Page 22 of Guardian’s Heart (Space Guardian’s Mate #1)

NOVA

The bathroom was everything one would have imagined on a high-tech alien spaceship. From its gleaming white and chrome walls, floor, and ceiling to the obligatory shower, toilet, and sink. The bathroom bordered on sterile, but a couple of alien plants and a shelf filled with curious-looking shells, as well as bottles of what I supposed were shampoo, conditioner, shower lotion and so on.

"Now you just need to explain to me how this works." I turned to Zaarek with a wry smirk, sensing that he wasn't thrilled by the idea of me in here. Or his quarters. Tough titty said the kitty 'cause the milk is all gone , I recited Uncle Boone's favorite saying whenever he ate all the leftovers or drank the last of the juice, and yes, milk too.

With a grunt, he stepped to the cylindrical contraption in one corner; the space next to it was empty and looked about as long as the thing was tall. With a round window leading out into space—where I could still see the celestial port—it would have been a perfect spot for a bathtub.

"I supposed you would rather take a shower than a bath?" he inquired.

Besides the fact I didn't see a bathtub in this room, the thought of sitting in my own filth didn't hold any kind of allure for me. "A shower will suffice."

At his approach, a wall from the cylindrical object rolled around, opening in the unmistakable shape of a shower, big enough to be called luxurious.

"Hover your hand over here for warmer and here for colder water," he announced, indicating a purple and an icy blue spot in the otherwise pristine white shower. ".

"Just say, soap, shampoo, or whatever you need and hold your hand into this crevice." He pointed at a small ledge in the shower.

"Verbal commands, got it." I nodded.

He gave me a skeptical glance but made as if to step out.

"Hold on."

His expression of now what made me snicker. Had I not been so in need of a shower, I would have prolonged his torture, gleefully.

"Towels? Fresh clothes?"

"Just say done when you're finished, and you will be dried," he informed me. "In the meantime, I will see what I have for clothes for you and the others." He didn't sound happy about that, not at all. Not my problem , I told myself, but something inside of me clenched when I remembered how we had made love in the forest. Didn't he feel anything for me after all that?

Without another word, leaving me to conclude that no, he didn't, he left the bathroom. You're a big girl , I told myself, you don't need his validation or this alien's affection .

I pulled his cloak off me, feeling strangely bereft, and rolled it into a lump to leave on the floor for now. Then my eyes fell on another slot in the wall, just like the one where Zaarek had discarded his pants in, and I figured that this was some kind of clothes chute, and I stuffed it down.

Once I was inside the shower, the wall retracted back, making me feel like I was inside a pill, but as the water rained down on me, I forgot everything that was bothering me. Never before had a simple shower felt that good. Not only was the pressure and temperature amazing, but the water felt much softer than at home.

I didn’t look down at the drain, as I had no desire to see what fell out of my hair and skin.

"Soap," I demanded, putting my hand underneath the dispenser and was rewarded with a generous blob of citrine-scented shower lotion. I scrubbed my entire body before I demanded shampoo and conditioner a little while later.

I contemplated staying underneath it for a while longer, prolonging Zaarek's relief, but decided to be the bigger person and told the shower, "Done."

I had expected to be hit by warm, drying air. Instead, it was the opposite. My hair was pulled up, just like my flesh felt pulled at from all sides. I shrieked, but it only lasted a few seconds, and every part of my body, including my hair, was dry.

Great, now what ? I mused as I stood naked in the middle of the bathroom, with not a single towel in sight to cover up with. The thought of flashing Zaarek might have amused me for a moment, but I disregarded it quickly. With a sigh and out of options, I psyched myself up to leave the bathroom.

I stepped to the entrance, and the door retreated. Poking my head into the rest of his quarters while keeping my body angled and hidden behind the wall, I called, "Zaarek?"

No response. But I spied clothes on the couch. Run or not to run , that was the question. I craned my neck, but the large room appeared empty. I decided to make a run for it and dressed in record time. Still no Zaarek. Not a trace of him.

Through the still-open bathroom door, I saw my fur shoes on the white ground, but I wasn't about to tie those back on my feet, and I didn't see any trashcan anywhere.

"Just leave it, serves him right," I mumbled about to sit on the couch and mull my options over. On a small, oval-shaped table, I spied the tablet Zaarek had given me earlier. My fingers itched to explore it more, but the moment I sat down on the soft couch and leaned my back against it, a rush of tiredness overcame me. I had no idea if it was day or night, here or anywhere in the universe. I wasn't even sure my circadian rhythm was still working, but I was dead tired. I leaned back further, facing a large, oblong window ahead of me, from where I could still see the celestial port, as Zaarek had called it. It was one of the most amazing sights I had ever seen. And something about this place that was giving birth to galaxies fascinated me. My eyes however refused to stay open much longer. After some heavy fluttering, I gave in and closed them for good, hoping that when I woke up, the celestial port would still be visible.

