Reckoning Read online

  Her jeans and T-shirt were fine for fighting, but she debated whether to keep her boots on. Unsure how smooth the ground was, she opted to keep her boots on. “Okay, Commander, who do you want me to fight?”

  “Me.”

  Oh fuck! “Gotta tell ya, this is probably going to be a real short match.”

  He chuckled motioning her to follow him. “You don’t have to beat me — which you won't — just survive the match so I can assess your skills.”

  “Right, just survive?” Seeing others following closely behind, she turned to them, “Is that what he says to you too? Just survive?” They broke into laughter. Commander TylOR glared at them and immediately they stopped. Yeah, he was definitely a badass if a look shut these guys up. Sharon was in for a world of pain.

  They stood facing each other, and the individuals who followed formed a circle around them. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to take the guy down. He was seven feet tall and she was only five feet five inches. He was probably a good two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. She weighed...half that. Calling on every bit of training she had, she looked for weaknesses. Was being a freaking hulk a weakness?

  She tracked him as he paced around. He made a move to grab her but she ducked and rolled and got back up quickly. Okay, he was a little slower in his movements than she expected, which would allow her to keep some distance and possibly outrun him if she had to. What if she became trapped and couldn’t run?

  Maybe his stomach was softer than it looked. When he launched at her again, she dodged but tried to punch him in the middle. Oh fuck! His abs were hard as bricks. She shook her hand to make sure she could still move it.

  “Are you okay? Do you need to see a medic?”

  A medic was a doctor or sometimes even a scientist. “I’m fine.” She wouldn’t do that again.

  She suddenly whirled past him, momentarily confusing his sense of direction, and jumped on his back. She tried to hold his neck with her elbow, only his neck was too wide. Ha! Gotcha!

  With one hand, he reached behind him, grabbed her shirt, and threw her over his head and onto the ground. She landed on her back. All the air left her body for a moment. She lay there for a moment, stunned. With one hand, he did that.

  “Do you want to end this session to rest?”

  She really hated that smug expression on his face. “No.” She slowly got to her feet, feeling a little dizzy, but she straightened herself. “I’ll take it easy on you, Commander.”

  He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “I appreciate that, Miss Task.”

  As they circled each other, she knew he was going slowly to take it easy on her, which only infuriated her. Her father and grandfather had been teaching her how to fight since she was a little girl. Their favorite advice was “if you can’t go high, go low.”

  She didn’t wait for him to come at her this time. She ran at him and at the last moment went down like she was sliding to home base between his legs. She used her clasped hands to form a large fist and slammed his male package — hard. She came out of the slide and turned to watch the commander fall to his knees, clutching himself.

  The men watching were frozen for a moment, clearly unable to believe she could have caught their commander off guard; then, they cheered her on. She stood up, feeling the vibrations in her hand from the hard impact. Even the guy’s balls felt like a sack of rocks.

  He stood up slowly and faced her. She was shocked to see a smile on his face. “Well done, Miss Task. I think Prime Leader KadEN is ready to speak with you about the mission now.”

  “Do you need to see a medic?” she asked as they both walked slowly toward the prime building.

  “No, I’ll live. Hopefully my breeding ability has not been damaged, my mate wants another young.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Of course, you know not to remain if you do that to a male threatening you. Either take him out or get as far away as possible.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I must say, your military trained you well.”

  “Actually, I learned a lot of my fighting skills from my father and grandfather. They were both military men and wanted to make sure I could take care of myself.”

  “Well, they did an admirable job. I can use this to show my mate that our daughter should be taking lessons as soon as she walks.”

  Sharon smiled, “I can recommend it to her if you need me to. It’s good for females to know how to protect themselves.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  *****

  Lindsey patted her daughter on the back, burping her. “Did he have to be so rough with Miss Task?”

  Her mate KadEN came to the balcony and kissed her and their daughter. “He has to make sure she is equipped to handle whatever she may come across.”

  “I don’t like this, KadEN. That rebel leader contacts RendEL on Katiera wanting to talk about a truce. Then we get this encrypted signal from someone who says they are friends of StrykER and that the whole thing is a trap. Why are we sending anyone there at all?”

  “There’s more going on, and now with the Morinians on the Colonial planet, we have to see if this had to do with them as well. Who knew that the Morinians were a different part of the Morin people and that most of those who survived were women and children. Our medics are looking into the possibility they could have the answer to the breeding issues and the mutations.”

  “From what you said the encrypted message told you to not send a female.”

  “OrIN won’t agree unless a female is present. Finding one that could handle herself in a battle was crucial and Sharon took down the toughest warrior on Kiljor and Katiera. She’ll have protectors with her at all times.”

  “I just don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I, but if there is a way to bring OrIN in and get the other rebels under control, we’ll have a better chance to fight off anything that the Morins throw at us. They are still our biggest threat.”

  “I hope you’re right about this.”

  “Me too, honey, me too.”

  Chapter 3

  Sharon walked next to the tall commander as they headed to the suite of Kiljorn Prime Leader KadEN. She wished she could have changed her clothes or cleaned up a bit after that match with TylOR. Unfortunately, TylOR didn’t feel the need to offer her time to do that.

