Chapter 21 | Kara

Chapter 21

Kara

I kept flicking between two utterly contradictory moods all evening. Despite wanting to withdraw for some peace and quiet, Rex had not wanted to close the bar for the dinner rush after we’d missed the afternoon crowd with all the upheavals that had transpired. I kept thinking I was the happiest woman alive, then flicking back to that scary confrontation with Laza and seeing Drova’s dead body.

Rex was very calm about all of it, not even remotely bothered that he’d had to spend an hour cleaning acid and blood from his kitchen floor. We had to toss all the food we had already prepared and start from scratch too, but he would have been whistling or singing if he could during all of it. He was that happy, his spots almost golden with their bright glow.

I realized I wasn’t as jaded and weary of the world as I thought I’d become after living at the Human Compound on Ker for half a year. I guess I had remained very sheltered, and Rex had been through much worse than I had to get to this place. Now his dreams were coming true: the bar was going to be his, Drova was out of the picture. And... I guess I was part of his dreams too—the mate he’d always desired to have, and I’d stumbled right into his alley.

In the end, his mood was infectious, and I discovered that I was the one whistling a tune as I manned the bar by myself. Rex worked to serve the food he prepared, so I wasn’t alone with the crowd, but the place was quieter, more respectful than normal anyway. Word had already gone out that Drova was dead and the bar was now Rex’s. I saw none of Drova’s usual shady friends, and that definitely made this a better place.

I was still whistling when I locked the door behind the last patron, smiling hugely when I realized that this was going to be our future. Nobody on Ker knew where I was, and I was free and clear to stay with my chef. That meant I would never have to share a bathroom with twenty other people and eat the same bland meals from a communal kitchen. Instead, I would get to eat Rex’s fantastic concoctions for the rest of my life. Yeah, okay, that was worth smiling over, even if the path to that future had been a little rough.

“Ready to go home?” Rex asked me after we had worked together to clean the kitchen for a fresh start tomorrow. At my nod, he wrapped me safely in my warm cloak, slung me onto his back, and then stepped into the alley where everything had started. I glanced at the bins with a fond expression, because of that warm vent, I had stayed around that first night. If that hadn’t been the case, I might never have met my alien chef.

I was still smiling when Rex froze beneath me, his chest vibrating with a silent snarl. I never saw them coming, but he did. In a swift move, he had me on the ground and pressed into a huddle against the locked back door. Then he was striding off to face the group with his hands out at his sides, his posture relaxed.

I recognized them as soon as I saw them. The Kertinal with his green zigzag lightning bolts stood out in the cool darkness of Akrod. He’d brought backup this time: the whole group of nasty aliens I’d seen him in the bar with and a handful more that weren’t familiar. For a promise of money, they were probably all willing to take a chance. Apparently, I was worth a lot. It did not make me feel special; I hated it. And I didn’t want it to be the reason Rex had to fight, and possibly get hurt.

“Give us the human,” the Kertinal male said, his deep voice a dual layer, two low bass tones that mingled in sub-harmonics. In the dark alley, that voice was creepy. The sky was cloudy, filled with the bright flashing lights of the Akrod cityscape and the many spaceships coming and going. “She does not belong to you.”

I could see the flashing of Rex’s hands as he signed back at them, but it did not appear that any of them could understand. It made me appreciate how expensive these perma-contacts were and that the average thug never had the money to pay for them. Rising to my feet, I braced my back against the door and spoke, my voice high as it pierced the night. “He says that you’re wrong,” I declared. “I am his mate, his female, and nobody is going to take me from him.”

It was a little strange to declare those things about myself, but Rex’s next words had the biggest impact. “He is Rex, prime gladiator. Triple victor of the Sands of Rahosh competitions. Fight him at your own peril.” That was so dramatic, but I loved how it made the whole group move back behind the Kertinal. Two males shared a look and then booked it in the other direction, clearly too scared to fight Rex even when they severely outnumbered him. The Kertinal cursed them, then told the others their shares had just increased. It was the motivation these thugs needed to swarm Rex with various battle cries and shouts.

