Page 19 of Alien Mercenary’s Wife (Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne #7)

T he training room felt smaller with just the two of them. Reese watched Tal and Sparky disappear down the corridor, their voices fading as they discussed medical conditions with theatrical seriousness.

"They're not subtle, are they?" She shook her head.

Sparky hadn’t been in the room long, but it had been enough for her to measure him up.

Tall and lean, with muscle definition that spoke of someone who stayed in fighting shape, the other human had bleach-blonde hair in messy spikes.

He was late thirties, maybe, with light brown eyes and a cheeky kind of unconventional handsomeness.

But it was the tattoos on his upper arms that had caught her attention. Four black bands, precisely placed, unmistakable in their meaning. Mirax Ruas. The worst prison in human space, where they sent people to die slowly rather than execute them quickly. No one walked out of Mirax Ruas. No one.

Yet he was walking around the Sprite like he owned it.

T'Raal shook his head and sighed. "No, no. Not at all."

The admission came with a rueful humor that transformed his features from harshly handsome, with hard lines and angles, to devastating.

"That man—Sparky," she said, trying to sound casual despite the urgency of her curiosity. "The tattoos on his arms. Four bands. You do know they’re from Mirax Ruas? That he’s a convict?"

T'Raal's expression shifted, amusement fading and the shutters going up. "Yeah."

"But that's impossible. No one walks out of Mirax Ruas. It's a death sentence." She studied his face, looking for answers to questions she wasn't sure she should ask. "How is he here?"

T'Raal shook his head. "Long story. Not mine to tell."

"Is he?—"

"He's my daughter's husband," T'Raal said. "Red. She was covering our extraction, on the ramp with the machine gun."

Reese stared at him in shock. "Your daughter... but you…”

“What?” His eyebrow rose.

“Y…you don't look old enough to have an adult daughter,” She stammered.

"I'm older than I look."

"You and her mother must be very proud," she managed. Shit. He’d been so nice to her and now she’d gone and put her foot in it.

Her stomach lurched. Even worse, she’d been ogling him, interpreting his behavior toward her as maybe a flirtation.

And all the time, he was a family man with a married daughter and a wife somewhere.

"Red's mother is dead," he said quietly, as if he could read her thoughts. “We weren’t in a relationship.”

“Oh.” Heat flooded her cheeks as embarrassment crashed over her in waves. Shit, was he telepathic as well? No, Eris would have warned her, surely? "Still, I'm sorry for your loss."

He nodded. "It was a long time ago."

Silence stretched between them as heat crawled up her neck.

"Want to continue?" he asked, moving back onto the training mat with a predatory grace she tried like hell not to admire.

"Actually," she said, an idea forming. "I want you to show me something else. Those moves you used during the extraction. The way you fought was different from anything I’ve ever seen."

His eyebrow arched. "You're still healing?—"

"Bullshit." The word came out sharp. "I'm an experienced combat veteran, not some recruit who needs basic self-defense lessons. Show me what you did when you took out those operatives."

He studied her face for a moment. "Some of those moves require full mobility."

"Then adapt them. You said that fighting smart means working with what you have, not what you used to have." She moved to face him on the mat, challenge in her posture. "I want to learn."

"All right. Some of these techniques use momentum and leverage differently than human combat forms." His jaw relaxed, and he shrugged. "We’d have to adapt some of them anyway. The moves work because my people are built differently than yours."

She had to crane her neck to meet his eyes, the height difference between them more apparent with how close he was.

He had to be nearly seven feet tall, built with the kind of muscle mass from years of hard combat.

Standing this close, she felt almost delicate by comparison…

not weak, but definitely outmatched in sheer physical presence.

“And they require trust between partners,” he added, his voice a low rumble that whispered along her skin.

She controlled the shiver that wanted to roll down her spine. "What kind of trust?"

"The kind that comes from knowing someone will catch you if you fall." He held her gaze. "These techniques push your balance points. You'll need to rely on your partner, me, to keep you stable."

