Page 29 of Tara's Warriors

Exchanging a concerned look with Karwin, Phin obeyed her command. She wrapped her arms around herself, chilled from the inside out as she stared at her surroundings. “What do you want with me? Why did you take me? What are we doing here?”

“Hello,” came a female voice from behind her. The voice held more than a hint of a New York accent. “Those are all good questions, and ones I’ll be more than happy to answer.”

Letting out a small scream, she spun around to find a short, curvy, incredibly beautiful dark brown skinned woman with orange streaked braids smiling at her. Her long, black gown was cut low in the front, revealing an intricate tattoo over the other woman’s cleavage. Her gown had silvery blue embroidery in an unfamiliar pattern around the sleeves and hem, and the cool lipstick she wore swirled slowly between the orange of her hair, and the blue accent of her gown.

“Hi,” she said with a warm smile. “My name is Jaz. I’m a human, like you.”

Aware of the men standing at her back, but ignoring them, Tara focused on the unfamiliar figure. “You mean you’re from Earth?”

“Yes, New York City, born and raised.”

“But you’re with…them.”

“Yeah, I’m technically considered a Kadothian female right now, but I consider myself as holding dual citizenship. You can take the girl off Earth, but you can’t take the Earth out of the girl. That’s a saying we Earth Matriarchs have.”

“Right…” She closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry even though she was growing more freaked out by the moment.

“Tara, what is wrong?” Karwin knelt before her, reaching out as if to take her hand, then frowning when she flinched. “I will not hurt you.”

A little bit of defiant anger kindled in her as she stared down at him. “Um, hello? You just kidnapped me!”

“We did not kidnap you,” Phin said as he stood next to her with his arms crossed, his yearning to touch her obvious to Tara. “We eloped with you.”

The urge to cry passed, and she shook her head in disbelief at Karwin’s hopeful face. “No, eloping is when you run away with a man to get married.Thisis kidnapping.”

“No,” Phin said gently, as if speaking to a slow child. “We eloped with you.”

“No,” she said in an equally slow voice, as if speaking to a moron. “You kidnapped me.”

Clearing her throat loudly, Jaz said, “If I may? As fun as this is, things will go much quicker if you’ll just follow me.”

“Why?” Tara squared her shoulders and tried for intimidating…not an easy task in her jammies.

“Because we are in a public place, and your every move is being no doubt recorded by dozens of people. Some are probably even sending the video of you and your boys to their parents and relatives. For Kadothian males, finding their Matriarch is a big,bigdeal. Unless you wanna be the subject of a Kadothian gossip blog—and trust me, blogging is huge on Kadothia—I suggest you follow me.”

Tara’s chin lowered for a moment as she tried to glance around the room from beneath her lashes.

Yep, while most people—err, creature things? —ignored them, more than one group of handsome men watched them closely.

Super closely.

Like they wanted to eat her alive.

Turning her back on the crowd, she said in a low voice to Jaz, “Those men, the ones dressed in that skintight armor stuff, why are they looking at me like that?”

“They’re probably wondering if they can talk you into bonding them. Unless you want them to get bold enough to approach you, and get their asses publicly kicked by your men, come on.”

“Fine,” she muttered, glaring at Phin as he tried to take her hand. “Back off.”

The wounded puppy dog eyes he gave her were almost as good as her granddaughter’s. “Please? You will feel better, I promise.”

“It is true,” Jaz added as what must have been some kind of sound barrier lowered, and the noise of the room crashed over them. “Hold hands with both your men and you’ll feel more grounded. Give it a try.”

To Tara’s disgust, she did feel better with each man at her side, their enormous hands carefully holding hers. As they walked through the busy terminal, she was glad they were with her in this unfamiliar place. Jaz led them into a small sitting room that looked like it belonged in one of those modern living magazines. The colors of white, gray, and lime green dominated the room, along with a good amount of black. A handsome man sat on one of the couches, his brown and blond hair pulled back into a low bun. Like most of the men on the ship, he wore the skin-fitting black armor. A scar tracked across his chin that gave him a dangerous appearance, but the obvious love in his blue eyes as he caught sight of Jaz softened him.

“Alyah,” he said as he crossed the room.

“Tara,” Jaz said after giving the handsome man that joined them a peck on his cheek, which he had to lean down to offer her. “This is one of my husbands, Tandar.”

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