Bad Kitty: Chronicles of the Malcolm, #2

By Teresa Noelle Roberts

Fighting slavers? Piece of cake! Assassins? Exciting! Love? Terrifying!

Ever since felinoid Xia used the lethal skills she was forced to learn as a kitten, a darkness inside her clamors to be fed. Helping Rahal Mizyar, the felinoid warlord of Cibari, take out slavers will feed that darkness while doing good. Besides, Rahal Mizyar is insanely sexy. The devil’s bargain she made—to work for him and share his bed in exchange for his protection for the Malcolm’s crew—is going to be hot.

Rahal suspects Xia is his mate, but raised by humans, she isn’t familiar with the concept. So he’s determined to make her fall hard and fast for him. That means playing up his bad-ass image and not confessing he became warlord through guile, not violence.

Private lawman Cal Janssen has been hired to learn if Xia is the long-missing granddaughter of the felinoid prime minister. He’s tracked her to Cibari but isn’t sure how he’s going to make contact with her in the warlord’s palace—until someone mistakes him for notorious arms dealer/interplanetary playboy Karn the Viking Anders. Cal’s not sure which is more astonishing: being recruited to help with Cibari’s nascent law enforcement in his disguise as Karn or being seduced by Rahal and Xia. The latter is definitely more fun.

Xia’s in cat-girl paradise, with two adoring men who are also crazy about each other, and a good excuse to kick evil asses.

Then Xia realizes she’s fallen in love with two men who don’t exist. And running away may be a deadly mistake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teresa Noelle Roberts
• Release date: Apr 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386554554

Book preview

Bad Kitty

Book 2 in the Chronicles of the Malcolm Series

––––––––

Teresa Noelle Roberts

Bad Kitty

Teresa Noelle Roberts

Copyright © 2015 by Teresa Noelle Roberts

Cover Design: Kanaxa

Published by: Teresa Noelle Roberts, Mansfield, MA

Inquiries should be addressed to Teresa Noelle Roberts.

mailto:teresanoelleroberts@verizon.

http://www.teresanoelleroberts.com

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Publishing History

1st digital edition / 2015 (Samhain Publishing)

2nd digital edition / 2017

(No substantial changes were made to the text from 1st to 2nd edition.)

Please respect the hard work of this author by not providing someone else with a copy of your file. This book is lendable. Share your love for this book and others by lending the book through the vendor, not by making a copy and giving it to someone else.

Fighting slavers? Piece of cake! Assassins? Exciting! Love? Terrifying!

Ever since felinoid Xia used the lethal skills she was forced to learn as a kitten, a darkness inside her clamors to be fed. Helping Rahal Mizyar, the felinoid warlord of Cibari, take out slavers will feed that darkness while doing good. Besides, Rahal Mizyar is insanely sexy. The devil’s bargain she made—to work for him and share his bed in exchange for his protection for the Malcolm’s crew—is going to be hot.

Rahal suspects Xia is his mate, but raised by humans, she isn’t familiar with the concept. So he’s determined to make her fall hard and fast for him. That means playing up his badass image and not confessing he became warlord through guile, not violence.

Private lawman Cal Janssen has been hired to learn if Xia is the long-missing granddaughter of the felinoid prime minister. He’s tracked her to Cibari but isn’t sure how he’s going to make contact with her in the warlord’s palace—until someone mistakes him for notorious arms dealer/interplanetary playboy Karn the Viking Anders. Cal’s not sure which is more astonishing: being recruited to help with Cibari’s nascent law enforcement in his disguise as Karn or being seduced by Rahal and Xia. The latter is definitely more fun.

Xia’s in cat-girl paradise, with two adoring men who are also crazy about each other, and a good excuse to kick evil asses.

Then Xia realizes she’s fallen in love with two men who don’t exist. And running away may be a deadly mistake.

Dedication

As always, for Jeff. I blame thank you more for this book than for all the others. You introduced me to anime and manga. The rest is history.

Table of Contents

Chronicles of the Malcolm Glossary

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Acknowledgements

A Taste of Thrill-Kinky (Chronicles of the Malcolm 1)

A Taste of Buck,Naked (Chronicles of the Malcolm 3)

Other Books by Teresa Noelle Roberts

Chronicles of the Malcolm Glossary

Banjal: A low-gravity planet inhabited by winged, humanoid sentients. Banjal is the primary manufacturer of neurorelays, since the sensitive technology is best assembled in low gravity.

