Protected: Alien Mate Index Book 2: (Alien Warrior BBW Paranormal Science fiction Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (46 page)

At last, one morning after several days of me sweating and swearing and taking apart the engine and putting it back together, Teeny came to talk to me.

“Hi Grav…” She sat down on a large coupling-drum I had unscrewed from the hydro-telemetry circuit I was tearing apart and stared at me.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I said distractedly. “You better watch your dress—that drum is really greasy.”

“I don’t care.” She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. “Grav, I had the strangest dream last night. Can I tell you about it?”

“Huh?” I looked up for a minute from a particularly complicated knot of wires. “Oh, yeah—sure sweetie. Go for it.”

“You might not like it,” she warned. “She said you wouldn’t.”

“Who said?” I asked, still fighting with the knot. Damn, whoever had done the wiring on my hopper deserved to be strung up and shot in the nuts with a high-voltage dose of electro-mag juice! I had half a mind to look him up if I ever got out of here and—

“The Goddess,” Teeny said.

It took a minute for her words to register but when they did, I looked up, letting the tangle of wires fall from my hands.

“
What
did you say?” I stared at Teeny hard.

“The Goddess of Mercy—I saw her in my dream. Her and you both, Grav.” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “She told me to tell you about it but she said you wouldn’t like it.”

“Well, Frozen Hells,” I said weakly. I’m not much for prophesies or visions or whatever but there was something in the calm, matter-of-fact way that Teeny talked that hit me right in the gut. “Okay, sweetheart—tell me,” I said, grabbing a rag to wipe the grime from my fingers.

Teeny closed her big purple eyes, as though to help herself remember better.

“In my dream,” she said. “The Goddess was standing on some golden steps. They looked like they led up and up forever into the stars. But in my dream, she had come all the way down to the bottom of the steps just to meet you. You were standing there in front of her and she was offering you a
nima
fruit. Have you ever had one?”

Nimas
were a fruit native to my home planet, although I was surprised that Teeny knew about them. They were dark blue and intensely juicy—and also notoriously hard to ship. A fresh
nima
had to be eaten straight off the tree, the minute it was ripe because they went bad within hours of being picked.

“Yeah, sure, I’ve had
nima
fruit,” I said, frowning at Teeny. “But I’m surprised you have. They’re almost impossible to get outside Vorn Five where I grew up.”

“I haven’t,” she said simply. “I’ve never even heard of them before. But the Goddess said you would understand.”

Okay,
now
she had me scared. A chill ran down my spine and my legs felt suddenly weak. There was no lie in Teeny’s big eyes—and no reason for her to lie. She was simply telling me her dream. A dream which must have come from outside her somehow—how else would she know about the
nima
fruit?

“What…” I cleared my throat. “What else did the, uh, Goddess say?”

“Well…” Teeny looked thoughtful. “Mostly she was just offering you the
nima
fruit. It looked so
good.
So ripe and juicy and succulent. But you kept pushing it away for some reason. Even though the Goddess herself had come all the way down from the Heavens to give it to you.”

“Frozen Hells of Anor,” I murmured weakly. I had to sit down—my legs wouldn’t hold me. I sank onto the carbine-drum beside Teeny and looked at her. “What else happened?”

“Well, she kept offering it to you and you kept shaking your head. And then she gave you a very stern look—the kind my grand-ma-ma used to give me if she thought I was misbehaving—and said, ‘Warrior, what has been offered will not be offered forever. You should look to that which you love before it is too late and remember your oath.’” Teeny shrugged. “And then she told
me
to tell
you
and explained that you would know about the fruit and then I woke up. And that’s all.”

“Goddess,” I breathed, putting my head in my hands. “Goddess of Mercy, what a fool I’ve been. What a fucking
fool.”
I glanced at Teeny. “Sorry for the language, sweetheart.”

“It’s okay.” She gave me a little smile. “I’m used to hearing you curse, Grav. You do it all the time.”

“I know,” I said grimly. “Right now
I’m
the one I want to curse at. How could I be so stupid?”

“It’s about Leah, isn’t it?” Teeny asked. “She was supposed to be the
nima
fruit you wouldn’t take from the Goddess’s hand.”

