The next few days were just what Martinez and Lysa pictured them to be: calm, relaxing, and filled with fun activities to bring Martinez and Nelya closer and allow Martinez and her to galvanize their relationship.

It was refreshing and just what they needed after the last few hectic months in Draun. There were no medical emergencies, racist assholes, or strangely horny nurses they had to deal with.

Each day has been filled with short morning walks and small activities Nelya had suggested they do while in town. So far, they have been fishing in the river near the house, where Nelya easily slaughtered both Lysa and Martinez handily.

Of course, the woman who lived right next to the river would win, knowing all the excellent fishing holes and secret locations nearby.

Martinez learned something about Nelya, Lysa, and the Aviex species he was not entirely aware of, namely that they were more willing to eat raw meat.

Nelya and Lysa needed to work together to convince him to even try a slice of raw fish.

Martinez knew of sushi and other raw meat eaten around Earth but had never tried it. It was not bad by any means, but he decided not to have more than one piece. Thankfully, Nelya and Lysa understood that raw meat was an acquired taste and texture and thus did not mock him for nearly throwing up when he first took a bite.

They also took some time to visit some of Lysa’s old friends and teachers in town—not that many recognized her.

The last time they saw his Ruh'ah, she was more tomboyish and angry at the world, but this time, Lysa was smiling and laughing and was even embarrassed by stories of how she acted in the past.

That was a feeling Martinez and Nelya understood. After all, who was not embarrassed and cringed at their behavior from the past? Lord only knew that if Martinez had met himself in high school, he would have wanted to die.

Back then, he and the crowd he rolled with tried to emulate the gang culture of Los Angeles and southern California, specifically the look and mannerisms of Cholo.

At least none of his friends at the time genuinely got tied up in legitimate gangs; they were just stupid kids, and the actual gangsters knew it.

The last major thing they did was spend a day on the far end of Nelya and Kyrolls' property, having traveled to an area Nelya wanted to show them. The day was filled to the brim from dusk till dawn with strenuous hiking.

Martinez and Lysa were fit and capable of keeping up with Nelya, even though the older Aviex woman slowed down for her daughter and him. Neither were conditioned for the steep hills and loose rocks; they appreciated her giving that little grace.

All that effort was worth every ounce of sweat and heaving breath. By the time they stopped for lunch, they had reached the destination Nelya had in mind: a grand vista overlooking most of their property, including a beautiful view of a massive waterfall on the border.

Ether falls spread nearly a kilometer and fell just as far down into the main river running through their property. From that river, a vast delta of interlocking streams wound through the pines, offering the trio an astonishing view of a herd of Renoral stags lazily scrounging the water's edge.

It was a wonderful time, and they were glad they chose that day to make the hike; if they had not, the first winter snow would have made the already challenging hike impossible.

But they had made it home just before the snow began to fall. With a winter wonderland descending on them, the last night before Kyroll returned was spent indoors, with Martinez catching up on some studying—something he had ignored over the last week.

At the same time, Lysa and Neyla settled in on the sofa nearby, typing away at their own stories and happily chatting about some feedback they had gotten.

Lysa referred to her readers on the forums, whereas Nelya referred to several letters and Emails she had been sent over the years. Having Nelya to help coach her directly as an author was pleasant, settling Lysa's debates over what feedback to focus on.

Overall, the final night before the day of reckoning was flawless, allowing them all to feel themselves getting closer. Something they wanted before Kyroll tossed a wrench in the pleasant vacation.

—--

Sweat rolled down Martinez’s brow and cheek, clinging to his growing short beard. It was not that he was attempting to grow facial hair or anything like that; it was just that he was on vacation, and there was no need to shave.

It was not like Nelya or Lysa cared about him being clean-shaven. Nelya even commented that his slight stubble made him look a bit more rugged. Her approval and Lysa’s agreement had him considering keeping the look. It wasn’t like some senior chief would rag him for not looking professional, and if those two liked it, why would he not?

Martinez would consider that once he returned to the house and showered. For now, his focus was enjoying the snow crunching under his shoes, the flakes fluttering down through the shifting bows, and the chilly air infecting his lungs during his jog.

The exercise was refreshing, to say the least, although he had a slight pang of almost guilt in his chest. Every time Martinez went running for the last few months, it was with Shiksie; not having his mentor by his side left him feeling something was missing.

Even though he knew he likely never would be able to return to that little comfort—not after what she did and that he failed to prevent it.

Cresting the hill leading down to Nelya’s house, Martinez paused because he spotted several new tire tracks leading down to their home, which were not there when he ran up the hill an hour earlier.

That caused his ingrained instincts to scream at him to look around and assess the changes. Needing to find out if there was some danger or issue.

