Beloved Stranger: Gaian Series, Book 5 (2 page)

Roan’s opponent tore off the concealing mask of the robe and lunged, but the woman dashed forward and grabbed the knife off the floor, then ducked out of the other man’s reach.

Thwarted, the man turned towards Roan. He was an ugly man, made uglier by anger. Even in the dim light of the room, Roan saw narrowed, ice-cold pale eyes and lips pulled back in a feral snarl.

“Even if you win, I’ll get you later,” he said, then charged.

Roan held back until the other man was close enough, then slammed a roundhouse blow into the side of his head. The big man went down in a heap.

A couple of men dressed in the blue uniforms of the company showed up with stunners drawn. They’d arrived too late to help him, Roan noted wryly as they started to drag the unconscious man away.

That left him alone with the woman. His woman if she agreed. He could tell through the mask obscuring her features she was watching him, and he wished he could see her face right now. She was fingering the knife as a third guard came to collect it and for a moment seemed hesitant about relinquishing it to him. Perhaps she thought this was too violent a place and she would need it.

She might reject marriage to him as a result.

He would have to reassure her. She didn’t need to be protected from him, and he’d protect her from anyone else. Right now he’d give his life for her—and he hadn’t even seen her face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine. But you’re hurt.” She pointed to his arm. Blood welled from the cut and slid down his sleeve.

“It isn’t so bad,” he said.

The guard who’d taken the knife was following the men carrying his opponent. He pointed to a far corner of the room. “There’s a first-aid station over there. I’ll fix you up once I get back.”

“I can do it,” the woman volunteered. “If you don’t want to wait.”

Roan nodded and led the way to a table at the corner of the room stacked high with bandage rolls, a basic first-aid item. Each roll consisted of a self-adhering bandage coated with an antiseptic, burn and pain-relief ointment, plus a built-in, self-monitoring pressure applicator. Roan noted the size of the pile and shook his head. Looked like they’d been expecting trouble at the meet.

He was glad for her help in applying the bandage. They were easy to use but tricky to self-apply to an upper arm. Roan picked one up and handed it to her. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” He grinned at the smile in her voice.

They found a nearby padded bench and sat down together. While Roan pulled up the sleeve of his robe she expertly unrolled the bandage and then wrapped it around the cut in his arm. Roan almost groaned in relief as the pain eased.

“It’s a pretty deep cut. Maybe you should see a doctor and have it sealed.”

“This will do for now. I’ll get it treated later.”

“It may leave a scar.”

Roan shook his head. “It won’t be the first I have.”

She finished fastening the bandage. “I suppose not.” Her voice sounded thoughtful. “I suppose it’s a hard life here.”

“It can be,” he admitted. It had been for him at the beginning. Now he had everything he wanted except for one thing—a wife, and even that seemed finally within his grasp.

“But living here doesn’t have to be hard. Most of us live pretty well.”

“Like you?”

He shook his head. “I can’t talk about myself.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I remember that now. No names, no faces, no information about who you are or what you do.”

Even if he’d thought she was originally from his home planet, he knew better than that now. All Gaian women knew how a marriage meet worked and how much information you could pass during one.

“Those are the rules. I can talk about the general population on Ares Five. Even though we come here as prisoners, we get paid well for working the mines and almost everyone returns to Gaia with comfortable savings. Marrying one of us won’t make you poor, and a Gaian man makes a good husband.”

“Provided he doesn’t abuse you.” The woman hesitated. “Thank you, for stopping that man.”

“He wasn’t a typical Gaian. And no need for thanks—I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

“You weren’t going to fight him though. At least not at first.”

Roan frowned. Was she judging him for that? “Fighting at a marriage meet is wrong. Someone could get hurt, particularly the woman. Besides, picking a husband should be your choice, not the result of our fighting over you.”

“My choice?” There was definitely laughter in her voice. “For what it’s worth, I would have chosen you.”

A thrill ran though Roan, and he could have laughed at the sensation. She would have picked him…which meant she would pick him now. This time it looked like he was going to leave a marriage meet with a wife.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “If you mean that, do you want to go further now?”

“Go further?”

“To one of the dark rooms.” Since she wasn’t Gaian he wasn’t sure how much she’d been briefed on their marriage rituals. “We can be alone there and see if we suit each other.”

She hesitated, and he found he liked that. She was cautious about being alone with a man. He knew some women were easy with their bodies, and he’d hoped the woman he’d attached to wouldn’t be. He wanted to be special to her. A man she wanted to be intimate with. Even so, he held his breath until she finally nodded.

“I’ll go with you.”

Chapter Two

Roan looked around. The men who hadn’t attached or who’d been rejected had left, and most of the other attached couples had already headed for one of the lightless rooms where it was permitted to remove the concealing robes. With only sixteen couples there wasn’t a wait, and several stood with their doors open. He stood and led her to the nearest one.

Her hand felt small and soft in his, but there was strength in her fingers. For her size she was strong, this woman who might become his wife.

Roan liked the sound of that, his wife. He liked just about everything about her. This was his future, to be with her, make love, and have children with her. She was everything he’d ever wanted. She had to be. He was attached to her and that made her his match.

His awareness of her grew with every moment, and he knew she was the one he’d been waiting for all his life.

As soon as he closed the door to the small room it was pitch black inside, and he heard her gasp. “It’s all right. It is supposed to be dark.”

“Why?”

