Page 51 of Guardian's Heart

She punched me in the arm, and I chuckled. I loved that spirit in her. No matter what, she was always up for a fight.

"So we both share a longing for solitude," she mused, "I wonder what else we have in common."

"Besides fucking?" I grinned.

She boxed me again. "Don't be crude."

I chuckled again, wondering when I had chuckled the last time without being drunk or… terminating someone.

"You like chasing criminals, don't you?" She took me by surprise.

"Yes," I admitted, "the chase is always the best part. Trying to figure out where my prey is hiding, knowing that he doesn't know I'm after him."

This conversation was becoming stranger by the moment. I would have never expected to talk to her like this. I mean, I had spoken to a handful of other Space Guardians when we ran into each other at a tavern. We usually talked about our work, and occasionally, we talked about how good it felt to chase a criminal down. Still, I had never imagined talking to a female about this, especially not a female like… Nova. One I had been intimate with, one wearing the same mating marks as me.

"Yeah, in the swamps… on Earth, I used to go hunting, mostly for gators. It always was more the chase than the kill."

By the seven suns, had I not known any better, I would have suspected her to be some kind of spy trying to get close to me. How could a civilian get me like this? And a female at that?

"I've never told anybody, but you see these?" She pulled the leg of her pants up, exposing a set of long scars that looked like bite marks.

"I wanted to ask you about them.” How could I not when I had kissed every inch of her body, but it hadn't seemed to be the right time to ask her during sex and after… well, we had either been fighting or busy after.

"When I was a kid, a gator grabbed my leg. It was my fault. I was too close to the water, but it pulled me under and into its lair. You see, gators don't always kill their prey right away; sometimes, they keep it alive in their nests for… bad times, I suppose. Anyway, I was lucky that the nest was in an underwater cave of sorts, there was air to breathe, and my daddy watched the whole thing and came after me. He killed the gator and saved me, but for some reason, I felt betrayed, like I wanted to kill the gator." She looked off into the distance. "Maybe that's why I liked to hunt them down, imagining it was the one that took me." She fingered a pendant hanging from a necklace around her neck. I had noticed it before, because it reminded me of the tooth of an evil predator.

She paused, looking at me as if expecting me to say something. Unfortunately, since I had no idea what a gator was, except that it had to be some fearsome creature, I didn't really know what to say.

"Did something like this happen to you?" She finally prodded.

"What do you mean?" I still didn't get it.

"Well, did something like this make you want to be a Space Guardian?"

I knew she wasn't trying to get information from me in a roundabout way like Nock might have. Still, a flicker of resentment rushed through me, along with a small headache as I tried to remember if she had hit on something.

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

"Still no memory, eh?"

"None."

She kept looking at me as if she was expecting me to say something. "What?"

She closed her eyes for a moment as if praying for patience, another notion I could fully empathize with.

"Tell me something you've never told anybody else before."

"Why?"

"Because that's what people do who… like each other," she added with a huff.

"Do we like each other?" I couldn't help but tease.

"Zaarek, so help me God," she blustered. By the asteroid belts, I loved seeing her temper rise.

"Alright, alright." I raised my arms in defense. "Don't shoot."

She drummed her fingers on the table, staring expectantly at me. "Give me a moment to think," I demanded, racking my brain of what I could tell her. There was one thing. One deep, dark secret I had kept to myself, always. Even now, when we had been discussing the Ohrurs, just thinking about it made my head hurt, but she looked so expectantly I didn't have the heartto disappoint her. She had told me two things about herself now. Two very personal things. About possibly having killed her ex by leaving him at the mercy of the elements, and this gator story. I felt like I owed her this much trust.

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