Doing so, spotting the change was easy enough. Down next to the mansion were several trucks, including Nelya’s truck and his and Lysa’s rented SUV.

Kyroll must have arrived—and was not alone.

Nelya informed Martinez that her husband would return sometime today, but he expected him to do so in the evening, not around lunchtime.

Either way, he must have arrived, meaning Martinez needed to hurry up and get down there. He was not about to leave Lysa alone to face whatever her father had in mind, especially after the horror stories of his past behavior.

Jogging down the hill, it took Martinez only about half an hour to arrive; even then, that was far longer than he wanted it to take.

In sheer paranoia, Martinez peeked inside the unfamiliar trucks while passing by, wanting to know if there was anything dangerous that the unknowns had brought along.

Inside the truck beds and cabs were a mishmash of supplies. Most of it was benign and expected of anyone living in the woods: heavy work jackets, warming layers, chainsaws, lunch boxes, and miscellaneous supplies he could not identify but were obviously not weapons.

The only thing he found concerning was the healthy mixture of firearms hanging in racks on the back windows; they were all alien in design, so he was unsure of their capabilities, but based on shape alone, he could tell some were rifles and others shotguns.

Additionally, empty holsters were in the cabs. All were placed in locations to have them handy for the driver: tucked next to the consoles or between the seats.

Where were the pistols?

Martinez assumed the owners of the vehicles were carrying them, but that did nothing to put him at ease. If anything, the fact that a former special forces soldier and his friends who were of a similar background were armed only made him worry more.

He headed inside without knocking because Nelya called him family and insisted he didn’t need to ask permission to go anywhere in the house except the basement where Kyroll has his mancave—not even Nelya went down there.

Finding Nelya and Lysa was quick and easy enough. The happy mother and daughter were in the kitchen chatting while cooking lunch. Both had cute blue floral aprons on and were quickly working to cook what looked like steak sandwiches.

For Lysa, wearing that bright apron looked odd, especially because she was wearing a tight black long-sleeve coupled with gray yoga pants, letting him get a solid view of her muscular legs and firm rump.

For Nelya, the apron was fitting because everything she wore was brightly colored, covered in flowers and other natural motifs. Even now, flowers covered the wool-like sweater, hugging her full figure.

Lysa heard the door shut behind Martinez, turned around, and offered him a faint smile before draping her arms around his neck and pecking her dear Human’s cheek. “How was your run?” she questioned.

“It was good,” Martinez replied, looking around the room for anything that indicated who else was here and where they were.

“Gra'hu is down in his lounge with friends from work,” Nelya interjected, looking up from the cutting board at Martinez.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

How she knew that was his first question was beyond him, but Nelya kept up with her uncanny abilities; as if reading his mind, she prepared for his follow-on question about how she could have known that was what he thought.

“Deary, with how long I've lived with Kyroll, military men's minds are not hard to figure out,” Nelya smiled. “Most of the time that is,” she finished, slightly twirling her chef’s knife.

“I can agree with that,” Lysa sniggered, lightly poking his side after releasing their hug.

“Oh, come on, I’m not that bad,” Martinez replied.

Lysa and Nelya shared a short glance and chuckled with each other. Both likely having assumed he would say that as well.

Instead of being angry about them mocking him, Martinez just laughed with them. He regularly teased Lysa, so it was only fair that he was more lighthearted about when they returned some grief.

“Come on, Ruh'ah, help us finish preparing lunch. It is almost ready,” Lysa said, stepping back toward the island in the kitchen and pulling a plate of mostly made sandwiches over.

“Yeah, we are making some for Gra'hu and his workmates, and then we three can have our meal,” Nelya added. “They always spend the evening relaxing after being up in the woods for a few weeks. I assumed Kyroll would not have had them here because you two are in town.” She finished, sounding slightly annoyed.

“It is no trouble they can stay down there,” Lysa said, carving into another slab of meat.

Nelya sighed and shook her head. Instead of mentioning that Lysa was not trying to bridge the gap with her father and would not make their meeting any easier if she was standoffish, she turned to Martinez.

“Can you two finish these? I am going to grab them some drinks,” Nelya said, pulling her apron off and tossing it to Martinez.

“Sure,” Martinez said, while Lysa harrumphed slightly, seeing her mother's disappointed sigh.

Once Nelya had left them alone, Martinez gladly helped Lysa with cooking food. But it did not take him long before asking her one of the questions she and Nelya had not assumed he would ask.

“Were there any issues when your dad came home?” Martinez questioned, slicing a sandwich in half and tossing it onto the pile.