Bellaphor fainting nuns: The cloistered nuns of the Bellaphor order are reputedly so holy and/or naïve that they will swoon at the mere mention of sex or violence.

Blemond: Blemondians resemble stocky, thick-necked humans except for their eyes, which have slit pupils. Their blood, however, is green. Blemondians have a reputation for being adept at science and technology.

Chillpills: Common light recreational drug, illegal but tolerated on many planets, legal on others. About as intense as marijuana.

Cibari: Planet equally famous for its gemstone mines and its ongoing civil strife. Most of the planet has fallen into anarchy. Slightly less disgusting than Lysander, but just as dangerous.

Clariito roses: These rare flowers are luminescent. They have thorns and they’re fragrant, but otherwise they don’t resemble Earth roses at all.

Com-pads, aka coms: About sixty-five generations beyond our cell phones and tablets, these are slightly dated technology in the Malcolm’s universe. Anyone with enough credits now uses neurorelays to communicate and access the Galaxinet if their physiology permits. (Coms have stuck around because certain species can’t use neurorelays.) See neurorelay.

Delebrians: Reptilian aliens with scales and snakelike heads. They come off as cranky to most other species because of their hissing voices.

Delebrian ducks: They’re the only non-reptilian creatures on Delebria, and everything else regards them as dinner. Unlike ducks on most planets, these ducks have developed sharp, fanged beaks and quick tempers, and will often attack first. Hence, madder than a Delebrian duck.

Dirtside: Spacer slang for on-planet.

Driftdwell: Low-life scum. Derived from the fact that the very few organisms that can survive while drifting in the vacuum of space have neither roots nor brains to speak of.

Expansion: The period of human migration from Old Earth to other planets. Pre-Expansion refers to the time when humans lived only on Old Earth.

Felinoids: The Standard term for natives of Mrrwr, who have catlike ears and tails and retractable claws. The people of Mrrwr have given up trying to get other species to pronounce their own name for themselves, Mrrwr’wrn, and now use the Standard term whenever they speak with people from off-planet. Felinoids have also embraced the colloquial cat-girl or cat-boy, which appeal to their mischievous natures.

Folasking: Banjali curse word, about the intensity of damn.

Furagi: A native of the lush, tropical planet of Furag. Furagis have fair skin and blue hair. They also have exceptionally quick tempers, which their meditative spiritual practices aim to control. Furagi society is divided into two castes, priests and warriors. Not every member of a caste enters its traditional profession. However, all young people are tattooed with their caste’s traditional symbols.

Galaxinet: Similar to the Internet but even more all-pervasive—and often transmitted directly into one’s brain.

Gingoids: Small marsupials with reptilian characteristics and vestigial wings that, like rats on Earth, infest the alleyways and dumps of some planets.

Glaspoid: Vicious but tasty reptilian creatures with particularly foul feces. Everyone loves to eat roast glaspoid, but no one actually wants to get near a living one.

History-flash or simply flash: Retro fashion—really retro, as in 17th- to 19th-century Earth—complete with capes, bucket boots, brocade, panniers, corsets and even swords. Often history-flash fashions are worn with no regard to which gender would have worn a particular style originally. Heavily influenced by 20th-century swashbuckler movies, which are enjoying a revival.

Horslek: A small flying creature native to the planet Onar. Horsleks have tiny, black-tipped sensory appendages covering their bodies and from a distance appear to be spotted. Someone skilled with a laserpistol theoretically could shoot the spots off an Onari horslek, though few people can actually do so.

Huthar: These amphibian natives of the damp planet Hutha have froglike faces and extremely long, agile tongues, which they can use for everything from snatching a snack to wielding a small weapon.

Hypermarket: A supermarket meets a big-box store meets a vehicle dealership. Everything under one roof, including, on some planets, hookers.

Lasercannon: A laser-based distance weapon. The larger ones can blow up asteroids, not to mention spaceships.

Laserpistol: A hand weapon that uses precisely measured laser bursts instead of solid ammunition—very useful if you need to fight on a spaceship.

