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XYREK

Damn, that female managed to impress me. Nobody had ever done that, not like her. The evidence of the tinkering I had seen so far had been mediocre at best, but what she pulled earlier today? I was still shaking my head when I thought about it.

Never in a hundred years would I have thought it would be that hard to override the Ohrur's programming. It seemed like they already had experience doing it, as if others had… a thought occurred to me. Of course, others had. Every ship belonging to the Ohrurs was equipped with recall orders. I should have thought about it when they sent me on the hunt to find the traitors . If that's what they really were. The deeper I got into this mystery and the more I discovered, the more convinced I became that they weren't traitors. It was more than likely that we shared a common goal.

"Here," I shoved the kit of tools into Alice's hands. "You've earned it. Just don't dismantle my ship."

She opened the box, and her entire face lit up in pleasure. "Thank you!"

I grunted a response and threw myself on the chair, calling up several cubes I had open from previous searches, only peripherally aware of Alice chasing down one of the cleaning drones and beginning to dismantle it with her new tools.

Earlier, I had watched Nock's stream about mating marks, but it hadn't given me any information I didn’t already know, except that I couldn't find anything on unexpected or interspecies mating marks as he had claimed. My mind worked furiously; the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that Zaarek must have experienced something similar to what Alice and I shared. Nock was with Zaarek—for whatever unfathomable reason—and he had more or less put out an open invitation for every Space Guardian to go to UX938.

I ran a quick analysis to see if I could make it there in time, but every scenario the computer played out told me I would get there days after them. Zaarek was a Space Guardian; he would never risk hanging around the space station long enough for others to catch up with him. When Nock broadcast his stream, he must have been in relatively close range.

He had been looking for someone!

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He must have been looking for the other three Space Guardians assigned to the Pandraxian mission. He was trying to get all of us together.

It made sense, but unfortunately, that didn't help me. I would never make it to UX938 in time, and wherever they went from there, it would be like trying to find a particular star in a cluster.

Tomorrow, we would reach Astrionis, and I would be rid of my cargo. Lord Protector Garth might know something that would help me if I were lucky. The others must have crossed paths with him. We had all followed the same orders, and if they had fallen into the mating trap, it was only logical to assume they had more than one human aboard. And if they did, further logic dictated they had wanted to get rid of them as badly as I did.

A small curse from Alice ripped me from my thoughts. I followed her line of sight to the cleaning drone she had taken apart, which was now banging its case repeatedly against the wall. My lips curled up in amusement. I should have been annoyed that she destroyed another drone, but I wasn't. Not a bit. Instead, I watched her face crease in concentration as she looked over the bits and pieces that had been left over after she put the drone back together.

I wasn't sure what possessed me, but I got up and walked over to her, kneeling in front of her. I picked up a small part and held it up to her. "That's the stabilizer."

"Oops," she laughed.

Her hands searched through the assorted tools and produced the Master's Pin. Holding it up, she tried to insert it into the stabilizer, but it didn't fit—it never fit anywhere. I hadn't seen a Master's Pin in years and took it from her, thoughtfully looking it over. A strange sensation moved something deep in the recesses of my brain, but before I could analyze it, Alice asked, "What is this tool?"

I held it out to her, with my eyes locked on the very tip of it. It resembled a cluster of stars, shaped unlike any other tool, and proven to be useless as such. "It's called a Master's Pin. As far as I know, nobody has ever used it, but it's become a symbol of your trade."

She smiled, "A symbol?"

"Yes," I nodded. "It's kind of strange, really, but every kid knows what it represents and that the person who holds it can fix anything."

"Oh, I like that," she beamed, turning the Master's Pin this way and that.

I wasn't one to believe in legends or tales, but I thought Alice might enjoy this little story. "It's said that it's hundreds of thousands of years old and that one day, an engineer will use it to open the gates to Heaven or Hell." I grinned. "So be careful with it."

Her mouth formed a perfect O . My cock responded immediately as my body remembered the kiss we had shared. Frygg. My entire being hummed with the desire to taste those lips again. Why did I have to get this close to her? Now, I could smell the sweet scent emanating from her, making me dizzy. The scent was like nothing I had ever smelled before, and yet it called to a deep-buried primal instinct in me.

Arousal!

I swallowed at that realization.

The little human female was as aroused by my presence as I was by hers.

Distance. You need distance. Now!

"I need to check on something," I mumbled, basically running from the bridge. I felt her gaze bore into my back, but I didn't care what my hasty retreat looked like; I was running away like a coward.

I would have loved to be able to lean against the wall as soon as I left the bridge and take a deep, steadying breath, but with all the humans beleaguering the hallway, it had to wait until I reached my quarters.

Once there, I was able to do just that and try to get the hard beat of my heart and my traitorous cock under control. What the frygg had just happened?

You're horny , my mind informed me.

Well, thanks for that brilliant observation, asshole , I retorted.

This was the most useless information my brain had ever conjured. I hoped to the stars that there would be a Fighting Pit on Astrionis, because the balled-up emotions inside me needed an outlet, and what better way than to fight? Yeah, I liked that idea. I would ask for two Pronex and… a chatyr—a dangerous predator. No, make that three Pronex and two chatyrs. That sounded like a good plan. That would exhaust my pent-up emotions.

How will you spend a night without her in your room ? My mind countered.

Frygg. The bastard was right.

I slammed my palm a few times against the wall. The stinging helped some. Not enough. When had she burrowed herself that deep under my skin? Or was this just something the mating marks made me think and feel? Did they, by any chance, release some kind of pheromones? One that made me react to her like this?

I considered the possibility and liked it. I liked it very much because it would mean that as soon as I was away from Astrionis and her, I would be able to return to my normal life. Well, not quite, I still had things to investigate, but at least my mind would be distracted, and my cock wouldn't be constantly yearning for her.

Fighting Pit! And spirits.

That would numb my body until I was far enough away from her to stop craving her with an irrational fervor that bordered on being possessed.

I pulled up information on Astrionis and searched for the closest option to where I would land.

Frygging old school Pandraxians!

No Fight Clubs! No spirits!

Damn, those backworlders. I might understand the lure of hunting with a sword and spear instead of a blaster. But these damn traditionalists took it several steps too far. They shunned spirits and, it seemed, fight clubs.

Frustrated, I expanded my search for nearby places that would offer me the relief I craved and found several not too far: Pandrax. Of course.

Fine, that would do.

I could do that. I knew I could wait another day or two. I would have to. And as far as the sleeping alone part was concerned… I would give her a comm. So we could talk to each other every now and then. I liked that idea, too. She had grown on me, like… a friend… Yes, a friend. One I didn't want to fuck. Not at all. Once we had some distance between us, it would be nice to just… talk to her.

I smirked at that. I was almost convinced that I had convinced myself.