Alpha Star: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Intergalactic Dating Agency (19 page)

He put his hand over his chest and let out a slow breath. Could he sense the
singilt
plunging into his heart? He looked down at the golden band on his finger. It glimmered like bound starlight, a little faster than his own uneasy pulse. Was it an echo of Zoe’s fear? Too bad Gre-Gre frowned on fratricide.

Closing his eyes, Sin focused on the
singilt
. It was his link to Zoe. He imagined settling his hand above her breast, feeling her heartbeat.

I’m coming
, he told her.

When he opened his eyes, for a second the starlight blinded him.

Then he wheeled the motorcycle toward the mountains and roared off in pursuit of his bride.

Keeping a watchful eye on her captor, Zoe tested the restraints around her wrists behind her. The malleable but unbreakable strap—an alien zip tie—bound her to an empty scaffold rising in the center of a high-domed room.

She’d heard about the old observatory up on Sunset Peak, how it had once been a popular place to get high, make out, and shoot old cans before it became too decrepit for even horny, trigger-happy stoners to risk. Since none of those pastimes had appealed to her, she hadn’t given the place a second thought.

And now she might die here.

She didn’t kid herself that Herril was going to play fair with his brother. That had been obvious from the sneer on his face as he spoke to Sin. It had been strange seeing that almost familiar visage, except what was high and mighty on Sin was supercilious condescension on Herril. Amazing what delusions being fourth out of five could wreak.

Almost as amazing as the delusion that made her want to think Sin was doing this for any reason beyond saving his life.
Your life is in her hand
.

Herril turned toward her and she paused her struggles to tilt her head back, averting her gaze from his agitated pacing. The telescope that should’ve been at the top of the scaffold was gone, but the slotted roof was halfway open, letting in a glimpse of the night sky.

Zoe stared at the stars, her vision weirdly sharp. She knew all the stars she could see with her naked eyes were part of the Milky Way, but which way was the solar system Sin was giving up for her? Not that they could get there without his spaceship.

They
? A whirl inside her made her breath hitch. Oh jeez, when had she started considering that she might actually start considering actually… Oh man, she wanted to follow him into space.

But now she was locked up in an empty observatory and he was going to lose everything.

She clenched her hands so hard the
singilt
ring bit into her palm.

It wasn’t
that
sharp. But was it sharp enough?

She contorted her hand awkwardly, pressing the ring to the edge of the strap around her wrist.

Herril had his oversized cell phone communicator device out and was snarling at it. At first she thought it was his native language, but then she decided it was just fury. Fine with her, since it covered the faint hiss of her rubbing the ring against the strap. Herril jabbed at the device again and started speaking.

“I told you I’d pay you after I get the writ,” he said, obviously continuing an already-running—and poorly progressing—conversation.

She tilted her head to eavesdrop, glad that his universal translator had been set to communicate with her and was apparently continuing in that setting. But she couldn’t decipher the other voice, the sounds holding way too many consonants to make sense.

Herril seemed to understand well enough, although he didn’t like the answer. “There will be credits for you when we take the
Sinner’s Prayer
,” he said. “These IDA mates don’t come cheap so I know my brother will have brought his fortune.”

For little old her? Well, or whoever matched him. The thought of him taking any other bride made her scowl and scrape harder at her binding.

Friction made her skin hot. No, it was the
singilt
ring. Was it…burning?

She sawed faster, gritting her teeth against the rising temperature. She didn’t want to look, afraid her finger was blistering, but she flicked her thumb over the jagged edge of the strap. It was working!

The pain in her finger radiated wider, and she bit back a sob. If her hand burned off, she’d just have to hope Sin could get her a new one.

“There are two other females in that house,” Herril was saying. “Take those as advance payments.”

Oh no he wasn’t. He was not talking about Delaney and Tisha. Zoe jammed the ring harder against the strap. That was so not going to happen. She closed her eyes concentrating on her efforts.

“You can have this one too,” Herril said.

She hadn’t wanted to be an alien mail order bride, but she wanted even less to be a space sex slave. She flexed what was left of her shoveling muscles and snapped the strap.