The slumber I fell into wasn't easy. At first, I dreamed of the celestial port, but instead of birthing galaxies, it was birthing a stream of Morlocks, all set to chase me. The inevitable molasses where you could hardly move one foot in front of the other caught me, and I screamed, waking myself up.

It was darker now, and the room was still empty. I shook the remains of the dream off and rubbed my eyes. My mouth was dry, direly in need of water, just like my grumbling stomach demanded food. Great, stupid alien, leaving me all alone , I cursed and moved up from the couch. Despite the bad dream, I felt refreshed enough to go in search of sustenance.

The door to the hallway opened for me without any problems, and the murmur of low voices pulled me forward to the mess hall. Three men and one woman sat around a table, eating something that looked like mashed potatoes but came in different colors.

"Hi," I managed, raising my hand.

The low conversation stopped, and four sets of eyes took me warily in.

Finally, the woman replied, "Hi."

I moved toward one wall, where four square machines stood on a metallic shelf that appeared to be hovering straight out of the wall. "Is this where the food comes from?"

The woman rose and walked over to me. She held out her hand and said, "Amy."

"Nova." I took her hand and shook it.

"Yes, let me show you how they work." She pulled her hand back and indicated a light on the side that turned the machine on. The front looked now like a screen, giving me a picture of a steaming bowl of… mashed potatoes. "Seems like there is only one main course," Amy informed me, "but here are your flavor choices." She slid the slide with her finger to a page with more choices. The translator chip didn't translate the alien letters magically into English like the tablet had.

"What should I pick?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. As far as I could tell, I had about a gazillion choices of colors.

Amy shrugged. “We got four different ones. They're all pretty good."

"All mashed potatoes?"

Amy giggled. "That's what they look like, but the textures vary, and so do the flavors. We haven't figured out anything to compare it to, but it's okay."

"Well, thank you." I tapped my choices. "Would you mind also showing me how to get something to drink?"

Amy walked down to the third machine. "All we've braved so far is water."

"That's perfect, thanks again."

She tapped on the new machine's screen, and a cup appeared, filled with, lo and behold, water.

"Come, sit with us."

"How did you know how to use these?" I turned my head back at the machines as we walked to the table where the men sat, silently watching us.

"Your alien, Zaar… something,"

"Zaarek," I filled her in.

"Zaarek, he came and showed us."

How nice of him , my mind snarked.

"Here, sit." Amy tapped her foot against the floor and a stool rose from the ground, identical to the one the others sat on.

"That's Lutz from Germany, Panuta from Indonesia, and Maxim from Kazakhstan," Amy introduced me. "Guys, this is Nova." Lutz looked like one of those playboy types in a magazine. His hair was blond and a bit long, but I was willing to bet that, at some point, it had been perfectly coiffed and styled, down to the blonder highlights. His blue eyes shone with confidence, and I would have judged him to be in his early forties. With no ring on his finger, or even a trace of one having been there, my theory of him being an overconfident player seemed to be spot-on. Panuta was younger and wirier. Probably about my age, twenty-five-ish. He looked dwarfed right next to the man from Russia, who was massive. His head looked square from hairline to jaw. With his receding hairline, some pudge that was still there even after weeks or months of starvation. I would have put him in his early fifties.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Privet."

The men greeted me in the same order they had been introduced. I managed a wry smile and sat down to stick a spork Amy handed me into the food, thought better of it, and drank the water first.

"So, where did you go?" Lutz wanted to know.

"Go?" I swallowed the water, decided it wasn't too bad, and put it down to attack the food.

"When you ran," Maxim clarified.

"Oh, there was a forest." I put yellow mashed potatoes on the spork and pushed it into my mouth. Not bad, I decided after a tentative chew. The texture reminded me more of overcooked yams than mashed potatoes, more stringy. Amy had been right too; the taste didn't remind me of anything. It was neither sweet nor bitter or spicy, but it tasted okay.

“What did you do in the forest?" Lutz asked.

"What did the alien do when it found you?" Maxim wanted to know.

"Zaarek." I sighed. Had he not introduced himself to them?

"What did he do?" Maxim reiterated.

