Alpha Star: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Intergalactic Dating Agency (18 page)

Part of Zoe wanted to collapse, covering her head. She’d been here before. But somehow she knew if she tried to protect herself she’d lose another part of her life, even if whatever it was she couldn’t remember.

She yanked Del out of the booth and shoved her toward the hallway to the front of the house. “Go,” she yelled.

She grabbed the teapot, taking aim at the looming shape forcing its way through the wrecked kitchen door. The thin ceramic pot scalded her palm, but she hesitated.

That shape: tall, muscled, masculine, the black jacket studded with silver. Somehow familiar…

But something wasn’t right. She hurtled the pot, and the intruder flinched as hot water sprayed around him. He cursed with a strange, garbled word that wasn’t any language she knew, and she knew a lot of curse words.

She turned to flee after Del, but he yelled something else.

“My brother,” he snarled. “Where is Sinclarion Jax?”

And just like that, her memories of Sin flooded back.

Zoe staggered as the last day burst back into her consciousness, jagged as broken brick and sweeter than frosted cookies. She gasped at the onslaught as each buried emotion and sensation ripped through her again, like a missile exploding outward rather than in. Especially one thought—

Sin had done something to make her forget.

Hurt raked her. Why had he—?

She didn’t have time to wonder. Sin’s brother slammed toward her.

She wheeled around but her knees failed her. All this time she’d been bitching about her brain—

He grabbed her arm and spun her back to face him. What was his name? Sin had said it. Daryl? Terrell? No, Herril. He looked like a low res imitation of Sin: softer in the face, his eyes less blue, his hair foofy in a way no self-respecting merc would ever allow.

Alien he might be, but he looked like the kind of being that would sabotage his own brother.

“Where is he?” Herril snarled again.

Her battered mind raced faster than her wobbly knees would take her. What was her best option? “I don’t know who—”

Herril backhanded her.

She cried out, more in shock than pain, as she crumpled. She’d been hit before, not even counting the brick, and either he’d pulled his punch or he wasn’t as strong as Sin.

But since she was down on the floor, she took the opportunity to cower and look horrified and try to think of another plan.

“You know him.” Herril glowered at her. “You won his
singilt
ring.”

“I don’t—” When he tensed as if he would strike her again, she lifted her hand to block him. And her gaze snagged on the twinkle around her finger. Same as Sin’s.

Did this mean the fifth ring had formed in his heart? Her own chest ached at the thought. He’d said it was dangerous.

Although he probably hadn’t meant his marauding brother.

“I don’t know where Sin is,” she said carefully. And honestly. “He left me.”

“He wouldn’t,” Herril shot back. “Not when you wear his
singilt
.”

She didn’t think Sin knew. It must’ve happened after he’d brought her back to the house, after they’d… Okay, that particular memory wasn’t helping her stay focused. “He left,” she insisted.

Herril studied her and she returned the favor. When she hadn’t been thinking aliens, she’d seen Sin as just a guy, but looking at Herril, she noticed the discrepancies: the inhuman symmetry of his face, the dense power of his body. He was not human.

Sin wasn’t human. And she was somehow marked with the leaked alloy of his body, making her his…what? His perfect mate?

“He left,” she said again softly.

Maybe the fifth ring was in Sin’s chest, but it was her heart breaking.

Herril grabbed her wrist and hauled her upright, thus halting her surreptitious slide across the floor toward the kitchen counter where the butcher block of knives resided.

So much for that plan. Surely Delaney had gotten away and would find help. The kind of help that could fight aliens.

Mercenary help, perhaps.

Herril dragged her to the broken doorway and it was all she could do to keep her feet mostly under her. He might not be as strong as Sin but he was strong enough to force her. She didn’t want to give him any excuse to knock her out, which would leave her helpless.

“Maybe he’s in his ship,” she suggested. “He was worried about some troubles they were having with it.” If she could convince Herril to go back there on the false pretenses that Sin’s ship was vulnerable, she was sure the
Sinner’s Prayer
could defeat him again.

He grunted. “My hired fighters seem to think the troubles were insufficient to give us an advantage and refused a second pass. But no matter, because Sin isn’t there.”

Crap. Zoe’s moment of hope guttered out as Herril shoved her out the door. Worse, his certainty bothered her. How did Herril know where Sin
wasn’t
?

Unless he had a spy on the
Sinner’s Prayer
.

She half expected the cottage’s backyard to look like a remastered special edition scene from Star Wars, crawling with aliens. But the little space, bounded in white pickets, held only the patio furniture and Del’s potted tomatoes that were always there.

But with Herril’s bruising grip wrapped around her bicep, the “usual” seemed anything but.

She dragged her heels, slowing her pace as much as she dared. “Where are you taking me?” Not that she had any intention of letting him take her there, but it might be good info for Sin.

“Where my brother can find you.”

“But I told you he left—”

“If he wants to live, he’ll be back.”

She staggered. “What are you going to do to him?”

Herril sneered at her. “Not me. You. You won his fifth ring.” He gestured at the
singild
on her finger. “Without you to complete the arc, his heart will eventually stop.”

She wrenched her arm, and to her surprise, this time he let her go. She reeled, off balance physically and mentally.
His heart will stop
… Why had Sin discounted the danger? Because he was a tough merc? Or because he didn’t think it would happen with her?

She clenched her hand around the
singilt
ring. It didn’t move, as if it had become part of her flesh. Ooh, she wanted to punch him with it!

And she would, as soon as she found him.

She glared at Herril. “How do we find him?”

Having cleared the IDA compound of his crew, Sin was just climbing into the cruiser to return to the
Prayer
when the tentacled rep flapped toward him, top-most tentacle waving.