Lysander: Arguably the armpit of the galaxy, this planet not only tolerates slavery, child prostitution, dangerous drugs and murder-for-hire, among other vices, it encourages them.

Marl, marling: This curse word is about as rude as dropping an F-bomb but lacks any sexy, fun meanings. It conveys a degree of bad somewhere between a smelly plumbing backup and a life-support system glitching in deep space.

Medicos: Combine the roles of Old Earth doctors and EMTs.

Nashbet: Officious, boring person. Literally a small, burrow-dwelling rodent found on Banjal and neighboring planets and by extension, someone stuck on the ground, not reaching for the stars.

Neurorelay: Technology implanted directly into the brain that allows instantaneous communication and access to the Galaxinet.

Regen: Short for regeneration, a medical procedure in which healing is accelerated to regrow damaged tissue at a rapid rate, usually in a tank of nutritive fluid. Regeneration of organs and limbs is possible if you have the credits to pay for such extensive work.

Rodrantia: Rodrantians follow a strict code of honor that makes that of Old Earth samurai look laid-back. Adult Rodrantians carry a tiny, exceptionally sharp blade known as an honor-dagger to facilitate suicide in case of situations in which the choice is death or dishonor. The planet is also known for its blue wine.

San’bal: This desert planet is inhabited by striped quadraped sentients. The planet’s main exports are raw materials for neurorelays (primarily to Banjal) and romance novels and holos. Love and sexuality feature prominently in San’balese religion and the festival of Kenu Aram is both a religious holiday and a wild, erotic party that attracts tourists from throughout the galaxy.

Sexytime(s): Exactly what it sounds like (spacer slang).

Smoothstyle: Elegant, expensive high fashion, and by extension, the lifestyle implied by such clothes.

Standard (language): The language commonly used for trade and interspecies communication around the galaxy. Contains elements of English and numerous human and alien languages. Most people of all species know at least a little Standard; many humans speak it as a primary language.

Standard year/day, etc.: A Standard year, day and other time measurements are arbitrarily based on the Old Earth unit. Each planet has solar years and days of different lengths, but using the Galaxinet, everyone can translate between their own planet’s time and Standard.

Synthsilk: A laboratory creation—product of DNA manipulation—that is a precise chemical match for the extremely rare biosilk spun by silkworms. Only distinguishable from biosilk by the lack of biosilk’s subtle fragrance and a slightly inferior texture.

Thermasheets: Embedded nanotechnology allows these sheets to adjust to the ambient temperature and the sleeper’s body, warming or cooling as needed. Thermasheets have made blankets a luxurious indulgence rather than a necessity in all but the coldest regions.

Vega system: All the inhabited planets in this solar system are known for their rigid morality, enforced by strict religious laws. Violations of their sexual code incur especially draconian penalties.

Xaquan: The dominant sentient species of the planet Xaqua’a has three physical sexes—male, female and shafti—and so many apparent variants of gender expression that outsiders have pretty much given up trying to figure it out. Xaquan pronouns define neither gender nor biological sex.

Xylac: A planet known for its extremely spicy food; violent, convoluted and tragic holo dramas; and summary justice. Its horned humanoid inhabitants resemble the demons of Old Earth lore, but are affable unless given reason to be otherwise.

Zap stunner: This handheld device delivers a nonlethal but disabling electrical charge from a distance of up to 100 meters. The zapped person is rendered unconscious and remains groggy and uncomfortable for about an hour after coming to.

Zelacxi nest: Zelacxis are among the few nonsentient creatures that kill for sport, rather than hunger. They will frequently slaughter their own young and mates, so a zelacxi nest is nowhere you want to be.

Zipbike: A solar-powered vehicle, usually for one person, that resembles a motorcycle but travels a few inches above the ground most of the time.

Prologue

Fourteen Standard Years Ago, An Alley on Lysander

Xia licked her bloodied right claws with a small, slightly bristled pink tongue, then made a face. Nastynastynasty nasty. Not only was he a bad man, like her trainer Olo told her, a man who liked to hurt little girls like her (and most little girls on Lysander didn’t have claws and fangs to defend themselves like she did, or Olo to teach them how to do it), he’d been taking some drug that made his blood taste icky. She’d tasted human blood before. It was surprisingly tasty, no worse than blood from prey. But this man’s blood was bitter. She had a feeling that if she had more than that tiny taste, she’d end up getting sick.

