“You mean like live a happy and fulfilled life, unafraid that some asshole is going to pound on them whenever he gets angry or upset about the least little thing?” Talon asked dryly.
“Yeah, I guess we can’t have that,” Baird snapped sarcastically. “Is that the last signature?” he asked, nodding down at the papers that Talon had been going through.
“Think so. Let me check. Yup—that’s it.” Talon nodded.
“Good. Let’s get out of here before I decide to give this asshole a taste of his own ‘punishment,’” Baird growled.
He felt like he couldn’t stand to be around the human any longer. Just being near a male like Hank Rogan, who hated women and thought they should be hurt to “keep them in line,” made him feel dirty and disgusted.
Gonna need a long hot shower when we get back to the Mother Ship, he thought and hoped that Olivia would join him. Hearing the hate in Hank Rogan’s voice when he talked about his wife, made Baird want to hold his own mate close and show her how much he loved her.
A long hot shower and at least an hour licking Olivia’s sweet little pussy, he amended to himself. That’s exactly what I fucking need after this shit.
“You’ll be sorry for this—you’ll pay!” Hank Rogan yelled as Baird and Talon left with the divorce papers in hand. “Those papers won’t hold up in court—you forced me to sign them!”
“They don’t need to hold up in a human court,” Talon called over his shoulder. “They’re mainly just to make Mia feel better. She wants to be free of you, but it’s not like she’s ever coming back to Earth again—she’s going to stay on the Mother Ship where she knows she’s safe from bastards like you.”
They left, slamming the front door behind them, and Baird took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
“We got out just in time,” he growled to Talon. “I wanted to pound his face in. Would have done it if we’d stayed any longer.”
“I feel you, Brother.” Talon nodded. “I felt the same way when Kaylee and I came to get Mia and found him beating her.” He shook his head. “Poor little female. Kaylee was beside herself, she was so worried and upset. I wanted to kill him just for making my mate cry, let alone hurting his own female.”
“Well, she never has to deal with him again,” Baird said shortly. “I hope she’s recovering from her injuries.”
Talon nodded.
“She is. And she’s been exploring the Mother Ship, trying out her new freedom. It’s good to see a female who’s been hurt and abused starting to heal.”
“It was the Goddess’s will for you to save her when you did,” Baird told him, as they got into their waiting shuttle. He shook his head. “I just wish we could save all the battered females on Earth. I’d like to offer any who asked for it sanctuary aboard the Mother Ship, but the Earth’s World Council wouldn’t go for that.”
“Why not?” Talon asked, looking surprised. “It seems like a good idea to me.”
“To me too, but my brother, Sylvan, ran the idea past them and they didn’t like it at all,” Baird said. “There’s already a growing contingent of human males that wants to stop the Bride Draft and refuse us the right to call human females as brides, you know.”
“What?” Talon looked startled. “But they can’t do that! How can they justify keeping a warrior from coming to get the female his mind has aligned with?”
“They don’t understand Dream-Sharing and the aligning of minds because they don’t do it themselves,” Baird said. “Anyway, the World Council thought it would look like the Kindred were ‘taking’ too many females from Earth if we offered the abused ones shelter.” He shook his head again. “It’s a fucking shame. Human males deserve to lose their females to Kindred warriors if they don’t know how to properly love and cherish them.”
“It makes me want to go home and hold Kaylee close,” Talon said. “After I saw that bastard abusing Mia, I needed to hold my own mate the whole night afterwards, just to feel her safe in my arms,” he admitted in a low voice.
Baird nodded.
“I feel the same. Can’t wait to get home to Olivia. Come on—let’s get out of here.”
They took off and soon Earth was nothing but a blue-green dot in the viewscreen, much to Baird’s relief.
16
Hank watched through the peephole of his front door, waiting until the two alien assholes flew away in their shiny silver shuttle. His right arm was still bleeding where they had used his own fucking bullet to shoot him and he staggered to the kitchen, looking for a clean towel to wrap around it.
Unfortunately, without Mia here to do the washing, there wasn’t much of anything clean left in the house. He settled for wadding a paper towel against the bullet wound, grimacing as he did. Then he went back to the den, stepping over the various food wrappers, paper plates, and dirty laundry to get there.