the security officers who swarme
d in through the doors. “Get me a medical team, now!”

  “What the hells?” The warrior’s expression completely transformed and with three strides he was at Gabe’s side, yanking the table out of the way. “Kelis? Oh shit, Kelis!”

  Before Gabe could react, the big guy flipped Kelis over, his heavily black inked arms barely tensed with strain, to check her back. Pulling a lethal-looking knife from the sheath on his thigh, he swiftly started to cut away the clothing from her back.

  “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re going?” Gabe snapped. “The med team is on the way. Leave her alone.”

  The other man looked up, his eyes flashing with anger. “And you think they can treat my daughter better than one of us?”

  Holy. Shit.

  At the man’s words, Gabe suddenly realised why he seemed so familiar. He had the same blue-grey eyes as Kelis, and there was something about the way he held himself that was identical.

  Which meant this was the Vann Warlord. One of the most dangerous men in the galaxy.

  And Gabe had spent last night fucking his daughter every way imaginable.

  “Your daughter?” Gabe dropped to his knees and watched as the older Vann uncovered the nasty blast wound across Kelis’ back. He winced at the sight of it. Covering most of one shoulder, the skin was burned and broken, bleeding in places and where it wasn’t, the burns were deep. If she’d been human…yeah, he didn’t want to think about it.

  “She is.” Vann was obviously not the chatty type. Propping his daughter against his knees, he leaned down and set the edge of his blade against the charred flesh.

  Gabe had to swallow and force himself not to look away as the other man started to scrape away the charred flesh. She moaned in pain at his touch but didn’t regain consciousness properly. Gabe was grateful for that.

  “Are you sure you need to do that? Don’t you guys heal quickly?”

  Vann nodded but didn’t look up. “We do. But see where the bolt hit her and spread?”

  He traced lines in the damaged flesh of Kelis’ shoulder. Gabe frowned and leaned forward. There, just visible, was a nano-filament mesh.

  “Oh shit, yeah. I see it.”

  Vann grunted and went back to work. “If I don’t get this out, it’ll heal in place and she’ll kick my ass because she’ll have to have it removed.”

  As he watched, the big Saragosian warrior pried the filament free and threw it on the floor. Almost instantly, Kelis moaned in relief and relaxed. Vann flicked a glance up and speared Gabe with a gaze too like his daughter’s for comfort. “If you’ve realised anything at all about my daughter, you’ll know that’s not a place any man wants to be.”

  Gabe chuckled, warming to his lover’s father. The guy seemed on the level. Probably would remain that way until he found out about Gabe’s interest in his daughter.

  “Oh yes, that became apparent very early on. Here…” Realising that Vann was looking around for something to cover Kelis with, he stripped out of his own jacket and offered it. “Use this.”

  Vann looked at the expensive fabric for a moment, as though unsure, but then nodded and took it. “Thanks. And thank you for protecting her. Not many men of your rank and status would have done that for one of us.”

  “Those that wouldn’t don’t deserve to wear the uniform I do then,” he replied levelly. “Leadership is not just about giving orders. It’s about being prepared to put your body and soul on the line to protect those who look to you for command. Any leader who won’t isn’t worth the name.”

  Gabe stood as the med team arrived, surrounding Kelis and lifting her onto an antigrav stretcher. The sight of her there, unconscious and injured, made his blood run cold again. If that shot had been a little more to the right…

  * * *

  “Amazing. Just amazing. You see the rate of regeneration here… and there? Cells just shouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “No, they shouldn’t, and in any other species they don’t. But look at the markers on these chromosomes here. They don’t match anything I’ve ever seen.”

  Kelis came to with the speed of a woman brought up in a war where to stay out of action meant death. Between one breath and the next, she’d gone from the depths of comfortable darkness to registering the voices and sitting bolt upright. She reached for the weapon that should be holstered on her hip.

  “Woah…crap, about gave me a heart attack…” one of the doctors muttered, hand over his heart before he got himself together and gave her a professional smile. “Hey there, Miss Vann. Back in the land of the living? How are you feeling?”

  He moved forward, trying to get her to lie back down. She warned him off with a glare as she rolled through the last things she remembered. They’d been in the courtroom and someone had attacked them with an experimental blaster. The same one that had hit her in the back. As though thinking about it had called it into being, pain flared but she ignored it, looking around the small medical room. With one notable exception. Gabriel Buchanan.