I knew my alien chef could move fast and that he was very handy with a knife. Never had I seen him move the way he did now. He leaped far higher than I thought possible given his size and the hard cobblestones, tumbling over the first two males and doing something with his hands that I couldn’t follow. All I could see was the end result: two bodies falling to the ground.

The others swarmed him, and briefly, I saw nothing but flailing limbs and heaving backs. Then one fell, and another. My heart was in my throat the entire time; I’d never felt more useless than I did then—helpless and reduced to the sidelines while I watched the man I loved fight for our lives. I was going to have to ask Rex for a gun or something so this could never happen again.

The Kertinal remained the most distinct in that swarming mass; his bright green hair and the lines on his flesh glowing in the dark. He was whaling on my red, four-armed hero with his fists and with the sharp, bladed tip of his tail. When blood droplets flew through the air, I knew he’d struck true, and a shout slipped from my mouth. That’s when I knew I couldn’t stand there like a sack of potatoes. Even without a weapon, I had to do something.

Casting my eyes about, it became obvious that the alley was disappointingly empty. There was now a crowd of maybe six males and Rex fighting together. Three guys were down on the cobblestones, bleeding from cuts or out cold from a blow to the head. They were too close to the moving feet for me to safely snatch one of their weapons; I’d get trampled in the crush of moving, fighting aliens. They were all so much bigger and stronger than a human, especially out-of-shape, short-of-stature me.

Then my eyes caught on the large metal bins I’d once hidden behind. They were on wheels so they could be easily moved but heavy and sharp at the corners. I was running for the nearest one before I could change my mind, heaving with all my strength to careen it into the crowd. I had faith that Rex would dodge it, that he’d hear it coming and recognize the noise. The others were caught by surprise when it hit the closest one in the back.

I didn’t expect Rex to grab hold of the side and yank that huge metal trash can right out of my hand, swinging it around so it collided with more of his opponents. He didn’t make a sound as he did it, but his face was set in fierce, determined lines, his mood spots the same dark red as his skin.

Only three remained standing after that move, and two of them bolted as soon as the bin stopped rolling and they could get out of the way. That left the Kertinal, and he was backing up with a scared expression on his green-lined face. “You win,” he said. “Tonight, you win.” Rex didn’t let him get away, leaping forward and onto the male with feral grace. I saw it only from the back—the way his arms jerked around the Kertinal, catching the flailing tail before it could harm him and twisting. There was a cracking noise, and that was it.

Silence ruled the alley, punctuated only by some moans from the injured and the ragged breathing of my mate. When he rose to his feet, he moved like a wraith—silent, deadly, and oh-so-graceful. I should be horrified that I’d witnessed that kind of violence, the killing prowess he possessed. But I’d never been more impressed, awed, and, dare I even say it, turned on.

“Are you hurt?” Rex signed at me, and when I shook my head, his shoulders lowered, and he tucked me into his arms, safely beneath his chin. We stood like that for a long time, and I knew everything was going to be just fine. The last threat to my safety was gone. Tomorrow, this was all going to feel like a dream. Tomorrow would be the start of the rest of our lives.

I was not surprised when all Rex did was toss the bodies in the very bin we’d used as an improvised weapon, and that was that. “Nobody wants to deal with bodies like them,” he said darkly. “The thugs, the troublemakers. When they die, they vanish.” That was the dark side of Akrod, the part they hid behind their fancy rules and white-dressed police officers. But I easily believed it to be true; this place approved of slavery, after all, so why not murder too?

Not that I would call this murder. Eight to one, they had jumped my mate, and that Kertinal had as good as admitted that he’d come back for me if this didn’t end tonight. Rex had done exactly as he should, defending me the way he’d promised.

“Let’s go home, my love,” I murmured into his chest. “We’ve got a bar to run tomorrow.” I was itching to get my hands on the books and fix all the things Drova had no doubt messed up, just as I was sure Rex was eager to take full control of the barroom and the menu now that he was the owner.

He smirked, his spots lightening from red to pink, and I knew I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight again. I couldn’t wait.