Chapter 1

"What do you mean ‘the secondary power couplings in the routing matrix on deck seven are draanthed'?" Vaarn tried to keep the growl out of his voice as he stalked through the corridors of the human section of the station, equipment belt slung over his shoulder and toolbox in hand.

As if he didn't have enough to deal with today, what with the handover between the B'Kaar who had built the station and the new station crew, they also had outages in the section that housed the human mates before they were mated. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem… apart from the fact that the mate section was restricted, and only two engineers were cleared for access. One was Jaayn, who was off station, visiting home after his father had passed away, and the other was Vaarn himself. The new chief engineer of the station, who did not have time for this trall today.

"Looking at the logs, it looks like the couplings in that matrix fried when the station was undergoing conversion from its original ship form into the station configuration," Maax, his second in command, said. He was no-nonsense and had graduated from the engineers' hall with the highest honors, so Vaarn had no reason to doubt his word. Transforming the Devan'kra, a huge destroyer-class B'Kaar ship, into the station had been a massive undertaking. Some… issues were to be expected.

He turned a corner and stepped back to avoid being flattened by a group of human females. They were new, in standard-issue LMP joggers and hoodies, and watched him with wide eyes as they skirted around him.

"Ladies." He offered a smile, trying to make his expression and body language as non-threatening as possible. Some new mate-potentials were as skittish as hell around warriors. He didn't blame them. Compared to human males, latharian warriors were huge and, as he'd been told, scary as draanth. It probably had something to do with the fact that most human males he'd come across were soft and pathetic creatures, scared of their own shadows.

There were a few notable exceptions. He wouldn't like to tangle with Murphy, the Earth president, or General M'rln's son-in-law, but, looking at both those males, he assumed they'd inherited a larger level of latharian DNA from the expedition that had crash-landed on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago.

"Just here to fix the power," he said when some of them still eyed him with fear, lifting his toolbelt to prove that he meant them no harm. "I will be finished as soon as I can."

He carried on down the corridor, ignoring the whispers behind him. Most were comments about his size and how scary looking he was… but there were a few speculating on the size of his family jewels. He had half a mind to tell them that his family's bonding necklace was held to be one of the most intricate and beautiful pieces from the Kravlor period. But he didn't. Instead, he just kept moving down the corridor. The only female who needed to know about his family jewelry was… well, she wouldn't be interested. He was sure of it.

"So…" He picked up the conversation with Maax again. "If the couplings have been blown since the conversion, how has the matrix been operating?"

As soon as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He didn't want to know the answer, but he did.

Maax sighed. "One of the B'Kaar had a subroutine running to keep it operational."

"Draanthinghell!" Vaarn hissed and wondered again why he'd agreed to take on the role of chief engineer aboard the station. It wasn't as though he was an engineering hall favorite. In fact, he was pretty sure his name was still trall in those hallowed halls after his miniaturization projects. "So, what happens to the matrix when that B'Kaar gets reassigned?"

He heard Maax's shrug. "I assume that, without the sub-routine it would sto?—"

"Yes, yes!" Vaarn said as he turned another corner and checked the location code printed on the wall. He wasn't far from his target now. "It's going to stop working, I get that. That's the point. How are we supposed to keep this station running when half the control systems just up and walk off."

"Well... technically, they wouldn't walk off. They'd fly off in a ship."

Vaarn closed his eyes and contemplated murder. He'd never seen it before, but some Lathar were so god-damn literal. "True," he said. What did they say about the non-functional matrix?"

"About what you'd expect." There was the slightest growl of irritation in Maax's voice. "They reported that the matrix was working within parameters. I pointed out that it is now, while the B'Kaar with the sub-routine was aboard, and then asked what would happen when they left. They denied that was their responsibility and that if the matrix broke after they left, they advised me to speak to the chief engineer aboard the station."

Vaarn reached the intersection noted on his repair report and set his toolbox down.

"Which would be me," he said with a grunt as he removed the cover panel and looked inside. As expected for a B'Kaar ship, it was immaculately laid out, its neat and orderly construction making his engineer's heart sing. The other side, which liked to invent and tinker, could already see three areas to make modifications.

"Indeed." There was a pause, and he heard Maax's amusement over the comm. "So what would you like to do about it, boss?"

"What… you mean other than finding a couple of B'Kaar and bashing their heads together to try and knock some sense into their metal-addled brains?" he asked, pulling a small flashlight from his pocket and starting to trace the wiring through the panel, looking for the problem.

