Erstwhile: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 1) Page 6

  He just nodded. He got it—understood the potential. She wouldn’t necessarily be kind to them, but she wouldn’t hate them just for existing.

  “I looked him up,” Courtney said, voice now solemn. “The guy they matched me with. I got his name and I looked him up.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well. He’s rich. Owns some land. Has a thriving business.”

  Trig scoffed.

  Murk held a finger against his lips.

  “That’s about all I know. When I looked at his picture, I felt cold. Not one whit of anticipation.”

  Huh.

  That subtle creaking again.

  “Maybe you’ll come to like him over time,” Amy said.

  “I don’t know. I think I made a mistake agreeing to be put in the matching database. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “Absolutely not.” Amy’s voice took on an indignant edge. “There are so few of us women here, we have to stick together. A bad match will lead to a lifetime of misery, and who knows just how long a lifetime on this rock could be? If you want out, we’ll figure out a way. Or Eileen will. She thinks the whole system is distasteful.”

  “And so do you?”

  “I think the match database is fine for volunteers, but the coordinators shouldn’t advertise inclusion as optional when it really isn’t.”

  “At least not for the early arrival women.”

  Murk ground his back teeth. A Jekhan man wanted her. Amy had been right. Jekhans weren’t casually flirtatious. If that baker had let his guard down enough to signal that, then there had to be something special about the woman Courtney.

  And she was open to a connection. Not repulsed.

  Too bad she’d already been paired up with a Terran man she didn’t think she would like.

  He squeezed Trig’s foot again.

  Trig sighed. “You’ve got that glint in your eye I don’t like.”

  Murk pointed to his tablet. He hoped he still had the muscle tone to scratch out a message. It’d been so long since he’d tried.

  Trig handed them to him.

  Murk wrote, slowly: “What’s the harm in trying, pretty boy? She’d say yes to you.”

  Trig read, and grunted. “Rub your eyes and look again.”

  Murk knew exactly what he was looking at. Trig had lost some weight, but the beautiful man was still there. Murk wrote: “Please? Maybe she’d say yes to me, too, in time. Just buy me some time. Maybe I’ll get well.”

  Trig winced.

  “What’s that about?”

  “Nothing. Damn. You know I can’t say no to you.”

  “You can, but I’m glad you rarely do.”

  “I’ll try, Murk. That’s all I can do.”

  That was all Murk could ask. That woman could get him up and moving, sure.

  But more than that, she could be their mate, and they were well past the time when they should have had one. She could give them the family they needed to thrive.

  They only had to steal her away from one of their evil overlords first.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Court took stock of her newly furnished living room as she leaned onto the kitchen island, sipping her coffee.

  So much brown. Brown wood. Brown corduroy fabric on the sofa. Tan on the armchairs. Even a taupe rug.

  Nothing to be done about the color scheme, though. There hadn’t been anything remotely feminine in the database, and the closest they had to sweet was backordered by eighteen months. Farmers’ wives had probably already gotten their orders in. Court wasn’t willing to wait that long, so she took what was available.

  Sighing, she brushed pastry crumbs off the counter into the trashcan and wiped her hands clean on her stain-resistant uniform pants.

  Black boots. Black pants. Black shirt. Black belt. Black cap.

  The only pop of color was in the embroidered badges—one on her right arm, one over her left breast. The uniforms had been delivered while the men from the household goods warehouse were installing her furniture. She couldn’t quibble. At least they were the right sizes. Her uniform back in Boston had pants an inch too long, and the city wouldn’t even foot the bill for tailoring.

  Jerry scratched the basement door.

  Court rinsed out her coffee mug and left it to dry in the rack. “All right. We’ll get your new bed installed in your throne room. Weird dog. Most pets want to sleep with their people.”

  As far as dogs went, Jerry had never been predictable. That was one of the reasons she’d agreed to keep him after his original human—her youngest brother—died.

  She pulled the plastic cover off Jerry’s new brown doggie cushion and schlepped it down the basement stairs with the dog close to her heels. By the time they stepped into the mother-in-law suite, Jerry was practically dancing.

  “You’re way too excited, meatball.”

  She turned on the closet light and pushed the cushion into the corner with her foot.

  “There you go.”

  Jerry didn’t go to the cushion. Tail wagging, he stood nose to wall, sniffing.

  “What you’re hearing is the house. Heat vents and plumbing sounds.”

  He stood on hind legs, scratching at what seemed to be a seam in the corner at about waist height.

  “Sloppy drywall, just like on Earth.” She pressed her fingers to the seam and furrowed her brow when she felt the notch. The light didn’t reach all the way into the corner, and what she had thought was just a smudge—a shadow—turned out to actually be a thumb-sized indention. There wasn’t smooth plaster and gypsum inside, but cold metal.

  “What the hell?”

  She gave the indentation an experimental sideward tug, and the wall moved. She stepped back, shocked.

  “Shit.” Smoothing her hands over her hair, she waited for her heart rate to slow. Her brain had told her she’d already broken her house when she’d only been there two days, but then she realized it had been a smooth tug as if the wall were on a rail.

