Harper Barrett, Sector 437, MedRec Transport Station: Zenith, Latiri Star Cluster

      Dark hair. Intense green eyes. The man who’d been watching me from the other side of the bar for the last few minutes looked like every woman’s wet dream.

      Except he wasn’t a man. He was an alien.

      And this wasn’t a bar in downtown Los Angeles, where I grew up. This was Transport Station: Zenith, and every alien warrior in the room was at least six-six, battle hardened and freakishly strong. And those were the small ones.

      At five-ten I’d always felt tall. Too tall. Too blonde. Too pretty. Too female to be taken seriously. Men saw me, my blonde hair and D-cups, and assumed I was an idiot. But this alien? He looked mesmerized as he made his way over to me. He didn’t stop at the usual “polite” distance. No, he moved in close. Too close.

      “I have never seen hair this color,” he said, his hand coming up to brush a wayward lock behind my ear. “It is very beautiful.”

      I couldn’t help but laugh, glancing up at him through my lashes like the proverbial flirt. His teasing almost touch hadn’t even made contact with my skin, but my heart leapt into my throat anyway.

      This was insane. This guy was insane. Insanely hot. He was covered head to toe in some kind of black armor I had never seen before. Definitely not Coalition issue. And the silver band on his arm wasn’t familiar either. No officer or ranking insignia. No marker indicating he was part of the Coalition in any way. I knew every race in the Coalition Fleet, had dragged their injured off the battlefield to transport pads, healed them with ReGen wands, held their hands if they were dying. But this guy? He was different, and every cell in my body went on high alert.

      But the way the other warriors in the room avoided him? The way they watched him almost warily? Like he was a caged tiger? No, not