“Yes,” I muttered. “The fruit was Leah, all right. But what can I do now? She’s back on Earth and she probably hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Teeny objected. “She’s
in love
with you. Aren’t you in love with her?”

“So fuckin’ much it hurts,” I admitted. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” Teeny said, sounding as stern as the Goddess herself. “You should go down to Earth and apologize to Leah.”

She was right and I knew it. But there was something else about the Goddess’s message that bothered me.
Remember your oath,
she had said. Now why would she say that?

It occurred to me suddenly that Leah had talked about breaking things off permanently with her abusive mate. The same one that had tried to beat her to death the first time I met her. I remembered that I had made a promise to her, back at the beginning of our journey together. I had promised to go back to Earth with her and tell her mate to keep his hands off—and break them if he refused.

Of course, Leah had changed a lot in our time together. She had grown and gotten stronger—much more willing and able to stick up for herself, which was incredibly sexy. But that mate of hers was still a head taller than her and considerably stronger.

My oath,
I thought, feeling sick.
I gave my oath to protect her and then I let her go off to Earth to face that abusive asshole by herself. Goddess, of Mercy, what’s
wrong
with me?

I had to go check on her—just go back to the AMI and have the Commercians send me down to Earth to make sure she was okay. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work since I had no disguise with me this time but if I scared the humans, that was just too damn bad. I had to make sure the female I loved was all right.

But was the female I loved still in love with me? Could she ever forgive me for being such an idiot? And would she consent to come with me and join her life to mine?

The thought made me long to hold her lush body in my arms and kiss her sweet lips. And why shouldn’t I?

If the Goddess herself was telling me that Leah was for me, who was I to deny it? Bond or no bond, I loved Leah and I wanted her with me forever. Now I just had to go tell her so.

I just prayed that my little Earth female could forgive me.

Leah

It took a few days to get the divorce papers in order and to convince my mom I was all right. Apparently Gerald had called and told her I had run off with some strange man and she had been worried sick about me ever since. I had called Charlotte to ask why she hadn’t relayed the message I had sent through the Commercians that I was okay, but she would hardly talk to me. She just mumbled something about being very busy and hung up, almost before I could say a word.

The strange phone call worried me—especially since when I tried to call back, my call went directly to Charlotte’s voice mail, which I knew she never checked. I had decided that I would stop and make a personal visit to my friend in Gainesville, on my way up to Virginia to confront Gerald.

But before I went, I had to get my divorce papers in order.

In that area, Zoe’s friend, Rylee, was completely indispensable and an absolute sweetheart. After I explained to her that Zoe had been spirited away on a dream vacation by a secret fiancée that none of us had known about, (the best story I could come up with) she became much more willing to talk and help me out. She even waved her fee in exchange for the scoop on Zoe, who she apparently missed almost as much as I had.

“Let me tell you, Lauder, Lauder and Associates is just not the same without her,” she told me, when we met for coffee and to hammer out the details of my divorce at the Starbucks closest to my mom’s house. “Zoe lit up the whole place, even when our boss was being an asshole. Which, honestly, is most of the time.”

She grinned at me and I couldn’t help grinning back. Rylee Hale was a tall girl with clear café au lait skin and gorgeous, liquid black eyes. She wore her hair in a halo of curls around her face and her long, tapered fingers drummed the tabletop restlessly as we talked.

“Zoe complained about your boss a lot. She said he threw staplers at her head,” I said, taking a sip of my iced Caffe Mocha. I frowned and made a face. “Um—I don’t think this one is mine. It doesn’t taste like a Mocha at all.”

“Let me see…” Rylee took a sip of her own drink, which was supposed to be an iced Vanilla Latte. “Oops, you’re right. This one must be your Mocha. I guess the barista mixed them up. You want to just trade or get new ones?”

“Well, I don’t have a cold or anything right now,” I said, shrugging.

“Me either. Here.” She switched our cups and took a big sip of the straw I had just been drinking from. “Ahh…that’s my Vanilla Latte! You know, Zoe disappeared so suddenly, some of the girls at the office were even saying she was abducted by aliens.”