  “Where’s the admiral?” she demanded, sliding her legs off the bed.

  “You can’t get up yet, Miss Vann.” The doctor blocked her path, which almost made her laugh. Although tall, he was a garden-variety human—skinny with no muscle tone. She could snap him like a twig without breaking a sweat. “There are tests we need to run…”

  “It’s Lead…not miss,” she informed him brusquely. “I’m not human, which you’ve already figured out, so please do me the courtesy of not attributing your own species’ norms to me.”

  He nodded, his expression paling a little as she pointed out his error. The fleet was big on diversity and equality, so such a slip up would earn him at the very least a reprimand from his superior if she chose to report him.

  “I beg your pardon… Lead. But you were severely injured, so there ar—”

  She cut him off. “Where is Admiral Buchanan?”

  Concern rolled through her when he slid a sideways glance to his companion. Had something happened to Gabe? More Wildcats had arrived. She’d seen them just before she’d passed out…so he’d have been okay, surely? But he was hers to protect, and with her out of it, he’d have been left unarmed behind the table. What if one of the shooters had gotten off a lucky shot?

  Panic hit her full force, nausea rising as her body shook.

  “Where is Buchanan?” Her voice rose, a note of panic in it that she couldn’t, didn’t want to, hide.

  “It’s okay.” The doctor made soothing motions with his hands, perhaps suddenly aware that an injured, panicked and pissed off Saragosian warrior in a small room was not such a good idea. “The admiral is perfectly fine. He just stepped away a short while ago to let us treat you.”

  Relief hit her like a punch in the gut. He was fine. Gabe was okay. Nodding, she leaned back against the edge of the bed and let the doctor check the dressing over her wound. As he did, she probed her response. Why was she so concerned about some fleet admiral? He was just her assignment for a few days, nothing more. So why had she reacted so strongly? Why did the thought of him not being around hit her like a punch to the gut?

  “Oh my word,” the doctor breathed in awe, the dressing half off her back. “You people really do heal quickly, don’t you?”

  His amazement was no surprise to her. It was rare Saragosians ended up in medbay and as soon as one did, the medical staff all went nuts when healing occurred right there in front of their eyes. In the universe, they were an anomaly—a species that never aged and could shrug off near-death wounds. It was a combination that had gotten them accused of hiding a fountain of youth and nearly wiped out in a war that had lasted generations.

  Standing up, she rolled her shoulder and cracked her neck. The arm was weak, the muscle obviously damaged, but otherwise it felt fine. In a few days, it would be back to normal. She’d been hurt worse and carried on fighting.

  “Lead! You can’t leave… You should be dead! You took a direct blaster hit. We need to ensure there are no long-term issues with the
mobility of the shoulder.”

  Kelis laughed, reaching for the sleeveless tank someone had obviously procured for her. “Don’t worry, Doc. I’ll be okay. What is it you humans say…this ain’t my first rodeo? I’ve been knifed, shot, blown up and more in my time and I’m still kicking. Now, where can I find Buchanan?”

  The doctor, perhaps realising he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her, just shook his head. “Turn left and it’s down the corridor on your right. Can’t miss it.”

  She favoured him with a smile and headed out of the door. The corridor beyond was fleet standard. Grey walls and carpets with strip lighting on the ceiling and at ankle height. Striding down the hallway in the direction she’d been told, she only stopped when a familiar figure turned the corner and blocked her path.

  “Hello, Lead.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Deln? What are you doing here?”

  The younger Saragosian warrior swaggered forward and Kelis had to control her expression to stop her lip from curling back. Deln had been a little shit and a thorn in her side since he’d shipped in from the colonies just under a year ago. As soon as he’d arrived, he’d made no pretence of the fact he wanted in her bed and seemed to think that she should thank him for the chance.

  Which was laughable, on both counts. Yeah, Saragosians were known for their youthful looks and Kelis herself looked barely in her twenties rather than her actual age, but Deln didn’t just look young, he was young. It showed in his expressions, his eyes and in the ranginess of a body that had not yet reached its full adult musculature.

  “Well, that depends on you.” He looked her up and down, a nasty little light in his eyes. “I’m hoping you’ll see things my way and realise that you won’t get a better offer to sire your required three.”