I would have given anything to eat in peace, but without being rude, there was no escaping from here. The four people expected a story, so after eating another bite, I dove in and told them about the forest, Zaarek and me, leaving the juicy parts out.

"He didn't hurt you?" Panuta looked me up and down.

"Did you have those tats before? They're dope." Amy pulled at my arm, where it poked out from the sleeve.

I was spared an answer at the arrival of another woman waving at the others. I wasn't going to divulge that Zaarek had the same and that they had appeared after we… frolicked in the bushes.

"Anusha, from India," Amy introduced. "An, this is Nova."

Anusha looked sweet with her dark hair and soulful brown eyes. She, too, was pretty short, and I felt a twinge of guilt for not having asked their names before. They seemed to all be friendly with one another as if they had been friends for years, not brought together by alien captivity. I should have commiserated with them, but even now, I only tried to figure out how to get away from them.

"The alien caught Nova in the forest. He didn't hurt her," Maxim filled Anusha in.

"Zaarek, his name is Zaarek.”

Maxim leaned over the table. "You trust him? This Zarrack?"

A chill moved down my spine, and I was suddenly glad I hadn't divulged too much about Zaarek, me, the tattoos, and all the muddled emotions inside me. There was a glint in Maxim's eyes I didn't like. And the way he mispronounced Zaarek's name yet was telling of his dismissal of him.

"He saved us, why wouldn't I?"

"You ran," Maxim pointed out.

"That was a mistake." I hated admitting it, but the trust that had developed between Zaarek and me over the last few days had grown during our battle with the Morlocks . So much so that I was willing to trust him with my life. A privilege I had only ever granted Tucker, my brother. A voice inside me told me to tread carefully here. "I shouldn't have run. I was scared, but Zaarek assured me he's taking us somewhere safe."

"Is he?" I didn't like the expression on Maxim's face.

"That's what he said, isn't it? Why would he lie to us?" I bit my tongue. That may have come out a bit too sharply, but everything about this man put me on edge.

"Oh, I don't know… to make us more… pliable?"

"Compliant," Amy corrected.

"He bought us," Lutz added. "We don't trust him."

"So what are you going to do?" I wanted to know, instinctively falling into the same whispered tone they were using.

"We need to take over the ship," Maxim stated determinedly.

Were they crazy? "And who is going to fly it?" I wanted to know.

The four of them exchanged silent glances. "Lutz used to be a pilot," Amy supplied.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard that I drew blood, but it stopped me from laughing out loud. Lutz used to be a pilot . Either these people were totally na?ve or stupid. No , my mind proposed, desperate. They're desperate .

And desperate people are notoriously dangerous , I added.

"You're all in on this plan?" I wanted to know.

"The others… they'll follow. They don't like… action," Maxim filled me in. "But you. You are a brave, brave woman. You know the alien."

"Zzz—" I stopped myself before I corrected him again. I got it now. They needed to distance themselves from him. But why did they need to? If they simply planned on taking his ship? Right?

"Okay." I didn't like where my mind was going. "What about… the alien? Are you going to lock him up in one of the rooms?"

The five of them exchanged a glance that rose the fine hairs on the back of my neck. The realization of what they were planning hit me like a fist to the gut. They were going to… kill him. "You can't kill him." This time I couldn't stop my words.

"You care for the alien?" Maxim narrowed his eyes.

"I believe he saved us." I tried to sound reasonable. "And I believe he will take us to Astrionis. I don't think he lied just to keep us… calm."

"I'm not willing to gamble my life on that." Amy crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.

"I see." I was about to copy her posture, but an inner voice warned me to act standoffish. There were five of them here. If they thought I would betray them… I was sure they wouldn't cry over my death, just like they wouldn't over killing Zaarek. They had convinced each other that his death was a necessity to survive.

"So Lutz," I called him out, "you think you can fly this spaceship?"

Lutz's chest swelled. "I'm positive."

I crossed my ankles underneath the table and intertwined my toes to relieve some of the pressure that was about to burst out of me. Pressure born from frustration and the utter stupidity I was confronted with.

"Where will we go?" I asked.

"Well, we can't go back to Earth," Panuta, who had stayed quiet thus far, voiced.

That was the first rational thing I had heard from this group.

"We will find a planet." Lutz’s fist slammed on the table. It seemed as if I had poked one of the many weak spots in their plan.

"This is why I asked where you went." Maxim glared at Lutz, willing him to calm down.

Oh no. All my alarm bells were going off now. These people weren't quite as na?ve as I had first assumed. They still had a major flaw in their plan. For example, I doubted Lutz could fly this ship, but at least they had an idea of where to go, even though it would be right back to where we came from.

