oath forger 01 - oath forger Read online

  “Kitchen.”

  “You ate?” He sounds disappointed.

  I shake my head, inhaling his already familiar ozone scent. “I’ll eat with you in the morning.”

  His gaze softens. Then he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep, as if all is well in his world again.

  Chapter Six

  THE FOLLOWING DAY is clearly a workday for the krek. Koah spends it on the command deck where an endless procession of people appear and disappear on the display screen as he conducts a million meetings and answers a million questions, gives a million orders. Since I understand little of it—I don’t know who anyone is, and whether the strange words sprinkled into the conversations are places, people, or exotic weapons—I go off on my own to explore. I’m assured that the ship is at my disposal.

  Surprise, surprise, I end up in the kitchen. Here and there, between the cabinets, there are rows of buttons with symbols on them.

  Carefully, I push one. A little cup appears. No heating tab. I pull off the shiny foil cover and stash it in my pocket. Then I examine the white mush inside. The smell is pretty neutral. I take it to the table, tap for a utensil and taste.

  Oh. My. God.

  It’s cold and sweet and smooth. I don’t know what it is, but I want to marry it. I want to send some to Lily. I finish the mush in a couple of bites. Then I eat the utensil and my cup. The utensil is as bland as before, but the cup is a little sweet. I guess they matched the container to the contents.

  I want more mush. I know it’s greedy. I stare at the machine for ten minutes before I break down and push the button again. Except, since I can’t read the buttons, I manage to push a different one. An entire panel pops down, hitting my head. A metal box is sliding out, and, panicked, I reach up and into the machine to stop the box from falling out. But then a metal arm moves over and traps my hand. Panicking even harder, I yank my arm back, and slice it open on a sharp edge of metal.

  Dammit!

  God, don’t let me break the ship’s entire food system. I cringe as I scramble to push the box back into the machine. Only when I’m dizzy and have to stop, do I drop my head for a second, and see that my clothes are wet. I’m standing in a crimson puddle.

  I need to sit at the table for a second. Or not. When my knees fold, I sit on the floor instead. Shit. Blood is seriously gushing from my arm. I press my palm hard against the long gash.

  “Help!” My voice comes out a lot weaker than I expect. For a second, I’m terrified that nobody is going to hear.

  Then there is a roar. “My Ava!” And, in another second, Koah is crouched next to me. “What happened?”

  I feel so stupid. I’m not normally a klutz. I know to be careful when I scavenge so I don’t cut myself on rusty metal.

  I flinch away from Koah’s concerned gaze. “I had an accident.”

  I’m in his arms. Then I’m in the med unit, lying on a table. He’s holding my hand while one of his men, Dai, is cutting my sleeve off. Maybe Dai is a medic. His fingers are longer than what I considered normal until now, but not freakish. His skin is a shade or two darker than mine. His irises are a little too large compared to human standards, crowding out the white of his eyes, but his face is definitely a kind face. He smiles at me with encouragement.

  Koah is alternating between growling at him in protest and yelling at him to hurry.

  Another one of the men is hooking me up to an instrument panel. “Have you ever received artificial blood, category BLD-7?”

  I don’t even know what that is. I shake my head.

  He shoots a helpless look at Koah who rips off his shirt.

  Oh. Okay then.

  Koah holds out his arm, muscles rippling carelessly right out in the open. I’m hot and dizzy. Probably from blood loss. Yeah, from blood loss. Definitely.

  “Are you sure?” Dai asks.

  The savage snarl coming from Koah’s lips is a clear death threat. “We are joined.”

  I’m so weak, I can barely keep my eyes open. Black spots dance in my vision. I’m woozy. I think the table is spinning with me. I have no idea what he means by ‘we are joined,’ but I’m hoping like crazy that he’s O positive.

  I’m in and out while I receive a blood transfusion. Then I am in and out while we lie in narrow beds in the middle of the med unit next to each other.

