“Not in the welcoming group, eh?” Berrick grinned. “Have you been wandering someplace you shouldn’t?”
Cade gave him a look, not deigning to answer that. No place could keep any Vorr in, if he didn’t want to be, never mind him.
Berrick sighed, obviously realizing that Cade was not going to give him more information.
“Okay, who? And where?”
Quickly Cade described the journey he’d taken to reach the concealed room, watching Berrick’s expression as his eyes unfocused. The male was in cyberspace, rifling through the records and feeds the hive mind had access to. It was freaky as draanth to watch, knowing that Berrick’s consciousness was in two places at once.
“She’s tiny, compared to us,” he said, knowing that Berrick could hear him. “Dark hair, pale eyes. Beautiful. Murphy is around her a lot.”
Berrick’s eyes flicked into focus to study him. “How do you know that?”
He winced a little as he realized he’d given himself away. There was no way to explain this without revealing how he knew. And if Berrick put two and two together… his expanded senses and his bloodline. Yeah, he might need to get rid of more than one body.
“I just do,” he said, his voice a low gravel. “Just check Murphy’s movements. You’ll find her.”
Berrick nodded, his eyes sliding out of focus again.
It was all Cade could do to sit still. Things like this, where he was expected to wait and be quiet, were a torment all of their own. He’d been lucky that all his schooling was pre-recorded, delivered through a media unit in the back of the khaaitan’s hall. It meant whatever male had been unfortunate enough to land the duty of teacher for the village that week could turn the lesson off and let him run free until he could concentrate again.
He’d never been good at being still unless he was hunting. Then, it was a different matter. It was like his brain switched over and he could access an alternate skill set. He could lie in wait for his prey for hours, barely moving a muscle, not growing bored, his mind utterly focused on what he needed to do.
Berrick snapped back, blinking at him. “Got her. What do you want to know?”
A multitude of questions whirled around in Cade’s brain, but when it came down to it, only one mattered.
“Is she Murphy’s female?” He demanded, his hands curled into hard fists on the edge of the table. When the wood creaked, he eased up his grip, not once looking away from Berrick.
The B’Kaar tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “Unsure. They definitely have some kind of relationship, but from these recordings I can’t isolate what. Murphy is certainly more… human?” He suggested as though he were testing the idea out against what he’d found. “Around the female. He’s protective in a way he isn’t with anybody else. Doesn’t seem to like anyone else near her.”
“Draanth!” That definitely sounded like a mated male.
“Here, look…” The B’Kaar flicked his hand toward his exosuit. The chest plate became a screen, showing Murphy and the little female Cade was obsessed with. They were talking, their body language relaxed, and she smiled as she reached out to touch the human male’s arm.
“They’re draanthing. Definitely draanthing.”
Fury hit Cade like a ship at light speed. A vicious snarl ripped from his throat as he launched himself out of the chair and threw himself at Berrick. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and his fist crashed into the B’Kaar’s bearded jaw.
“They’re not!” His roar of fury broke from his chest as he easily pinned the bigger male down. “Take that back. Now!”
Berrick didn’t fight, his hands held palm out in a gesture of surrender. His lips worked as he looked up at Cade. “You might not want to show that kind of ability during training before Rohn figures out what you are, kid. He’s not just a pretty face, you know.”
Cade grunted as he pushed off Berrick and rolled away to stop in a low crouch nearby. “No idea what you’re on about.”
Berrick chuckled, rolling to his side and leaning on an elbow. His dark gaze didn’t leave Cade’s face.
“And I ain’t just a pretty face either, kid.” He grinned and rubbed at his beard. “Hell, I ain’t even a pretty face.”
Cade had always wondered at that. Not many warriors wore a beard, but as Berrick rubbed the short scruff, he saw evidence of scars beneath it.
“And if she’s his,” the big warrior’s voice dropped low with warning as he nodded back to the screen on the front of his exosuit, “then leave it alone. Stealing the Earth president's female will not endear the humans to us.”
“Have you found your female yet?” Cade demanded, changing the subject abruptly. He didn’t want to talk about his female belonging to another. Didn’t even want to think about it. That way lay madness and despair.
Berrick’s expression set, a sure sign he was masking his emotions. But Cade could read his scent as easily has he could read his face. Confusion and frustration rose from the B’Kaar’s pores to fill the air.
“No,” he admitted grudgingly. “The human authorities are looking for her. But according to them, she’s disappeared into thin air.”
5
He’d refused to answer any more of Berrick’s questions, leaving the B’Kaar’s room to seek out his own. Hours later Cade lay on the bed, events churning over in his mind. The female was his. He knew it deep in his bones. She belonged to him… Not the human. Otherwise, her scent would not have called to him.
With a growl he sat up and then levered himself up off the bed.
Looking in the mirror by the door, he studied himself. If he zipped his leather jacket up and slicked his hair back, he could almost pass for human. Especially in the dark.
He grinned, a wide flash of white teeth. He’d never thought his youthful appearance, one he’d been teased over many times, would ever work to his advantage. But now it would. He didn’t look like the rest of the Lathar and certainly like none of the Lathar the humans had ever seen.
Even the fact that his leathers were his father’s and hung loosely on his lean frame aided the impression that he was a teenager rather than a male in his prime. It was deliberate. All that would change if he revealed his true form… which would probably get him shot by the Earth soldiers. So he wasn’t going to be doing that.
It was the work of a minute to wet his hair down, but he left his jacket open as he left his room, striding down the corridor as though he was returning to Berrick’s.
Even though he knew the B’Kaar would have control of the security feeds from this area of the base, he didn’t want to leave a digital trail. Not with what he planned to do.
At the last minute, he ducked to the left rather than enter Berrick’s room and headed down a corridor he’d noticed earlier. He smiled as, halfway down the corridor, he picked up the female’s scent and followed it.
Unlike the B’Kaar, he didn’t have a schematic of the place on instant recall. Instead, he’d managed to build up a crude, mental map of where everything was. It helped that he had an excellent sense of direction, able to discern this planet's magnetic fields as though he could actually see them. He knew the landing field was to the north, and the subway tunnel from it was the smallest of two, which meant the other one went somewhere else.