  They stopped at the end of the hallway and TylOR knocked on the door. It opened to a man of slightly smaller stature who was gorgeous, like movie star gorgeous. The men clasped forearms. Then as TylOR motioned for her to proceed, the gorgeous guy introduced himself.

  “Miss Task, I’m Prime Leader KadEN. Welcome to Kiljor.”

  “Thank you. Your city and your planet are beautiful.”

  She walked into a large foyer that was very simple but elegant. She followed KadEN down the foyer to an enormous living room. A very pretty brown-haired woman stood there holding a one-year old little girl with dark hair. The little girl wiggled to get out of her mother’s arms. The woman set her down and reached out a hand to Sharon as the little girl scooted across the room toward her father who bent to give her the kiss she wanted.

  “Hi, I’m Prima Lindsey, KadEN’s mate. This is our daughter KatENs. Welcome to our home. Have you had a chance to be shown anything here?”

  “Not yet. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have before leaving for this mission.”

  “Come and sit down please. I’ll get us some Katieran Juice. Our cook says that dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.” Just as she sat down, there was a knock at the door. KadEN went to answer it. She was surprised to see that Prime Leader KadEN and Prima Lindsey acted like a normal couple with a normal family. Primes and primas were like royalty — princes and princesses — on Earth.

  Two more men arrived and of course they were good looking. One had black hair and the other had dark blond hair. She stood as KadEN made the introductions.

  “Miss Task, let me introduce you to two of the males that
will be in charge of this mission. This is Lieutenant Commander LazAR and Lieutenant TanAR.”

  “Miss Task, good to meet you.” TanAR smiled at her. LazAR just gave her a nod. Both men were attractive. LazAR had the black hair and his personality so far came across as cold. TanAR had the dark blond hair that reminded her of sexy surfers on Earth and his smile was warm and friendly.

  She didn’t shake hands with either of them but smiled at each man. “It’s nice to meet you, and, please, call me Sharon.”

  Lindsey returned with a tray with glasses on it. Sharon took a glass and sat back down. She could see that her short hair had both men’s attention. Lieutenant Commander LazAR had a frown on his face and she could take a guess at the reason — she was female and Katierans didn’t like putting their females in danger. Whether Katieran or Kiljorn, they all acted the same way.

  “Prime Leader KadEN, what exactly is this mission?” she asked.

  “Prime Leader RendEL received a message from the Rebel leader OrIN. He wants to meet to discuss a truce.”

  A truce? She was a negotiator but she was sure they had people who could do these negotiations. She said as much. “I have experience with these things, but why would you choose me?”

  “He asked that a female be present during negotiations to keep tensions down and show our honest intent.”

  Lindsey snorted. “He thinks having a female, a weaker gender in his mind, would lessen tensions. I bet he hasn’t met Jaxon.”

  Sharon laughed because she had indeed met Prima Jaxon who had been over Lucy’s division. That woman was a beast. “So I guess you needed a female that could handle herself in these types of situations.” Also, she figured since they weren’t sending one of their own females, they wanted someone who was...dispensable.

  “We would prefer no female be involved at all,” Lieutenant Commander LazAR said, indicating he had clear doubts about the mission.

  Commander TylOR glared at the man. “I apologize for the Lieutenant Commander’s shortness. We take the safety of females and children seriously since we have lost so many of our kind.”

  KadEN chimed in to reduce the tension. “Prime Leader RendEL tried to decline sending a female but OrIN refused to have the meetings if a female wasn’t there.”

  “Why didn’t Prime Leader RendEL handle arranging everything from Katiera? I was already on Katiera.”

  “We had received a separate encrypted message from a rebel informant. He was more familiar with my interrogator StrykER and even helped him and StrykER’s mate Melody escape capture a few months ago. The informant trusts StrykER and wanted to ensure that the message was not lost.”

  “What was the message the informant sent?”

  “That somehow this was a trap, that the Morins were involved, but he didn’t have all the answers yet. The message was a warning to stay away.”

  “Why not refuse to meet with OrIN if it’s a trap?”

  KadEN looked at TylOR before he spoke. “Both our enemies have joined forces. This is an opportunity to find out how deeply their alliance runs and possibly what their intentions are.”

  “So…this could be a one-way mission?” She wasn’t stupid. They were sending her right into the hornet’s nest. There was more going on than what they were telling her. If this was back on Earth and she were working with the military again, the generals might be sending in a team to take out as many of the enemy as possible.

  Commander TylOR explained some of the details of the mission. “You will be traveling on board a Katieran transport but just you, Lieutenant Commander LazAR, Lieutenant TanAR and a handful of well-trained warriors will meet with OrIN. The team will get you out of there immediately when things go wrong.”

  When things go wrong, not if things go wrong. They were planning something and they weren’t going to tell her about it. It made sense — if she was captured, she couldn’t know too much or it would endanger their ulterior mission.

  “Who's your informant? Is he trustworthy?”