“Surprisingly, no. That vile man would not even look at me. He arrived, Mordained with Mother, then followed his friends downstairs,” Lysa huffed. “Could he not have at least welcomed me?”

In a way, Martinez felt better knowing nothing had happened. Even though it would have been far more beneficial if Kyroll could have at least attempted to bridge the gap between them.

“He could have, but I honestly don’t doubt Nelya has a plan,” Martinez assured.

Lysa uncomfortably shifted her feet and paused slicing fresh meat. After a few seconds, she looked over at him, opened her mouth to speak, paused, closed it, and then tried to return to making their food.

“What is it?” Martinez questioned.

“Mother indeed has a plan,” Lysa admitted. “While you were out, Mother told me she wished to introduce you to him while bringing them lunch. It's the reason we are preparing these.”

Well, that was not ideal. Martinez would rather not enter a room filled with who he views as a group of armed thugs. But if Nelya insisted it was the best course of action, he had to show his trust in the wise woman.

Nelya knew Kyroll better than anyone else in the universe and had been assuring Martinez and Lysa all would be well since arriving.

“What do you think about it?” Martinez asked.

“Do you even need to question that? I believe it's horrible. He will not be cordial; if anything, he will just insult and threaten you,” Lysa replied in a near hiss without hesitation.

That reaction was unsurprising, especially with Lysa’s background with Kyroll.

“It will be fine,” Martinez replied, trying to assure her by patting her shoulder. “Surely Nelya knows what she is doing.”

That did little other than make Lysa want to grab Martinez and drag him back to Draun. The Human was her rock, and the idea of him going into danger pissed her off and made knots form in her chest.

“I do not doubt Mother does—Still,” Lysa replied but bit her tongue when Nelya returned, lugging a small keg over her shoulder.

Does she keep kegs in the garage? If she did, Martinez had not noticed. Nelya had only been gone for a few minutes, so she did not go into town.

“How are the preparations?” Nelya questioned, dropping the heavy metal keg on the ground.

Martinez looked at the food, a platter overflowing with pre-cut sandwiches, slices of meat, pickled vegetables, and cheese slices. “Do you think this is enough?” he asked her.

Nelya looked over the work momentarily, smiled, and nodded, unaware Lysa had spoiled her plan. “It should be. Lysa, will you make our lunch while Henry and I take this downstairs?”

“I will,” Lysa replied solemnly, having already been convinced to follow her mother's plan.

“Flawless. Henry, please grab that keg,” Nelya purred, picking up the plate and heading toward the hall.

Before Martinez walked around the island and picked up the keg, Lysa grabbed him from behind, pulling his back tight to her. “Please—please—be careful,” Lysa whispered, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“I will,” Martinez assured, leaning his head on hers and standing with her momentarily, allowing their hearts and breath to match.

Once Lysa was willing to let Martinez go, he grabbed the keg and followed Nelya, waiting just around the corner.

“I was wondering if you were coming,” Nelya teased, bumping her hip into him, similar to what Lysa does. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

Smiling back at her, Martinez assured her he was not. In all honesty, finally seeing Kyroll would likely be a good thing for him. After hearing about him for the last month and hearing all the horror stories Lysa told him, Kyroll was a monster in his mind.

To Martinez, Kyroll was a twisted man who, through the fires of war, had become a vile, pulsating abomination. Lysa’s father was an atrocity given flesh, whose word would spread pain and hatred.

Meeting the man Nelya insisted he was uncannily like would hopefully kill the wild imagery his imagination had crafted. He did hope that Nelya was wrong about them being alike.

Yeah, Martinez was not a good man after his time in war—but Kyroll drove Lysa out and threatened people unnecessarily. He was more tactful and kind than that—Right?

Nelya led Martinez down the stairs, the simple concrete walls covered with no decorations; not even the ground had carpeting. It set a tone for who he was meeting. These stairs were Kyrolls to do with as he pleased, and they were ascetic, hinting at his mentality around comfort and care.

He thought the den would be like this entirely until they reached the bottom, and a roar of happiness came out from several voices. Everyone down below greeted Nelya in Aviex, so he did not know what was said.

She happily spoke back and turned toward him as he breached the bottom of the stairs, introducing him. He only knew that for two reasons: firstly, he could pick out his name in the sentence, and because everyone down there fell deathly silent.

The den was not what Martinez had expected based on the stairs. It was warm and inviting. The ground was a lush brown carpet, and soft velvet sofas surrounded a large television on the wall.

The walls were covered with military memorabilia: uniforms, medals, plaques, weapons, flags and photographs. It was a surplus lover's dream den—not that Martinez was one, but he could see the appeal.

