Page 7 of Healer Hunted

“Where do you think you’re going, you bitch?” Dumber demanded. He proved the validity of his nickname the next moment when he tried to stop my hovercart from moving and pressed the blatantly green button labeled ‘go’ in Aderian. He was holding onto the edge of the cart with his hand but when he effectively pressed on the gas, he yanked himself off his feet.

I, on the other hand, leaped forward with the cart’s sudden jerky motion and steered it right at the Rummicaron guard and Luka’s room. The bulky male leaped aside to avoid being run over and I slammed the cart to a stop and my palm to the door panel, making it swish open. Luka was right on the other side as if he’d heard the commotion and was waiting for me, ready for action.

His hands were around my waist, yanking me into the room, and the cart followed as it was programmed to. Only this time Dumber tried to follow, slamming into the hovercart, and the whole cart wedged itself inside the opening when it crazily spun around. Blocking access for both Dumber and the Rummicaron guard, who was growling with annoyance at all the ruckus.

“Now that’s certainly one way to make an entrance,” Luka drawled, his long-fingered hands still curled around my waist. He pulled me a little closer until my palms pressed against his chest, allowing me to feel the dense, heavy muscle beneath his dark red shirt, feel the heat radiating from him. “Are you alright Noa?”

I tilted my chin up to look at the sharp line of his jaw but I was too close to really see what he was thinking. His eyes were focused on the open door and Dumber who was cursing up a storm as he tried to unstuck the cart. When I looked, I realized that the Rummicaron had stepped back, arms crossed over his chest while he stared at Dumber with an open mouth. Yeah, that’s the kind of idiot we were dealing with here. Didn’t even understand the freaking hovercart.

“I see you still can’t tell the difference between your left and your right boot, can you Ceralion?” Luka drawled with a heavy dose of mockery. “Do you need a hand cousin?” the last he offered when Dumber made a frustrated growling noise and let go of the cart at last. I tried to hide my shock at Luka admitting a family connection with this sack of shit, but I caught a flash of amusement in his glittering black eyes.

“Fuck you, Lukalyn,” Dumber said, his left hand shooting up to make some kind of gesture. Tips of thumb and pinky touching, I’d seen that gesture a few times when Aderians were arguing or taunting each other. I had gathered that it meant something vulgar, like sticking out a middle finger was to me.

“Now that’s not nice, what did I ever do to you?” Luka drawled, and now his hands shifted on my waist, one hand curling to pull me to the side, pushing me back until I was behind him. I tightened my grip on my glue gun and stepped back, allowing Luka to stand in front of me. I didn’t like being dependent on anyone, but I wasn’t an idiot, if Luka wanted to get in the line of fire, I wasn’t stopping him.

Luka had taken on this casual pose as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but I saw the tension in his shoulder blades. Moving me back had triggered the hovercart to make another attempt at following me into the room. Now that Dumber wasn’t holding it, it actually could, its auto-rotating system allowing it to spin to align properly with the door. As soon as the cart cleared the doorframe, Dumber stomped inside after it, and my skin immediately started to crawl, feeling like it was covered in muck, as if I was sinking into a swamp of terror.

He was grinning, sharp canine teeth on display, “Do to me? Like you don’t know, you smug asshole. You think you’re so much better than me! But look who’s locked up? Who’s the one with the power now?”

Luka didn’t say anything, just looked at his cousin, as far as I could tell from behind his back. Dumber shuffled on his feet, his glare intensifying, he was uncomfortable, he didn’t know how to deal with Luka. He was probably not allowed to lay hands on his cousin. The Dragon might have locked up her son, but I doubted anyone was allowed to hurt him.

That proved to be true when Luka took a step forward and Dumber stepped back, and the more he stepped back, the more the nasty feeling on my skin started to fade. By the time Luka had made Dumber back up out of the suite, I was back to feeling almost normal, except for the fact that I really wished Luka would come back and hold me again. Yikes, that pheromone dependency sucked.

“Yeah, thought so,” Luka said, and then he closed the door right in his cousin’s face. It was a priceless moment and I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight. Luka had just made Dumber back off without even a hint of violence, just that calm confident approach, calling Dumber’s bluff. It was sexy as hell, I couldn’t believe he’d just done that.

Luka turned slowly, his face creased into a wide smile, “That was fun. You should visit more often. It’s never boring with you.” I glowed with the compliment because I could tell it was both a joke and something he genuinely meant. I was starting to think I had really misjudged Luka that first day.

