Sweet Alien Savage (Zerconian Warriors Book 4) (12 page)

“Good night, Koran. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Angrily, she strode away.

She was upset with herself for needing the words. But she needed to hear that she was beautiful and desirable.

That she wasn’t plain Mila Gray, who needed fate to get laid.

“You said what?” Zoey screeched, making him wince. “Have you learned nothing? What were you thinking?”

“I do not understand what I said wrong.” Which is why he contacted Zoey. Having to ask Zoey for help was humiliating. But he had no idea how to progress with Mila.

Or what to apologize for.

“You basically told her that you didn’t care that she’s not beautiful because she was chosen for you.” Zoey walked back and forth, her hands pressed against her lower back. “You might as well have called her ugly.”

Koran scowled. “I did not call her ugly.”

“No, but you didn’t call her beautiful, either, did you?”

“Is that what is wrong?” He nearly sighed with relief. He could fix that. “I will go tell her now. I do not understand why she would not tell me the problem.”

“What do you want her to do? Beg you to tell her she’s beautiful? It doesn’t mean anything unless you believe it, Koran. Do you think she’s beautiful?”

“Appearances do not matter to us. That is a human thing.”

“Is it?” she asked then turned to her mate who had sat quietly up until now. “Dex finds me beautiful, don’t you?”

“You are the most beautiful creature in the universe, my own. More beautiful than the sun setting over the desert.”

Koran raised his eyebrows in surprise at his friend’s poetic words.

“Even though I’m as big as a whale and sweatier than a pro-footballer after a big game?”

“Yes,” Dex told her firmly. “Describe your mate to us, Koran.”

What a waste of time. She was his. He should just go to her and demand that she join with him.

Okay, so even
he
knew that wouldn’t go well. These human females seemed very unreasonable when it came to demands.

He let out a long, deep breath. Patience. Closing his eyes, he brought up an image of Mila. “She has long, brown hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin. Very short. Very thin.”

There, that hadn’t been too hard.

Opening his eyes, he stared at Zoey smugly. His smugness quickly faded as she glared at him.

“You are so unromantic. If I didn’t know you well, I’d think you were a lost cause. But I know there is a heart in there somewhere. Buried deep.”

“I want to give Mila what she needs. She spends so much of her time looking after everyone else that she neglects her own care. She needs someone to watch out for her interests. She forgets to eat, I believe she does not sleep much and she is very clumsy.”

“Clumsy?” Zoey asked.

“She falls over often. I am worried she will hurt herself.”

“Good, so you do care about her and she sounds like a good person.”

“She is.” He nodded. “Too good for these people. They take advantage of her.” He would put a stop to that.

“This is why we need to set up classes to school your warriors in how to talk to human women,” Zoey told Dex. “So they don’t end up in the state Koran is, where he had no idea how to talk to his mate. Without me, he would totally muck this up.”

“Mila has been instructing the warriors here in how to conduct themselves around females. They have been doing much better at speaking to human females.”

“I could do the same here, Dex,” Zoey stated.

Dex nodded. “You are right, my own. However, I will not have you tiring yourself at the present.”

Since Zoey had grown pregnant, Dex had become more protective.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sit down, feet up, eat this, drink that. Have you not noticed that I am the size of a small building?”

“You are certainly not the size of a small building. You are carrying my child; it is only natural that you grow a little bigger.”

Zoey snorted. “A little. You need your eyes examined.” She turned to Koran. “Listen, grumpy. Ease up on the frowns. It sounds like you already admire her. That’s a good start. Tell her that.”

Zoey brushed her hair back off her forehead. “It was hard for me to get my head around this mating thing. I mean, I had just met Dex and he expected me to sleep with him. I’d usually demand dinner and a movie first.”

“So I should feed her and watch a movie then she will join with me?”

“No. You should give her time. I know that’s hard for you and that your bodies might push you to join before she’s ready, but this will help her. At first, I wondered if Dex would want me without the mating pull. I imagine Mila is wondering the same thing, especially if she’s insecure about her looks.”

“So what do I do?”

“Compliment her. Think about what she reminds you of. For example, Dex likens my hair to the beauty of the Zerconian desert. See what I mean?”

Not really. The desert was a dry, barren place where one mistake could easily end in your death.

“Make her feel special. Like she’s the only person in your world. Like she’s the most beautiful woman you have ever seen. Can you do that?”

“Certainly,” he lied.

He was in such trouble.

***

Mila woke her heart thundering. “What? Who?” She lifted her eye mask and glanced around in confusion. Where was she?

A soft light filtered through the gap in the curtains. She took a deep breath of relief as she realized where she was. During the last few years, she’d moved around so much that sometimes she still grew confused about where she was when she woke suddenly.

What had woken her, though?

A loud knock on her door thundered through her apartment, making the objects on her bedside drawers’ rattle.

“Jesus, George, and Mary,” she muttered, jumping from the bed and grabbing her robe off the back of the door. “Who the hell can that be at five a.m.?”

She rushed towards the door, bashing her toes into the foot of the sofa.

“Ah, ow, owie, ouch, ouch!”

“Mila? Mila, are you well?” a voice thundered through the door. Koran.

Mila sat back on the sofa, holding her foot in her hands as her toes throbbed. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“Open up.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Just as soon as she figured out whether she could walk. Crap, that hurt. Had she broken her toes?

No, she could wiggle them okay. Just bruised.

