Rykhan (Book 1 of Mate Search Series) (28 page)

The area in the center of her chest tightened
at the tenderness in his voice and the care visible in his face. “I
know.”

He swallowed thickly before
continuing. “I value you,
mica
tisha
. Value you more
than I can describe in your language.” He closed his eyes and
turned his head to the side before he brought his gaze back to
hers. “You have taken up a place in my heart and I find that the
thought of you injured, hurts me as well.”

Leah had no words, absolutely no words to say
to him because of all the emotions swelling within her after he’d
spoken so honestly. Yet she completely understood what he was
saying, because even if he hadn’t expressly used the four-letter
word, the look on his face definitely showed what he was
feeling.

Rykhan was falling in love with her.

And the thought scared her almost senseless
even as it delighted her.

*.*.*.*.*

Rykhan followed behind Leah, smiling at how he
had to watch his feet, so as not to trip on the edges of the sheet
she had wrapped around herself. Although his cleansing unit was
only a little distance, she had snagged a portion of the bedclothes
to protect her modesty.

This seemed silly to him in light of all they
had done together. Things he knew she had more than enjoyed. Rykhan
could not keep his eyes off her as she adjusted the stream of water
in the stall she called a ‘shower’ while he positioned drying
cloths close by. Even fresh from sleep with her hair wild around
her shoulders, she was as beautiful as anything he had ever
seen.

She self-consciously dropped her
covering and his breath hitched. She was more glorious than
anything he had ever viewed or could have envisioned. Her skin
gleamed like the inside of the
malyx
shell growing in the Galaxian
oceans and her soft curves were a perfect fit for his large hands,
calling to him to touch and caress in a wordless demand he couldn’t
resist.

While he was enthralled with her body, her mind
intrigued him the most. She was very intelligent but did not seem
to know it. She was insightful in a way that even Tyshar wasn’t, as
evidenced by her outburst in their meeting with Bronsyn. Plus her
humor went a long way in softening the edges of her
thought-provoking questions and statements, although he did not
always understand her speech. In his opinion, Leah referred to
ideas and conjectures far outside his field of knowledge, but he
stored the words and phrases she had used so he could look them up
later.

Yes, his Leah was the perfect choice as a mate
for him.

As if catching his thoughts, she glanced at him
over her shoulder with a shy smile before she stepped into the
shower. Moving behind her, he allowed his hands to follow the water
as it slid down her skin.

Neither one of them spoke as they took turns
beneath the overhead spray, silently passing the soap and
hair-cleanser back and forth. However, it was a good kind of quiet,
something both gentle and accepting. Rykhan prayed it would always
be that way between them, especially after he took her to his
home.

He was more than aware she had no desire to
travel back to his world. For her, Earth was the place she wanted
to live out the rest of her life.

Did she expect him to stay on her
planet?

Because he could not imagine a life
without her. He held a commission to the Protectorate, one that
could not be broken until he retired. His oath to the Protectorate
consumed him, one he had taken so many
yons
before, which was an avowal that
could not be broken without severe repercussions and would brand
him as a traitor to the corps as well as all Picaris.

How could he live if he could not convince her
to formally mate and travel back with him?

Ducking his head in order to rinse off all the
cleansing products, Rykhan felt a heavy sadness overtake
him.

He had no clear-cut answers to any of his
internal questions.

All he knew was that he could not let her
go.

Chapter
Nineteen

“Here’s the rest of the info that I got from
Sean, Brent, and Gere,” Pam said, slapping the steno pad on the
table where Leah sat entering her findings into the spreadsheet
she’d created. Between the two of them, they’d managed to
‘interview’ each of the warriors to see what dating sites and other
singles events they were scheduled to attend in the upcoming weeks.
To the women’s eyes, the lists were sparse and erratic. So they’d
tried a different approach that the warriors found humorous as the
girls tried to gather data on what kind of female each of the guys
wanted.

“I’d just like a fertile one,” Laxon had
admitted in his conversation with Leah and she hadn’t known how to
respond except to laugh at the joke he’d made. Although he was
quick to assure her that truly was his one and only
requirement.

Leah looked at her friend who was more subdued
than usual. Pam was the more enthusiastic one of their awesome duo
and when she became quiet, Leah got concerned. “What’s going on,
pretty girl?”

“Nothing,” Pam said on a sigh as she began to
pick at her cuticles. “Maybe we should’ve gone home last
night.”

Wearing her same clothes from the day before,
with the exception of a clean t-shirt, she’d borrowed from Rykhan
but had been required to fold up and tie into a knot at her hipbone
so it didn’t float around her knees, Leah didn’t disagree. No
matter how much she’d enjoyed waking up next to her large warrior.
“Did you sleep in Wyst’s room?”

“Yeah. He snores,” was the heavy reply
accompanied by a tiny frown. Leah didn’t know what caused Pam’s
eyebrows to draw together, but she knew if she didn’t press, that
Pam would eventually talk it out.

Turning back to her laptop, she went back to
entering the information.

“Last night?” Pam begin and then stopped to
pick at her nails some more. “I don’t know, things just got weird.
As in, way weird.”

Leah knew that her bestie didn’t consider much
to be strange in the whole scheme of things, so for her to use the
word ‘weird’ twice in two sentences told of Pam’s unease. “How
so?”

“Well, things were tooling along really cool,
you know?” Pam’s head turned toward Leah then shot back to her
nails. “The boys that were willing got their haircuts and looked
awesome with their new styles. We found some stellar clothes in
Macy’s and the guys were all over them. But when Wyst pulled me
upstairs…”

Leah waited to hear the rest.

“You know, like to his bedroom?” It was as if
Pam wanted Leah to react in some way to the fact that her shorter
friend had spent the night with Wyst, but when no reaction was
forthcoming, she continued to speak.

