by Ivy McAdams
But he stops a few feet from the wall, rears back, and slams one of his boots against the rusty switch panel with an echoing thump. The door zips shut and everything goes quiet.
It takes only one short breath for another wave of panic to take over. I lunge at him and slam my fist into his chest. I kick at his legs, screaming and cursing.
He jerks me away with a snarl. His eyes flash. His brow is furrowed when he turns and stalks back into the cockpit, holding Zeus and me out away from his body.
There are so many lights in here. Different colors, some blinking, some steady. Screens and buttons. The windshield-like glass screen up on the wall shows the backyard of the house, white and red markings overlaying the display.
At first, an overwhelming urge to kick free and take over the controls grips me, but I already know that’s not going to happen. This guy is insanely strong. Before I can come up with another bad idea, my ass hits a metal seat and the restraints go on again.
The same iridescent bands from before, now locking me into a chair behind the pilot’s seat in the cockpit. Against the back wall and away from any buttons. To my surprise, there’s a second chair on the other side of the doorway, where Zeus is now strapped in too. He fights and barks, wiggling and chewing, but he’s held fast.
A new surge of anger heats me up and I glare up at the dark-skinned alien.
“You think you’ll just drive home with us in the backseat? I don’t plan on sitting back here with my hands in my lap quietly waiting on you to fucking probe me!”
I shake back and forth, pulling on the straps, but it’s the same as before. They give a couple inches just so they can snap me back again. So I settle with just pulling taut against the bands and baring my teeth at him.
He stares at me silently, finally lifting a brow a fraction.
“We’d all be more comfortable if you’d just shut your mouth,” he murmurs in a deep voice.
I gape at him as my heart drops into my icy stomach.
Holy shit.
That alien just spoke English.
Chapter 4
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I gasp, a new wave of anger sweeping through me. “You could have said something the whole time and you’ve been slinging me around like a suitcase? How about a sorry at least?”
The tendons in his cheek flex and the green glow in his eyes pulses. He locks gazes with me, silent for what feels like a whole minute before he turns away from me and returns to his seat.
It’s so anticlimactic that I stare dumbly at the back of his chair as my brain resets. Even Zeus is quiet next to me, sitting in his metal chair with his head cocked to the side.
This alien thing knows my language. I can’t even wrap my brain around it. He seemed so dark and dangerous before, but now he’s—well, he’s still scary and this whole situation is fucked up, but he seems different now that I know he can talk.
Not less of an asshole, but maybe less of a demonic beast.
“Did you hear me?” I snap. “If you’re not going to apologize for not only jerking me around and hurting my arm, how about for abducting me? What the hell’s going on here?”
Silence follows as he presses his fingers to a screen on the dash. Something whirls beneath the floor, and my pulse races. Different colored lights flash above the windshield screen, beating out a pattern the alien seems to pay close attention to. Then he moves another switch and the sound below grows louder.
All the while, he’s quite effectively ignoring me.
My fingers dig into the armrests of my chair.
“You can at least tell me what dirty fucked up things you have planned for me, while you’re running around the universe abducting random women. It’s just sick. And another thing—”
“I don’t abduct random women.”
His voice is deep and rumbles in a quiet tone. I almost don’t hear him over my own words.
His answer, however, is less than satisfying.
“Well, the door to Earth is closed. You’re playing around with your ship controls like you’re about to fly us out of here. Around here we call that abduction.”
His chair swivels when he turns to face me. He towers over me even sitting down and I have to turn my gaze up nearly to the ceiling to look at him.
“You’re not a random woman.”
For once, I’m a bit speechless. He isn’t denying the abducting at all, which isn’t thrilling. The odds of getting out of here are looking infinitesimal.
My fingers tremble against the cold metal and I feel like I might puke. This isn’t going well, but I’m still overflowing with questions.
My voice shakes when I speak. “I’m not a random woman? Then why…?”
“You’re on the list to be brought in.”
Icy hands clench my lungs and I fight for breath. Somewhere in the universe, I’ve made a list. What it’s for, I’m sure I don’t want to know. Except it sounds like it’s my inevitable future. How can I not ask?
I pull in a slow breath, hoping to calm my heartbeat. “Where are you taking me?”
“Where all humans should go. The Metagalactic Council.”
The what…?
That is so much information at once. I want to question everything. Milk him for every bit of information possible now that I know we can communicate. But I go for the most pressing first.
“What’s that?”
His eyes shift subtly as he rolls them. “They hold council over arrestees and decide on sentencing. They require your presence.”
“What the—are you kidding me? Arrestees? Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“No.”
I grit my teeth. His lack of devotion to this conversation is pissing me off.
“Then why am I in your ship?”
“Just following the request to bring you in.”
“For what?”
“Stealing.”
I blink wide eyes with a gasp. “What?”
Zeus snorts and barks. The alien’s eyes cut over to the dog for a moment before centering on me again. Then he turns back to his dash without another word.
“Whoa, no. You get your ass back here. What are you talking about?”
