Free My Man Michael by Lori Foster Page A

Mallet a lot. He knew what it was to be without family. To have family but be distanced from them would surely be worse. “They’re like friends to you, even though they’re not real?”
    “They are real,” she insisted again. “They’re just not human.”
    Her tone showed her defensiveness of her AMAs. The same defensiveness one would have for a friend.
    Mallet softened his tone. “All right.”
    That just made her pricklier. “Please remember that things are very different here. I know that for you, your world consisted of one planet and one known being. Here, with me, you will discover many planets with many forms of beings.”
    Enjoying her gumption, Mallet tweaked her chin and smiled. “Am I going to be freaked out?”
    Proving she had an adequate grasp on his lingo, she fell into a smile, too. “Quite possibly.” Turning back to the room, she lifted her arm. “This, sir, is a media room. Here you can relax and take in an assortment of depictions of our colony and the worlds that surround ours.”
    Mallet surveyed all that blank white space and cocked a brow. “All I see are walls.”
    “That’s because nothing is activated yet.”
    “Yeah, well . . .” Still skeptical, he pointed out the obvious. “I don’t see anything to activate.”
    She sighed. “Everything is voice-activated. Everything is also prerecorded, so you don’t have to worry about intruding on anything or anyone in a personal manner, as I did with you and with your new friend, Travis Stockman.”
    Travis wasn’t really a friend, but Mallet let that go. “Good to know.”
    “I’ll enter your voice into the database, and then you can command the system to show you our wildlife, our food sources, our housing, and education. Anything you like.”
    “How about your firearms?”
    “Oh, no.” She looked appalled at such a question. “Weapons of that sort are forbidden.”
    She had to be kidding. “I thought you were at war.”
    “We are, but it is hand-to-hand combat. That’s why we need a man of your ability, power, and . . . size.”
    “So there’re no guns, no bombs?”
    Her hazel eyes flared, and she hushed him in a rush. “No,” she whispered. “Even the mention of such a thing can cause alarm.”
    “So . . .” He tried to think through the idea of a weapons-free existence. “Are knives, sticks, things like that allowed?”
    “Yes, though they’re frowned on as being the tools of cowards.”
    Ingenious. The world would rid itself of a lot of problems without fear of one group annihilating another. “So we’re to go it mano a mano ?” When Kayli just looked at him, Mallet said, “Men, or in your case, women, going at it hand to hand.”
    “That is the preferred way, yes.” She paced a little while formulating more explanations. “I told you how the colonies are self-sufficient, each tending to its own problems. The Cosmos Confederation, which is our form of government that spans the galaxies, issues very few rules. One of them is a strict forbiddance of weaponry, lest it be used to unfair advantage against another.”
    Nodding as much to himself as to her, Mallet said, “I like it.” He gestured at the room, which looked like a barren, hygienic rubber enclosure meant for nut jobs. “So how’s this work?”
    Kayli put her hands together. “Hauk, wildlife please.”
    Mallet grinned. “Is that a pun?”
    “Not at all. Hauk is—”
    “Spelled with a u ,” said a thick masculine voice that resonated throughout the room, giving Mallet a start. “Not a w , like the extinct fowl.”
    Eyes heavenward, Kayli continued, “Hauk is the name of the system in charge of this room.”
    “In charge of everything,” clarified the voice. “I have ultimate control of the vessel in every conceivable way. I just set your voice to the system so that you are now able to issue commands of your own.”
    Crossing her arms under her breasts, Kayli said, sotto voce, “Hauk can be a little . . .”
    “Cocky?” Mallet