Alien Paladin's Redemption - Mina Carter Page 0,2
“Now those take some getting used to. Seen newbies take their own feet off the first time they used one. Bit of an… initiation you might say.”
She grinned and attacked again. After a week of inactivity, it felt good to be doing something again. To be fighting… working out… moving finally. And with all the food here, she felt good. Better than good. She’d never eaten so well—not back home and certainly not in prison—and it showed in the responses of her body.
Moving smoothly and fluidly, she swung the double-bladed staff at Aastan in a series of glittering arcs. Constantly moving and changing direction, it didn’t give him a chance to attack. All he could do was defend against the incoming strikes, each arc smaller and faster than the last. She grinned, feeling the strength in her muscles, the speed… it was exhilarating.
Aastan’s expression tightened, and she felt the shift in the air. The mood between them went from a man forced to play bodyguard, humoring his charge, to imperial warrior fighting for his life.
“Yes!” she caroled in triumph, breaking away only to attack again and this time dropping to the ground. Spinning, she swung a hard leg at both of his and grinned as he was forced to leap to avoid being taken to the ground. Damn, these alien soldiers were good. She might even bet on them on the streets against a protection squad… maybe not against a group of praetorians, the elite of the gang, but fuck, they’d screw up most and then some.
“You… are… draanth… you’re insane!” he hissed, performing a backward flip to get out of range and eyeing her like she was a cross between Armageddon and a cockroach.
She grinned. Now there was a look she was used to. She felt right at home now.
“I was told human females were sweet and gentle,” he grumbled, turning his own blade over his hand as he circled her.
She barked a laugh. “Yeah… maybe civvie ones, handsome. But I was born on the streets and I just got fucking meaner.”
That wasn’t the whole story, but she’d been born poor, and on Talax-Four that amounted to the same thing. The gangs ruled the streets. You lived by their rules or you disappeared. If you were lucky, they found your body in a back alley somewhere. If not… well, no one checked the district’s waste reclamation units. Hell, the way they smelled, no one even wanted to go near the things. Just over nine million crammed into a space meant for under half that? She’d grown up with the stink of others coating her skin and the insides of her lungs.
Not like now, though. She took a deep breath of the clean air, filtered courtesy of wonderful alien tech, and launched herself at her opponent again. He grunted, their blades clashing together as he blocked, holding his ground against the force and momentum of her attack.
“You’re meaner than a draanthing liiraas,” he hissed, throwing her off and slamming two hard strikes against her blade on the left. She caught them both, her block automatic.
Fighting had always been easy for her. It was the only way to survive. Her personal mantra was “be better than anyone else.” She might not be on Earth or any of its colonies anymore, but that didn’t change anything. It actually made it all the more important.
“Yeah,” she threw back with a hiss, “and I fucking bite, so don’t you forget it!”
She hadn’t missed the way these men looked at her, or any of the human women aboard. There were a few, rescued from some outer system colony, and the alien men looked at them all the same way—with a mixture of fascination, obsession and hunger. She knew they’d never seen women before… at least, not women who looked like they did… but fuck, she was beginning to feel like a goldfish. Or a snack. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
“I would not want you as a mate,” Aastan growled, throwing off her next attack and stalking to the opposite side of the circle painted on the floor. The Lathar didn’t bother with rings or fight cages. They just traced a big ol’ circle on the floor wherever they were and went for it. First blood didn’t mean jack. You lost if you were forced out of the circle. So far, to his obvious frustration, Aastan hadn’t managed it.
“Good for you,” she agreed amiably. “I’d make a crap wife. I don’t know how to cook and