At least three people had reported that the power was out in their quarters. They'd been bumped to the top of the list, even though there were communal facilities on this level, and he had a job list longer than his arm. But… They were potential mates, so this job was now his top priority. Half of the new mates had never been in space before, so any little problem, power outage, or strange noise from the station around them made them panic. The fact that there had been attacks on the base a few months ago didn't help at all, not with the rumors flying around that there were still purists aboard.

He grunted as he finished inspecting the outer layer of wiring. He couldn't see a problem, no cross-wiring, which meant the issue was hidden deeper in the panel. Great, he was going to have to go in.

Moving his toolbox out of the way, he dropped to his knees. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head as a small group crossed the corridor intersection two doors down. A latharian male had his arm around the shoulders of a human female, a beaming smile on his face as he looked down at the youngling whose hand he held. Vaarn estimated the female youngling wasn't more than six planet rotations old. Her shy smile melted his heart, as it obviously did the warrior, who bent down to scoop her up into his arms, and they carried on on their way, the picture of a happy family.

Vaarn grumbled as he wriggled on his back into the gap under the panel and snapped the torch on again. Happy families were good for the empire, but even though he was signed up for the mate program, he'd asked them to set his profile to inactive. He had far too much to do with the station to even think about courting a female at the moment. Perhaps ever.

His eyes narrowed as he studied the underside of the power unit, sticking the end of the torch between his teeth. Reaching up, he used deft fingers to move the wiring aside, and… yes, there it was.

He grunted as he pulled free a damaged chip. It was a TX-14. Taking the torch from his mouth, he shone it over the chip. It was all blackened with heat damage on the back. No wonder it had blown.

"Maax," he initiated the comm again. "How many TX-14's have we had go?"

"Just today? Or…"

"All told," Vaarn replied, still looking at the chip. There was movement outside the corridor, but he didn't pay it any mind. If they couldn't see his legs poking out from the maintenance hatch, then they deserved to fall over. One of the higher-ups would no doubt squawk at him over any of their precious human females getting bruises, but the corridor was carpeted. They'd live.

"Hmmm… hold on."

In his mind, Vaarn could see the big engineer tapping away on the console tucked away in the corner of the main engineering he'd claimed for himself. "More than I would expect. Over twenty out today alone."

"What's the usual failure rate on the TX series?"

"A lot less than twenty a day, even on something this size."

"Okay, can you?—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as something hit the side of his leg, hard, and there was a startled female cry right before a thud. He sighed and closed his eyes. One of the females had, indeed, tripped over his legs. Draanth his life.

"Okay, check which shipments they came from," he said as he wriggled out of the hatch. "I've run into a problem—" Or it had run into him. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

* * *

Late.She was always late.

Sadie huffed to herself as she all but ran along the corridors of the human section of the station, hurrying to get home and get dinner on before she had to go and pick Ollie up from nursery. She was making casserole tonight for them all… herself and Ollie, as well as her sister Halle and Halle's mate, Kaas.

She cooked most nights or tried to. Her way of saying ‘thank you' to Halle and Kaas for everything they'd done for her and Ollie. Because without her sister's sacrifice, selling herself into the Latharian Mate Program, and Kaas' expertise as a healer, she wouldn't still have her son. He'd be dead, a victim of Doctor Crane's sick little scheme to wring credits out of loving parents. Those few hours had been the darkest part of her life. It was the only time when she'd wished that Ollie's good-for-nothing father, a petty crime lord in the lower rungs of the city, hadn't been killed in a drug deal gone wrong before he was born, so she could sic him onto Doctor Crane. But then Kaas and his friends had arrived to save Halle. If they hadn't?—

She shook her head, putting the unpleasant thoughts from her mind and clutching the basket of produce from the market on the deck below tightly. She didn't like to dwell on nasty thoughts. At all. Halle always thought that she stuck her head in the sand and tried to ignore all the bad stuff that had happened to them over the years. And, in a way, she guessed she had.

Deep diving into the romance and fantasy offered by the network soaps was the only way she'd known to deal with the crushing despair and realization that no matter what she and Halle did, they would never get out of the Evergreens. That their lives were one unavoidable spiral downward to an Anselm factory. Once that happened, there was no escape.

But now they were here, on the station. She walked out into one of the corridors, and there was Earth below them. The view through the windows was so stunning that sometimes she just found herself standing here, looking at it. From this angle, the planet looked like a jewel, suspended in the midnight silk of space. It looked clean and fresh and bursting with possibility. For the average person, it was anything but. You needed serious money to get anywhere.

Casting only a few glances at the beautiful view, she carried on, hurrying through the corridors as she headed for her quarters. She didn"t have time for star or planet-gazing now.

