Page 97 of The Commander

Bastian strode forward, feet crunching tiny rocks and debris that time had thrown on the floor. He motioned to the corner where a tiny cot sat bowed under stacks of cardboard boxes with disintegrating seams. “That will be the first thing we see too. But we can make this work for our shelter, ourselves, without a badge team.”

There was something in his voice that made Cara ask, “You’ve never built anything, have you?”

“I am a Commander. I command the base, lead armies, investigate insurrections, kill enemies and protect the Queen.”

“That’s a no.” Cara said it with a smile. It was hard not to be delighted that the giant monster wasn’t fully, arrogantly confident in a task.

“Since my Sarrian ancestors wove huts from the bacca tree in the Forests of Artugoo. I think I can figure out how to alter an old human structure for my mate’s comfort. Don’t get too cheeky there, Kitten.”

“We shall see. There’s enough here and from what’s in the truck to make a space. And we did see those other old houses. We could trade in that market we saw,” she held her breath when she mentioned it. He’d already told her to drop the topic three times.

It earned her a glare. Anything that he deemed not safe always earned her a glare or worse.

The market was one of the human ones, cobbled together with very loose alien permission. Cara had always understood that permission to be, keep a very low profile, cause no trouble, don’t disturb the taxes and you can exist. They’d passed it after Greater Louis; it looked like a big one with lots of trade options.

Bastain had said they could only go and check it out if she let him go in first, the night before, kill every living thing, and check for any kind of P.I. data exchange system to the Sarrian ship in space.

Naturally, she’d just said no.

She sighed, watching as Bastian revealed more of the room with steady sweeps of his light. “We can make it work.”

With them working together, the old lodge shed its cloak of decay. Bastian tore into the renovations with a ferocious energy, doing everything three times faster than Cara could manage.

Powering up lights with energy equipment he’d packed in the truck, he pulled out an array of advanced Sarrian tools. Although she saw him pause a few times, staring at the tools as if clueless, if she left him alone for a few minutes, he seemed to figure it out.

Walls were reinforced, holes in the flooring fixed, cabinet doors rehung, and trash removed. An ancient black-belly coal stove roaredto life. It cast flickering shadows that danced across the newly cleaned log walls. A state-of-the-art Sarrian air filtration system scrubbed the air clean, replacing the musty odor with a striking fragrance from Bastian’s home world.

Days blurred into weeks. They made do with what they had as Bastian foraged or hunted for better. While he was out, she sorted through the long wall of electronics. What to keep, what to discard.

There were books. Digital and some paper ones were still in good condition, though most of those were safety and regulation manuals that went back to pre-corporation days. Good for nothing but the fire. The digital versions held the most interest for her once she got a computer running and could look at them. Someone had brought in a library of novels, music, and movies. She hooted for joy when she found that stash.

Bastian hunted in the surrounding forests in the mornings and evenings, bringing back fresh kills that they prepared together. Once he deemed it was safe they explored more, together. She never saw any people, just signs of their passing.

In the evenings, they curled together in the bed. After they threw out the cot, they replaced it with a box platform and then layers of anything soft that they came across.

Bastian could not get comfortable and stayed in a constant state of dissatisfaction. He had rewoven the mattress four different times using branches and grass, hauling bushels of the stuff in and then dragging it out in a frustrated huff in the morning.

Not soft enough. Not warm enough. Too many holes. Smells wrong. He worked on the bed every day as the main focal point of their living space. While she would rather work out a way to get hot water into a working tub.

“We have a bed. It works.” He brought back blankets that he washed hung to dry by the stove, then washed again because they still stunk. He made bedding out of animal skins, belly fur, and downy feathers. There got to be so much in that she had to always take some out. He kept her warm and took up space with his body. Why did he keep adding more?

“It’s not right yet. I want to be able to close it in better, and it needs to be bigger. My feet hang off it.”

“Only if you are lying sideways. I’d like a hot bath. I’d do it myself.” She would, if she could, but the iron tub they had found in an old house was too heavy for her to budge an inch. Currently outside the mine and the lodge, she wanted it inside.

“Your wash water is always at an optimal temperature, pet.”

“Yes, but I want to soak.”

“How often would you soak?”

“I don’t know. Once a week? It’s nice. I could make it sexy. You could watch.” She tried to wink at him.

At this point, she wasn’t beyond using sex to get what she wanted. She was still new at the game, and it didn’t always work with him. Her mate did what he wanted.

He blinked back at her. “I watch you every night. And every day. When you sleep. When you nap. When I have the bed right, we will start other things.”

Kitten nestled against his side—their bodies intertwined. Other things. He’d get to it all, she knew. Efficiently and purposely. This was their sanctuary. Their home. Their seed of rebellion against existing in survival mode. They were each other’s reason for waking up the next day and smiling.

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