  Jerry let out a quiet bark and jammed his nose into the small slit.

  “Oh! That’s right. Tim said there were hidey-holes in this model of house. This must be one.”

  She put her thumb into the notch again, and gave the panel a hearty shove to the right.

  This time when she stepped back, she drew her gun.

  “Don’t. Move,” she said.

  All three beings in the space stayed perfectly still. The man on his back with closed eyes. The one with knees pulled to his chest in the corner. The meatball on the sleeping man’s chest.

  Jerry canted his head.

  “Jerry, come.”

  Jerry stepped off the man, only to plop down beside him and press his nose to the side of his face.

  The man didn’t move, except to exhale.

  She panned her gun toward the other man.

  Jesus Christ.

  She didn’t think she would get used to setting her sights on Jekhan males anytime soon.

  That one had irises that from her distance appeared to be violet, and dark burgundy hair worn pulled up into two knots, one on top, one at his nape. He must have had an obscene amount of hair.

  He twined his fingers in front of his legs, staring at her indignantly.

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to muster up some authority when she sure as shit wasn’t feeling particularly authoritative. “Do you speak English, French, or German?”

  “English,” he said. “And a little German, if you’d prefer.”

  His words had that heavy slur about them she was coming to know was a hallmark of their speech. The baker had spoke with one, too, and Herris. The slur reminded her of some Southerners she knew, but the Southerners she knew didn’t look like that.

  “I don’t prefer German, not even a little bit,” she said. “My German is about as good as my Jekhani, and I’m not proud of that.” She pointed the gun at his friend. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s just asleep.”

  “Bullshit.”


  “Fine.” He made no moves to defend himself. Either he didn’t care to, or he didn’t have the will to.

  She doubted he would hurt her, so she tucked the pulse weapon back into its holster and sank onto her heels. Draping her forearms over her thighs, she watched the dog sniff and knead the other man’s chest. That wasn’t usual behavior for Jerry, not by a long shot.

  “I’ll ask you again. What’s wrong with him? The dog doesn’t look like much, but he was trained to be a therapy dog from the time he was a puppy. He’s got a couple of useful skills. He can smell when insulin is a bit off for diabetics, and if someone’s having a seizure, he’ll bark to alert people to help. What’s wrong with your friend?”

  “It’s…” His mouth closed on the words, and he broke their eye contact.

  “Don’t lie to me. You’re thinking up a lie. Don’t.”

  “Lying sometimes keeps people alive.”

  “I holstered my gun already. I don’t think you need to be shot, anyway.” She stood and moved a few paces closer to get a better look at the other man. Strawberry blond like her father had supposedly been as a child. His hair had turned black as Court’s as he neared adulthood, though.

  The supine man had that ruddy hue that seemed to be typical of most Jekhans she’d seen so far, but beneath the unusual coloring, he wore an unhealthy pallor.

  Crawling closer, she put a hand to his forehead.

  Hot.

  He let out a rasping exhalation and opened wine-colored eyes. His pupils dilated slowly and his lips parted. Another beautiful man. A beautiful man who had something very, very wrong with him.

  “You’re sick, aren’t you?” She sat back on her haunches and glanced at her wrist-com. Shit. She needed to be at the station in thirty minutes, and she wasn’t sure yet how to get there.

  “He’s unable to speak,” violet-eyes said.

  “And unable to move, I’d guess.”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We’re not chipped.”

  “Meaning what? Bring me up to speed. I’ve only been on the planet for two days.”

  He stared at her, eyes narrow.

  “Okay. You don’t trust me. I get it. Tell me this, then. How long have you been in my house?”

  “About a quarter-revolution.”

  “A little over three months?”

  He nodded. “On and off. I found an opening soon after the builders had finished installing doors.”

  “He’s been sick that entire time?”

  “Longer.”

  She sighed. “What does he need?”

  He encircled the other’s man foot and rubbed. “He has The Ague.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “An illness eradicated decades ago.”

  “If this Ague is gone, how’d he get it?”

  He shrugged. “Many of us have been afflicted. Have been getting ill since your people came.”

  Court smoothed a hand over her hair and stifled the compulsion to pull it. “Shit. Is there medicine?”

  “There was. I am certain that it is of no use to your kind, and therefore continuing production would be…inefficient? Is that the right word?” His voice dripped with cynicism, but there was something else there beyond just tiredness. Defeat, perhaps, and she certainly couldn’t blame him.

  Still, she wanted to help if she could. If humans were why that their people were getting ill, then she could do some small part to help cure them. “What’s the name of the drug?”

  “Marscadrel.”

  “Marscadrel.” She tapped her com to pull up information, and violet-eyes grabbed her wrist.

  Warm. Strong.

  “No. I am certain that is a flagged search term.”

  “How am I supposed to find out more if I can’t research it?”

  He shrugged and dropped her hand.

  “Perhaps someone in Zone Seven could tell me.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Wine-eyes squeezed her ankle and gave the barest shake of his head.

  “He doesn’t want you to go there. Thinks you’ll get in trouble.”