Today had been as frustrating as the whole of last week. She"d spent most of it looking for a job before heading to the market to pick things up for dinner. But like every other day, each inquiry she'd made had been met with rejection.

She didn't understand it. It should be easy. She was a good worker and on a station this size, something must need doing somewhere. She didn't care what it was… filing in an office for one of the many businesses that were crammed into the civilian sector or even washing pots in a restaurant. She just wanted to find something so she could pay her way and not feel so terrible for taking advantage of her sister"s mate, who was providing for both her and her son. She would always be grateful to Kaas for saving Ollie"s life, but she needed to stand on her own two feet, and despite what her sister thought of her, she was determined not to stick her head in the sand anymore.

Which meant no more network soap operas or rom-coms. She"d restricted herself to a few books that she read when Ollie was in bed. That was her favorite time of night, with her now healthy son tucked against her side and stroking his hair as he slept peacefully beside her. She could shut all her worries away and just concentrate on the two of them as she relaxed with a couple of chapters of her book or prepared a plan of attack for the next day in the journal Kaas had given to her.

He was unexpectedly sweet for such a grumpy guy, especially with Ollie. And the way he looked at her sister made Sadie's romantic heart swoon. If only she could find a handsome Latharian warrior to look at her like that… One particular handsome Latharian…

Turning the corner, she spotted her door and sighed with relief. Somehow, the basket had gotten heavier since the market, with all the ingredients inside. She would forever be amazed at how much Latharians could eat, but they were all so huge that she wasn't surprised. It must take a lot of food to run bodies that big. She didn"t mind the extra workout though, which helped as she planned on baking tonight. She loved baking, always had. And it was even better now she had a proper kitchen.

She bit her lip. She'd also added some extra ingredients to her basket. She"d noticed that Vaarn, the silver-haired, handsome warrior who had helped Kaas rescue Halle, liked her small sponge cakes, so she was going to make more for him. Maybe he wouldn't run away from her so quickly this time.

Perhaps because she was so preoccupied with what order she needed to prepare ingredients for tonight's dinner she missed the leather-clad legs stuck out from a maintenance hatch. Too busy counting up the measurements in her head, she slammed her foot into the side of a heavily-muscled thigh and fell full length across the corridor.

Her elbow and hip slammed into the floor, hard, and she squeaked as pain flared through her. But she was less bothered about that than she was about the contents of her basket scattering across the floor like escaped ferrets on a rampage. Dropping to her hands and knees, she scrambled for them before they could get too far or, worse, get trodden on.

"Hey, hey," a deep voice said. Strong hands closed around her arms and hauled her up against an equally strong body. "Leave them. I'll get them in a minute. Are you okay?"

She looked up into dark gray eyes ringed with silver, her breath catching at the intense look on her rescuer's face. Vaarn. His gaze flicked over her, then back to her face, latching onto her lips. She shivered, unable to help the little flick of her tongue out to wet them. His eyes darkened.

"Sadie," he said, his voice lower and deeper than she'd ever heard it, the rasp making something deep in her stomach twist. God, it had to be illegal for a guy to turn her on with just his voice. If not, it should be. "Are you okay? Do I need to take you to the medical bay?"

She blinked in surprise at his statement, managing a startled laugh. "For a little tumble like that? God no, what do you think I am… made of glass?"

Pulling herself from his arms, she managed to stand on her own two feet, brushing herself off. "I know you guys all think human women are all delicate and that, but we're not. I promise you, the floor came off worse."

She made the mistake of looking up, and caught the edge of a puzzled smile on his lips. He blanked his expression when he saw her looking, but she caught it and almost whimpered. Fucking hell, how could a guy be this good-looking?

He eyed the floor, eyebrow raised a fraction. "I'm sure it is. However, I am not responsible for any injury the floor may have sustained, just yours. I think you need to go to medical."

"Who died and made you God?" She snorted. "I'm fine. Honest." Or she would be if she could stop thinking of how nice it had felt to be held in his arms, pressed up against all those hard muscles. "If you want to help, help me pick this up. I hope the flour hasn't spilled, or there won't be any cakes tonight."

"Cakes?" he asked, moving around her and scooping the escaped produce up in huge hands. She snuck a glance at his feet. Yeah, those combat boots were huge as well. "Like the ones you gave to me the other day?"

His expression was level and neutral, but she didn't miss the little note of interest in his voice. She hid her smile. Gotcha.

"Yes, those were plain fairy cakes. I'm planning on making lemon cakes today," she said, holding up two yellow fruits by way of explanation. She couldn't believe she'd found them at the market. "I haven't seen a real lemon for years. I've always had to use a flavoring substitute, so I can't wait to see what they taste like."