The neural stimulator hummed against her spine, sending gentle pulses through her damaged nervous system, making movement feel more natural than in months.

But his nearness made her aware of every sensation…

the warmth radiating from his body when he stepped closer and how her breathing wanted to match his rhythm.

"Show me," she said, her voice breathier than she’d ever heard.

He moved behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him against her back. "Basic principle is leverage and momentum. You'll feel like you're falling, but it's controlled… using gravity as a weapon instead of fighting it."

His large hands settled on her waist, strong fingers spanning the space between her ribs and hips with casual confidence. The contact sent electricity racing through her system, every nerve ending suddenly aware of pressure and warmth and the clean male scent that was uniquely his.

"The attacker expects you to resist, to try to stay upright," he continued, his breath warm against her ear. "Instead, you let yourself fall backward into me, not away from me."

Trust. He was asking her to trust him with her balance, safety, and body's weight when her own nervous system couldn't be relied upon to keep her upright. It should have triggered every defensive instinct she'd developed.

Instead, she nodded. "I'm ready."

"Drop your weight," he ordered, his grip tightening slightly. "Don't fight it. Just let go."

Letting go went against every survival instinct she'd honed through years of military service. But she forced herself to relax, to trust that he would catch her when her damaged body inevitably failed to respond correctly.

The sensation was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.

For a heartbeat, she was falling—truly falling, with nothing but his strength preventing her from hitting the deck plating.

Then his arms tightened around her, supporting her weight effortlessly while demonstrating how the movement could be turned into an offensive technique.

"Feel that?" His voice rumbled against her back. "The attacker's off-balance now, committed to a forward position they can't recover from. That's when you strike."

She felt his heartbeat against her shoulder blade, steady and strong despite the physical exertion of supporting her full weight. The position pressed them together from shoulder to hip, intimate contact that scattered her thought processes until she stepped away.

"Again," she said, needing to master the technique and desperately needing distance from the way he made her body respond. "Slower this time."

They practiced the movement several times, each repetition building her confidence. Her pulse quickened every time his hands guided her position, every time she felt the solid warmth of his chest against her back.

"Your turn to catch me," he said when she'd mastered the basic fall.

The suggestion caught her off guard, and she blinked. "Wait… what? I can't support your weight. Not with my leg?—"

"It's not about weight. It's about positioning." He moved to stand in front of her, close enough that she could see gold flecks scattered through his blue-green eyes. "Same principle, different application. You guide the fall, control the direction. My weight becomes momentum you can redirect."

"What if I miss the timing?"

"Then I hit the mat." His grin was immediate, a glimpse into the boy he must have once been. "Been there, done that. Bruises heal."

"Show me," she said.

He positioned himself. "The attack comes from here. Instead of meeting force with force, you redirect."

He moved forward at quarter speed, giving her time to process the technique's movements. Her role was to guide his momentum sideways and down, using his own energy against him while maintaining her own balance. Simple… right?

"Ready?" he asked.

She nodded, settling into the modified stance he'd taught her. Her damaged leg trembled slightly as she tried to support her weight, but the neural stimulator's gentle pulses helped stabilize the muscle response—good enough.

He moved forward again, this time at normal speed… for her. Probably half speed for him. She caught his momentum at the right moment, redirecting his energy in a smooth arc that sent him rolling across the mat in a controlled fall. He came up in a defensive crouch, grinning broadly.

"Perfect timing," he said, rising gracefully to his feet. "Again."

They worked through the technique repeatedly, building speed and precision with each iteration. She found herself anticipating his movements, reading the subtle shifts in his stance that telegraphed his intentions.

"This is a more complex combination," he said after she'd successfully redirected him for the sixth consecutive time. "Multiple attacks, different angles."

The combination came fast—multiple attacks, different angles, no breaks between them. She had to read his movements, adapt, and keep her balance while staying ready to strike or defend. They'd called it combat flow in training, muscle memory from years of drills.

T'Raal moved like he meant it. Controlled, but with an edge that made her pulse quicken. Not from the physical exertion—something else entirely.