“I don’t know,” he told her, brushing his mouth across hers again. The way her lips clung to his, as though not ready to let go, fed his male ego. “I’ve never kissed Laarn. Never wanted to. So no idea if he’s a good kisser or not.”
She laughed again, the look of amusement and happiness on her face one he imprinted on his memory so he’d have it until the day he ceased to draw breath. Then her expression dropped serious and she studied him as though looking for the answers to the universe itself in his eyes.
He wanted her to find them. In him. With him. Wanted to be everything she needed him to be.
“Why do I feel I know you?” she asked softly. “Like I’ve known you all my life? Been waiting for you?”
His heart leaped at her words. He’d thought he was the only one who felt that way. He expected to have to persuade her, charm her… court her. But, was it possible? Could she feel the same already?
“I don’t know.” He kept his voice low as he reached for her hand and drew it up to his lips so he could place a soft kiss across the backs of her knuckles. “Sometimes it just happens. Two people who were always meant to meet… even if they were born on different planets to different species. Soulmates,” he told her. “My soul calling to yours and yours answering. Knowing that we’re meant to be together.”
“Soulmates? The Lathar believe in those?” She chuckled but this time the sound was nervous. Saal gritted his teeth, calling himself all kinds of draanthic idiot. He’d pushed her too hard. Too fast.
“We do.” He eased up on his grip, holding her looser and giving her a little space. “It’s rare… there have been a few instances between humans and Lathar though. But, it’s your decision, my lady. You have to agree to any claim, even from a male who knows deep down he was always meant to be yours.”
The streets of the capital city on Lathar Prime weren’t the safest of places. But Saal had been brought up here, in the foundling home between the Three Moons Inn and the temple district, so he knew it well. He knew every inch of cobblestone, every shortcut and back alley… which inns served the best ale, which watered down their spirits and which of the street food vendors was the best, coin-wise and taste.
He also wasn’t in his dotage, so he was more than aware that someone had been following him for the last three streets. Virtually since he’d stepped out of the lodging house he currently called home.
Rather than raise the alarm, though, or give any indication he was aware of the male dogging his tail, he continued to amble on toward the palace. Usually he took the North Walk and entered by the Empress Gate but he’d been a warrior long enough to know to vary his route at times. So he made a turn left into the alleyway behind the tanneries, making sure to slow down enough so he didn’t lose his little “friend.”
Once in the alley, Saal ducked into the shadows of one of the deep doorways and waited. Sure enough, within half a kilisec, a tall, rangy male entered after him. Saal narrowed his eyes. The male wasn’t local, that much was evident from the beads woven in his honor braids, and the provincial cut of his clothing marked him as from the outer systems. Saal frowned. What would an out-systemer be doing tailing him in Lathar Capita?
Sliding out from cover, he crept up behind the male, intending to slide an arm around his throat before the male was any the wiser. But either the out-systemer had extra-sensory perception, or he was better a warrior than Saal expected because he whirled around before Saal could get a grip on him. The male’s fist slammed into his jaw, snapping Saal’s head back. He grunted as pain exploded through his face. Somehow he kept his feet, circling the out-systemer as he rubbed at his jaw.
“Wanna tell me why you’re picking a fight with a male from the healer’s hall?” he asked lightly. While his lack of scars proved he wasn’t a healer himself, there was no way anyone could miss the hall logo on his sash. Usually anyone wearing that symbol was sacrosanct. No one wanted to offer violence to a healer and find themselves barred from receiving the services of the healer’s hall. For a combat-orientated species like the Lathar, such a thing was tantamount to a death sentence.
“You ain’t no healer!” the male growled, even his accent singling him out as a country hick. “An’ I ‘eard that they got them ‘uman females there. And me ‘n’ the boys back ‘ome could really do with a female. Gets mighty lonely out there.”
Saal felt sick to his stomach. This piece of… draanthic planned to kidnap a human female and spirit her back off to the outer systems. For “him and the boys.” They could kidnap Lizzie or one of the other females in the palace at the moment. For a second his brain hiccupped and he sent a fervent prayer up to any of the gods listening that if any hick like this actually managed to carry out such a plan that the female they managed to snatch was Jane Allen. Or one of the human females who called themselves “marines.” Perhaps he could have a whip around and get some snacks together. Sell tickets.
Before he could answer, though, the out-systemer pulled out a vicious-looking hunting blade, the serrated edge glittering in the shadows between the closely packed buildings. “Hand over your work pass or I’ll carve you a new smile.”
Saal almost sighed. It was one step up from laughing at the male, which, given he’d been up half the night making something pretty for the Lady Lizzie, he didn’t have the spare energy for. So a sigh it was. Did this idiot seriously think this was going to work?
All the orderlies at the hall were battle-hardened warriors who had been treated there. From Torvaai, the one-legged elder who logged in new cases, right through to Svett, the youngster who’d lost his eyesight in a confrontation with the Krynassis and was awaiting ocular implants from the engineer’s hall. Every one of them wore multiple honor braids and could kick this piece of trallshit’s ass with one arm tied behind their backs.
Saal included. And he wasn’t just a battle-hardened warrior. He’d been raised right here in Capita, in some of the meanest and most cut-throat streets in the known universe. No draanthing farmer would get the better of him in a street brawl.
His opponent attacked low and fast. Again, his speed would have surprised Saal, if he hadn’t already isolated the male’s accent as from the systems near the Trisemiika Expanse. Those systems often had issues with Isaarian-spiders, huge space-borne arachnids that literally ate everything in their path. Orbital defense systems usually destroyed their egg clouds before they hit the upper atmosphere of a planet, but on the more rural settlements that wasn’t an option and the spiders ran rampant.
Isaarian-spiders were fast as draanth and difficult to kill, with a necrotic bite. Not something you wanted to get up close and personal with, that was for sure. Now Saal knew what he was up against, he blocked with ease, treating his opponent with the same respect and wariness as he would any other in the ring.
The fight was fast, no holds barred. Ducking his opponent’s swing, Saal slid behind him and hammered two hard blows into his kidneys. Either would have his opponent in agony and pissing blood for a week. Together, they should have brought the farmer to his knees.
Instead, it earned Saal a growl and an elbow to the face. Not able to block in time, he turned his head to take the blow across his cheek and jaw rather than let it spread his nose over his face. At such an upward angle, it could have been a killing blow, shattering his nose and sending shards of bone up into his brain.