  BY THE TIME I’M AWAKE ENOUGH to think coherently, the lights are low, we are alone and hooked up to monitors. Koah is asleep, covered with a sheet but it has slid off him. He is at the very edge of his bed, on his side, turned towards me, as close to me as he can get without falling. He shivers in his sleep.

  He gave me his blood.

  The transfusion hasn’t killed me.

  Yet.

  Maybe our blood types are a match.

  Now let’s just hope he doesn’t carry any alien diseases. I bite my lip. I shouldn’t have thought that. It makes me feel ungrateful and disloyal. He has just saved my life.

  He shivers again.

  How much blood did he give?

  I could warm him.

  I slide out of bed, then wait until the room stops spinning. It doesn’t take long. I feel surprisingly well.

  The gash in my arm had been closed, nothing now but a red line under a see-through, eight-inch bandage. I take care not to unhook the wires that link me to the monitors as I move to the other side of Koah’s bed. I slip in behind him and pull the sheet over us.

  “Thank you.” I press against his back.

  He still has his pants on, but his upper body is naked. I lay my cheek against his skin and put my arm around his torso. It should feel awkward—he’s a stranger. But instead of being weirded out, all I feel is peace.

  THE NEXT TIME I WAKE UP, rested, we are still in the exact same position, and I instantly know that he’s awake. There’s a tension in his body that wasn’t there when I slipped in behind him.

  “If I move, will you leave?” His voice is as soft as if he’s trying to gentle a stray animal.

  “Move how?”

  “I’d like to turn around.”

  “There isn’t enough room. I should go back to my bed.”

  He’s facing me before the last word is out. “Please don’t go.”

  The bed is small. We are nearly nose-to-nose. His indigo eyes are startling from this close. There’s an incredible depth to them, like what I imagine mountain lakes look like.

  His face and shoulders fill my entire field of vision. Once again, heat radiates off his body. He seems to be back to normal. Relief courses through me, but I can’t relax.

  “Thank you for saving my life.” I have no idea why I’m whispering all of a sudden.

  His expression darkens. “It is my fault that you were hurt. I should have protected you better.”

  “I shouldn’t push buttons if I don’t know what they do.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Perfectly fine.” Yet I don’t get out of bed.

  His face relaxes. “You opened a maintenance panel.”

  I almost got killed by a vending machine. Sigh. What’s next? Impaling myself on a broom? I clearly shouldn’t be let near anything more dangerous than a doorknob. “My button pushing days are over.”

  “I should have realized that you can’t read our language.”

  I can’t read any language. I don’t tell him, of course. I’m too embarrassed.

  “I’m going to teach you,” he promises.

  Again, I say nothing, because I don’t know how I feel about the idea. One, I worry that he now thinks I’m stupid. Two, I don’t want to stick around long enough to learn how to read their language. Three, I’m overwhelmed by his nearness.

  His ozone-crisp scent is all around me. I miss feeling his warm skin under my cheek. I want to lay my head against his chest. I want to hear his heartbeat. I tell myself it’s just to make sure he has one. Who knows? He’s an alien.

  A strange sensation is tingling through me, buzzing across my skin. My fingers itch to touch him. Fact: I’m ph
ysically attracted to Krek Koah. Nothing strange about that, right? He’s the most attractive man I’ve ever met. We are in bed together, and he’s half naked.

  Whatever this buzz is, it’s strictly biology or chemistry or whatever. People give in to chemistry all the time. I think if I leaned forward, just a millimeter, Koah would take things from there.

  His gaze begs me. He’s holding still, and I think he’s holding his breath. A sharp need I’ve never felt before surges through me. Desire.

  I fight the urge to find out what his muscled chest feels like. I teeter on the edge. Then I pull back.

  He’s a stranger. Also, he’s shown a willingness to take me back home, eventually. I cannot mess things up with this man.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.” Oh God. Could I sound more breathless?

  I unsnap the wires that hook me to the monitor, then hurry from his bed. I don’t look back.

  In the bathroom, I glance into the mirror, then I wish I hadn’t. My tunic is missing a sleeve. My hair resembles tumbleweed. I have pillow wrinkles on my face. Is that dry spit at the corner of my mouth? I stare in horror. Kill me now.