I had a big mouthful of Caffe Mocha and I nearly choked on it.

“Um…” I coughed, my eyes watering.

“You okay?” Rylee pounded me on the back. “You look like you saw a ghost. Coffee go down the wrong pipe?”

“Some…something like that,” I managed to say. “Look, Rylee, I really want to thank you for helping me out with this divorce.”

“No problem,” she said easily, taking another sip of her drink. “Your soon-to-be ex sounds like a real piece of work.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said darkly, taking another drink of my own coffee. Rylee had on blackberry colored lipstick and there were still a few traces on my straw. That didn’t bother me but for some reason, seeing her drink from the straw that I had drunk from did. Why? Something tickled at the back of my mind but I couldn’t quite remember it.

“Well, I hope you’re going to meet him in a public place to serve these papers,” Rylee said. “I’m not a lawyer so I’m not supposed to offer legal advice but this is just common sense. Some men can get ugly when you tell them you intend to leave their sorry ass.” She made a face. “I know
my
ex did.”

“I’m going to see him at his work place,” I said. I had called to check and spoken with Gerald’s secretary, who assured me that he still worked at the firm in Virginia. “That should stop him from getting handsy.”

“You sure this is how you want to do it?” She tapped the stack of papers in front of her. “You’re basically just
giving
him the house you two were both paying for. I know you want to get out quick, but if you take him to court you could at least get half the assets, if not some alimony.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” I said quickly. “Besides, if I take him to court, he’ll drag my name through the dirt and tell everyone I ran off with another guy.”

“Well, did you?” Rylee asked frankly, taking another sip.

“Sort of…” I shifted in my seat. “It’s complicated. It didn’t really, uh, work out.” Which was a massive understatement. My heart still felt shredded from the way things had ended between Grav and me. But what could I do?

“Sorry to hear that,” Rylee said neutrally. “At least it gave you the momentum to get out of a bad relationship.”

“It did.” I nodded—I could be grateful to Grav for that much at least. “It really did.” I reached for my Mocha but my hand slipped on the condensation that coated the icy plastic cup. Before I could get a better grip, it squirted right out of my hand. “Oh!” I gasped as my drink turned over, flooding the table.

“It’s okay.” Rylee rescued the divorcee paperwork with one hand and her own drink with the other. She jumped gracefully out of her chair just in time to save her expensive-looking black pencil-skirt from getting a coffee bath.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching for the napkin dispenser. “It’s just that I’ve been so distracted lately and I…”

My voice trailed off as I tilted the dispenser and saw Rylee’s face reflected in its silver side.
Any reflective surface—the Commercians can see and transport any Earth girl through any reflective surface.

Wasn’t that the way the Alien Mate Index worked? The Commercians, those little blue bastards, picked out a female they thought was special and showed her to a prospective buyer. Grav had told me once that he knew
I
was special by my aura when he saw me on the AMI’s light screen.

And how do you get special?

This time my own words came back to me when Zoe and I had been having our most recent Girls’ Night.
“Who knew you could catch special powers as easily as catching the common cold?”

And
what
had I just said to Rylee before we traded drinks?

“I don’t have a cold or anything.”

No, but I
was
a
La-ti-zal…
a trait that Zoe had told me was catching through sharing food and drinks.

Suddenly I realized why it had bothered me so much to see Rylee drink after me. I stood watching her in agony as she took another sip of her iced coffee. Should I knock it out of her hand? Tell her to wash her mouth out with soap or really strong mouthwash? Or was I overreacting? After all, just a few of my germs on the straw probably wasn’t enough to “infect” her with the
La-ti-zal
virus or whatever it was that made you special—was it?

“What’s wrong with you?” Rylee frowned at me. “You’re giving me that look like you saw a ghost again.”

“Uh…nothing.” I tried to laugh and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser to mop up my mess, which by this time was dripping all over the floor. “I’m just fine. Just…dreading giving my ex those papers, I guess.”

“Oh…” Her face softened. “I understand. It’s never easy, ending things.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, thinking of the stiff, awful ending between Grav and me. “Look, thank you so much for your help, Rylee, but I really ought to get going.”