Page 32 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

“S o, tell me, Meg. What is Kaylar like? I mean it has to be intimidating being trapped on an island with an alien—and intimate with one, too,” Beverly smiled sympathetically.

Meg paused in her work, uncertain how to take the question. It was a little personal and Kaylar wasn’t there to buffer the conversation since he had left for the first time since they discovered the stasis unit thing. She was the one who’d been stupid enough to get caught by Beverly while she was on her way to the kitchen for a bite to eat. It had been difficult to put off the other woman’s overtures to visit even though Meg still hadn’t forgiven her for basically making her feel stupid.

Still, she supposed it made sense that Beverly would be curious. She certainly hadn’t understood when Terri hooked up with Veral. She still didn’t trust Beverly. Between her little offhand comments that first and then Kaylar returning to their room late at night with the faint scent of perfume on him, she didn’t trust whatever game it felt like the other woman was playing. It seemed like ever since she heard about the state of the rest of the world that she’d been openly flirting with Kaylar.

Or at least that was the way it had seemed at the time. She certainly wasn’t proud of the fact that she’d automatically thought the worst last night until he grumbled and snarled about running into “that female” in the hall upon returning from investigating. Perhaps she was just being oversensitive and worrying about nothing. Kaylar more than assured her that he had no interest in replacing Meg and it was possible that she was misreading Beverly’s desperate grasp for safety and ingratiating herself upon him as flirting when she just wanted to get off the island.

The more she thought about it, the more reasonable that line of thinking sounded. Beverly had been terrified of Kaylar like he was some boogie man who’d haunted her nightmares. She wouldn’t flip so easily to suddenly want to get close to him. She probably just wanted him to like her enough not to ditch her. That was a valid concern. The best she could probably do was reassure her that he wouldn’t leave her there when he committed himself to dropping Beverly off with other humans where she would be taken care of. If she saw that he wasn’t a monster, she might relax a bit and quit trying so hard at getting him to like her.

“Well, he’s great,” Meg began, a hesitant smile tugging at her lips. “We had a bit of a rocky start and all since—like I said—he saw me wandering around and decided to capture me, but even then he treated me well in his ship and then took care of me after we crashed. He’s pretty devoted like that. When he’s set his mind to doing something and says he will do it, he does. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as dependable.”

“Hmmm. And does he make you cut your hair like that? Is it a custom of females among his people?” Beverly asked, scrutinizing Meg’s hair as she touched the long length of her own long locks. “I don’t know if I could adopt such an unfeminine look. Even when a lot of ladies were cutting their hair in short, practical styles, I always was rather vain about my hair.”

Meg ran a hand over the top of her head and laughed though her face burned. Did Kaylar see it as unfeminine? “Ah, no. I did this before we met. It was a way of recreating myself and I kind of like how easy it is to manage. I don’t have to fight with knotted curls matting up.”

Beverly gave her a sympathetic look. “I suppose that it’s natural for you to make that decision. With childhood malnutrition and lack of proper hygiene care, I’m certain that this was the most practical decision. I can imagine the lice outbreaks must have been terrible.”

Meg’s face grew hotter. She’d only had lice once in her life and that was living in the miserable Red Reaper camp with Dale and Beverly was right, it had taken weeks of crying as she fought with her hair to get them all out. Although she hadn’t shaved her head, she’d come close and had settled for just cropping it short to make it easier to deal with and throwing the remaining length into the fire and she still hadn’t been able to completely get rid of them until she’d arrived at The City and had her own room. Only recently had she allowed the top to grow a little while keeping the sides shaved down with the set of electric clippers that she’d found in one of the abandoned rooms.

“Well, I’m just glad it’s not something that will be expected of me,” Beverly said with a pleased sigh. “You have a lovely bone structure and pull it off well enough without looking too boyish, but I know that I will look just terrible.

Too boyish? Meg prickled but breathed through it. It was clear that Doctor Beverly Ryder was the sort to say whatever came to mind rather than practicing some awareness for the feelings of others. She probably meant nothing by it… again. In any case, Meg was still stuck on the first part. What?

“Why would you even think that it would be?” she asked.

Beverly laughed. “Oh, you know cultural differences and all. You probably don’t understand since you grew up in a very insular world and not one as multicultural as the one I lived in, but I imagine the differences would be even greater between his species and ours. What if in his culture females were all expected to be practically bald, and he wished to enforce it on all of his females.”

“But you don’t have to worry about that because you are not his female,” she replied gently.

“Oh, I am using that term loosely. A male could easily consider any female under his care “his” for any reason. Why, even our concepts of monogamy could be entirely different from relationships in alien cultures. It’s another one of those cultural things that I’m talking about. I’m afraid that the nuance may be a little hard to understand for someone unaccustomed to the concept.”

Meg bit her tongue for a second but managed to catch herself from replying to that little bit of insight rudely. Instead, she decided to continue as if the other woman hadn’t even spoken. “From what little I’ve gotten out of him about his species, they mate for life and tend towards female led families and culture. So regardless, you are pretty safe to do what you want.”

