Page 2 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)

2

TENN

“ W hat is wrong with your hat?”

“Nothing is wrong with my hat,” I grumbled at Silar’s question. He, Cherry, and I stood outside my office in the mid-morning sun, waiting for the human-Zabrian liaison Tasha’s shuttle to arrive.

“Then why is it in your hands and not on your head?” Silar’s gaze went to my claws. “Why are you rubbing the badge with your thumb that way?”

“Ooh,” Cherry said with a hushed sort of excitement, leaning around her husband’s broad frame to better see what I was doing. “Is this like a good luck charm type of thing? When I was a kid, I found this little piece of scrap metal that was shaped like a heart. I carried it around for years. I always rubbed it when I felt like I needed a little extra good energy in my life.”

“You have known me for some time now, Cherry,” I reminded her with a quelling glance. “Do I strike you as a superstitious male? Prone to poking and prodding at spare bits of metal, or my own cursed hat, because I require ‘good energy?’”

“Jeez,” Cherry whispered to her husband. “Who pissed in his breakfast?”

I whirled on her, nearly dropping my own hat.

“Who pissed where? ”

“It’s just a human expression!” Cherry exclaimed, throwing up her hands in a gesture of placation. Silar instantly moved to position himself between us, but her face merely poked out from beyond the golden brawn of his arm. “It just means you’re out of sorts!”

“Out of what sort?” I shot back.

“You’re just… not yourself!”

“Who the blazes else would I be?”

“Fine. Let me put this another way.” She met my gaze steadily with her fearless human eyes. “Warden Tenn, you seem extremely stressed out.”

I shoved the hat onto my head and adjusted the stunner at my belt.

Before I could respond to Cherry’s observation – which felt rather like an accusation – Silar suddenly said, “The badge is shinier now. You were polishing it.”

There was little point in denying it. I had been polishing the blasted thing.

“Well, at least one of us has to make a good impression here,” I muttered at length. “And forgive me if I don’t leave that up to you, Silar. You didn’t even wear a shirt to your own wedding.”

Cherry chuckled and patted Silar’s eternally bare chest.

“Yes,” she said, “but Warden, you’re not marrying Tasha!”

I frowned.

“I think,” she went on, “that Tasha isn’t going to be worried about things like how good your uniform looks. She’s mostly going to be making sure that none of us humans have married legitimately homicidal maniacs. That we’re healthy and safe and getting our three square meals a day. That sort of thing.”

I did not know that human females ate meals shaped into squares. This was good, if odd, information.

I probably should have read that document that Tasha wrote…

Despite Cherry’s words about Tasha not worrying about my personal presentation, I was not entirely sure that I agreed with her. I’d only seen Tasha a few times through the screen on my data tab, but she consistently presented herself with what appeared to be immaculate care and grooming. Her pretty human face always smooth and clean. Her pale hair pulled neatly back, not a strand out of place. Her clothing spotless and unwrinkled.

There would be no getting the dust or wrinkles out of my own uniform. But I could at least make sure that the blasted badge was gleaming. Because even outside of the physical perfection of the image the human-Zabrian liaison put across, there was a strict professionalism and smoothness of composure that I believed contained a very, very strong will.

I did not think she was a woman to be trifled with.

I did not think she would be easily impressed, either. Especially after her dismay finding out about the reality of the men here.

Considering how the truth had come out, and Tasha’s reluctance about continuing the bridal program, I was already beginning our interaction at a distinct disadvantage. Something I was not particularly used to and was rapidly finding out that I did not enjoy.

At all.

“Forgive me,” I growled, “for wanting to begin the proceedings properly and putting forth the best chance possible at continuing the bride program here.”

“You do not think,” Silar said, his voice gone suddenly raspy and his eyes bright white, “that in potentially ending the program, they could take Cherry away.”

I was not even sure if he realized the way his tail looped instantly around her ankle, squeezing tightly. His body tensed, every muscle straining beneath his hide. Something extremely easy to see, considering he was, as usual, shirtless.

“No, Silar,” I said. “Whatever happens with the future program, you and Cherry are legally married. As are Darcy and Fallon, and Magnolia and Garrek.”

Not to mention the fact that if someone tried to take Cherry away from Silar now, they’d end up with their throat slit, bleeding out in some forgotten corner of his ranch.

