Maddison, Karly - Time Slip [The Xephon Alliance 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Karly Maddison Read Free Book Online Page A

Truth was he’d manipulated it to suit himself, but more importantly to spare her from that moody pilot who had asked for her and the disaster that would have led to.
    “If you really don’t like me, I will never touch you again…but that will make life eternally dull for both of us. It’s obviously going to be your call, isn’t it? I was already assigned to have no pairing due to my age…that was before you hashed your way through two partnerings…so you see, you are an unexpected bonus, though I fear you might really be a curse if you are going to make trouble all of the time.”

    * * * *

    Kash absorbed everything he said. It was hard to argue with any of it.
    “Just exactly how old are you?” She’d been wondering about his age for some time. What was the cutoff age for the Xephons to be assigned a female, she wondered? With thirty of them to twenty-one Earth women, it left nine Xephon males unpartnered.
    “Forty-four.”
    “Bullshit!”
    “There goes that potty mouth again.” He raised an eyebrow at her as he plunked her down on the couch. He didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Just exactly how long were these people’s life spans? Seemed a bit mean that the older guys missed out. Hell, what was she thinking? Siding with the Xephons? This scheme of partnering was crazy. Or was it? What if they really were stuck here forever?

Chapter Six

    Home seemed a long way away right now. She was used to being an educated and liberated Earth woman. She was used to the power her education and knowledge gave her when she was in familiar Earth systems, and the respect it commanded there. Here, she had nothing. The captain told her what to do, and she jumped through his hoop. Tinny snatched at her resting hand suddenly and enveloped it in his much larger one, pulling her up.
    “Come wif me to the meal,” he said in his faulty English. Was it evening already? Obediently, she followed him down to the dining hall where the mixed crews assembled to eat at such times. He sat up at the top, near the captain, with her against him on the left, a completely different scenario from her last meal. He had high rank here, though she didn’t really understand their ranking system, apart from who the captain of their vessel was. She caught site of Lunox and Tipha further down the table, staring at her curiously and giving Tinny pitying looks that he didn’t bother to acknowledge.
    Plates with some kind of steaming, cooked grain, similar to rice with a yellowish tint to it and a slightly nutty taste, passed along the table. Kash ate her whole plateful. A few pieces of fruit rolled toward them from further down the table. Tinny grabbed a red orb and started to cut it, then passed her half. It tasted like a peach. She ate with relish. When he saw how much she enjoyed it, he passed her his untouched piece. She hesitated for a moment then ate it hurriedly.
    Down the table, she noticed some of the paired females were fawning over their Xephon males, while a few sat sullen beside their nervous-looking partners. Had they been arguing? Perhaps they would grow to like each other or request a repairing. Not that she would ever grow to like Tinny or want to be paired again. Her legend had gone around the ship, and nobody wanted her after Lunox and Tipha had tried. She’d been advised by captain to make an effort with Tinny or end up with nothing. She preferred nothing.
    She glanced at him as she munched her peach fruit. He discussed something with the captain. Might he be second-in-command here? Or third? They conversed in their own language, and it gave her no clues to the goings on of the Xephon vessel. She had not bothered to learn Xephon tongue, though almost all of the males had bothered to learn the dominant Earth language at some stage in their pasts. She had to give them some credit for doing that.
    She watched his expressive hands, covered in tight, black gloves with round holes at the knuckles and no glove-fingers. His talons