Page 30 of Guardian's Destiny

"Good God, Vraax." She sounded really alarmed now.

There was no way we could have known each other. According to Possedion, we had been bred and grown in a lab. Maybe from training? I forced myself to remember my training days, or at least the other trainees. Had he been there? Impossible, he was older than me. There was no way we had trained at the same time. The other trainees' faces I managed tocall up through the pain were all nondescript. They could have been anybody.

"Vraax, stop," Sloane was shouting at me now, and I wanted to shout the same words back at her, but my mind was stuck in a loop, and my head hurt so badly I couldn't form a word or use any of my brain cells to force my lips to. Instead, I vomited again.

"Fuck Vraax!"

She grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to shake me, but I must have been too heavy for her. I was sure I would die; the pain was excruciating, I?—

I spat and sputtered as she threw the contents of a pitcher of cold water into my face. Some got stuck in my nose and mouth. I coughed, and she dumped another over me.

"Vraax!"

I looked up, slowly, ever so slowly, as the pain retreated, and my mind began to focus on her. Some species in the universe believed in demons and angels, if there were such a thing. I was sure she was a demangel or dangel, neither one nor the other but a mix of the two. I was convinced she had just saved my life in the most torturous way she could have thought up. A normal female would have kissed me to distract me. Not her. Her way of saving me was to throw water at my face. I kind of had to respect that.

My head stopped hurting completely when she waved a healing wand over it.

"Damnit Vraax, you scared the bejeebers out of me." She cursed.

I cleared my throat, gagged on the nauseating aftertaste of bile and vomit. My voice sounded hoarse. "Thank you. I think you just saved my head from exploding."

"Here," she pushed a cup of water in my hand and wiped my face again with the damp clothes. Her harsh voice was in stark contrast with the tenderness she showed me and the evidentworry in her eyes. She was grinding her jaw hard, giving her already sharp features even more of an edge. However, a slight smile tugging at her lips dimmed the harshness.

I drank the cool liquid down, and my throat felt instantly better.

The opening of the sliding door announced the arrival of the first cleaning bots, and Sloane stepped out of their way.

"You should take a shower," she advised. "Afterward, we can work on our plans."

I had seen GTU and Imperial Forces members salute each other and always thought it was a rather silly notion, but right then, I understood it. I was tempted to do so to her. The tone of her voice was commanding enough for it, plus she was slowly earning my respect.

Many females and even males would have turned away from me, wouldn't have known what to do, let alone empty a pitcher of water onto my face. Sloane had guts, and she had the know-how to back it up. The seven suns help me, but I was falling faster and harder for her than should be possible. I wouldn't have even needed the damn mating marks, I would have picked her to be my mate from millions of others.

SLOANE

Damn that alienhad scared me. For a moment there, I was sure he would collapse, and his head would split open. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced the Ohrurs had done some kind of brainwashing on him. Good thing I had been trained for that. I wasn't a specialist or anything like that by any means. I had taken several classes that dealt with this kind of issue because I had to free hostages before, and in the field, there had been no time to consult a psychiatrist to stop deranged hostages from blowing their brains out. Sometimes, it needed to be quick too, if we needed vital information.

Luckily for Vraax, we had a few days before he would have to be in top shape to abduct his minder and whoever was unlucky enough to be in the same vicinity. I wasn't about to play with Vraax's mind after we had the captives onboard. I had a rudimentary idea of how to fly this ship, but no clue when it came to programming a course at hyperspeed.

I entered the breakroom and picked some of the mush from the nutrition machine, shoveling it down my throat without analyzing what it tasted like while I waited for Vraax, going over my book of tricks on how to dive into his brain.

I had also snatched his comm, which was very similar to the one the Pandraxians had given me—the one I lost at the space station—a bit more advanced, but I figured most of it out. I wasn't a tech guru, but I knew enough to find my way around it and use apps to my advantage. I wasn't sure what the aliens called apps, but their interfaces made them easy to create. It was incredibly simple—all I had to do was say what I wanted, and within seconds—or should I sayticksas they called them here—the app I needed appeared. Adjusting to their use oftickstook some getting used to, especially since, in the Corps, we used the term for kilometers.

My mating marks were just beginning to burn when I heard Vraax's footsteps down the hall. I supposed these damn things had decided to add time apart to the distance thing. They were so annoying. I wished I could have just cut them out, but right then, they would come in handy, or at least I hoped they would.

"Hey," I called when Vraax entered, throwing him my deepest smile, instantly changing his expression to suspicion.

"Don't be a killjoy, sit. I even ordered you food and the juice you like." That seemed to make him even more suspicious. Carefully, he inspected the chair before he pulled it out.

"I did not saw off a leg or poison your food." I grinned at him. "Despite you deserving it after sneaking in bed with me."

"You noticed, eh?"

"Hard not to notice an almost seven-foot-tall alien in my bed," I scoffed, but kept my smile plastered on my face. His lips twitched and damn, he looked so freaking handsome. Those little dimples by his cheeks? Yeah they could easily make a girl's knees go weak.

"What are you up to?" He sat down, grabbing his spork and digging in.

"I figured we skip the physical training for a few hours and concentrate on mental training. We need to get to the bottom ofyour repressed memories." I declared without fanfare. That was the nice thing about Vraax. I didn't need to pussyfoot around hisfeelings.

---