“
We were in a major make-out session
with our tongues half-way down each other’s throats. Then he pulled
me on top of him.”

She stopped and Leah’s glance saw Pam was
looking away. “That’s when things went way off the charts. Like, so
far off the charts they went into orbit.” Leah, even having known
her friend for so long, couldn’t make sense of the tone in Pam’s
voice.

“What did he do?”

Pam’s face bloomed red as she admitted, “it
wasn’t so much what he did…”

Again, Leah waited, knowing that Pam would
eventually fill the silence.

“When we…as I…”

“Hmm-hmm,” Leah breathed softly in
encouragement.

Letting out a huge sigh, Pam turned back to
Leah. “So, like I’m on top of him, yeah? Things are going really
good too, you know. Then I leaned down to kiss him again and
whammo!”

“Whammo?”

“I felt my necklace slide over his shoulder,
but I wasn’t really paying attention to it.” She sent a beseeching
look to her dark-haired friend as if to ask for understanding. “And
it somehow made its way to the back of his neck.”

It was then that Leah remembered
what Pam had told her. That the
wahrom
on Wyst’s neck mirrored the
necklace Pam had inherited from her grandmother.

“And that’s when all hell broke loose?” Leah
murmured in a measured tone.

“Yeah. Big time.” Leah caught the smaller
woman’s offhand gesture even as Pam’s shoulders tensed. “That’s
when all sorts of the scary, freaking-assed, messed-up shit
exploded.”

Leah found her fingers had stopped moving on
the keyboard and she tried to look at her friend without turning
her head.

“I mean, geez-louise!” Pam exploded with a
headshake and then stealthily glanced over her shoulder to see who
might be around to overhear what she was saying. “You know I’m no
nun and I’ve never pretended that I don’t enjoy a bit of
slap-and-tickle, but shit! To come that long and that hard with all
your clothes still on when nobody was touching anybody else’s
goodies?” Pam gave another headshake of the negative variety.
“Absolutely not possible, girlfriend.”

“But it happened, nonetheless,” Leah murmured.
“And I’m getting that you didn’t like the connection that you felt
when you…ah, exploded.”

Pam twisted back to Leah so fast her curls
bounced. “How did you know about…”

“It happens between me and Rykhan,”
Leah confessed, feeling a blush begin to heat her neck as it moved
upwards. “It’s something to do with our
wahroms
touching.”

“And you can feel everything he’s feeling when
he’s…”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” Leah’s face was
on fire at talking about such a personal subject. “He says it’s
because their god,
Tsiran
, made us for each other and
our body jewelry is the proof that we’re mates.”

Pam blew out a long stream of air that was
something they’d learned in a yoga class taken a long time ago. A
move to center one’s self. “I absolutely can’t and won’t accept
that. I’m nobody’s girl, much less some dude’s mate!”

“What was Wyst’s reaction?”

Pam shrugged and started picking at her
cuticles again. “When things had calmed down a bit and we’d pulled
apart, the big wuss got all pouty. Started acting all sulky and
moody. Just being a major dick all the way around, if you want to
know the truth.”

Leah didn’t want to expound on the topic, but
her loyalty to Pam exceeded anything she felt for Wyst. “Rykhan
told me that Wyst has plans to nail every woman he can get his
hands on before he gets stuck with just one.”

“Seriously? Whew, that’s good to know,” and
Pam’s voice held a note of relief. “Maybe he’ll find someone else
that’ll grow metal on the back of her neck after she’s around him
for a while and then he won’t think I’m trying to trap him or
anything.”

“Is that what he said? That you tricked him
into coming in his shorts?”

“Naw, the man didn’t go so far, thank god! But
it was his little one-liners and put-upon sighs that made me think
he blamed me.” One side of Pam’s pretty mouth quirked in a rueful
grin. “We both slept on opposite sides of the mattress, clinging to
the edge in order to keep our distance. And he wouldn’t have
anything to do with me this morning.”

“If you aren’t interested in being tied to him,
maybe that’s not such a bad thing, sweetie,” Leah said softly,
turning back to place her fingers on the keyboard.

“No truer words have ever been spoken, my
friend,” Pam replied in a distracted voice before she raised
herself out of her chair. “Think I’ll grab a couple of warriors and
let them help me make lunch.”

In Leah’s opinion, it was Pam’s best course of
action in avoiding Wyst as well her own fears about getting trapped
into a ‘pairing’ which might mean marriage.

One of the ‘no divorce’ variety.

*.*.*.*.*

“I met with Protector Rykhan’s female and, as
approved, gave her the background and scope of our mission,”
Bronsyn stated flatly, ensuring his voice remained unemotional in
his daily report to the Committee commander.

“How did she take it?” Why did Gwynt’s eyes
take on a sharper more than curious gleam as he leaned closer to
the screen? His voice also sounded a shade too inquisitive as if he
had a stake in the female’s reaction.

Bronsyn shrugged but it was more to release the
tension in his shoulders than as an answer. “She was naturally
upset at the thought that we were not from Earth.”

“And did you get an image of
her
wahrom
as
requested?”

Bronsyn shifted his weight in his chair. “Not
yet. She wouldn’t give her immediate approval but said she would
consider it.”

Gwynt frowned. “And you let her? Since when
does a decorated warrior wait for approval from a lesser specie
before performing his duty?”

With his internal alarms ringing, Bronsyn
stared into his comm unit. Was his commander serious? “I did not
know you had given me an order, but only a request to provide you
with an image. Did I misunderstand?”

“No, no,” Gwynt hastened to correct. “I was
only curious and had hoped to have proof of the female’s mark of
her warrior for the other Committee members.”