That was what happened to the last human who tried to take Silar’s wife from him.

Technically, Silar was the only one who’d killed someone outside of childhood, and on this very planet, no less.

Well… Tasha doesn’t need to know that.

“I speak only of the program in a broader, future sense,” I explained. “If the program ends now, your marriage will remain intact. But Oaken will not receive a bride. And the convicts in the other provinces, like our neighbours under Warden Hallum’s authority, will not get a chance to participate in the program, either.”

“And Zohro, too,” Cherry piped up. “Whatever he says about it, I’m convinced that he wants a bride.”

“He needs a bride,” I corrected her. I aimed my tail at Silar and poked him in the chest with it. “You all do. The more of you idiots that get married off, the less I have to worry about you doing something stupid. Or, when you do inevitably do something stupid, at least there will be someone else with some brains around to scold you for it before I have to,” I added with a sigh before wrapping my tail around the hook at the back of my belt.

“Thank you for acknowledging my brains, Warden Tenn!” Cherry replied with a grin and a tip of her hat towards me.

“You’re welcome,” I muttered absent-mindedly, my gaze going to the sky to seek out signs of Tasha’s shuttle. “I am nothing if not observant.”

Even someone who was not observant would find it hard to miss the fact that the human women were tougher than their small and fragile bodies made them at first appear. Cherry and the others had proven themselves to be clever, resourceful, and unafraid of the hard work this world (and their colossally clueless husbands) required. Before I got to know them, I had expected that at least one woman would balk and end her marriage after the thirty-day trial period.

None had.

Now I had to make sure Tasha did not balk either.

The far-off drone of engines told me that her shuttle was at last approaching. The metallic speck dove through the atmosphere in the distance, before flying at low altitudes towards my property where it finally landed in an empty field. The ground coughed up reddish-brown dust, appearing almost like smoke engulfing the human-designed shuttle.

When the dust settled, I saw the shuttle’s door was open.

And there she was.

I found myself standing taller, forcing my spine into a straightness I had not even known was possible before.

Then, I walked towards her.

Perhaps foolishly, my first thoughts as I approached were not thoughts of what I’d say to her. Nor were they thoughts of how I’d present my men so that she would forgive them for the rather egregious crime of being secret murderers who’d lured their human wives here under accidentally false pretences.

No, my first idiotic thoughts were an examination of the fact that the screen I’d seen Tasha on before had not done her justice.

Not even close.

Her face, which had been smooth and polished and pleasant in our virtual conversations, was so much more than that in person. No longer relegated to the realm of the two-dimensional, she took undeniably appealing shape before me. There was something so delectably saturated about her now that she was here. The skin that looked so petal-soft it made my claws twitch, blooming with luscious pinkness at her cheeks. The tied-back hair with its pale, warm lustre, like the setting sun glancing off metal. The human eyes, with their oddly circular points in the centre, so dark and deep and assessing as they met mine. The small-by-Zabrian-standards but intriguingly rounded body, with the plushness at her chest, abdomen, and hips generously curved and accentuated by tight black trousers and a white top.

The dullness of the screens had been ripped away, like a cloud of dust dissipating, and Tasha stood before me with astonishingly vivid reality.

My first moments upon meeting someone who could very well become a powerful adversary to me, detrimental to my men and to my goals, and my immediate reaction was that she was beautiful.

Inconveniently so.

But I was not here to gawk like a fool who’d never seen a female in his adult life. I was not Silar or Oaken or Fallon. I was the warden, and I was going to get the first word in and steer this conversation somewhere that I –

“Hello, Warden Tenn.”

I stiffened.

There goes your chance at getting in the first word.

Even her voice was different in person. As rich and warm as the rest of her. My tail went tight on its hook.

“Greetings, Tasha,” I said quickly. Recovering, I believed, somewhat admirably after the onslaught of her face and hair and body and voice.

But that recovery was quickly stymied when she raised her right hand in the air between us, aiming it at me like a stunner.

And I didn’t have a blasted clue what she meant to do with it.

I stared at it.

It was a very nice hand. Small, of course, in the way all human bits were small. Soft-skinned, like her face and throat. Slender little fingers with flimsy, bluntly-cut claws.

