Lexa and the Lost Warhorses

Book II: Flying Warhorse Chronicles


LEXA AND THE LOST WARHORSES

By

Jacki Bentley




Cover art by Alex DeShanks© copyright December 2008
ISBN 978-1-60394-248-5
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com



This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.








Chapter One


Alliance of Colonies, Capital City

465 years after settlement

The medical ship, Impke

“What is this about a clone, Prime Healer?”


Hane glowered at her under his handsome, dark eyebrows.

“It’s a reasonable next step.”

“No.”

“I ... can ... can’t help you if you do not cooperate.” Lexa Stoll restlessly fingered the tiny tabs on her opti-lenses to adjust them, and then gave him her sternest Prime Healer’s glare.

His gray eyes, under those perfectly shaped black brows darkened to ice-cold silver.

“You enunciate slowly and speak to me as if I am a child,” he said.

His voice rumbled through her, the commanding edge as sharp as hardened alloy. A sexual shiver shook her entire frame and Lexa hugged her slender arms to herself, hiding her hands in the long sleeves of her crisp, white healer’s robes.

“Healer?”

She stood; actually, she cowered behind her suspended desk. Its polished turquoise glass shimmered in the ship’s artificial light.

Whether his warrior’s training or some deep dread of being too close to her person, Hane stood stiff and still by her door, as far from her as possible while still being in her office.

Because of her pesky attraction to him, she cowardly had various Under Healers handle the routine care in the attempt to reverse his dangerous mutation, while she worked non-stop-fast in the lab looking for new things to try. The avoidance strategy saved her the pain from seeing him in person too often, from stammering like an idiot in his presence.

“Ah ... if ... you’ll let me explain--”

As she saw him now. As she stammered now.

With no warning he stormed to her door, and she had zero time to shore up her defenses against his sensual presence. Burning stars, he was compelling. Tall in height, dark and dangerous in looks. She could feel the pull of him from here. If he knew her secret, he would hate her. She shook her head sadly.

“Hane, it is certainly not my intent to treat you as a child, to push you in any way ... I assure you of that. I just lose my--”

“Patience?” he asked.

He studied her relentlessly. She’d never seen him this angry. Cold, calm and calculating under life and death pressure, yes, but the true heat of anger like this, not before.

“Indeed, you are known for your patience,” he continued.

She narrowed her eyes, gauging his meaning. Would he deliberately bate her? Try to annoy her on purpose? Her hackles rose. But he was above that, far too superhuman for that, with his long, long legs and his gray, scaly skin and striking bird-of-prey eyes and Alliance Guard uniform. Wasn’t he? Heavens, today his expression sparked and crackled with something dangerous.

“No need for masculine sarcasm.” She forced herself to speak. “I planned to say, focus. I meant, focus. You surprised me just dropping in ... like an avenging angel from the underworlds.”

He sought and held her gaze. “Hear me, Prime Healer Stoll. I will not be saved at the expense of a brother clone. You do not make the decision in this.”

She looked down, unable to endure his determined stare.

“A made man who is my brother by blood,” he said. “By. God. No.”

“I understand your--” she faced him again.

He tapped the side of his face, indicating the gray-blue scaling of his skin, reminiscent of some handsome, exotic reptilian species. His eyes fired with dark, molten passion. “I’d rather live out my days working in a freak show on some backward world than harm another human being with my cure.”

His bare words left no doubt.