Page 25 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

K aylar stared into the stasis unit, his hand still firmly resting on his blaster though he did not pull it. Meg was hovering behind him, trying to press in closer, but his vibrissae easily rebuffed her efforts with gentle but firm nudges. It was enough to have her cooperating with his efforts even if it was accompanied by significant expletives. He calculated that he was likely overreacting since the human female encased inside the outdated stasis unit appeared even softer and more vulnerable than his Meg, but he refused to be reckless with her safety.

His head cocked as his gaze drifted away from the slumbering human and ran along the structure of the unit. His mandibles clicked softly as he examined it.

“What is it?” Meg whispered at his side as she batted away another one of his vibrissae and pushed her way forward.

He chuffed softly at her fierce determination but gestured to the unit. “This a stasis unit. An outdated one, but I was not aware that your species developed technology of the like.”

She shook her head and pressed in closer, her brow furrowing as she looked at the unit. “I wasn’t either. I’ve never seen anything like this. This whole room is beyond anything I’ve even imagined. There is even an AI, though not as good as yours.”

Kaylar’s head snapped up, his eyes sharpening on her. “An AI? It communicated with you?”

“Sort of.” Her lips twisted in a humorless smile. “It wanted to verify that I’m human but after that its attempts to speak were all broken up so that I missed large chunks. I did get that she would be waking up in about forty-seven hours. I think that was about an hour ago that it said that,” she added.

“Fascinating,” he rumbled, turning his attention back to the unit. “I wonder if human machinery required species verification to operate. And why? Does the human race have a history of communication with species from other worlds.”

Meg gaped at him. “Seriously? Alien contact? Ah, no. As far as I know, that has been just in books and the fantasies of crazy people unless the government knew and hid it from everyone, which I suppose is possible.” Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip for a moment, damaging it in a way that made him wish to soothe it with the sap from the ventors at either side of his two tongues, but finally she shrugged. “I guess there’s no way to know now. Any real information is long gone. I do know we had personal codes and passwords but I’m not sure about anything else. They had some computers in The City but all of them were password protected so no one could use them. I don’t recall seeing anything about humans but I never was able to use them, as I said.”

Dipping his head in acknowledgement he returned to his perusal of the stasis unit. An AI and a stasis unit on a world of tech that appeared to be used within limited range of this planet only. It did not calculate. Stasis units were usually only sufficiently developed in societies that had honed passenger space travel to the point of requiring it those traveling long distance across the sectors. It was rare to see either technology advanced in a planet bound society. It did not mean it was impossible, but the puzzle intrigued him.

Then there was the matter of the encryptions keeping him out of the lower floors and this room in particular. The primary lab systems were easy for him to infiltrate so it roused his curiosity as to how the humans had managed to shore up protections in specific parts of the laboratory that he was unable to break as of yet.

His eyes skimmed over the unit, his systems attaching to it and nudging the programming of the stasis unit. There was something undeniably familiar about the tech though it was not one with which he was familiar. That was not unusual since he would not have been trained on any outdated tech from any species.

Huffing in annoyance, he stepped back, drawing Meg with him. “We will have our answers soon enough when the human wakes but that will be another forty-five point six hours yet according to the unit’s internal system. We will eat and rest.”

Meg looked over at him in surprise as he gently steered her from the room. “You aren’t going to work on the ship? You go out to the beach every night.”

He shook his head. “Not tonight. It is reasonable that I remain close at hand in the event of an emergency until the human wakens.”

“I think the AI called her a doctor… I think maybe it meant a scientist,” she offered and he rumbled in acknowledgement.

“Regardless, I will wait,” he insisted as his plans to work on the ship were temporarily set aside.

He refused to leave her alone there with the ongoing activity. There could be security measures that he had not yet found that could activate at anything that the primitive AI considered a threat. Development of AI systems was an imperfect and difficult process, and he would not trust one devised by such a primitive race. Not until he could assess the risk the doctor posed to his human and commanded her to disable the AI completely. It was unnecessary to their current task, and he would have no threat remaining. He would take Meg through the forest first despite the danger posed by E302 before leaving her alone with the unknown AI.

“Okay,” she agreed readily, and she leaned into his side as she grinned up at him. “So, you are cooking for me, right?”

His lips quirked, inching upward in a smile as he looked back down at her. There was just something about this female that got through his systems codes and brought him joy. Her simple enthusiasm for the little things seemed to create an echoing response in him so that he relished and anticipated things he never would have given much thought to other than performing them mechanically. He estimated that this was not about his performing a service by cooking as a gesture of supplication, but she was simply happy because he was cooking for her. And that happiness was contagious.

He wanted to cook for her and see the pleasure on her face when she tasted what he provided for her.

“Of course,” he rumbled.

She startled slightly, a look of disappointment crossing her face, when he disengaged her from his arm, but her soft squeak of happy surprise when he gathered her closely to his side and slid his arm around her warmed the deepest hollows of his heart.

Guiding her to the food preparation area, he pressed her gently into a chair at the table off to one side as he turned toward the sink. Freeing the mammals from his belt, he dropped them on the counter beside the basin and angled his body to block the view of his work as he quickly stripped the skin and removed their internal organs before moving them to a long, shallow pan. From where she sat, Kaylar perceived that she was craning her head, watching him to the best of her ability as he stepped away to pick up several spices that she often used that he found particularly pleasing, and proceeded to rub them into the flesh.

Warmth crept over him as her eyes fastened to the firm stroke of his hand over the flesh of the small mammals and he nearly dug his claws into one thick, supple side with the eagerness that suddenly pulsed through him. More so because his delicate sense of smell and his vibrissae drew in the faint release of her pheromones that signaled the early stages of her arousal. He bit back a growl and continued to work, trying to ignore the weight of her eyes following him and the way that her scent deepened and became richer. If she wondered at his ability to see to her needs, he was confident that he could satisfy them all. He would address one hunger and then the other to her satisfaction. He had every intention of looking after her very well.

Nearly shaking with the reaction of his instinct toward her musky heat, something within him shifted as his civix pressed eagerly against his slit but he battled the sensation back. He cursed. That was not wise. He was forced, at that moment, to remind himself that he could not mate her. He could not risk alerting the council. Not yet… if that was even something the female wanted. He was incapable of doing anything until he could set a virus into his own systems that would scramble the signal of origination when he coupled with the female. For all that he was going to do for Meg, he would not be the source that allowed the council to find Earth.

Afterward—should she desire it—he would claim all.

Another shiver ran through him, and a soft, sensual purr escaped from between his lips. One that he knew would unwisely heighten both of their arousals but one he was helpless to contain. He needed to prepare that virus quickly. He did not know how long his ability to reason would hold out against his instinct to claim a perceived willing mate. That was also a discussion that they would need to have first. Meg had to know what she would be accepting before he gave her his bite. He could not take that choice from her. To do so would make him no better than the council and the Dale. They had to decide if that was something that they both desired.

It was an irrevocably decision once made. It would be more than freedom in space. It would be forever.