“I’m sorry you have to experience the unpleasant company of my cousin Ceralion. He hasn’t got that many brain cells to rub together, but he certainly knows how to apply them to be nasty.” The dry delivery of those words had me laughing again, my hands clutching at my midriff as I enjoyed Luka’s assessment of Dumber’s intellect.

“I call him Dumber,” I hiccuped at him, a little embarrassed at the outpouring of emotion. This was stress relieving itself, had to be, I was acting like a lunatic. This had been kind of funny, but not crying from laughter kind of hilarious.

Luka chuckled, the sound causing goosebumps to break out across my skin, it sounded so pleasant. “Dumber? That’s a good fit, he’s never amounted to much but it seems to have gotten worse.” Not surprising, there were probably many things Dumber did that weren’t going to improve his intellect. From drugs to getting into fights, and the head stomps Dumb gave him.

“So he’s your cousin?” I asked, my eyes roving over Luka’s face as I tried to see the family connection. They were both handsome, but Luka had such a classical face, it looked aristocratic, even refined. While Dumber just… He was attractive looking but he didn’t have any of that polish.

I still didn’t know if I could see any family resemblance, not the way you could with Dumber and Dumb. When I pointed this out, Luka laughed, “We’re only related by marriage. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Aurelion around as well have you? Cerelion’s older brother.”

Ah, that had to be Dumb. “I think so, long hair, scar on his face? Also not too bright? I call him Dumb, they make one hell of a duo.” Luka was nodding along, a grin on his face, but he walked over to the table where a tray of food still waited and gestured at.

“I demanded more food, so I could feed you, would you like anything from this?” he gestured at the spread of breakfast options. My stomach rumbled on cue, and just the sight of freshly baked bread had me convinced. I picked up my list of tasks for the day and pushed it into his hands, “Your mother is riding us really hard today, there’s a special guest coming in five days.”

Then I tore a chunk of the bread and stuffed my face with it, ignoring everything else in the room while I ate my first decent meal since I’d woken up on this planet. The bread was perfect, and the fruit jellies supplied sweet and sour. Luka had even left a few links of some kind of spicy sausage and I devoured all of those. Since I’d been forced to work here, I’d done more hard physical labor on fewer carbs, I’d lost weight. So I was happy for some easy carbs now, I could use them.

“That’s not good,” Luka said, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw that he was intently perusing the task list, “This is a lot of work, and you were really sick yesterday.” Then he glanced at the cart of supplies, “At least let me clean up my own room.” I stared after him as he sorted his supplies and headed for the bathroom to tackle that. It wasn’t all that dirty, I’d cleaned it yesterday, but I still watched over his shoulder as he used my cleaning tools with apparent ease. “I clean my own med bay usually, I know what I’m doing.”

I backed up, found a spot on the couch, and sat down. Okay, Luka knew how to clean, and he was sexy when he was confident and kicked Dumber out of his suite. His pet monkey was cute too, it suddenly popped up on the back of the couch and slowly approached, head tilted to the side as he watched me. When I made a cooing sound at it, he came closer and started grooming my hair.

With a sigh I closed my eyes and leaned back, a little nap wouldn’t hurt, I still had so much left to do. I fell asleep immediately, my body relaxing more fully than it had in all this time, trusting Luka to keep me safe.

*

Luka

She’d fallen asleep, no wonder, because she still had dark circles beneath her eyes. We’d come a long way since we first met, from her skittish behavior to what already felt like she trusted me. Learning that I was a captive here had certainly gone a long way, but having to tell her that she’d somehow become dependent on my scent? That hadn’t done me any favors.

I didn’t entirely understand the phenomenon, but I had my suspicions. Without access to a database to do some research, without a lab to verify the results, I had no way to know for sure. It was unheard of for this kind of thing to happen outside of our species or even within our species, but I was starting to think that it had. Maybe my gladiator friends had taught me more than just a few fighting skills, I certainly couldn’t deny just how strongly I was attracted to the prickly female sleeping on my couch.

Done with the bathroom, I hurried to make my bed with military precision before dusting as I’d seen Noa do. It seemed excessive, all this work every single day. On the Vagabond Da’vi and Akri had worked to program cleaning bots to do most of the work, and everyone else was responsible for their own private spaces, while we took turns cleaning the mess hall and galley. All this decadence surrounding me right now was just making me feel guilty, it made me hate this resort even more than I already did.