  Commander TylOR shook his head. “We’re keeping his identity a secret for now. He’ll let you know who he is if it is safe. Because of StrykER and Melody’s escape, all of the rebels close to OrIN are being heavily watched.”

  Sharon felt eyes on her. The males were probably expecting her to back out of it from fear. She was scared. Going into a situation without knowing every detail of what to expect and with the clear possibility she wouldn’t be coming back was not the ideal adventure she had in mind. From what she had heard from Jaxon and Lucy, OrIN was dead set against women from Earth breeding with Katierans.

  “This mission isn’t just about a negotiation. I’m a negotiator, but I’m going more as a distraction for whatever it is that you guys are really up too.”

  Lindsey snorted. “I told KadEN you wouldn’t be fooled by their little plans. I read your file and spoke with Jaxon and Lucy. You were the top hostage negotiator for the FBI. No one had a better record than you.”

  Sharon smiled. “I was an overachiever and many found that hard to deal with.”

  “Well, don’t let these guys here get to you. They come across bossy but they do mean well. I think the cook is ready for us to head to the dining room.”

  Sharon stood up and followed Lindsey and the baby down the hallway to an elegant dining room. The decor was a combination of the usual Kiljorn sleek smooth lines, but the colors were warm and welcoming. The pictures of islands hung on the walls made the atmosphere feel relaxing. The colors and décor was a good blend of both cultures—Earth and Kiljor.

  The rest of the evening went by smoothly with light conversation that didn’t really include the upcoming mission. They had three days to prepare for departure and she would have a chance to meet with StrykER and Melody to talk about their experiences so that she was ready for what she was walking into.

  She said her goodbyes to Lindsey and KadEN. Commander TylOR had left early to go home to his mate and child, or “young,” as they called their children. Lieutenant Commander LazAR also left early. Lieutenant TanAR remained and offered to escort her back to her suite.

  “You don’t have to walk me back. I know this place is big but I can figure out where to go.”

  “It’s my honor to see you back safely.”

  “Is that your official duty? My bodyguard?” By the look on his face, that was exactly his assignment. He would be her personal guard through the mission.

  “I will make sure you are safe at all times.”

  “You can’t promise that nothing bad will happen. That’s not how it works. When you deal with terrorists, you never know where their mind will go. Their intent might seem like no threat but it could turn deadly in the blink of an eye.”

  They stopped right outside her door. “It sounds like you have been in many dangerous situations before. Did you not have a male on Earth to take care of you?”

  “My father and grandfather wanted me to know how to handle dangerous situations because they didn’t want me to have to wait to be rescued.”

  “What about a mate? There was no one?”

  “I wouldn’t have left Earth if I had been in a relationship. I think you really want to know if I have any relationships now.”

  He seemed to blush. “I admit, I am attracted to you.”

  “You’re a handsome man, but I’m not interested in mating with anyone. Especially now that I am about to go on a dangerous mission and may not make it back.”

  “Lieutenant Commander LazAR is attracted to you as well. All the warriors coming with us to meet with OrIN are not mated. It could be a problem.”

  Oh...she thought she knew what he was getting at. “You’re saying…if I say you and I are dating or something, it might keep the other men’s minds off of me and on the mission.”

  He sighed in relief. “Yes, not that I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with you, but I agree starting a relationship during a mission like this wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “TanAR, are you sure you’re not the lead
in this mission? You have a commander’s way of strategizing.”

  “My father was a commander before he died in the Morin attack on Kiljor. I have wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. I learned everything I could from him, but I wish I could go to him from time to time to ask for his advice.”

  She suddenly threw her arms around his neck, surprising the hell out of him. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sure your father is very proud of how you turned out.”

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you. I will leave you to your rest. Tomorrow I will take you to meet with StrykER and his mate.”

  “I’m looking forward to it. I heard that StrykER has unique abilities.”

  “Yes, the mutation caused him to have very unusual abilities. Have a good rest, Miss Task.”

  “Call me Sharon, especially if we’re going to make the others think we are dating.”

  “Good night, Sharon.”

  “Good night, TanAR.”

  Chapter 4

  5 Days Later —Deep Space

  Sharon looked out the large viewing screen on the Katieran transport ship Intrepid. This was her third trip on board a transport. It was a huge spaceship, as big as a cruise liner, and it was fully armed with alien weaponry and small war ships. They had left Kiljor five days ago en route to the meeting place for negotiations with the rebel leader OrIN.

  Lieutenant TanAR had upheld his end by taking her to meet Kiljorn interrogator StrykER and his mate, a singer-songwriter from Earth named Melody Song. She had been warned that StrykER’s mutation gave him special abilities, but she hadn’t expected him to be able to read her like he did.

  StrykER entered the room and spoke with her for about ten minutes. His questions were intense and deliberate. His steely blue gaze took in her every move. It was like being trapped in a cage with a tiger that was watching for just the right time to strike out at her. She used all her training as a negotiator to keep calm, to not let any of his questions or behavior throw her off. Then, he smiled at her and the tension left the room immediately.