The planet we left was habitable. People already lived there.

"We’ll sell the spaceship and start new lives," Maxim explained patiently, looking at me as if I were a five-year-old.

I drained my cup of water and got up, keeping a close eye on the group. Panuta, Lutz, and Maxim tensed. Lutz looked ready to jump up. Just as I had feared, until they were sure they could trust me, they would not allow me to leave the mess hall.

Pretending I hadn't noticed the sudden tenseness around the group, I walked to the beverage dispenser, selecting something at random, hoping it was alcohol. God knew I could use a stiff drink.

"What?" Anusha demanded when I sat back down.

"Just give me a minute to digest all this," I stalled. After a moment, I turned to Lutz and asked, "What kinds of airplanes have you flown?"

"The last plane I flew was an Airbus A380." An arrogant line appeared around his lips. I could see him in a pilot's uniform, all decked out and dapper. His words didn't mean anything to me though; I wasn't a big flyer. Not yet. Once I had made enough money from my hacking skills, I would have traveled all over the world.

I hadn't been a vicious hacker. I never stole Aunt Edna's entire savings, broke into a credit card company, or sold their information. In all my illegal endeavors, I had always been careful not to harm a single person. I had used my skills for the good of mankind even though they would never know. For shits and giggles, I broke into other hackers’ accounts and scrambled their stolen data, which got me in hot water with the mob. They needed my skills for something that I didn't want to do. Which was the reason I was in freaking New Orleans when I was taken. Although, in hindsight, I should be actually thankful to the Cryons for invading us and preventing me from doing something that went against my code of honor.

My way of earning money had been more or less legit. I earned my money by getting paid for elevating social media posts. It didn't hurt anybody that Christine M. from Fort Lauderdale liked Little Miss Piggy's Home Fries in Baton Rouge, even though, as far as I knew, she'd never been there. Little Miss Piggy paid me a thousand dollars to get ten thousand likes and shares on her page. So… I hijacked unused social media accounts and made them like things or even leave good reviews, depending on my client.

Anyway, Lutz was one of the most dangerous types of people. He wasn't only overconfident and full of himself, but he had also been gifted the ability to convince others of it, too.

"What does it matter?" Anusha questioned my inquiry about Lutz’s flying abilities.

What does it matter ? I nearly rolled my eyes and shook my head at these people’s desperate gullibility.

"Have you been to the bridge?" I challenged. "Any of you?"

"Of course not." Amy's head moved from side to side.

"She won't help us." Lutz’s hand hit the table once again.

"Easy." Maxim stopped him for a second time. His light eyes bored into mine. "Have you?"

I leaned back into my chair, the picture of nonchalance, while my toes intertwined with each other.

"I have," I replied coolly.

"And?" Maxim seemed to lose some of his patience.

"I've never been in a cockpit," I forced myself to smile at Lutz in a respectful way. "But this bridge doesn't look like anything I have ever seen before."

"Explain," Maxim demanded.

I didn't like his tone. He reminded me of the men the mob had sent after me to force me to breach a bank's firewall. They wanted to open accounts to nonexistent companies to funnel money.

"There are screens that hover in the air. They're shaped like cubes," I recalled what I saw on the bridge, hoping to deter them, to make them see how foolish their plan was. "The symbols on them are in an alien language."

Amy blanched a little. "So, not like a regular cockpit?"

I nearly broke my little toe from clenching so hard in response to Amy’s stupid comment. The sharp pain grounded me enough not to lose my composure and to keep playing their silly, dangerous game.

"I'm afraid not." I lowered my gaze to hide my contempt.

"So we have to change plan some," Maxim declared. "We force the alien to take us back to that planet."

I nearly shouted, and then what , but once again, my willpower surprised me. "Fine, let's assume that works. Then we will be back on the same planet whose inhabitants wanted to sell us. Not to mention those God-awful creatures that chased us here."

"She's got a point," Panuta agreed.

Zaarek entered through the open doors, making me wonder if he had lingered in the hall outside, listening to our conversation. His face was set in an unreadable mask as he moved past us to the beverage dispenser.

His footsteps were the only sounds as the group, including me, sat silent and frozen, watching him.

He didn't even glance in our direction as he retrieved his beverage and turned to leave the mess hall. That was my chance.

"Zaarek, hold up." I jumped off my chair but forgot that my feet were still tangled and faceplanted on the ground.

A silvery hand appeared in front of my vision, and I grabbed it as he pulled me to my feet.