“Welcome, Tasha,” I said. “Welcome to you and your… hand.”

Tasha’s brows rose. Her eyes narrowed.

She did not smile.

Clearly, she did not appreciate my warm welcome to this world. I would have to find other ways to please her well enough so that she decided to continue running the bride program here.

“You’re meant to shake it, Warden,” Cherry said quietly from behind me. “Didn’t you read the book she wrote?”

“Clearly not,” Tasha said, an edge of ice working its way into her previously rich, warm voice. Cherry stepped around me and clasped Tasha’s hand in her own while I felt my forehead crease at the fact that she was not in fact shaking Tasha’s hand at all, merely bandying it up and down.

“Forgive me. I do not have a hard copy of the document.”

“But you have a digital copy, do you not?” Tasha countered instantly. “I sent you the digital copy so that you could in turn share it with Oaken’s device.”

Blast. She remembered that.

And now she thought I was even more of a liar than before.

She’d been here less than a human minute and I’d already managed to muck things up more than I would have thought possible.

“Of course,” I admitted. “I do have the digital copy. But a warden’s time is so rarely his own. I spend most of my days keeping track of this lot who-”

“So these men need keeping track of?” Her voice was the cold slice of a knife, her eyes, with their dark centres, almost painfully piercing. Those eyes went to Silar, then slid dangerously back to me.

“No,” I said quickly. I could not have her thinking my men were not only murderers, but incompetent goons at that. Even if they sometimes were. “I… I support the men here. Make sure that everything runs smoothly.”

“Hmm.”

My translator had no help to give where the huffy sound Tasha made was concerned. I could only surmise it was a sort of closed-mouth sigh, the result of a deep, incredulous dissatisfaction.

The idea of not satisfying the curvy, clever human before me left me feeling very…

Out of sorts , as Cherry had said.

It was a better phrase than I had at first given it credit for.

This would not do. I had to get this conversation back into territory I was familiar with. Territory where I was in charge and not helplessly floundering under the stare of a pair of pretty, judgmental human eyes with their probing, circular centres and those odd fringes of little golden hairs.

I thrust my hand out towards her.

I’d watched Cherry complete the human greeting. Blast if I couldn’t do it, too.

Tasha cocked her head. Her plush lips thinned, as if bitten from the inside, and I found it difficult to tear my gaze from her mouth.

Finally, she raised her hand again and placed it against mine.

Or, inside mine, really. My fingers swallowed hers. Her hand felt so incredibly delicate, nestled in my palm. Her skin so soft it made some previously unknown place inside me ache.

It also made a previously known place ache.

Namely, my cock.

I screwed my jaw shut and squeezed the hook on my belt with my tail until I felt the metal’s bite.

My fingers grew taut with tension. I was afraid if I held on too tightly, I could crush her.

But perhaps those fears were at least somewhat misplaced. Because a moment later, Tasha adjusted the angle of her hand slightly and squeezed me with a surprisingly strong grip.

I felt the tight clasp of her grip both in my hand and echoing… other places.

Like my cock. Again.

I gave Tasha’s hand a swift up-and-down pump and then unceremoniously dropped it. My hide, where she’d touched me, felt strangely hot.

Tasha’s skin must have felt dirty, I supposed, given the fact she immediately rubbed the palm of her hand vigorously on her pant leg after I let her go. My tail unspooled from its hook and lashed the ground in irritation. I could basically guarantee that I had as good, if not better, hygiene than any other male on this planet. Except for, perhaps, Warden Hallum.

My closest neighbouring warden was fearsomely regimented in everything he did, whether that be keeping his men in line or keeping his claws clean. He would not have needed to furtively polish his badge moments before Tasha’s arrival. It likely already would have been done before the sun rose. Disciplined and demanding, Warden Hallum was the perfect example of a man who’d spent cycles in the Zabrian Imperial Guard.

The very same Imperial Guard I’d once hoped to spend my life serving.

Before I ruined everything and got posted here instead.

Here, Zabria Prinar One, where I was now watching – with no amount of seething – Tasha wipe her hand on her clothing after touching me.

And with that, I knew that Cherry had been wrong when she’d tried to comfort me before.

I was just as much on trial as my men were.

If not more so.