  Since I look like something that’d been scavenged, I take the time to shower—indulging in the mist spray I’m already familiar with.

  We don’t have a lot of water on Earth. I’m used to a gallon of cleaning water a day, utilized for sponge baths. As I stand in the alien shower, my eyes closed in pleasure, I feel like I’m on some fancy vacation—a concept I also only know from old movies.

  I find clean clothes, similar to what I received at the hospital, and borrow a set. By the time I come out of the bathroom, Koah is gone, and the room is empty.

  He is not in his quarters either. I decide not to go to the command deck. After spending the night with Koah, I need a break from the man.

  He is krek. I am a scavenger. He only thinks that I’m an Oath Forger. If he knew who I really was, he’d probably stop the ship and toss me out right here. I’m not letting chemistry screw up my chances to get back home to Lily. I’m going to be strong if it kills me.

  I pace around the bed, making one mad plan after another. There’s so much I want to know. About the kreks. About the Oath Forger. About aliens in general. The display panels with their touch-screen controls are tempting. Even if I just turned on the news... Then again, I probably shouldn’t experiment. I might accidentally turn off the air supply or fire some space weapon.

  To distract myself from the controls, I finally sit in the middle of the floor and empty my pockets, drawing a deep breath as I take in my pile of shiny treasure. I’ve been stashing away whatever I’ve come across, transferring my loot from one pocket to the next every time I changed clothes.

  I call Lily a chickpea, and sometimes she calls me the family magpie. Magpies were birds that collected shiny things. She read about them on her comm unit, in the archives.

  I spread the items out and move them around, a piece of reflecting foil here, a bottle cap there. This is when my mind works the best, while I’m creating my patterns. I especially like swirls.

  I keep at it until the medic, Dai, tracks me down and checks my wound, tells me I’m healing well. The whole time he stares at what I’d created with something like awe in his eyes, but he doesn’t comment.

  I thank him for his help before he leaves, then go right back to my creation. I should probably stay in the room, in any case. I don’t want to almost kill myself again.

  Just as my stomach begins to growl, Koah appears with a tray. It doesn’t escape me that he’s a king, serving me like an assistant. My heart gives an odd little flutter.

  His tone is hopeful as he says, “You promised to have your meals with me.”

  Technically, I only promised yesterday’s breakfast. Yet I’m hungry, he’s here, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t eat together. Except...

  I grimace. “I can’t pay for any of this. And, by the way, I borrowed some clothes. I hope it’s okay.”

  “You are my guest.” It’s clear from his expression that he doesn’t understand why I’m bothered.

  “I can’t just take everything for free.”

  “You are an honored guest,” he says again, stubbornly.

  “I’m used to paying for things.”

  He brings the tray to the bed and sits on the mattress, looking ready to launch into a lengthy explanation on why I should just do whatever he says. He’s fully clothed, in his standard uniform, but I’d seen him without his shirt, and the sight of his naked chest cannot be unseen. I’m so aware of him next to me, my fingertips tingle.

  When he takes his indigo eyes off me long enough to look at the floor, his gaze snaps wide. “You’re an artist?”

  I shake my head. “It’s just something I do. I pick up shiny things I find on the surface on Earth. We live in badly-lit, underground tunnels. I like to make up large pieces with complex patterns and add them to walls. They reflect the light and make places brighter. It’s practical.”

  “It’s art.”

  Embarrassed, I reach to gather it all up.

  “No!” He steps forward, setting the food onto the small desk. “Please. Would you do me the honor of selling it to me?”

  “This?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “It’s just a pile of stuff on the floor.”

  “You said you could attach it to a wall.”

  “Here?” The entire surface of his room is some super high-tech display screen.

  “Yes. Please.” He’s so earnest, so serious.

  He’s just brought me food—I can’t say no to him. “I’ll need some kind of a glue.”

  He speaks into his comm unit, and a minute later, Haras appears with a spray bottle.