Oops. She shot a glance at Herril, but he was too distracted by his wheeling and dealing to notice she was free. Sin was coming, she had no doubt. Why she trusted him she wasn’t sure. Well, because his life was on the line, she supposed.

But it was more than that too. He was a high and mighty mercenary prince, part machine with metal in his heart, but she’d heard the commitment in his voice when he talked about his ship and his crew, and she knew he wouldn’t abandon her.

She was free, and Sin was coming for. Next order of business: a weapon.

Everything of value not nailed down had been stripped from the old observatory. But if there was one thing she knew about her fellow Earthers…

She peered hard toward the dark rim of the round room. Her restored vision couldn’t fail her now… As Herril spun about in his pacing, the light from his device swept across the floor.

There! The glint of a beer bottle.

She just had to get across the room, grab that bottle, and hope that thieving, traitorous Fourths weren’t as tough as mercenary Fifths.

A muffled rumble caught her attention and she stiffened. Herril turned toward the doorway. That didn’t sound like a spaceship. It sounded like a bike.

Zoe stiffened, shifting her focus between Herril and the beer bottle. She’d have one shot at this.

“Herrilclarion Fourth-Moon Jax, the grand-matriarch of your clan will exile you for this.” Sin’s stern, judging voice bounced eerily around the circular room, seeming to come from all directions at once.

Herril spun a half circle away from Zoe. “Who cares about exile when I’ll have my own solar system.”

This was her chance while Sin provided distraction. She bolted for the corner, stiffening her wobbly knees and diving for the shadows.

“It’ll be you there alone,” Sin called from his hidden location. “You treacherous larf.”

Zoe reached for the bottle. To her vague shock, the
singilt
ring hadn’t left a mark on her hand. The faint gold light glimmered on the glass and her intact skin. The burning had been just an illusion—an illusion that destroyed the strap. Apparently now she was part alien.

She closed her fist around the smooth neck of the beer bottle. Oh thank god for country hicks, it was a forty ounce.

“I left the writ outside,” Sin continued. “Leave the Earther female there and go get it.”

“Do you think I’m that gullible?” Herril sneered, turning a slow circle, obviously scanning for Sin.

He ended up facing the center scaffold where Zoe had been bound. And now wasn’t.

He was halfway across the room from her, his back to her. But she saw the moment his gaze dropped to the torn shackle and he realized she was gone.

He whirled, his wild gaze darting everywhere.

Except at her. How convenient that she knew everything about peripheral vision and blind spots.

And concussions.

She came at him from the angle, swinging the bottle. Full and heavy would’ve been better, but that would be asking an awful lot of Sunset Falls’ trespassers. She aimed the thick base for his temple, just a little off from where the brick had hit her.

But he didn’t just look like Sin; he had some of the same strength and quickness. He must’ve caught a glimpse of her just as the blow descended, because he ducked and hunched his shoulder. The bottle glanced off the side of his head, jolting Zoe’s arm, but the greater part of the strike slammed into the crook of his neck.

He shouted and stumbled back, shoving her away. She let the momentum of his push carry her downward and cracked the bottom of the bottle against the cement floor. The glass shattered with a sharp chime, and she bounced back to her feet.

She held the improvised dagger out in front of her. “You’re not taking me or my friends anywhere.”

He swiped at her, trying to reach past the jagged edge of glass to snag her wrist. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“I’m an Earth girl. That’s what we do.” She slashed at him.

With a hiss, he jumped out of the way.

Right into his brother’s path as Sin plummeted like a meteorite through the open slot in the observatory roof.

Zoe gasped, fearing a bone-breaking crash. But Sin landed in a graceful crouch, bracing himself.

His hand—
singilt
band gleaming—left a star-shaped crack in the cement.

He rolled with the force of the impact and swept out one leg, catching Herril at the ankles.

The other male floundered, arms waving, and went down hard. They skirmished across the floor, grappling and grunting.

Zoe had fought with her brother a few times when they were kids, but never like this. Her throat tightened on a scream.

A flare of brilliant light and a very distinctive
pew
squeal jolted the cry out of her, and everything seemed to freeze.

