Page 13 of Guardian's Soul (Space Guardian's Mate #2)

HANNAH

I still had many questions burning a hole inside me, but first, I needed to digest the information dump Thrax thrust at me: Astrionis, I mused—a colony for human refugees. As little as the possibility appealed to me, I knew I had to consider it. But first, I needed to come to terms with the hard truth: I was never going back to my old life. My days at the gym were over permanently.

Strangely, it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would have a couple of months ago. Something inside me was changing. Well, duh, trauma does that to a person . I just wasn't sure if it was for the better or not. I didn't entirely like this new version of myself—the one who was angry at the world and full of snark. She wasn't exactly comfortable to live with. But I had to admit, I liked that she didn't just roll over and laugh everything off. That was a plus.

Still, I missed the gym—especially the Wednesday classes. I missed how my cheerleading actually made a difference. Danny, grinning from ear to ear after finally nailing his form. Shelly, high-fiving me after hitting her personal best. There was this one time Danny joked I should become a motivational speaker. I laughed at him, but when I got home that night, I actually looked it up. The idea stuck with me. I liked it. I liked making people feel good like they could do more than they thought they could.

And then the Cryons happened. They didn't just abduct me; they obliterated the entire world. I didn't know if they were still out there or if the Pandraxians had chased them off—yet another question for Thrax.

The choices ahead of me felt just as confusing. Pioneering on Astrionis?

I watched Outlander when I came down with a bout of the flu, and washing clothes in a bucket and churning milk didn't exactly sound appealing to me. And even if the Pandraxians promised all the comforts of home—or whatever their alien equivalent of home was—I couldn't muster any enthusiasm for building a new world from scratch. Now, if Thrax would be there, running around shirtless… where the hell did that thought come from? Focus, Hannah , I reprimanded myself, forcing my mind back to how to envision my future.

How about going back to Earth?

Sure, rebuilding sounded noble, but I had to honestly ask myself—what did a post-Cryon Earth really look like? Unless the Pandraxians sent in an army, it sounded more like a dystopian gang-roaming nightmare than anything I'd willingly sign up for. Besides Outlander , I had also watched some sci-fi utopian movies, including dark ones.

I let out a deep sigh, accepting that neither option of my future life appealed to me. The problem was, I didn't know what "me" even was anymore. The bubbly, happy-go-lucky Hannah who spent her time helping people was still there, but she felt buried under all this new anger and snark. Was that who I was now? Was that who I wanted to be?

I knew I should be grateful to have a choice. Not many people were given that privilege anymore, and I really was grateful. Maybe I just needed more time to really come to terms with everything that had happened.

Thankfully, I had that. Time to figure out whether old Hannah was worth fighting to bring back or if this new version of me—angry, sarcastic, and all—was here to stay. Time to see if either of these paths started to make sense.

For now, I let those questions simmer. They didn't need an answer just yet. And maybe, just maybe, in a few days, something would finally start to feel right.

"There you are. I was looking for you." Thrax entered the storage area I had made my way to.

"Yeah, sorry. I needed to stretch my legs," I explained. "I'm used to a lot of physical activity and having been kept in a cell for so long…" I trailed off, not one to share my inner musings or play for sympathy.

To my surprise, he didn't goad me. "I get it. Maybe I have something that would appeal to you?"

"Sure." I shrugged. What else was there to do? He already told me that it would take a couple of weeks to get to Astrionis. Whatever that meant in Earth time. We'd probably be ready to kill each other after one week, so I would take a polite offer from him right now unless he meant rolling in the bed. That was so not going to happen…

Beats fighting …

Shut up .

Against my will, my eyes roamed over his handsome body, which was barely hidden underneath the clingy uniform he wore. That man did have a very tight ass. And his quads? With those biceps, he could probably easily do a hundred push-ups, rolling his hips… my eyes glazed over… rolling his hips… fuck, why did my mind have to go there ?

Because you are going to be stranded with him for two weeks, Hannah, and because fucking him would be a lot more fun than arguing with him the entire time .

Well, that was one persuasive argument.

"Here." He stopped, and I nearly ran into him because I had been too busy ogling his body instead of watching what it did. The door to a room I hadn't been in yet opened. I assumed most doors hid bedrooms. By the sight of this, I was wrong. Very wrong.

