Protected: Alien Mate Index Book 2: (Alien Warrior BBW Paranormal Science fiction Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (3 page)

“Just fine.” He smiled at me tightly—an expression that didn’t reach his eyes.

Gerald had a very handsome face—other women were always jealous of me because of his good looks. “He looks just like a movie star,” one of my old coworkers used to sigh whenever he dropped by to visit me at work.

But those classically handsome features could be colder than ice when he was upset.

“And how was your time here
alone?”
he asked.

I didn’t like the way he emphasized the word “alone.”

“Fine,” I said, trying to sound casual. What was he implying? What was he thinking? “I mean, I just went to work and then came home.”

Back in Tampa, I’d worked for a daycare that specialized in mildly Autistic children. I hadn’t been able to find anything like that in Virginia but I
did
find a family who needed an aide to be with their Autistic son during his school hours. It was a gay couple—Emilio and Jackson—who had adopted the little boy even though they’d been warned that he might have problems. They had taken him anyway and two more loving and concerned parents couldn’t be found anywhere.

My employers were both professionals—a lawyer and a dentist—so I picked up their adopted son, Taggard, in the morning, took him to school and stayed with him through the school day, then drove him back to their house (it was more of a mansion) in the afternoons.

For some reason, my husband, Gerald, didn’t like my job. Come to think of it, he hadn’t liked the job I had left back in Tampa either. I think he would have preferred for me to stay home completely, locked inside the house with no outside contact but him. But we couldn’t afford that and Emilio and Jackson paid me well, leaving him little choice other than to let me keep working.

Not that it’s his choice,
I told myself fiercely.
It’s
mine
—I run my own life.

Then why did I feel a tremble of fear rush through me when I saw Gerald’s gray eyes narrow and his thin lips turn down in a frown?

“Is that right?” he said in a tight, clipped voice. “You just spent time
alone?”

“Well, other than taking Taggard to school and back,” I said, trying to make my voice light. “I see people there—I can’t help it. It’s part of my job.”

“You see people,” he sneered, his handsome face turning ugly. “Don’t you mean you see
men?”

“What are you talking about?” I looked at him, honestly mystified. “What men? The teachers at Taggard’s school are all female. Even the gym teacher.”

“That’s not who I’m talking about and you know it,” he snapped. “I’m talking about who you’ve been seeing
after
you take that little brat home from school.”

“Taggard isn’t a brat,” I said, frowning. “He’s a very sweet little boy. And I still don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do—don’t lie to me.” He took a step forward and though I wanted desperately to hold my ground, I couldn’t help it—I stepped back, putting some space between us.

It’s happening again,
whispered a panicked little voice in my brain.
He promised it never would but you knew it was a lie. He brought you flowers and cried and said he didn’t know why he did it. You forgave him—or said you did—but you knew he would do it again. The only question is, how far will he go this time?

“I…I’m not lying,” I said, willing my voice not to tremble. Gerald was a big guy—six foot three—much bigger than my own five foot seven. Plus he had a good seventy-five pounds on me, most of it muscle. He liked to work out, though he didn’t want
me
going out for exercise unless it was to an all female gym.

“You
are
lying,” he insisted. “I know because I came back from my trip early. I
saw
you Leah! I saw you go in the house with that little brat’s dad and you
stayed
there for fucking
hours.
”

I stared at him blankly, almost unable to comprehend what he was accusing me of.

Both of my employers were professionals, as I said. But Jackson, the dentist, was able to work his schedule to be home every day when Taggard got back from school. He usually had a fun sensory activity planned like digging in the sandbox or kneading dough for homemade bread. Sometimes I stayed and played with them, wishing I had such a happy home life myself. Taggard loved me and called me Miss Leah and Jackson and Emilio treated me like part of the family. It was like I was a sister to the two of them and an aunt to Taggard—but that was all. Absolutely
all.

“You’re talking about me staying at Taggard’s house a little while after school?” I said at last. “You’re upset about
that?”