  “I really shouldn’t glue this stuff to the screen,” I tell Koah after Haras leaves.

  “Anywhere.”

  I scan the room, my gaze settling on the ceiling. “How about above the bed?”

  “Yes.” His pleased smile is instantaneous and makes my heart skip a beat. “Then I can see it as soon as I open my eyes in the morning.”

  I so don’t need to think of Koah in bed.

  I shake my head. He has plenty of light in his room. He needs no reflective surfaces to help. I climb onto the bed with the spray bottle, anyway, then ask him to hand me my scavenged pieces one by one, and then I go to work.

  I start in the middle and work outward, in a swirl that actually looks like the Milky Way. By the time I’m on the outer arm, I’m standing on the edge of the bed. Now when Koah hands a new piece to me, he’s at breast level.

  I manage to drop the last piece onto the mattress, and have to bend to pick it up. His hand goes to my hip to help me balance. His fingers flex once before he lets me go.

  I clear my throat, doing my best not to look at him as I can still feel the heat of his touch. “I can’t sell this to you, but you’re welcome to have it as my gift.”

  He gestures toward the food with his head.

  Okay, so I get his point. If I can gift him stuff, he can gift stuff to me. I’m not going to argue with Koah about it, because I have a feeling it’s not an argument I can win. I look up instead.

  Not bad. I recreated my iridescent swirls on the ceiling. I only have twenty-seven objects, but they work pretty well together. The glue is excellent. Much better than the weak glue I can usually trade for back home. This is industrial strength.

  I move to jump off the bed, but Koah takes charge, places both hands on my hips this time, and lifts me off, lingers. When I draw away, he lies down in the middle of the mattress and stares up for an endless moment. He gives a masculine sigh of pleasure and wonder, of bone-deep satisfaction.

  “Thank you, my Ava, for your generous gift. I shall treasure it always. Your art is the best part of my ship.”

  “You’re welcome,” I mumble. And because I’m embarrassed by his overreaction, I change the subject. “Let’s eat.”

  I shake my food, wait until it heats, open the package, and g
rab one of the two utensils.

  When I take a tentative taste, the ceiling is immediately forgotten. Holy heaven. Cheese! Oh, my God. There is cheese on the noodles and the meat. I wasn’t going to moan this time. I swear I wasn’t.

  You know what? I don’t even care. Nobody could eat this stuff with a straight face.

  Koah doesn’t take a single bite of his own food until I finish. He is as absorbed in my eating as if he were watching a performance. I don’t know what his deal is, and I don’t care. I’m eating cheese!

  Later, while he eats, he turns on the screen that faces the bed. He barks commands, and the screen fills with a bunch of symbols. He tells me their names. I repeat them.

  A full minute passes before I realize what he’s doing. He’s teaching me.

  I’m learning to read!

  When I look at him, his smile is one of encouragement, but the hunger in his gaze says he’d rather be doing other things with me in bed. I snap my gaze back to the screen.

  “Moah,” he says.

  “Moo.”

  He sighs and puts an index finger on each corner of my mouth to tug it wider. “Moah.”

  His fingers are on my lips, and he’s incredibly close. I think my heart stops beating. “Meh.”

  He laughs, and I laugh with him. He’s shown not one flicker of impatience. His entire demeanor says he wants nothing more in this world than to help me learn his alphabet. I want him to kiss me so much it hurts.

  Bad idea. Can’t happen. It simply can’t happen.

  “Moah,” I say. “Does it have meaning beyond the name of the letter?”

  “It means mine in the old language. It’s a word of claiming.”

  Then his lips are on my lips. And then his arms are around me, and I’m somehow straddling him the next second as he’s kissing me, the lesson forgotten.

  So this is kissing.

  I have never been kissed like this before. I’ve only had a man’s tongue in my mouth. But this is not a let’s-see-what-it-feels-like kind of deal. Kissing Koah is mutual annihilation. My body is burning up with heat and need.

  He is not taking this slowly. He is not taking his time. He is not giving me a chance to get used to the idea that he’s somehow the master of my body.