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. The entire wall to the left and the ceiling were made of alien glass. Right now, I only saw blackness, but here and there, I caught a glimpse of an incredibly fast-speeding comet or something.

That wasn't what caught my interest, though. No, it was the room and its equipment. Alien or not, those were exercise machines. Very, very high-tech exercise machines. I didn't recognize a single one, yet some of the mechanics were intuitive.

"This will do perfectly," I agreed, stepping toward the first machine without any idea what it would do. A low bench indicated one would lie on it, but it didn't give any indication of how to use it. At one end stood a sleek, dark gray, shiny tower. My fingers trailed over the cool, polished metal.

"This." Thrax lowered himself down, with his back to the bench, calling out, "Activate."

Four metallic arms appeared from underneath the bench. Each one was put together by metallic links. Curiously, I watched two of the arms wrap around Thrax's legs, the ends adjusting around his feet like stirrups.

The same happened to his arms, only it wasn't stirrups but handles he held on to. I noticed his head rising. Marveling, I looked closer at some sort of neck/head protection rising, like a pillow, adjusting to his body. As a matter of fact, the entire bench was adjusting to his body like a mattress.

"The machine's sensors will gauge how much weight and resistance it will need to work out your arms and legs to your chosen body composition. "

Fuck me . I was pretty sure my mouth hung open as I watched him work the arms, or were they working him? It was hard to tell. All of his limbs worked in perfect unison, turning him into an X , then into an I . Three three-dimensional, too. His arms and legs moved up and down, working his abdominal muscles just as hard as the rest of his body. And yes, the machine was working him. His muscles bulged, oh fuck, how they bulged.

You'd think someone like me would be used to watching gorgeous men work out. I thought so, too, until right then. None of the men I had worked with before had turned me on like Thrax. I tried to reason it was the exoticness of his silvery skin, but no… it was more than that. There was a special kind of gracefulness to the way his body moved, and his damn uniform didn't do a thing to hide the play of his muscles underneath.

"Deactivate." He sounded slightly breathless when he uttered this command, bringing me back from my revelries about his anatomy. "Your turn." He rose lithely off the contraption, reaching for a towel that appeared from out of nowhere. Well, not quite. It came out of the sleek tower. Still. Damn!

A light fog pushed out over the bench, followed by a slim metallic arm, pressing and gliding smoothly down the bench, cleaning it.

Torn between excitement and trepidation, I lay down on it as soon as the sanitation process was done. My eyes were glued to Thrax, who nodded encouragingly at me.

"Activate," I mumbled, having to clear my throat because, honestly, this required more courage than I thought. Especially when those metallic arms came out. The links working around my extremities made me realize they allowed maximum range while giving support but leaving room to bend an elbow or knee if needed.

The headrest underneath me adjusted, just like the mattress part, making me feel stabilized and protected. I was still staring at Thrax when I felt a slight nudge from the machine to spread my arms and legs, and when I followed it, there was just enough resistance to turn this movement into a workout. Just like I had watched Thrax's body turn into an X and I , mine was now too. The resistance was working me both ways, just hard enough to make me begin to perspire slightly. The machine allowed me to follow my natural instincts on how to move, but when it registered any hesitation on my part, it took over control. Nudging me into different positions that I felt not only in my extremities but in my stomach and butt. In under five minutes, this little contraption worked every single muscle in my body, a workout that would normally take at least a couple of hours.

"Deactivate," I pushed out after about ten minutes. My breathing wasn't hard, not really, and neither was my heart rate too elevated.

"Does this machine read your heart rate?" I asked Thrax, accepting his unexpected offer to help me up. My stomach muscles actually screamed at me.

"It reads your entire body composition to ensure you won't overwork yourself." He confirmed. "Do you want me to show you how the other machines work, or do you want to take a break?"

After several weeks of being a prisoner with my arms bound behind me, I've lost lots of my stamina. It would take some time to build myself back up to where I used to be.

"A break sounds good," I admitted, "but is there like a simple treadmill I can use later?"

"Treadmill?" He creased his forehead.

"Yeah, something you can run on?"

"Oh." He nodded his understanding. "Follow me." He led me to a cylindrical machine that resembled the shower . "It's easier to experience than to explain. Same principle, activate and deactivate. It's pretty self-explanatory."

