Page 12 of Relyn (Warriors of Etlon #6)

Nora

H er room aboard ship apparently came with a roommate, but Nora was quite happy to oblige.

Data, the ship’s cat was a fat orange tabby that was extremely fond of napping wherever he pleased.

His owner, Clover, who had come aboard with a list of care instructions, was the doctor’s wife.

Though Clover had moved to new quarters in the city, the cat, it seemed, had escaped twice in order to find his way back to the ship.

She’d given up trying to move him, and so he came with the deal.

You borrowed the ship, you borrowed the cat.

Nora had been given the largest quarters on board, even though she’d protested.

Bright had said something about it smelling too much of her daughter-in-law, and Wendy wasn’t too fond of cats.

Either way, Data didn’t seem to care as long as he got his cat food twice a day and had someone to curl up with at night.

Nora had wanted a cat for a while, but it always seemed a cruel possibility that one day she might get called up and disappear out of its life forever.

She didn’t want the poor thing ending up in a shelter and she didn’t have any friends that she felt like foisting off yet another animal.

As she got older, Nora probably could have got one, but had never made the time to go get one.

As she stroked Data, she promised herself that when she got back, she would go to the shelter and request one that had been left behind by some woman who would be extremely grateful to know her cat had been well taken care of.

Bright had been correct. The ship was not very big, at least for Mahdfel standards.

The living space was about the same as her rowhouse if you laid it all out flat.

There was a kitchen and dining area, a cockpit, three small crew quarters and a cargo area that the Etlon warriors had filled in record time.

The wives had a list and had made her promise to help Bright fill the hold with a return cargo with all the right things, including two litters of kittens and mixed litter of puppies.

Wendy had just rolled her eyes as the women had said their weepy goodbyes.

Nora had only known them a few days, so she expected it was more the homesickness kicking in and the hormones that were raging that were fueling the crying rather than actual friendship, though she didn’t doubt their sincerity.

If circumstances had been different, Meadow, Jane, and Humility would have made great buddies to hang out with, but Nora was needed at home, and without a husband, Nora would just feel like a fifth wheel after a while.

There’d be no babies to coo over, and no, “you’ll never guess what he said last night,” stories to tell.

Even if she did stay, she’d still be required to participate in the lottery, and it would be nearly inconceivable that her husband would already be there stationed on Etlon Two.

She’d be whisked away to wherever he was, leaving her friends behind.

It was the only action to take, Nora told herself repeatedly as she watched Humility and Mason say goodbye to Wendy.

Through a few well placed questions, Nora had managed to get the whole story.

While trying to please his new mate, Kave had conspired to get Humility’s sister and father here on the premise that his wife was dying.

She hadn’t really been ill, at least not before he’d temporarily poisoned her.

But Mason and Wendy had come, which allowed her father to undergo treatment for Blue Lung.

Now that he was cured, he had decided to stay on Etlon Two, and watch his grandchildren grow up in luxury.

Humility had also convinced Wendy to use her bride payment to go to university.

While she’d been on Etlon Two, she’d taken some remote classes, but her sister wanted her to get the opportunity of living the college life that she’d never gotten.

After goodbyes, the three women had settled into their respective spaces and had six weeks stretching out in front of them. Meadow had handed her a tablet full of books, but Nora felt a bit guilty thinking that she could spend the next six weeks reading instead of doing something productive.

On the second day, she found Wendy sitting at the table staring at a tray of plants.

Wendy was a responsible and generally quiet eighteen year old.

She had sleek long brown hair that she wore back in a ponytail.

Now that she was on the ship instead of a tropical planet, she seemed to live in a black hoodie and a pair of dark wash jeans.

It was a teenage uniform that hadn’t changed much since she was that age.

If they’d been back on Earth, Wendy totally could have been one of her students finishing her last year of high school.

That’s if she weren’t Canadian and already finished with her high school degree.

“Oh, won’t you grow, grow for me,” Wendy sang half under her breath.

“Little Shop of Horrors, right?” Nora said, sitting across from her. “Hopefully you didn’t feed them blood.

“No blood. But I took perfect readings of soil, gravity, light, temperature, and water and they are already beginning to wilt. I don’t know how Odette does it.”

“I didn’t meet her.”

“No, she is on Etlon. I try to convince myself that Humility didn’t send her there just so I’d have an excuse to leave. It’s ridiculous anyway, since Odette does what she wants, and even her husband has a hard time telling her what to do.”

“Odette is your mentor?”

“She’s one of the best xenobotanists around, so it seems silly for me to go back to Earth just to study plants from other planets.”

“Your big sister just wants you to have the options you didn’t have. A lot of people change their minds about what they want to do with their lives while they are in college.”

“You think I’m gonna change my mind?”

“You might, and you might even meet some new people.”

Wendy gave her the skeptical teenager stare.

“You mean I might meet a human guy and fall in love and start farting out babies.”

“I mean that you will have more choices back on Earth. Whether or not to have children, to get married, to get a degree and work. You’ve got a lot of money now to do whatever you want.

And if you decide to come back, it’s only a short teleport back.

Hell, I know a lot of people who are dying to be in your shoes.

” Nora definitely wouldn’t mind having a few million dollars laying around.

She could start her own school with that kind of cash, or at least some scholarships to pull her students out of poverty.

“The moment I step back on Earth, my greedy ass brothers are going to start looking for handouts.” Nora bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“Who said you had to tell them you were back? Earth is a big place. What universities were you thinking?”

“Montreal or Toronto,” Wendy said. Both of those were close to home.

