At first sight, he would have assumed they were a courting couple, if not for the female’s scent rising up to greet his nose. Even though she smiled, her expression soft as the male pushed her against the wall directly below Cade to kiss roughly along her neck, no smell of arousal rose from her pores. In fact, nothing lay in her scent but fear and desperation.
“That’s it, baby girl. You like it. Don’t you?” the male uttered coarsely, shoving himself up hard against the female.
Her soft squeak went unheard by her companion but not by Cade. The male was hurting her, but she didn’t complain. Perhaps she was too scared to? He bit back the rumble of his growl, still watching. But tension gathered in his limbs and he was ready to leap down into the alleyway at a moment's notice.
The male shoved the female to her knees, tearing at the fasteners on his pants. He freed himself, slapping the young female across the face with his dick. “That’s it, bitch. You’re gonna choke on it.”
Cade’s eyes widened. The male was going to kill the female.
His snarl burst free, and before he could think about it, he dropped from the gantry and grabbed the male by the back of the neck. He threw him backward, and the male slammed into the wall and slid down it with a broken groan.
The young female looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock. Then her expression twisted in anger. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“I was… trying to help?” he stuttered, confused. “He was going to hurt you…”
“Shit… yeah, but only a few bruises I could handle,” she said as she stood, turning wide eyes on the fallen male. “But that’s all he’s ever done. He just likes slapping us girls around a little as he gets his jollies, that’s all. Now look what you did to him. Fuck! He’s never gonna fucking ask for me again. How am I supposed to put food in my kid’s mouth if one of my regulars don’t want me no more?”
“He’s done this before?” Cade was aghast. “And you let him?”
“Of course I do.” She laughed at him bitterly. “He pays well. Some of them don’t. They just want to slap us around for fuck all.”
She edged round Cade where he was standing in the middle of the alleyway and then sprinted to the fallen male. “Shit, he’s out of it… Hey, you… Are you okay?”
Patting him with delicate little hands, he thought at first she was trying to wake the male up, but then she withdrew a small leather rectangle from within the male’s jacket pocket and flipped it open quickly. Cade watched in astonishment as she pulled the contents out and then threw it back on the fallen man as she pocketed them.
“Thanks for fuck all,” she hissed at him and walked out of the alley.
Cade shook his head, lifting a hand to run through his hair. “This planet is draanthed,” he muttered to himself as he went the other way. “Utterly draanthed.”
It didn’t take him long to reach the club and even less time than that to pick up the scent of the draanthic who had threatened Elise in the club. He trailed it through the city to another apartment block, scaling the fire escape on the outside until he reached the window his prey’s scent swelled from. Then he froze in the darkness, watching through the open blinds.
Whoever the male was, he lived with another one. Cade watched them go about their business… Preparing an evening meal and then relaxing in front of some kind of screen. From the body language and chosen positions on the furniture, they weren’t romantic partners. The other male was tall, broad and had light hair, like the sands on the lake near Cade’s village. Neither of them were as big as him, and they didn’t look to be related. Not only were there no similarities between their builds and features, but their scents denied any familial relationship, even distant.
He watched for a few hours until his prey and the other male disappeared off to what he assumed was their sleeping chambers. Then and only then did he rise from his hiding place and head back toward the base.
That draanthic had threatened Elise.
But now Cade knew where he slept…
8
It had taken the base's senior staff all night to deal with the alert that had been called in so they could ease the lockdown. A suspicious package had been delivered to one of the kitchens along with an anonymous tipoff that a bomb was on site. It had turned out to be three bags of chemical-grade fertilizer rather than the bomb that they’d feared, but it had sent the base into a flurry of protocol for such a situation. The base had to be completely locked down and the kitchens cordoned off as the bomb squad and hazmat guys did their jobs.
Elise had barely had time to think as she liaised between the different departments for Cam, so he could maintain the illusion that everything was all right for their guests. She just hoped that Cade kept his mouth shut. By the time the next day rolled around, she’d had far too much coffee and far too little sleep to deal with any shit from anybody. She’d not even had a chance to mentally process what had happened in her apartment last night with the sexy-as-sin alien.
She’d given him a hand job, watched his face as he came… Felt the heat of his cum all over her hands and stomach. She’d been covered with it, her dress sodden, which should have disgusted her. Instead she’d found herself in her bathroom, rubbing it into her skin like she could make his scent a part of her.
She bit her lip, heat rolling through her at the memory. She’d thought him being a virgin meant she’d control things. How wrong she’d been.
Someone walked in front of her in the corridor and she snapped back to reality before she could slam into them and make a fool of herself. She’d managed two hours of sleep on the cot in Cam’s office as he took calls but that was it. She was tired and groggy and had a full day ahead of her. Which included a training demonstration from the Lathar in the base's gymnasium. A large travel mug of coffee clutched in her hand, she joined the throng of people filtering through the door.
The Lathar were already there, standing in rigid lines against the back wall, their big bodies in something close to an at-ease posture. Either they’d been reading human military manuals, or certain things were universal throughout the galaxy. Automatically, her gaze scanned along the assembled warriors, looking for a familiar figure.
Her breath left her lungs in a rush as she spotted Cade at the end of the line. Like the rest of the warriors, he stood bare chested, in just his leather pants and boots. And weaponry… How could she forget weaponry? Most of them were carrying enough for a small army. Not Cade. He had two small daggers sheathed in thigh holsters but that was it.
She jostled her way through the crowd to get a good seat, watching him. She tried to catch his eye, offering a small wave, but he just smiled as he kept his gaze fixed forward like the rest of the warriors. The emperor and the other senior Lathar entered the room, walking in front of the assembled warriors. They looked to be inspecting the troops, and a small group broke away at Risyn B’Kaar’s nod and started marking out circles on the gymnasium floor.
“Dayum… they are so hot. Aren’t they?”
“You see that blond one on the end? God, if I wasn’t married, I’d climb him like a tree.”
Elise ignored the chatter of a few women nearby as the seats along the side of the wall filled up. A lot more women sat in the crowd than usual for this kind of thing, but she got it. She really did. They were all here eager to see some hot aliens get all sweaty and wrestle each other.