  “Some folks would say trouble is my middle name.”

  Violet-eyes squinted at her.

  “It’s just an expression. My name is actually Courtney. People I like usually call me Court.”

  “So what should I call you?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Wine-eyes lifted a shaking arm and pointed to an e-pad propped up near his left foot.

  Violet handed it down to him.

  Slowly, Wine printed, “My name is Murki Beshni. He calls me Murk.”

  She shook the pad to clear the screen. “Murk. In English, that’s a word that means something dark and gloomy. I don’t think that fits you.”

  He gave her the barest grin, and even that was devastating. If he’d been upright, he probably would have taken her breath away.

  He took the pad again. “It means peacefully in our tongue.”

  “And your tongue has many similarities to the group that are called Romani on Earth now. They became the dominant breeder group here.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” She drummed her fingers atop her thigh. “Tell me if I’m getting this right. I just learned this stuff from my friend Amy today.”

  He waved Court on with one eyebrow cocked.

  “The Tyneali had been stealing humans from Europe and Asia for millennia, and that they have bunches of planets they do this experiment on. All with different species. Most have stronger gene pools than you Jekhans have, right?”

  He cringed and wrote, “The Tyneali-Homo sapiens offspring aren’t as robust as either race would have been on its own. Probably never will be. We’re a failed experiment. I imagine they’ll take no more breeding stock from Earth.”

  “Huh.” Courtney hadn’t learned much about the other hybrid races, only that some interacted with Terrans on the nearby space stations and that there were trade agreements in place between the distant worlds.

  “So, what’s your friend called?” Court looked at Violet, and found him grinding his teeth.

  Murk nudged him with his foot.

  “My name is Trigrian.”

  She looked down at Murk. “Is he lying?”

  Murk shook his head.

  “Okay. Well.” She backed out of the space and stood. “I’ve got a bit of a dilemma here, I guess. I’ve got to go to work, and I’ve got squatters in my basement who my dog has apparently taken a shine to.”

  “We will leave.”

  “I didn’t say you had to leave. I just think you being here is dangerous. I’m not going to run and tell on you.”

  “You’re a police officer.”

  “My job is to keep the peace. As of right now, the only law you’ve flouted is breaking and entering, and even that one is debatable. Where I’m from, there’s a thing called squatter’s rights. I’m not going to make you move a man who can’t stand on his own, but I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t in my closet.”

  “Where would you have us go?”

  “There’s a bed upstairs in the guest room. It’s not made yet, but I can take five minutes to do that before I go. He’d probably be more comfortable.”

  Murk scribbled on the pad. “Most of the time, I’m not awake enough to gauge comfort.”

  “But you’re awake right now.”

  “Why would you do that?” Trigrian asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I do it is the better question. I’ve got a big house, an abundance of resources, and two people who need help. Short-term, right? I’m used to taking in strays.”

  It was a McGarry thing. There were always extra people in their space. Usually, those needy folks got their acts together and moved on in short order, and Court had always been pretty good about saying no to the ones she didn’t think had the get-up-and-go. She didn’t know if the two men had it, but she did know Murki was genuinely ill, and like the Jekhan
s in Zone Seven, he and Trigrian were distrustful of the new infrastructure. Maybe they were criminals who needed to be reported, but she wanted to find out first what the worst thing was that could happen if she reported them. Some punishments were too steep for the supposed crimes.

  Finally, he nodded.

  “Good. Just don’t invite any friends along to the party. Neighbors might become suspicious.”

  “You need not worry about that. We have no friends.”

  Murk rolled his eyes, and Court wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what that meant.

  She crooked her thumb toward the staircase. “Let’s go make that bed.”

  Trigrian climbed the stairs with her, and she immediately headed to the windows to shut the blinds.

  He waited by the staircase to the second floor. “We will repay you.”

  “I don’t want your money. I know that’s a thing for you Jekhans, to want to pay for things, but that’s not necessary. You want to repay me, though?”

  He nodded.

  “You know how to work a washer-dryer?”

  “I can learn.”

  “Good. I’ve got travel soot on half my wardrobe. It’ll take you all day to wash everything.”

  She stopped at the top at the stair landing, and turned.

  He bumped into her.

  Just an accidental collision, and yet his proximity made the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end and her breath hitch. His aura just seemed to take up a lot of space. It invaded hers, made her take note of him, though she wished she couldn’t. He was just too fucking hard to look at and still be able to construct sensible sentences. The gorgeous man had been in her basement, and she wouldn’t have known if Jerry hadn’t been snooping.

  She took a step back, and swallowed. “Sorry. I was just going to say to…leave the underwear. I’ll…deal with it.”

  “As you wish.”

  He really didn’t want to know what she was wishing right about then.

  She tracked her gaze from his perfect lips down his long body.

  Slim, but his baggy clothes hinted that there had one been more there. He’d been a big man.

  She liked them big. There was something so hot about a man being able to move her around when he wanted to.

  “My, you grow ’em tall here, huh?” He had to be close to two meters in height. Taller even than Herris.