Unsure of how the cylinder would make me jog, I decided to trust the alien and entered. The ground was soft, and the inside was more spacious than the outside had indicated. Black walls surrounded me from all sides, more so once the rotating door closed.

"Activate," I mumbled, fighting against the slight case of claustrophobia trying to creep up on me. A small light in the dome was the only source of illumination in the chamber. However, when I spoke, the walls suddenly displayed images beyond my wildest dreams.

"Wow," the word escaped me like a breath.

"Please choose your surroundings." A computer voice prodded.

I turned in a slow circle, trying to take in all the images shown to me and trying hard not to get roped into one or another because… because these were all alien worlds.

My fingers hovered over all the possible words I could explore, but one suddenly stood out to me more than others, called to me on a deep level that was hard to explain.

All the other images retreated, and in the next second, I found myself standing on top of the lavender sand. The sound of waves crashing against the shore was as realistic as the light sea breeze I felt on my face and the scent of salt in the air. Stronger than on any beach I had ever been to on Earth, but hey, this was a beach somewhere out in the universe, so…

My eyes moved to the purple sun above me, and a shiver skittered through my body. This sun that should have felt utterly alien to me felt strangely familiar. So did the three moons barely visible.

Before I had time to think about it, the ground underneath my feet shifted and started to feel like sand, enticing me to take a step forward and then another. The scenery surrounding me moved with my steps, faster or slower, depending on my speed. Ahead of me, behind me, and to my right was ocean as far as the eye could see, and to the left, an alien forest about a quarter mile away. The same pull that had made me choose this world drew me toward it. I shifted to the left, and, yep , I was now heading for the forest. The crashing of the waves dimmed, and so did the scent in the air. It was still filled with salt but mixed with something… earthier… if that made sense because this didn't look like Earth.

The alien trees loomed closer, their forms both strange and strangely familiar. So very alien, and yet they stirred something deep within me—a longing that defied all logic as if they were calling to a forgotten part of myself. The trees were enormous, towering above like natural giants. Their trunks were a labyrinth of roots that twisted and coiled like vines, wrapping around what might have been a central trunk—if such a thing existed. It was impossible to tell whether the roots were growing upward or downward, but they did burrow into the soil below. Every part of the tree, from its sprawling branches to its towering height, seemed woven together by the same thick vines.

At the ends of the longer, sturdier branches, clusters of leaves formed crowns that looked more like oversized bushes. Their hues were mesmerizing—blue-green shades that shimmered softly in the dappled light. On the forest floor, ferns in deep reds and oranges sprouted like flames, adding a vivid contrast to the scene.

A narrow footpath emerged, winding its way into the forest, and I found myself drawn to it. The trees closed in around me as I moved, and the distant crash of the ocean faded, replaced by new sounds. The twittering of what could only be a bird, the occasional piercing screech of some unseen creature, and the faint rustle of life scurrying across the ground filled the air.

The earth beneath my feet hardened and became rockier with each step. A sudden movement caught my eye—a creature darted across the path, flat and elongated with vibrant green and red scales, a strange hybrid of lizard and snake.

Everything felt so vivid, so astonishingly real. The deeper I ventured, the more I needed to see what lay ahead as though some unseen force was guiding me. My feet carried me faster, my breath quickening as I ran, certain that just around the next bend, I would find a small lake. In my mind's eye, I could already see it—the crystal-clear water teeming with a rainbow of round fish. And when it appeared, it nearly took my breath away. How could I have possibly known this sight would greet me?

The rushing roar of a waterfall grew louder, pulling me away from the strange sense of déjà vu, forward as if holding a promise. I could picture the bluish water cascading over rugged ochre cliffs, the rocks draped with fiery orange ferns.

I didn't even realize I was panting, my shirt damp with sweat as I sprinted faster. A need I couldn't explain drove me onward, desperate to see if I was right. And then, the breath caught in my throat.

There it was. Exactly as I had imagined—the lake, the waterfall, the ferns, it was all there as though the image had been plucked from my mind and brought to life.

But before I could even take it in, a shrill, ear-shattering alarm ripped through the air, dragging me back. The ground beneath me stopped moving, and the doors opened so abruptly I would have stumbled had strong arms not caught me.

"I've got you," Thrax said before the world around me turned so fast that I passed out.