Alien Paladin's Redemption - Mina Carter Page 0,3

I’m a fucking shrew.”

“This shrew must be formidable indeed.”

“Nasty as fuck,” she agreed. “The female eats her mate after sex... or if he pisses her off.”

He circled her, his heavily booted feet silent on the metal deck beneath them. She watched him closely, alert for the tiniest movement of his body that indicated which way he would attack. Of course, that meant she got an eyeful of his tall, heavily muscled… ripped… warrior’s body. Fuck’s sake, were any of the Lathar ugly?

They were all centerfold worthy, panty-wettingly hot and they definitely had a thing about leather. In the couple of days she’d been aboard the Izal’vias, she hadn’t seen any of them wear anything else. Leather pants, leather jackets, boots made of some kind of heavier leather. She’d even seen a couple of guys in leather cloaks that brushed the floor as they walked.

Aastan wasn’t one of the leather-cloak types, but he was just as hot as the rest. Not dangerous hot like Madison’s new hubby or that mercenary captain but more… cute hot. If these alien guys weren’t so heavily into the “I dos” so damn quickly, she’d totally have climbed him like a damn tree. But... yeah, she wasn’t into commitment. If she let people get close, they died. Or left. The end result was the same. She was left on her own.

Aastan’s eyebrows winged up and she spotted the movement a second before he made it—the slightest clench of muscle in his left pec before he launched himself at her. The amusement fell from her face as she matched his rapid-fire volley of strikes, forced to block hard and fast until she was almost on the edge of the circle. With a snarl, he knocked aside her blade with a complicated wrist movement. It clattered across the floor, out of reach.

“You’re good,” she commented, lifting her chin as his blade kissed the side of her throat.

A deep sense of calm fell over her, even though she’d been beaten. If he decided to slit her throat, she couldn’t do a damn thing about it, so she focused on the move he’d used to beat her. That totally shouldn’t have worked. If she’d tried it, she’d have broken her wrist. Which left one possibility… the Lathar had freaky double joints or something.

Slow clapping from behind her broke through the staring contest she had going with Aastan, and he started, his gaze sliding past her.

“Now that you’ve proven yourself a worthy warrior, Aastan, are you done? Because I really would rather you didn’t slit my friend’s throat, especially not just before lunch,” Madison Cole said dryly.

He coughed, color high on his cheeks as he yanked his blade away from Indra’s throat, sliding it into the sheath across his back in a swift move.

“Yes, Lady K’Vass, of course. And I can assure you, the Lady Indra was in no danger at any point,” he replied, his tone vaguely offended.

Indra rolled her eyes.

“Lady Indra now, is it? Not too long ago you were calling me a liiraas, whatever that is when it’s at home. Now you want to get all nice and formal?”

She huffed as she turned and stomped out of the circle to scoop up her blade. Winking at Madison, she strode over to the weapons rack at the side of the hall. Replacing her s’tovik with the others, she turned to offer Aastan a formal bow, a holdover from long-ago training in the dojo on Nebulae street down on southside.

“Thank you for the training session. Same time tomorrow?”

The look on Aastan’s face said he’d rather scrub the engineering deck with his toothbrush, but he nodded sharply and gave her a small bow in return. “It would be my honor, Lady Indra.”

Straightening up, he stalked from the room, back ramrod straight. Since Madison had arrived to relieve him, his babysitting duties were over, and it seemed he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“I see you’re making friends,” Madison commented with a smile.

Indra sauntered over with a grin.

“I see you’re still taking the Latharian fashion world by storm,” she threw back, nodding to Madison’s dress. Like the rest of her wardrobe, it was made of Latharian fabric, but unlike a “normal” Latharian gown with flowing skirts and draped lines, it was tailored like a Terran power suit—the kind Madison had been wearing in every promo image of her Indra had ever seen.

Mads shrugged. “If you know what works for you, why reinvent the wheel?”

“Good point.”

The former vice president looked down at