Free The Admiral and the Wildcat: Scifi Alien Romance by Mina Carter Page A

surrounding Kelis and lifting her onto an antigrav stretcher. The sight of her there, unconscious and injured, made his blood run cold again. If that shot had been a little more to the right…
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    “ A mazing . Just amazing. You see the rate of regeneration here… and there? Cells just shouldn’t be able to do that.”
    “No, they shouldn’t, and in any other species they don’t. But look at the markers on these chromosomes here. They don’t match anything I’ve ever seen.”
    Kelis came to with the speed of a woman brought up in a war where to stay out of action meant death. Between one breath and the next, she’d gone from the depths of comfortable darkness to registering the voices and sitting bolt upright. She reached for the weapon that should be holstered on her hip.
    “Woah…crap, about gave me a heart attack…” one of the doctors muttered, hand over his heart before he got himself together and gave her a professional smile. “Hey there, Miss Vann. Back in the land of the living? How are you feeling?”
    He moved forward, trying to get her to lie back down. She warned him off with a glare as she rolled through the last things she remembered. They’d been in the courtroom and someone had attacked them with an experimental blaster. The same one that had hit her in the back. As though thinking about it had called it into being, pain flared but she ignored it, looking around the small medical room. With one notable exception. Gabriel Buchanan.
    “Where’s the admiral?” she demanded, sliding her legs off the bed.
    “You can’t get up yet, Miss Vann.” The doctor blocked her path, which almost made her laugh. Although tall, he was a garden-variety human—skinny with no muscle tone. She could snap him like a twig without breaking a sweat. “There are tests we need to run…”
    “It’s Lead… not miss,” she informed him brusquely. “I’m not human, which you’ve already figured out, so please do me the courtesy of not attributing your own species’ norms to me.”
    He nodded, his expression paling a little as she pointed out his error. The fleet was big on diversity and equality, so such a slip up would earn him at the very least a reprimand from his superior if she chose to report him.
    “I beg your pardon… Lead. But you were severely injured, so there ar—”
    She cut him off. “Where is Admiral Buchanan?”
    Concern rolled through her when he slid a sideways glance to his companion. Had something happened to Gabe? More Wildcats had arrived. She’d seen them just before she’d passed out…so he’d have been okay, surely? But he was hers to protect, and with her out of it, he’d have been left unarmed behind the table. What if one of the shooters had gotten off a lucky shot?
    Panic hit her full force, nausea rising as her body shook.
    “Where is Buchanan?” Her voice rose, a note of panic in it that she couldn’t, didn’t want to, hide.
    “It’s okay.” The doctor made soothing motions with his hands, perhaps suddenly aware that an injured, panicked and pissed off Saragosian warrior in a small room was not such a good idea. “The admiral is perfectly fine. He just stepped away a short while ago to let us treat you.”
    Relief hit her like a punch in the gut. He was fine. Gabe was okay. Nodding, she leaned back against the edge of the bed and let the doctor check the dressing over her wound. As he did, she probed her response. Why was she so concerned about some fleet admiral? He was just her assignment for a few days, nothing more. So why had she reacted so strongly? Why did the thought of him not being around hit her like a punch to the gut?
    “Oh my word,” the doctor breathed in awe, the dressing half off her back. “You people really do heal quickly, don’t you?”
    His amazement was no surprise to her. It was rare Saragosians ended up in medbay and as soon as one did, the medical staff all went nuts when healing occurred right there in front of their eyes. In the