“So we can take off the robes and learn about each other. Touch but not see. It is said that the eyes can fool you but touch never can. That’s why we court our mates in the dark.” He tried to see it from her perspective. “I guess it seems pretty strange to someone not Gaian.”

“You know I’m not from Gaia.”

“It was a good guess.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? I mean it isn’t like I can react the way a Gaian woman does.”

Roan couldn’t help laughing. “You mean like men do with attachment? That’s not a problem. Gaian women don’t react as severely as we do, at least not physically. When a Gaian woman is with a man she doesn’t match she gets queasy. With the right man she doesn’t.”

A low chuckle erupted from her. “So as long as I don’t get sick on you, I’ll be acting like one of your women.”

“That’s right.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, caressing it lightly. “I don’t care where you are from, I’m just glad you are here. Don’t worry, nothing you don’t want is going to happen in here.”

He knew what a dark room looked like, a padded platform filling most of the room about one meter off the ground and hooks on the wall near the door to hold their robes. He tugged on the hood of hers. “You can take this off.”

She fumbled with the fastening, and the hooded robe came off in his hands. He put it on one of the hooks and hung his own robe next to it, leaving him only in his sleeveless shirt and loose pants. By then she’d moved away from him and he heard her scrambling across the platform. She almost sounded scared, and he remembered how she’d been reluctant to give up the knife earlier.

Roan moved cautiously onto the platform. One man had already grabbed her tonight and he didn’t want to upset her further. He’d take it slow and easy and get her to accept him that way.

Sliding his hand along the padded surface, he found the fabric of her long, sleeveless dress. He followed the edge until he knew he was sitting in front of her. That’s when he found that she’d put her hands flat on the platform in front of her, palms down.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were in the correct position, where he could easily find them in the dark. Someone had told her what to do, and she knew the ritual at least that far. Roan covered her hands with his own, hoping to soothe her and make her see he meant her no harm.

No harm at all. In fact, he’d move the universe to help her. He meant to woo this woman and bind her to his side, just as he was bound to her through the attachment. He knew she belonged with him. He had to prove it to her, an outsider unbelieving in his people’s ways.

He took her hands and lifted them to his lips, planting a kiss into the palm of each. She seemed to shudder with each touch of his lips, and he didn’t think it was fear making her tremble. He held her hands against his face, letting her caress his cheeks.

“Am I supposed to see what you look like with my fingers?” She sounded amused, but also like she was breathing harder than usual.

“You can try. Tell me what you think.”

Her fingers trailed along his skin, her touch gentle. “You have a square-shaped face, a strong chin, your nose…” Her fingers explored that feature carefully. “Your nose is a little odd. Was it broken?”

He couldn’t help a rueful smile. “A while ago.”

“You’ve fought before.”

That wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. “Most men here have. But what else do you sense about my face?”

She explored the area around his eyes. “There are lines here. You sound young but I think you’re older than your voice tells me. Or maybe you just laugh a lot.”

He did laugh. “I try to see the humor in most situations.”

“You’re an inmate in a mining prison but you’ve kept a sense of humor?”

A chill flushed through Roan. “I wasn’t and won’t always be an inmate here.”

Her fingers stilled. “I’m sorry. I forgot we aren’t supposed to talk about things like that.”

One of the many rules of a Gaian marriage meet. You weren’t supposed to say your name, or talk about who you were, or what you did. He wanted to tell her that he was due for release in six months, his ten years served, and that she wouldn’t be marrying a common prisoner without a future. In fact he’d done very well for himself, and soon he’d be heading back to Gaia with funds enough to keep them both comfortable for life.

But he wasn’t allowed to tell her any of that. He had to win her with just what he could show her physically and make her commit to him that way.

He took her hands and put them on his shoulders. “Use your touch, my lady. Learn who I am.”

She did. Moving her hands slowly along his shoulders, she felt the length of his arms and gently squeezed the muscle there, her hands soft and sure. When she reached the bandage on his arm, she was careful not to disturb it. Then her hands landed on his chest, and her small fingers played lightly across its breadth, almost tickling him.

Roan tried to suppress how her touch affected him. She might assume he was anxious if he trembled. He shook under her touch, but it was desire that drove him, not fear.

Well, not real fear. He worried that she would find something she didn’t like in him. So far she seemed pleased. She even made a small humming sound, almost like a purr as she measured his waist with her hands and tested the strength in his upper thighs. He held his breath as she felt below his waist and found the proof he’d attached to her.

At first her hands slid along his hardened shaft as if unaware of what she was touching and he wondered just how innocent she was. Surely she wasn’t a virgin…

“My, my. You have certainly attached, haven’t you?”

Roan’s held breath left in a shaky laugh. If she could joke about his erection she must not be a total novice at sex. “You should have known that already.”

“It is always nice to have proof.” Her hand gave him a long caress that left him breathless again. “And very nice proof it is too.”

“You aren’t a virgin.”

Her hand stilled. “No. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t mind either way.” He hesitated. Might as well get this out of the way sooner than later. “I am. Is that a problem for you?”

“You’re a virgin?” Shock colored her voice and her hand disappeared from his shaft. He missed it immediately.

“Never had the chance before. It’s different for Gaians…”

“I know,” she broke in. “I understand the difference.”

There was something in her voice that said she wasn’t happy with what she understood. He groped for and found her hands and held them to his chest. “I don’t care about anything but what could be between us. I’ve attached to you and only you matter to me.”