“Captain,” it called. “Wait.”

Honey watched it approach with predatory alertness. “If I bite one off, will it grow back?”

“Probably doubled, especially the annoying talky end,” Sin growled. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah?”

The rep squelched to a halt in front of him. “This is highly unusual, but the Earther female who was your match…or who wasn’t your match but had your profile…or didn’t have the profile but somehow found you…” It waved two tentacles. “She’s here, asking for you.”

Sin stiffened. Zoe. Despite the refocusing, she had remembered him…

His pulse surged in a strange way, like when the
Prayer
’s hatch opened to a firefight, but lighter and airier. Equally dangerous, perhaps.

“Where is she?” He strode toward the rep.

It backed away. “She’s at the main gate.”

Sin glanced at his crewmates. “Get the rest of our people and meet me there.”

He followed the rep through the compound, anticipation rushing his steps. If the refocusing hadn’t worked, maybe their time together had been more deeply ingrained in her psyche than he suspected. Which meant—

But he rocked to a halt when he saw who waited at the gate. “Delaney.” Taking in her strained expression, he silenced his myriad questions for the most important. “What’s wrong?”

She raced toward him, ignoring the rep’s indignant gurgle. “Sin, someone broke into our house. He looked like…I think it was your brother. Zoe didn’t follow me. I think he took her.”

The rep was flapping and talking, but Sin stiff-armed it away from Delaney. “Tell me everything.”

As she relayed the occurrences at the house, he grabbed her wrist and swung her toward the cruiser racing at them. He thrust her inside and snapped at Honey, “Take her back to the
Prayer
. Get us in the air. I’ll find Zoe.”

The IDA rep made a sound like it was drowning. “Captain, our concealment agreements—”

“Don’t worry.” Sin shoved past it. “I’ll bury him deep enough he’ll never be found.”

Herril wanted the writ to the solar system. And he thought Sin would trade it for Zoe.

The trouble with growing up together was that Herril wasn’t wrong. He knew Sin’s weaknesses.

Sin knew his brother too. Herril wouldn’t return Zoe, even if he got the solar system. He’d never learned to share and play nicely with others.

But he
was
about to learn that Sin wasn’t that least of five fighting for scraps anymore, and Zoe wasn’t a toy to be reluctantly surrendered.

Sin helped himself to one of the two-wheeled conveyances the agency kept for patrolling the compound. A motorcycle, they called it. Much more intuitive than the cruiser. He leaned into the first turn out of the gate and zoomed into the night.

He’d been wrong to let Zoe go. He saw that now. His whole life, he’d struggled for what he wanted and then when he finally had it in his grasp… He tightened his grip on the motorcycle’s control, driving it harder.

He should’ve wooed her, won her. And he would—the solar system would wait—when he found her.

On the open road beyond the IDA compound, he pushed the small but powerful engine to its breaking point. Once outside the natural bowl of the valley, he skidded the motorcycle to a wide spot on the black road.

The darkness overhead shimmered with stars. And he didn’t care about a single one of them.

He yanked the utility device from his pocket and set the open frequency.

“Herrilclarion Fourth-Moon Jax,” he snarled. “I’m here.”

The sky was big but he would hunt down every signal until he found the one—

“Sin?” The sweet, hesitant voice rocketed through him.

“Zoe,” he said roughly. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the—”

A familiar silkier voice interrupted. “You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you, Fifth?”

Sin tamped down the fury seething in his muscles. “Herril.” He wasn’t going to play the old numbering game with his brother. “Go get your own solar system.”

“Why, when I can take yours? And your ringed mate with it.”

Ringed? Zoe had his
singilt
? The heavy motorcycle rocked beneath him as he shuddered, that revelation going through him with the same devastating finality of watching his hand disappear in a cloud of gore.

But instead of losing a body part, he’d gained a bride.

His fingers flexed inadvertently. As if she was close enough to touch. “You always did have to console yourself with my possessions.” Sin winced even as he said it, suspecting Zoe would take issue with the idea of being possessed.

No,
he
was the one possessed.

“Do you want her back?” Herril asked. “Or do you want to die?”

“When you say it like that…” Sin drawled. “Where are you?”

“I want the writ for the system in my hand before you get her.”

“Fourth, do you remember the time you offered to trade your pixberry tart for my miniature galactic guard platoon?”

“What are you—”

“You took the replica
and
you ate the tart.”

Herril was silent for a moment. “Well, that was very gullible of you.”

“And do you think,” Sin continued silkily, “that I am still so gullible?”

“I just want the writ,” Herril said. “The female is yours.”

Sin’s fist tightened. He hadn’t wanted a mate, just the solar system.

But what were a couple habitable planets and an ore-rich asteroid belt compared to his heart? He hated the thought of sacrificing the system when it would’ve finally been a place for his crew to call home. But they would have another chance—

“And I’m going to need your ship too,” Herril said, “to get off this nowhere world.”

“Done,” Sin said.

“Sin—” Zoe’s frantic cry cut out abruptly.

“I want my bride,” he growled at his brother. “Or there will be no place in that solar system, no place in the entire universe where you can hide from me.”

“Just bring the writ.”

“Where?”

“There’s an abandoned observatory on the highest peak outside that village. Don’t even think about an attack with that miscreant crew of yours.”

“Oh, I’d never,” Sin said.

Herril snorted. “Your life is in her hand, literally. And she is in mine. This isn’t one of our amusing young games.”

“It never was,” Sin muttered as the signal blanked.

Silence pooled around him, and his skin prickled. This felt too familiar. He was losing everything, being reduced to scraps again. Less than, actually, since he was probably about to be abandoned on an alien world.

But he’d have Zoe.