But he doesn’t turn around. He puts his big, dark hands on the controls and the ship moves. It lifts straight into the air and I sit back in alarm.
Holy mother, we’re going to space.
I think I’m going to be sick.
But I’m also not done with this conversation. Swirling irritation hits me hard, tightening my muscles and making me want to scream. I kick my feet, successfully only bumping them awkwardly against the trunk of the chair.
“And what do you mean all humans should see the council? You think we’re all thieves or something?”
When the alien turns on me this time, his eyes are narrowed and flash a bright green.
“Thieves and worse. Every one of you can be locked on the prison planet for all I care.”
The growl in his voice tells me he’s as serious as my situation. Which doesn’t bode well for me. I couldn’t get picked up by a guy who loves humans? I mean, I don’t want to run into any freaky aliens that want to keep me for a pet or wear my skin or anything, but I can imagine ones that hate humans would be much more dangerous.
It’s probably also a good idea to not piss off ridiculously strong aliens holding you prisoner. But that’s hard sometimes.
“Nice attitude. What’d a human ever do to you? Run off with your girlfriend?”
His growl is low and seems to echo all around the room. I’m not even sure it comes from him at first until he curls his lip, flashing teeth.
“Humans talk too much,” he grumbles.
Then he lifts a hand to my face and slaps some sort of metal plate to my mouth. It sits flush over my lips, tight enough that I can’t scream through it. It’s cold and the edges are sharp when I try to yell under it. I have no idea how it’s sticking to me, but it’s freaking me the he
ll out.
Though not as much as it’s pissing me off. Or more correctly, how much he is.
I glower at him as he gives me a single nod and turns back in his seat.
My whole body seethes as I flop back in my chair. I can’t move. I can’t talk.
All I can do is stare daggers into the back of my captor’s horned head as the clouds and stars skip by us.
The alien flips a toggle to the side and the cockpit fills with strange music, and I think I hear his boot tapping on the floor.
Great.
I’m stuck with some weird eighties outer space jam and an asshole demon alien, on my way to being tried by some galactic jury for being a thief. Of what? Lord only knows.
I’m so screwed.
A soft bleep bleep wakes me and I glance around the quiet cockpit. Some of the lights have dimmed or turned off. The music is gone. Black sky and stars stretch out as far as I can see on the big screen in front of me. It’s unnerving to look at.
Zeus sits in his chair with heavy lids, as if he’s just woken up as well.
My captor isn’t in the room.
The bleep bleep sounds again and I frown as I stretch forward to see the flashing blue light on the dash. A small display next to the light has symbols scrolling across the screen. It’s not anything I can read.
Heavy footfalls come up behind me and I sit back again, silently observing the alien as he enters the cockpit. He slides into his chair and hits a button. The beeping and flashing stops and a shimmering purple face appears above the display. A hologram of the floating disembodied head and neck of another alien. I sit up again to stare at it in astonishment.
It looks similar to my captor. High cheekbones, strong jaw. Two horns sprouting from the top of the guy’s head. These don’t curl back so much as they spiral up. They’re interesting, I suppose, but quite strange.
The head speaks in a low, guttural language. I cock my head to the side, trying to catch it, but I have no idea what I’m listening to.
My captor speaks it right back. The head smiles and gives a good-humored laugh.
It’s strange to hear. He’s much better spirited than this asshole.
The tone the alien shoots back with is sharp, but casual. Like they’re quite familiar with one another. If I had to guess, since the growly language could mean absolutely anything I suppose. Who knows what alien speech inflections mean.
After another few volleys in conversation, the purple head’s eyes turn in my direction, and my heart locks up. He lifts his chin and speaks in English.
“Looks like your cargo’s awake.”
I pull in quick shuddering breaths, slouching low in my seat until his words hit me. Then I frown. Cargo?
The pilot chair moves and my captor glares at me.
“At least she’s quiet,” he grumbles.
I glower up at him, wishing I could rip his metal silencer off my face and give him a big what for.
“You know those humans. Spirited little things,” his companion says.
“This one’s extra crazy.”
I grit my teeth. Sonovabitch, this guy.
“You’d say that about any of them, Dax. It’s just business. Don’t let it get to your head.”
My captor, Dax by the sound of it, turns his head back to the hologram so fast that his horns swish through the air. “Nothing’s getting to my head. I’m fine.”
The head’s mouth skews as if he wants to argue, but he just nods. “Fast delivery then. Safe travels, brother.”
Dax nods and motions in some sort of salute with two fingers before switching off the hologram.
I have more questions. Of course. I want to ask him everything, but I’m still silenced and Dax doesn’t seem to be in a good mood. His form looks even tenser than when I was arguing with him.
My main conclusion: he’s a bit of a grouch.
No wonder his job is to pick up people for trial. Not like you need a customer service smile to pick up the so-called criminals. If they think I’m some sort of ultra thief, what do they care if he rubs me the wrong way?
Even if that means actual rubbing. And probing.