Sin rose to his knees, gripping his brother’s outstretched fist and diverting the line of fire as another beam of sizzling plasma rippled through the air. Herril shouted in frustration.

“Zoe, get out of here,” Sin yelled.

She would’ve, happily, being not an idiot, but the laser ray punched through the darkness again in a different direction as the Jaxian males wrestled, disorienting her. She didn’t want to run
into
that light.

And she didn’t want to leave Sin.

She darted closer and raked the end of the broken bottle over Herril’s arm. He cried out and twisted away. The laser scorched across the floor, igniting a pile of leaves and debris drifted against the base of the scaffold.

In the guttering firelight, Sin grabbed her wrist and yanked her away. They ran.

“Tell me you have a killer ray-gun too,” she gasped.

“No. Against IDA rules. Had to leave everything on the
Prayer
and I didn’t want to waste time stopping there first so I came here to get you back.”

He’d come for her. Her veins flooded with joy—and panic. Or maybe panicked joy. “If ever there was a time I needed a merc…”

“I thought I was getting a bride, not a battle.” He grinned down at her as he winged her out the observatory doorway and into the night. “How wrong I was. I can admit that because I’m not as hopelessly arrogant as you think. Now, will you wait here quietly while I put an end to my brother and the threat to my inheritance?”

She tilted her head, amazed that she could be so cool under fire. Being with Sin had extinguished her lingering fear that she’d never make her way back out into the world. Now she knew there were worlds,
plural
. “The inheritance you weren’t sure you wanted?”

“Nothing like almost losing to clarify what you really want,” he admitted. He leaned down and crashed his mouth over hers in a furious, terribly timed kiss. “I want you,” he whispered against her lips. “As my mate, my bride, my alpha star guiding me home.”

“Oh god,” she sighed. “Take me now, high and mighty.” Laser light bloomed overhead, illuminating the hilltop. “Or maybe when no one is shooting at us.”

The shine of his blue eyes was celestial. “You saved me, when he was trying to blow off all the rest of me that wasn’t my hand.”

She stared up at him, her heart thudding. “As much as I like your hand, I want the rest of you just the way it is.”

With his arm anchored behind her back, he pulled her closer. “Which is your favorite part?”

“When no one is shooting at us,” she reminded him.

He huffed out a breath and lifted his communicator. “I have Zoe. Go ahead and snag the little larf.”

A vast, deep rumble and rush of wind made her duck into Sin’s chest. Okay,
that
sounded like a spaceship.

She twisted her face to see a patch of night sky ripple like a pond disturbed by a stone. Out of the undulating darkness, the
Sinner’s Prayer
appeared as the mimic shroud dropped.

A handful of figures spun out from the opening hatch and hit the ground running. They were silent and coordinated as hunting dogs. A moment later, Herril’s frantic shriek rose even over the sound of the ship’s engine.

Zoe looked up at Sin. “Do you want to take charge of that?”

He stared across the hilltop, his brow furrowed. “Maybe once I would’ve said yes, just to prove to him, to all of them, that no one can take what’s mine.” He tilted his gaze to her. “But maybe I should ask you first.”

Her heartbeat stumbled, then raced ahead of her. “Ask what?”

“If you want to be mine.”

She splayed her hand over his chest, painfully aware of the
singilt
ring glimmering brightly in the
Prayer
’s underbelly lights. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Sin’s crew hustling back with a large lump bound between them: his brother. But Sin’s steady gaze never left her.

The hollow roar of the ship faded as it drew upward into the night sky and she felt as if it was urging her to follow. She swallowed. “How can you even ask when you’ll die if I say no?”

“Because I want you, all of you, wholeheartedly, to want this too.” He straightened, his embrace falling away. When he stepped back, her fingertips trailed down his chest. “Or I’ll let you forget again. I’d already chosen the risks of death in space rather than accept the scraps left to a fifth son. I won’t take mere particles from you either. I want you all. Or nothing.”

She’d been all or nothing before, and gotten burned. Or bricked, actually. Could she
risk
it again? Her breath seized, her mind whirling.