“Mila! Open up now!” Her whole door wobbled, as though he were throwing himself at it. “If you won’t open up then stand back.”

“No, wait.”

She hopped over to the door, opened it, then glared up at Koran. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I heard a noise. I thought you might have hurt yourself. What is wrong with your foot?” He glanced down at where she stood on her good foot.

“I stubbed my toes. What are you doing here?”

He ran his gaze over her. “You were in bed.”

“Ah, yeah, ‘cause it’s only five in the morning.”

“The sun has risen.”

“That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to,” someone yelled out from down the corridor. “Keep it down, will ya?”

“Sorry,” she called out, before grabbing Koran’s arm. “Get in here before you wake the whole compound up.”

“I thought you would be up by now.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately. And I usually like to sleep until at least six. What are you doing here?”

Now that he was inside her quarters, she wondered if she had made a mistake. He seemed to dwarf her small space, making everything inside look tiny and delicate. This was her home, her sanctuary. She invited few people back here and none of them had ever been male.

“Well? Hey, that looks like my shoe.” Looking tiny clasped in his huge hand was the shoe she’d lost the other night. “Where did you find it?”

“In the gardens. I was not sure if it was yours.”

“Yeah, it is. Thanks for bringing it back. Is that all?” Had he really come over here to simply return her shoe?

“No. I thought we would start our investigation by interviewing work colleagues of the dead woman.”

“Sally. Her name was Sally. I suppose we could head down to the kitchens now. I guess you can take a seat while I shower.”

Mila moved into the bathroom before peeking back out the door at him. He wandered around her living room, glancing at her photos. They were mainly pictures of her and a few friends. There were a couple of Aline and her mom. Nothing that revealing or private.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel that he might gain more insight than she was comfortable with.

***

“Well, that was a waste of a day,” Mila said dejectedly.

“I wouldn’t call it a waste,” Koran soothed.

“It’s strange that no one ever met this guy Sally was sleeping with. She never even mentioned him to me. Why keep that a secret?”

Mila opened her door, holding it open for Koran who walked in behind her, a tray filled with food clasped in his hands. They’d decided to grab some food and go somewhere private to talk over everything they’d learned today.

Not that they had learned all that much. They’d talked to her friends and work colleagues. No one knew who she was sleeping with. Or what she had been doing in the lead up to her death.

“We need her tablet,” Koran stated as he placed the tray on her coffee table. Mila moved into her small kitchen to grab plates and cutlery.

“Zac said he couldn’t find it. Where could it be? Could the killer have it?”

“Can it be traced?” Koran asked.

“Good idea. Let me check.” She picked up her tablet.

“You can check from your tablet?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t have access to the program that can trace her tablet, but I can hack into it.”

“You have that ability?” Koran looked shocked.

“Yep, don’t get too excited, though, the tablet’s been turned off so it’s locator chip isn’t active. So that’s a dead end.” She sat back on the sofa with a sigh.

“You are tired.”

“Someone did wake me up at five a.m.”

“You work too hard. That will stop when we are on Zerconia. You will not have to work at all.”

She opened her eyes to study him. “What do you mean?”

“You will have no need to work. I will look after you.”

She sat up straight. “Women don’t work on Zerconia?”

“Some do. You will not.”

“You don’t get to just decide whether I’m going to work or not, Koran.” She couldn’t believe they were discussing this. She hadn’t even agreed to mate him.

Although she knew he saw this as a done deal.

“Don’t your women get a choice in their lives? Are they forced to mate? To give up their careers? Their lives?”

Koran stared at her. “We do not force females.”

“No? Doesn’t feel that way to me.”

He moved his gaze away from her. “I believed you would be relieved not to have to work. To rest and relax.”

Mila bit her lip. He’d thought he was doing something nice.

“I like working, Koran. Yeah, I feel a bit overwhelmed and I’d like to work shorter hours. But I enjoy helping people.”

“You are nothing like the woman I thought I would mate.”

Should she apologize? She was starting to realize that she’d been a bit hard on him. Yeah, this wasn’t where she’d expected her life to go but it wasn’t what he had been expecting either.

“I guess we both have a lot to learn about each other, huh?”

“Yes.” He moved his gaze to her. “I do not wish to force you to do anything you do not wish to. But without each other, I know that neither of us will ever be happy.”

“I do feel a pull towards you. I have never been so attracted to a man. I just feel like this is being rushed and I’m under pressure. Do you know what I mean?”

“You need more time.”

“Yes.”

“I will give you as long as I can.”

She grinned at him. “Thank you.”

Koran heaped food onto a plate. “Are you good at hacking?”

She grinned. “Oh yeah. But Aline doesn’t like me doing it. I might have got in trouble a few times as a teenager hacking into places I wasn’t supposed to be. I was rebelling ‘cause my dad was moving onto wife number four by then.”

“I cannot imagine you as a rebel.”

“Why? Because I’m such a goody-two-shoes now?”

“Yes, it is good you now have two shoes.”

She grinned. “I’m very law-abiding now. No more illegal hacking.”

His gaze turned speculative. “Maybe you cannot find the tablet, but what about tracing who transmitted that vid?”

“I could probably do it, but I’d need access to the mainframe.”

“Would your sister agree to that?”

“No, but I don’t need her to.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“As Aline’s assistant, I have access to every building, including the one where the mainframe is located. But I don’t have the necessary codes to access the mainframe. Only our tech experts and Aline have those so I would need to hack into the mainframe without setting off any alarms.”