Shit, I mean, those abduction stories have to come from somewhere right?
Just let him try to come at me with any of that. I’ll bite and kick him in the face until he changes his mind.
I put all notions of how strong he is out of my mind, because who wants to dwell on that truth?
I find myself trying to chew my lip, but I can’t move my mouth properly beneath the metal plate. It’s an annoying feeling and I settle for flexing my fingers hard enough to ache instead.
In the silence that follows, Dax lets out a long breath and runs a hand over his face.
Poor guy, putting in those long days abducting innocent women.
I slide back in my seat and stare at him smugly.
He places his hand on a set of controls on the dash and the ship drifts to the side, veering off at an angle. I realize another large ship is near us and a new fear licks up through me like a growing flame.
The vessel is massive. It’s long and squared, like a floating ice cream sandwich. Only someone’s eaten out the middle because I can see right into it as we approach it.
We coast right into the hollow center and I realize it’s a ship hangar. It’s got to be six football fields worth of space, with other spaceships sitting up and down the long landing strip. We glide along inside, coming down in an empty space.
A ship carrying ships. Like an aircraft carrier in space.
Once we’ve stopped moving, Dax goes through his protocol of turning off buttons and switches. The hum underneath us quiets.
Are we at the council place? I square my shoulders and prepare myself to be sentenced for some bogus crime.
I stare at Dax with big questioning eyes when he gets up. When his gaze falls on me, he stops and puts his hands on his hips. It presses his suit in tighter and accentuates the hard lines of his body. My eyes wander over them before resting on his face again.
Come on, man. I need answers.
His horns move as he glances at the door, then back at me. Then he clears his throat and leans over to remove my silencer.
“Thank God. That thing is awful,” I say as I smack my lips.
“Quiet or I’ll put it back on.”
I close my mouth, but not without an extra glare in his direction.
“I’m going to get food. You want some?”
I stare at him, deadpan. Seriously?
“Aren’t we on the way to my being sentenced for breathing someone else’s air? Do we have time for food?”
His lip curls subtly and a muscle beneath his eye flexes just enough to tell me I’ve quite pissed him off.
Good. No reason he should be happy when I’m suffering.
“Your trial isn’t for a few days, but food time is now.”
Just like a man. Thinking with his stomach.
Better than thinking with more manly and destructive parts of his anatomy.
“I don’t need any of your poison food. I don’t want anything from you.”
“That’s fine, princess,” he growls. Suddenly he’s too close, leaning over my chair.
He’s huge, and I can feel him coming into my space. And smell him. It damn well pisses me off that the smell isn’t bad. It’s actually quite nice. I pause as it lingers in my nose.
But his face is twisted in anger and my eyes snap up to it.
“You sit here then and wait. If any port rats get in, just wiggle.” He stands, the anger on his face easing as his brow peaks. “They normally don’t eat things that move.”
“Any w-what? Eat me?” My imagination runs wild, wondering what kind of space pest is going to come consume me. “Can’t I go with you?”
His nose bunches when he scoffs. “Targets don’t leave the ship. You think I’m the only one after you?”
I blink in surprise and lean back in my chair. Other aliens are after me?
“Like bigger, angrier one
s?”
“Maybe. You have a nice price on your head and an open bounty.”
“So whoever gets me there first?”
He nods with a grunt.
It’s difficult to push out the next question, but I have to know. “Dead or alive?”
One of his brows blades up his forehead. “It’d be difficult to sentence a dead human.”
My lungs deflate in a rush. Not dead. Thank God.
“No rule says we have to deliver you in the same condition we found you in though,” he says.
I nearly choke. That leaves a large margin to play with.
He waits only a beat before continuing. “I won’t be long. You’ll be fine.”
His indifference to my safety is infuriating. Sure, he’s an alien, and he apparently doesn’t like humans, but doesn’t he have enough honor to return me in one piece? Or is he too much of an asshole to have honor? The flame of irritation in my gut glows hotter and I pull against my restraints, turning my focus to my immediate safety.
“What’s with your filthy-ass ship anyway? It’s such a dump that it’s infested with vermin?”
His gaze is hard but he doesn’t seem perturbed by my outburst. He just slips the metal plate he pulled off my face from his pocket and holds it up, giving me the most predator-like taunting eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s daring me to speak again. And dammit, some part of me wants to. I don’t know why. There’s something oddly tantalizing in that look.
Except I do know he’ll slap that thing on me. So I sit back in my seat silently.
He turns and lifts his chin at Zeus. “Food?”
The German shepherd’s nose twitches and he makes a soft woof sound.
Dax nods and heads out of the cockpit.
I frown after him, shifting my gaze between the empty doorway and the dog. What just happened there? I mean, it’s not unusual to find me talking to Zeus, carrying on a long-winded conversation about work with him as I do the laundry or dishes. I don’t have anyone else to talk to, after all. But it’s one-sided. I don’t expect an answer. Actually, the silence in return is often quite nice. Zeus never argues with me.