"I've never tasted lemon," he replied, his gaze locked onto her as he held out the basket for the lemons. She put them in carefully. She couldn't remember if citrus fruit bruised, but she didn't want to risk it. "They look… odd. Most human food does."

"Yeah, but you have the most amazing chocolate cake," she paused, realizing the basket was filled, and they were just standing there in the middle of the corridor. "Err… thank you for your help. I should let you get back to it," she said, indicating his tools and the access panel he'd been working on. Handsome and worked with his hands, he was the whole package…

"I'm finished." His answer was abrupt, and he turned and knelt down to pack his tools away. "Wait there, I'll walk you to your quarters to make sure you're okay."

Turning her head, she looked at her door. Thirty feet down the hallway. Even she couldn't get into trouble in that short distance. "Seriously, it's fine. I'm just down here," she said, reaching for the basket he'd put down next to him.

His hand shot out, covering hers on the handle. He looked up through the silver fall of his hair, and the expression on his face stole her breath away. "Do you ever just do as you're told?"

She bit her lip. "No… not really."

Shaking his head, he pulled her fingers off the basket handle. His thumb stroked along the inside of her wrist. "You are not carrying it. I will. Understand?"

She nodded, trying to conceal the fact that her brain had gone on the fritz. "Yeah…"

"Good." He turned his attention back to his tools, packing them away with a speed and efficiency that spoke of long practice. Less than a minute later, he stood, tool belt slung over his shoulder and hanging down over his broad chest. She tried not to ogle his muscles and cobblestone abs as he picked up the toolbox and basket and looked at her in expectation.

"Lead the way, my lady."

"Uhm… okay, I'm just up here," she replied, and they walked along the corridor. When she paused, he looked back at the panel he'd been working on.

"So I have you to thank for the power outage then?"

"Nooooo…?" she managed, trying to think back to what she'd been doing today. "If it just went out, it wasn't me. I've been out all day. But it was a bit glitchy this morning. The lights in the kitchen kept flickering when I was making Ollie's breakfast."

At the mention of her son, the big alien warrior's fierce expression softened somewhat. "How is he?"

He'd been one of the team of warriors who had helped Kaas rescue her sister Halle, Sadie, and her son, Ollie, from a doctor who had planned to kill them and sell their organs on the black market. Well, he had with Halle and Ollie. Sadie herself hadn't been worth the trouble. Not even in exchange for her baby's life. Sucked to be her, didn't it? Even a black-market organ donor had turned her down. Which was why she hadn't signed up for the Mate Program. What alien warrior would want someone like her? Especially someone like Vaarn, who she was sure was already signed up and would be matched any day now.

They walked the short distance to her quarters, and she was aware of the big warrior next to her. His movements were graceful despite his large frame, and she felt his attention fixed on her.

"Ollie"s doing so much better now," she said, glancing up at him. "It"s amazing what Kaas has been able to do for him. I"ll never be able to repay you guys for all you did."

His expression didn"t alter, impassive and closed off as always. "There is no debt between friends," he said, his voice a deep rumble.

She allowed a small smile. Getting more than a few words out of the big, silver-haired warrior was like pulling hen"s teeth.

"Well, I like to do something to show my appreciation to Kaas and Halle. That"s why I try to cook dinner for us most nights. That"s what this is all for," she said, motioning toward the basket he held.

He nodded, looking down at the ingredients piled in the basket after their impromptu trip to the floor. "Kaas mentioned your skill in the kitchen. The cakes you gave me were..." He paused for a moment as if searching for the right word. "Enjoyable."

She bit her lip to hide her smile. High praise coming from him. "I"m glad you liked them. I know some Latharians have a sweet tooth, so I wanted to make more."

Her door slid open with a hiss as they approached. She turned back to him and held her hand out for the grocery basket.

"You can come in for a minute if you want." She offered a smile. "I should be able to scrounge up some tea or something."

He shook his head, silver hair falling across his forehead. "I should return to my duties."

He handed her the basket, and she took it, ignoring the pang of disappointment that rolled through her. Getting any time with Vaarn was like trying to catch smoke. "Of course. Thank you again for all your help."

He hesitated as if he wanted to say something more. But then he just nodded his head.

"Be well, Lady Sadie," he said, turning to stride off down the corridor.

She watched him go, admiring the tight muscles of his ass under the leather of his pants. With a sigh, she turned and entered her quarters, letting the door hiss shut behind her.

Vaarn wasn"t interested, and the quicker she got that through her head, the better off she"d be.