“You’re damn right, I’m upset!” Gerald moved towards me threateningly and once more I found myself retreating. “You were in the house alone with that…that
Jackson.”
He spat the name like a curse. “I know what you were doing!”

“What I was
doing
was finger-painting,” I flared back at him. “It’s part of Taggard’s sensory diet—it helps integrate his nerves and senses. Jackson was finger-painting too. But that was
all
we were doing.”

“Bullshit!” Gerald stormed. He was red in the face now—a sure sign that he was about to explode. “You can’t tell me you spent over an hour in a house with a strange man and all you did was
finger-paint.”

“Yes I can because that’s
all
that happened,” I insisted, taking another step back. My heart was beating like a drum by now and I felt sick to my stomach. How had it come to this? What had happened to the sweet and caring man I had married to turn him into a monster? “Gerald, Jackson is
gay,”
I reminded him. “He would never be interested in me that way.”

“Bullshit!” he shouted again, getting right in my face. He had managed to back me into a corner and his spittle flecked my cheeks as he screamed, his normally handsome features distorted with rage.

“Gerald,
please—
listen to yourself!” I couldn’t understand how my husband could be so willfully blind. How he could get so enraged over a scenario that wasn’t even remotely plausible.

“He was
fucking
you! I know he was! Did you give it up for him, Leah? Did you react with him like you never do for me? Tell the truth—you gave it up like a whore! You actually
liked
it for once!”

I flinched at his ugly words and nasty tone. But the worst thing was the seed of truth in his awful accusation. Not that I had been with Jackson—that was ridiculous. But it was true I felt almost nothing when Gerald and I made love, though I tried to pretend—God knows I tried. Was that the reason he was so jealous? Did the fact that he was unable to make my body react, make him think I was seeking out some other man who could?

I couldn’t get into this now. Deciding to ignore his oblique allegation, I confronted the direct one instead.

“Jackson lives with another man—his
husband!”
I pointed out. “They’re
gay.
Exclusively and monogamously
gay.”

“He was fucking you! He was fucking you!
He was fucking you!”

He screamed it over and over and then the hitting started.

In the past—well, the two times this had happened in the past I should say—Gerald had been careful to “punish” me, as he called it, in places no one could see. My upper arms, my stomach, my thighs—these were spots that could easily be covered so no one would see what he had done to me.

This time he completely lost control.

His fist looped into my vision like a runaway moon and slammed into my eye. Another punch plowed into my cheekbone, slamming my head against the wall so that I saw stars exploding in my vision. A third split my lip and I tasted blood, as salty as tears.

I cried out, cowering against the wall, trying to shield my face from his rain of blows. Though he had hit me twice before, he’d never gone crazy like this. I was unprepared for this level of savagery, this outpouring of physical hatred.

He’ll kill me,
I thought, as I tried and failed to fend him off.
My God, he’s going to kill me this time…

And then a huge man with a strangely distorted face appeared behind my husband and dragged him off me.

Grav

I knew there was going to be trouble from the minute her mate got home. I can read the signs of an abusive male—one who likes to beat and intimidate his female. I’ve known them since childhood and I learned them the fucking hard way.

“Char’noth,” I yelled, rising to my feet as I kept my eyes on the light-screen where the scene was playing out. “Have you sent my things through yet?”

I’d given him a spare set of clothes, the crystal cubes, and the smart-fabric mask I’d synthesized to look like the features of a normal Earth male. Well, I
hoped
it did, anyway—I did my best to input the necessary images into my synthesizer but it’s not always the best. And my ship doesn’t have an A. L.—an Artificial Lifeform—to help the process along.

“We found a reflective surface for the transport inside her dwelling,” the Commercian said, appearing at my side.

“Inside
her dwelling?” I demanded, glaring at him. “That’s going to freak her right the fuck out, having a stranger just appear in her domicile. You know that, right?”