If not for the five rough-looking Aviex men staring daggers at him, he might have gotten a better look at the awards, flags, and photographs, trying to learn about the near-mythical man who owned them.

But with them there, Martinez only noted two flags he knew by heart. One was the GU standard. It was gold with a black representation of the Milky Way front and center. The other was the Human Marines flag spread out on the wall.

Instead of focusing on the odd fact that Kyroll had that on display, Martinez traced the cold eyes of the men around the room. Each man's eyes stared at him with venom. Most still had all four bright red eyes, but one did not. The man he knew was Kyroll based on the pictures upstairs.

Kyroll sat in a chair, his burned face and missing eyes denoting him easily. Unlike the other men, he had no facial hair, likely because of the intense scarring. Uniting them all was that they were all Aviex, had pistols in holsters, and half-drank mugs of some type of booze in hand.

“Who the fuck is he?” Kyroll growled in Aviex, pointing a knife hand at Martinez.

Kyroll’s voice sounded like he had been smoking four packs a day since birth, something Martinez had been informed of, but genuinely hearing it was still surprising.

“Now, Gra'hu Martinez here does not speak Aviex. Can you please refrain from that while he is here?” Nelya replied, setting the plate on the table. “Henry, will you set that keg over there while Kyroll introduces you,” she continued, turning around and gesturing to a corner with another keg.

Martinez stood stock still, looking back at the men; it was long enough that a few whispered to one another in Aviex and gestured at him, earning them a glare from Nelya. She would not stand them making fun of him or making snide comments he could not understand.

“Henry, please,” Nelya insisted. “Gra’hu, please introduce your friends to Lysa’s Ruh'ah—now.”

“Yeah, I will,” Martinez said, swallowing his spit.

Crossing those few meters felt like walking through a pack of ravenous wolves. Each footfall felt like a lead weight was in his shoes. He heard Nelya and Kyroll arguing hushedly in Aveix as he set the keg down.

“Fine, you stubborn man,” Nelya sighed, walking over to Martinez’s side and half-hugging him.

“Everyone, this is Martinez, Lysa’s Ruh'ah. He is a medic in the Human Navy,” Nelya explained, gesturing up and down at him like Vanna White, assuring none of them ignored her.

Martinez was not a Medic but a Corpsman; however, that was semantics. To the average person in the GU the words meant the same thing, and knowing Nelya, she chose that word because the squad of men would understand that term.

That announcement earned him a few nods of approval from the Aviex, save for Kyroll, who glared at Martinez like he was about to thrash him.

At least that announcement got the others to introduce themselves and give the Human a smug smile. Gradually, they went around the room telling him their names and, oddly enough, rank.

Martinez did not know the ranks the Aviex military used, but based on their looks and what he knew about Kyrolls friends, he assumed they were enlisted men like him.

Once the short introductions were done, Nelya and the others looked toward Kyroll, waiting for him to do the same. But instead of that, he clicked his tongue and sighed.

“Dear?” Nelya prised him along, waving at him.

“Kyroll,” Lysa’s father growled, looking like saying those words hurt him deeply.

“Well, Nelya already said my name. It’s nice to meet you all,” Martinez said awkwardly, never taking his eyes off Kyroll's hand, which had drifted to his pistol over the course of the introductions—an act he made no effort to conceal.

“Thank you all for that,” Nelya said, letting Martinez go and scanning the men who, funnily enough, almost blushed under her discerning vision. “I hate to do this to you all, but after lunch, can you leave? I wish to have a Family dinner tonight.”

“Of course, we can Nel,” the burliest of the group, named Grula said with a smile, gesturing at Kyroll to his side. “I’m certain Kyroll will want to get to know Martinez better.”

That prodding joke clearly almost got a rise out of Kyroll, who, with his two good eyes, glared at Grula.

Martinez almost chuckled, seeing Grula hold his hands up in a joking defense. It was funny that these men from a military half a galaxy away from here acted like the Marines he knew.

Rough jokes that poke fun at each other's flaws.

If not for his presence, Martinez had no doubt they would start laughing and mocking Kyroll about his little huntress bringing a man home, who looks surprisingly close to Aveix to the point it was uncanny.

This thought was given credence when Nelya halfway dragged Martinez up the stairs, assuring him it was time for them to eat. He could hear them all laughing and speaking in Aviex again, with Kyroll’s rough voice standing out. He was clearly arguing about their comments.

“We will get him to warm up to you,” Nelya assured, giving Martinez a slight hug at the top of the stairs.

“Don’t worry, he is only so stubborn,” Nelya assured, letting him go and turning toward the kitchen. “For now, your Ruh'ah is waiting for us and likely wants to know how that went,” she winked.