“Is that so?” Beverly murmured. “Fascinating. It must be extraordinarily educational pillow talk. How do you resist falling asleep? I know listening to some lectures made me a bit glassy eyed in the past where I cultivated the art of dozing with my eyes open.” She laughed softly at the memory.

“Right,” Meg muttered. “Well, I find it interesting. It’s very different and it’s not like I’ll be seeing his home world. So, I like getting little glimpses of what his life is like and what his people do.”

“Oh?” Beverly’s eyebrow arched. “He doesn’t want to take you back to meet the family?”

Meg flushed. “It’s not that. He prefers spaces to being on planets, especially his which is apparently pretty sandy. His ship is very nice though,” she said excitedly, eager to demonstrate that her life would be one of adventure and not one of being merely hidden away like a secret. “It replicates food and I guess whatever you need because someone once got a replacement for their leg from one. And then there are the space stations. I don’t know what those are but, apparently, they will fix his ship the rest of the way and he will get things that I need. I think it might be kind of like what the cities used to be but its hard to imagine because he said that many are enormous and couldn’t even be crossed in an entire day.”

“That certainly sounds quite nice,” Beverly agreed. “How lucky of you that you won’t be stuck wearing that same uniform day in and day out.”

Lucky was such a strange way to put it.

“I… suppose.” Meg shifted uncomfortably. “I actually like the body suit. It is a bit armored, so I feel safe in it. It somehow keeps clean and never smells bad. I’m sure I will get a bit more clothes if I see something I really want but really this is fine.”

“I imagine it would truly be fascinating,” Beverly continued, and she chuckled. “I’m a little jealous now. I can’t even imagine how many opportunities there would be to learn new things if it were me, and the things to be seen on a space station! Imagine so much knowledge that must be accumulated in one place. It’s a pity that there’s no space for another human to travel there.”

If Meg wasn’t feeling uncomfortable before, she was now. The thump of the front door was the most welcome sound she could remember hearing and it had her springing to her feet with excitement. Excitement to get away from her fellow human.

“Kaylar is back!”

“Oh, perfect,” Beverly said as she too stood. “I want to ask him if he would mind working with me on the computer system.” She gave Meg a commiserating smile. “I saw that you two work very hard on the salvaging but perhaps you can spare him just for a few hours. I want to see if there is a way that we can use the system to narrow down what rooms may have what we need without having to individually go through them one by one, and he will have a better idea of when I hit up the right thing.”

“I guess that is up to him,” Meg mumbled, taken aback.

“Excellent,” Beverly beamed.

“What is?” Kaylar rumbled as he stepped from the entryway and into the lobby where they’d been sitting.

His gaze slid to Beverly with a hint of what appeared to be suspicion—though she couldn’t guess at the exact reason that he would be looking at her that way when he’d seemed content to ignore her outright before—and strode directly to Meg’s side to drag her into his arms.

Kaylar was rarely one for intimate—or even friendly greetings as she noticed during their initial few days together—so the gesture took her by surprise. Not that she had any intention of objecting. Instead she leaned her head against the bottom of his chest and relaxed into the heat of his body. Beverly eyed them but cleared her throat, bringing all attention back to her.

“I was just saying to Meg that it might be a good idea for you and I to work on the computer system tomorrow. Since you know specifically what you’re looking for, and I am more familiar with how supplies were cataloged, working together we might be able to locate supplies for repairing the ship faster. Meg thought it was an excellent idea,” she added.

“What I said was that it was Kaylar’s decision,” Meg reminded her stiffly. She tipped her head back and glanced at the male holding her. “What do you think?”

His eyes narrowed slightly on Beverly, his vibrissae twisting around themselves. “It is unnecessary. It will take you time to go through the systems and my time would be better spent on collecting salvage with Meg. If you see anything in your catalog that appears to have the potential to be useful, then notify me and I will investigate the matter.”

“Oh, okay.” Beverly’s smile wavered. “I suppose that works too. I was just trying to be helpful, thinking it would be good for us to just work together a bit.”

“Unnecessary,” he repeated. “I process that you can manage Doctor Ryder. You are a very capable human.”

“Well, yes, of course I am,” she replied, flustered, her cheeks pinkening slightly. “You are right. Do not worry. I won’t disappoint you. You will see how useful a human from our civilization’s height is.”

Meg bit her lip to keep from laughing as he slowly directed her out of the lobby. “Have a great night, Beverly,” she called out as he lifted her into his arms and her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her into the elevator.

Beverly’s faint “goodnight” was lost as the elevator doors slid shut and was promptly forgotten as their mouths collided. The hand supporting her shifted until his long fingers pressed against her slit and rubbed back and forth and Beverly herself was likewise forgotten. In Kaylar’s arms she had all that she needed or wanted, free of mind games she was subjected to. There was only honesty in his desire and affection, and she clung to both like a lifeline.