She might just get sick anyway. All the blood. This driftdwell wasn’t her first kill, but he was her first human target, the closest yet to her own species. The Delebrian hadn’t bled nearly this much. Besides, he had scales, so she could pretend he was just a snake, ordinary prey. He’d even tasted a bit like one when she’d cleaned the blood off her claws and hands. The Blemondian’s blood had been green, so it didn’t seem like blood she had to think much about. He was prey, like the gingoids she caught in the alleys when Olo hadn’t given her enough to eat. Human blood was red, though, just like a felinoid’s. Like hers. No way she could pretend this prey wasn’t a sentient like her, even if he was a terrible person who hurt other kids. (And probably did a lot of other bad things too, if someone hired Olo and his team to get rid of him.)

Besides, this blood wasn’t all from the target.

Olo had said to let him get close, do whatever she had to do to lure him. Just like the other times, only this one had been on his guard, so she had to let him touch her. Do things to her. He’d said sickly sweet things to her while he touched her, but hurt her worse than Olo and the others ever had when they were trying to make her strong. They’d only hurt her on the outside, but this was inside and it hurt a lot.

Xia thought she might cry. But tough felinoids didn’t cry. She was seven. Nearly a grown-up, they told her, although she was still awfully small compared to Olo and the other adults. But Olo was big even for a Furagi, and she was a felinoid. It had been so long since she’d seen an adult of her species that she couldn’t remember how tall they got, but people said they were on the small side. So she was almost a grown-up, and grown-ups didn’t cry.

It would be all right to sit down, wouldn’t it? Her legs were awfully shaky. She really, really, really wanted to clean herself, but she wasn’t sure she dared. The drugs the bad man had been taking hadn’t done him much good—he’d been as easy to kill as a gingoid, once she got him to let down his guard—and she was small enough it wouldn’t take much to affect her. The blood on her tail was hers, though, so she could get that off. She hated the taste of her own blood, but at least it wouldn’t poison her.

She usually tried to move gracefully, like they taught her; it made her look harmless so she could sneak up on someone better. But when she went to sit, she buckled and hit the dirty, bloody pavement with a thump.

Pain jarred through her. The bad man had definitely hurt her, and the pain wasn’t going away like Olo said it would. And she needed to get clean because, even on Lysander, walking around all covered with blood from the tail to her knees would draw unwelcome attention.

Hey, little one. Are you all right? She turned with a start at the deep, rumbly voice.

It was a nice voice, almost like purring, but the voice’s owner was a Furagi. An even bigger Furagi than Olo, with spiky blue hair and skin almost as pale as the white tip of her left ear, at least where she could see his skin between complicated dark blue tattoos. Even his face had barred tattoos on it, which made him look even scarier than Olo. His eyes were purple, and they looked angry, but not at her. Since he was Furagi, the not at her helped only so much. They had awful tempers, and when they lost them, they couldn’t always tell friend from foe.

Yeah. Fine. She tried to sound brave. She tried to sound like a grown-up. But she knew her voice was shaking like she was a baby kitten about to cry.

What was she supposed to say if someone found her with a body? Olo had told her something to say, but she couldn’t remember.

The Furagi was getting closer. She bet Olo had sent him to check up on her, and if she didn’t say the right thing, she’d get beaten. Again.

Something snapped in Xia’s brain. Never again. I’ve killed three grown-ups for them, ones they were scared to go after because they couldn’t sneak up on them like I can. I’m not going to let them hurt me anymore.

She forced herself to her shaking legs. The alley dead-ended at a building. She’d chosen it for that reason. But she couldn’t get out past the Furagi. Not unless she went up.

Luckily she could do that.

She’d run toward the Furagi to gain speed. At the last minute, she’d veer off and leap for the window ledge to the left. She couldn’t get that high, but thanks to the haphazard way they’d thrown together concrete blocks to put up the building, there were plenty of handholds for someone as agile as she was.

At least that was her plan.

Instead, she ran into a shadow made solid, a man made of darkness.

No, he wasn’t made of darkness and shadow, not really. He was just a dark-skinned human in black clothes, including a cloak that made him blend into the night—a human who smelled fresh and clean, like he hadn’t been on-planet long enough for the filth of Lysander to seep into his skin. She couldn’t help it; she inhaled deeply, enjoying that smell.

