Page 34 of Guardian's Soul (Space Guardian's Mate #2)

HANNAH

I woke up refreshed and happy. Endorphins from last night's sex still rushed through my system, and even finding myself alone in our quarters didn't dampen my good mood. I took a quick shower and put on clean clothes before I went in search of Thrax.

I found him looking tired in the break room, holding a cup between his hands and staring thoughtfully inside.

"Good morning." I smiled, walking right up to him and giving him a kiss before I plopped down on his lap. Screw morning, new boyfriend awkwardness. I was going all in.

"You are a vision for tired eyes," he said, nuzzling my neck.

"Have you been up all night?"

He yawned, and I loved the way his neck muscles stood out and how all-male he looked.

"Most of it. I think I dozed for a little while when I came to check on you and sat down on the couch."

"You should have come back to bed," I chastised, tracing the sinew by his throat.

"I didn't want to disturb you."

"You would never disturb me." I smiled up at him .

"Hmm, I like the sound of that." He pulled my lips in for a deep kiss.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked a little while later.

"Not as good as I would have had you been there," I replied playfully.

"Point taken." He grinned.

"Did you find anything?"

"Too much," he said, and the strain of whatever he had discovered showed on his face.

"I broke into the Ohrur database and found where Darlam is. So even if we can't meet up with Zaarek and Nock at UX938, we should catch them there."

"Good." I nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

"The Ohrurs discovered Darlam and invaded it," he filled me in, making me shudder at the image. I had the experience of my planet being invaded. It hadn't turned out so well for us. Well, judging by how Thrax was holding me right now, it had worked out well for me , but I could have done without the whole abduction thing first.

"It wasn't a full-scale invasion like it happened to your planet," Thrax surprised me. "At first, it was rather peaceful. The Ohrurs are not like the Cryons, despite their technology outmatching the Darlams'. Their first contact was that of sharing, not conquering."

"When you say the Ohrurs' technology outmatched the Darlams'…" I fished for more information.

"The Darlams didn't exactly live in caves, but they didn't know anything about spaceflight or blasters," Thrax explained and I was starting to form a picture but had a hard time imagining my Space Guardian running through the woods with a loincloth, or rather… maybe I was overthinking this… Great, and now I was stuck with the image of him in a loincloth and… yeah, I was getting wet.

"Here are some images." He pulled a cube up and showed me. Browsing through this, I got the impression of maybe the Middle Ages. The buildings weren't exactly fortresses, but they were sophisticated in their own way and made up several towns all over their planet. It was a beautiful planet, too, reminding me of Earth with forests, mountains, lakes, and oceans… except for the hint of alienness. I scrutinized some strange animals, looking nothing like Earth animals, and yet, there were some similarities. The trees didn't resemble anything I knew from Earth. They didn't have one thick stem. Instead, the stem was made up of roots or branches intertwining with each other.

I had seen this before!

A heated jolt ran through me like a shockwave. Some of these images… they looked exactly like the ones I had seen in the simurunner.

"Thrax," I choked out.

"What?" Alarmed, he looked at me. "What is it?"

I pointed at some of the images. "This… this is what I saw in the simurunner."

"What do you mean?"

I hadn't exactly told him what had happened to me in the simurunner. It hadn't seemed important until now. "When I was in the simurunner, I chose an alien world I had never seen before, but somehow I knew what was waiting for me on the other side, around a bend… I knew there would be a lake, a waterfall."

He tilted his head and looked at me. "You recognized Darlam?"

I nodded numbly. "What does that mean?"

He shook his head. "I have no idea, Hannah, but I swear to you that we will find out."

I leaned against him, feeding off his strength as my confused mind tried to make sense of any of this. It took me a few minutes to pull myself back together and return my attention to the screen. "All right, let's keep going. "

"Are you sure?" He looked so concerned I leaned up and kissed him.

"Positive."

Inside the small town or city, the Darlams were easy to spot with their silvery skin, and to the untrained eye, they all looked a lot like each other. Not like humans, who had different sizes and skin colors. Different colored hair and eyes. A few were taller, some shorter, but only by a couple of inches. Every single one was well over six feet, so one might have been six-four and the other six-two. Aside from that, each one looked firm and fit, well-muscled—even the women, whose chests were as flat as that of a man's.

