Page 32 of Guardian's Soul

Curiosity and a newfound urge to please her made me grin and nod while I started calling themovieup to project onto the wall. For her benefit, I played with the sound until it surrounded us as if we were right in the midst of it. To my surprise, after a while, I began enjoying it, not so much themovie; it was still a strange concept to me, but her reactions. The way her lips moved from time to time as she recited the lines with the actors, how she leaned forward or back, caught up in the scenes. Hannah was an enigma, one that was growing on me with every passing tick.

HANNAH

I hadn't expectedto ever watch a movie again, but that's what we did. Every night after our training and going over Thrax's plans on how to kidnap Possedion, we watched a movie. We made our way through the entireMission Impossible series,Ocean's Eleven,The Italian Job, andInside Man. I was sure Thrax was just humoring me when he mentioned using drones after getting inspiration from one of the movies, but I didn't have the heart to call him out on it since he was obviously doing it to please me. Something I appreciated.

In a strange way, we weren't only bonding over planning this entire mission or heist. The movies brought us closer. Things he picked up on that I had taken for granted on Earth were making me see them with new eyes. It was also fascinating to find out similarities, like when he talked about a space station with an unpronounceable name that was basically a Las Vegas in space. Intrigued, I asked if one day he would take me there.

"I would love to," he replied, his dark eyes gleaming with a sparkle I hadn't seen yet. The more time I spent with him, the more he intrigued me. More than once, I caught myself thinking what it would be like to have sex with him. I didn'teven notice his silver skin so much anymore. The dance of his muscles when we trained or worked out or his smile and laughter when we watched a movie captivated me more.

More and more, the reality that we were bound to each other not only by our mating marks but by something bigger became more acceptable to me. My anger against the universe slowly dissipated little by little with everything I learned about this universe I had been thrust into. My options weren't limited to choosing between life as a colonist on Astrionis or rebuilding Earth. There were so many more prospects out there. So many things, like the unpronounceable space station, that I wanted to see.

The fact that I was planning a kidnapping should have revolted me. It should have made me want to call the authorities—whatever they were. Instead, I was finding myself not only fascinated but fully resolved to committing a crime.

I hated the way Thrax's head hurt like it was splitting open every time he tried to answer a simple question, like, did he have friends? What was it like for him growing up? And with that, my hate for the Ohrurs grew steadily because I knew they had something to do with it. Had done somethingtohim. We just didn't know what.

We fell into another routine. During breakfast and lunch, we watched his kind of holovids, or we researched the GTU database for anything we could find on fated mates, soulmates, mating marks, and so on.

Throughout the universe, there was an amazing number of species believing in fated mates, but mating marks were rarer. We only discovered about fifteen species with mating marks; two of them were actually tattoos the couple gave each other, and none of them resembled Thrax. Not enough to be his species. Even more surprising was the number of humanoid-looking alien races there. I estimated that probably sixty percent of the universe's known population was made up ofspecies that looked like humans, added a tail, horns, fangs, and scales, but with the same main body structure.

We spent a lot of time planning Possedion’s kidnapping. My role was fairly simple:watch Thrax's back. But it also involved a few things I was still leery about. Like sneaking through the woods, climbing a wall… I wasn't a trained 007 agent. I was a freaking personal trainer. I was good at talking people into another set of pushups when they thought they had reached their limit, but I had no idea how to infiltrate an alien compound. Which, according to Thrax, was filled with Space Guardians like him. All trained to keep people out—my only consolation was that Thrax was also trained in how to get in.

Astonishing me more than Thrax, I held my own during our combat lessons. Twice more, I managed to surprise him with a move that he then insisted on me teaching him.

Besides that, he taught me how to handle weapons like blasters. I had never held a gun on Earth, but holding the metal in my hands boosted my self-confidence, even more so when Thrax told me I was a natural. After I missed the first couple of times, I quickly got the hang of it and began begging him to take me back there and to add more challenging targets.

I was still weaker than ever before from having been held captive for so long, but my strength was slowly returning. I wouldn't be running a marathon anytime soon, but sprints were definitely in my near future.

When I wasn't training, I used one of his comms to explore more about this world I had been thrust into. It wasn't that much different from our tablets and computers at home, well, besides the fact that screens hovered in front of me, appearing out of thin air, or that said screens were cube-shaped. Instead of having several tabs open like I would on my laptop, I just called up as many cubes as I liked andturned them around to look from one screen to another. It was actually really handy and interesting.

I didn't know how this worked, but everything I watched and read was in English. Whatever I was looking for came up in the blink of an eye. I didn't have to type any commands. I simply talked to the device, and it would pull up what I needed.

"I still can't get over how awesome these things are," I confessed when we sat around the dining room table. I was surrounded by an assortment of several cubes, which seemed to be my new norm when I wasn't training.

"They tested mind comms before." Thrax looked a little distracted and pulled one ofmycubes closer, turning it.

"Mind comms?"

He nodded. "Yeah, like instead of having these"—he kept turning the cube—"surround you, they were in people's minds."

"Wow!"

He had my full attention. I tried to imagine how that would work, but the thought alone made me dizzy.

"How did that go?"

"Not well," he mumbled. "Expand," he ordered the cube.

"What happened?" I hated it when he diverted his attention, especially when the conversation actually turned interesting.

"The test subjects didn't do so well with it. So they abandoned the idea. It turns out that most of us intelligent beings in the universe are more visually adapted. It's easier for us this way to digest mass loads of information. Otherwise, a mind simply… snaps."

Finally, he looked up, meeting my eyes.

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say. Plus, I found myself caught in his gaze. This had been happening more over the last couple of days. It seemed like I couldn't keep my mind straight whenever he was around. Part of the training included a lot of touching, and my panties had become soaked more often than I liked to admit. Having his strong arms around me, gruntingwhen I landed a hit, did things to my body… even now, as he swiped the cube again, silently chuckling, I couldn't help but stare at his long fingers, his large hand without imagining it on me, doing wicked things to me.

He chuckled again.

"What the hell is so funny?" I wanted to know.

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