Didn’t mean he was a friend, though. When he grabbed her, she struggled, popped out her claws.

Easy there, kitten, the man said.

Not a kitten, she hissed.

Even though she felt very much like one in his firm grasp. Not in a bad way, though. More like she could trust this person to take care of her.

Right, like that was going to happen. She was so exhausted it was making her dumb. She couldn’t trust anyone, and no one would take care of her except her.

She raised a clawed hand. She’d killed one human tonight. It would be nothing to slash his throat.

Then she looked into his eyes. They were gray, and as they gazed at her, they turned from steely and remote to kind. She remembered someone’s gray eyes looking at her that way, sometime in her blurry past. Those remembered eyes hadn’t been dull human eyes in a face with boring little ears, but eyes like hers, eyes with pupils that could be round or slitted, depending on the light. The man smelled human, was human, so he couldn’t be the person she dimly remembered as a safe haven. But the eye color was right.

Dad? Her voice sounded younger than it usually did, like a kitten who was just learning to talk. He couldn’t be her dad, couldn’t be anyone related to her. But it felt right.

Don’t think so, kitten. Name’s Mik, the human said. He had a funny accent, like the people Olo laughed at and called back-system hicks, but his voice was kind. My friend’s Gan. Do you have family here? Someplace safe we can take you? It looks like you’ve had a rough night.

Xia thought about Olo and the other syndicate trainers. About their cruelty, not just the beatings and the dark, dank room where they locked her or the other trainees sometimes, but all the petty things they did to make the trainees miserable so they’d be meaner. About the way they’d let her be hurt tonight. She’d thought of them as her family, but they weren’t, were they? She’d had a dad of her own once, with silvery gray eyes the color of this human’s, and a mom. She couldn’t remember her mom clearly, but she’d had one. Mom had a sweet voice and a lovely tail and maybe golden eyes like her own...

The memory faded as quickly as it came, leaving her even more lost than before. But she knew one thing. No family here, Mr. Mik, Mr. Gan. She still wouldn’t look at the big Furagi, but his voice had sounded like purring and he was friends with kind, sweet-smelling Mik, so maybe he was all right. And no place is safe. You’re a grown-up. You should know that.

The dark man pulled her closer, lifted her off her feet. It didn’t feel like he was afraid she’d escape. Could he actually be hugging her?

Adults touching you never ended well. She hurt inside, to prove it.

She tried to squirm away. The dark man set her down on the ground, quickly but gently. I see you don’t care to be held too close, he said, sounding like he was talking to a grown-up. I was a mite forward, seeing as we’ve just met, and I apologize for that. I thought that maybe you might need some help, seeing that you’re bleeding.

I can walk. Never let them know you’re hurt. Then they’ll try to hurt you worse.

But it sounded pleasant to be carried by this man. His eyes looked so familiar, even though she’d never seen him before. She’d remember a dark-skinned human with clear gray eyes. A lot of humans lived on Lysander, and they came in all kinds of coloring, but that combination was unusual. Unusual but at the moment comfortable.

Even the Furagi wasn’t so scary now that she’d relaxed a little. He was big and had a lot of tattoos, but his tattoos were different from Olo’s and his mean buddies’. Except for the bars on his cheeks, his tattoos were pretty: birds and waves and something that looked like flowers, even though he was definitely a boy Furagi. Well, a man, but close to a boy, still young, with a softness in his violet eyes now when he looked at her or the human Mik, though he’d been angry enough to boil water when he first came upon her. He had a pleasant smell too, like milk and sunshine.

All her training told her she should bolt, hurting the two men if necessary.

Instead, she drew a little closer to the dark human called Mik, held up the less bloody of her hands. You can’t carry me, she said as proudly as she could. I’m a grown-up. But you can hold my hand if you’d like.

The dark man crouched down so he could look her in the eyes. I’d like that, Miss...what’s your name?

Xia.

Xia, he repeated.

She sighed inwardly. No one ever got it right. It had been so long since she’d heard her name pronounced with the correct lilt and the accent on the second syllable that she had to repeat it to herself to remember the syllables weren’t supposed to run together, messy as blood and water. But