Involuntarily, I crossed my arms over my chest. I had done this thousands of times, but this time it felt different. Like there was an obstacle in the way as if I had crossed my arms before over a flat chest and suddenly found breasts in the way. I shook my head to rid it of this weird sensation while a shudder moved over and through me as if something inside me wanted to get out. No, not something, me. Like I wanted to get out of my own skin.

The sensation was so weird and terrifying I swallowed, trying hard to appear normal to Thrax, not wanting to burden him with… whatever weirdness I was going through.

I cleared my throat and forced my voice to sound normal. "What happened?"

"The Ohrurs discovered what they were looking for, the Archegene, inside the Darlams."

Judging by his expression, this must have been when things went south. I repeated my earlier question, "What happened?"

"They fought with themselves."

I didn't expect that.

"Okay…"

"Let me explain this first. As you know, the Ohrurs had been looking for some kind of super bodyguard they could hire to protect them, but the Darlams weren't very happy with the idea. From what I gathered, and this resonated with me, the Darlams had a strong sense of wrong and right. A deep, ingrained sense that kept each individual on the right path. It wasn't in their nature to play bodyguard for a species or accept credits in return. The entire Darlam culture was based on each individual bringing what they could to their towns. Trade was their only means of purchase. They didn't know about credits, nor did they care about them."

I stared at the village still pulled up on the cube and tried to imagine this peaceful life. Strong sense of wrong and right . I tried to imagine a world where people didn't try to kill each other over land or resources and where they lived peacefully with one another. What would that be like? Paradise? A place where you didn't crave the latest phone or computer and where there was no need for money. Goose bumps spread over my flesh at imagining myself living in a world like that. Paradise indeed. Humans would never fit into a world like that. They would try to take over. Just like the Ohrurs. Or would they?

I had to give that some more thought because I was sure I could live like that, and I was a human, so there would have to be others who would find peace in such a world.

"How did the Ohrurs react to being denied?"

"Not well." Thrax rubbed his forehead as if he was getting one of his headaches. I scooted around him so I could massage his tight shoulders. "The Ohrurs actually split into two fractions. One wanted to extract the Archegene and experiment with enhancing the Ohrur species, and the other was taken by the Darlams' way of life. So much so that they even advocated for leaving the planet altogether."

Slowly, I found one knot after another in Thrax's shoulders and massaged it out, giving him time to search for his next words. "The fractions divided so much so that they ended up in a civil war, killing almost half of the Ohrur population. "

I stopped and stared at him.

I wasn't a gene expert by any stretch of the imagination, but that seemed overdramatic. "Couldn't they have just… extracted some genes and moved on?"

"I was asking myself the same question," Thrax agreed. "And dug deeper. Back then, the Ohrurs weren't as scrupulous as they are now. During the civil war, all Ohrurs who weren't on board with exploiting the Darlams died. The war wasn't just about the Darlams. It had been brewing for a long time before that."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what to say to that. But it made sense. If a war extinguished every life that was good , all that would be left was evil.

"So what happened to… your people?" I wanted to include Thrax. So far, he had talked like he wasn't a Darlam.

He brushed a hand through his hair. "I don't know yet, other than that they were all killed."

I shook my head. "But if they were all killed, then…" I trailed off, realizing why he had distanced himself from the Darlams. I reached for him. "So you think Possedion told the truth when he said you were born and raised in a…"

He nodded. "I'm starting to believe that I am what you called a lab baby ."

He looked so forlorn that I stood, pulling his nonresistant body up with me. Of course he rose with me. Otherwise, I would have never been able to pull him onto his feet.

"Let's go talk to that bastard some more," I suggested in a dark voice. And if we had to waterboard him again, I would do it myself this time. That bastard deserved everything that was coming to him. Any scruples I had before left because of what his ancestors had done. No, I didn't think he was responsible for what they had done, but he was responsible for what they were still doing.