“I hear Vancouver is nice. But so is Paris, London.” Nora had dreamed of going to London for school.

“Exeter has a great xenobiology program,” Wendy said with a slight upturn of a smile.

“See? You think your brothers can find you on a different continent?”

“Well, Jaques isn’t so bad, but I don’t think he could keep it to himself,” Wendy shrugged.

“That’s where the continental divide is helpful. Really hard to show up unannounced without getting a visa and transport ticket,” Nora said.

“I guess that’s true.”

Wendy ended the conversation when Bright came in and gave the two of them a hard silent stare. Wendy stood and put her little plants back in the incubator she’d set up.

“Space can be a dangerous place,” Bright said rather out of the blue. “We are traveling rather slowly without escort, and we should be prepared for any occasion.”

“Pirates,” Wendy said.

“Argh!” Nora couldn’t resist adding. Yes, her idea of pirates was firmly embedded in the eighteenth century with Captain Jack Sparrow and other fictional characters. Bright obviously had no idea why she’d just shouted like a pirate. “Never mind me. Pirates, you say?”

“They are not a laughing matter. When we encounter them-”

“When?” Wendy asked.

“Yes. When we encounter them-”

“You mean if,” Nora corrected, straightening up. “If we encounter them.”

Bright stared at the two of them for a long moment. “As you like. When we encounter them you will do exactly what I say. You will not deviate or question. I have experience in these matters. That is all I have to say.” She smiled and abruptly left the room.

“Uh, that wasn’t ominous at all,” Wendy said.

Nora agreed with her. Pirates had not been listed on the things that they had discussed before she stepped on board.

Of course, she probably would have signed up anyway.

Space was a big place. It was space, after all.

Meeting pirates probably wasn’t a high probability, like being chosen for the lottery.

“Probably just a translation glitch?” Nora said.

Wendy didn’t reply, she just shook her head.

A timer went off. Nora dismissed it. She’d put herself on a twenty four hour schedule, trying to keep in step with Earth.

It was time for her night time routine now.

She headed back to her bunk. The first thing she did was feed Data, and then she got into her pajamas, though it was a loose word for what she had received when she asked the replicator for a pair.

No, this was a white, nearly see through silken negligee that barely covered her ass.

Apparently the girls around here did most of the sleeping naked.

The robe that she’d ordered was made of similar stuff, but it at least had full coverage.

She wasn’t going to sleep in a robe, and besides, there were no males on board so she could sleep bare ass naked and no one would care.

“No males except you,” Nora said to Data, who sat waiting by the bedside. He was obviously waiting for her to settle in bed so he could settle too, right on top of her. She climbed into bed with her tablet and smoothed the blankets over her. Data assumed his position and wiggled his way to comfort.

“All right, are we good now?” He looked up at her like she’d asked a stupid question.

Nora must have fallen asleep reading because the next moment there was a big purple alien standing above her.

His viking long hair was a chocolate brown with a hint of purple and he had two ram type horns spiraling close to his head that were a lighter shade of brown.

His chiseled face looked down at her with a sense of bewilderment.

For some reason, when she got over her initial shock, Nora wasn’t actually afraid of him. He looked more surprised to see her than she was to see him.

“Hi. I’m Nora,” she said, sitting up.

“You’re mine.”

“Pardon? Yurmine? Is that how you say your name?”

“No. My name is Relyn.”

“Relyn. So who is Yurmine?”

“No. You. You are mine.”

“What?” Nora might have been quicker on the uptake if she hadn’t still been half asleep.

A male voice shouted from behind him. Relyn pulled the blanket back and scooped her out of bed as if she weighed nothing. She wasn’t sure where Data had gone to, but she was kind of glad he wasn’t there to complain.

“Please put me down,” Nora said. It wasn’t quite in her teacher voice, at least not yet.

He did, but he didn’t let go of her. Nora found herself pressed against a hunk of alien man meat while she was wearing nothing but a thin little wisp of a thing.

And he was hard. All of him was hard, but his cock was pressing into her stomach insistently.

And he was big all over, but yeah. He was a stranger.

She knew his name and that was all, except he shouldn’t be here, but something in her was dying to know what his mouth tasted like.

How those hands would feel sliding over her pert nipples.

“Rel, you found one,” a voice said from behind him. When she turned, she found herself staring at what could only be described as a giant amoeba dressed up in a man suit. “Captain said to bring them out.”

“We’re coming, Grom,” he said.

“Um, no we’re not,” Nora said, starting to come to her senses.

“I will carry you again,” he said in gentle warning.

“How many people are out there?”

“Thirty or so,” Relyn said.

“I’m practically naked,” she pointed out.

He looked down at her with obvious lust. The man gave undressing her with his eyes a new meaning as her cheeks flushed and panties got damper.

“You want everyone to look at me like that?” Nora asked.

“Definitely not. You are mine.”

“You keep saying that, but there’s a robe over there.” Nora pointed to the corner where she’d hung the robe on a hook next to the bathroom. He let her go, long enough for her to grab it and slide her arms in the arm holes. Then he grabbed her and swung Nora back into his arms.

“Is this really necessary?” Nora asked.

He mumbled something under his breath and then stepped carefully out of her quarters and into the center of the ship where another ship had attached with an airlock.

A short tube walk later and they emerged into a cavernous cargo deck.

If Clover’s ship was a cargo container, this thing was a container ship.

It dwarfed their vessel by a lot. Sure enough, there were about thirty aliens milling about, more of the amoebas and plenty that Nora couldn’t identify.

Bright and Wendy stood in the center of the circle, both of them were fully dressed.