He shrugged, his wormy body rippling. “You said to get as close to her as possible in an area that you could be concealed in order to dress in your ridiculous outer coverings.” He eyed my black trousers and white sleeveless shirt contemptuously. Commercians don’t wear clothing but then again, they don’t have much to hide—all their sex organs are internal.

“All right, never mind. Just get the damn transport beam reconfigured. I need to go through.”

On the light-screen, Leah’s mate was advancing on her menacingly and speaking in a threatening tone. I could feel my protective instincts come to full, screaming alert. As a Protector, I can’t fucking stand to see a female mistreated or hurt. But it isn’t just the training I underwent or the vow I took that makes me like that. I’ve seen some shit—things I won’t repeat here. Things that come back to me in dreams.

The point is, seeing a female get hurt makes me a little crazy.

“Char’noth?” I demanded, my hands curling into fists. For now he was just raising his voice at her. That was
all
he had better do if he wanted to live.

“I am finishing the configuration for organic living material now.” The head Commercian beckoned me to a round, silvery portal made of light which had suddenly appeared in the center of their station. “Make your preparations.”

I opened the bottle of
saphor
solution which would turn my blue-gray hide brownish-tan and drank it down. It burned like fire going down my gullet but I barely noticed it.

As my skin changed from its normal shade to that of an Earth male’s, I looked at Char’noth.

“Now?”

He nodded. “Now.”

I stepped into the portal and was pulled down to the planet where the female I was supposed to be protecting was in danger. I only prayed to the Goddess of Mercy I wouldn’t be too late.

Grav

I came through a silvery, reflective viewing surface into a sleeping chamber. At least, I thought it was a sleeping chamber—it had a rectangular platform with pillows on it that looked like it might be meant for sleep. On the platform was my bundle of clothes, the mask, and the cubes. That was good because I was naked—my clothes hadn’t made the journey.

Outside the door, voices were raised—Leah’s mate was saying something that sounded angry. I pulled on my mask and trousers hurriedly but as I was trying to get the mask into place, I heard the raised voices turn to shouting. And then the dull
thud
of a punch landing on soft, vulnerable flesh and the cry of a female in pain.

That sound makes me fucking crazy—I can’t stand it.

No time for my shirt or the cubes. I yanked open the door, looking for the source of the ominous sounds, but I couldn’t find Leah and her mate anywhere. It took me a minute to realize that this was a two story domicile and the fight—(more like the
beating
)—was happening downstairs.

Rushing down the staircase, taking the steps four at a time, I finally found them. Leah was crouched in a ball, trying to shield her face in a corner of the entry hall. Her mate—a male who would be considered big by Earth standards though he was nothing to me—was leaning over her, raining blows down on her wildly.

A murderous hate twisted his features when I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face me. The expression quickly turned to surprise when he saw me.

“What the…who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Someone who knows what the fuck you are,” I growled and plowed my fist into his nose.

It flattened with a satisfying
crunch
and he howled as blood began to flow at once.

Leah’s mate flailed, trying to punch back but I had the element of surprise—the little shit never saw me coming. I punched him again and again, making sure to make every blow count. He made a gurgling noise and then I heard Leah crying behind me,

“You’re killing him! You’re
killing him!”

I dropped the male, my chest heaving as I tried to control my fury. I turned to face her slowly, pushing back the curtain of red rage that had dropped over my vision with an effort. Braxians are berserkers and I had been very close to the point of no return.

“Don’t you
want
me to kill him?” I asked, looking at her. “After what he did to you?”

Her lovely face was twisted with fear and pain. Her lip was split and I could tell she would have bruises from his ruthless beating.

“Please,” she whispered, not answering my question. “Please, I don’t know who you are but please…”

I suddenly realized what I must look like to her. Shirtless and covered in her mate’s blood with the smart-fabric mask twisted in a way that was sure to distort my features. And I was so much bigger than her—she probably found me terrifying.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my words coming out harsh and angry. I tried again. “I’m sorry,” I told her in a softer tone. “I know you don’t know me but I’ve been assigned to watch over you.”