She called out, her voice muffled by the rancid cloth. No one answered her demands to know where they’d taken her. In frustration she screamed, raging and cursing until her throat was raw.
No one responded. No one came for her.
When her voice finally gave out, she cried. When the sobs came, the tears wouldn’t stop. There was no telling how long the emotional storm tore through her but when it passed she was gutted and empty. Trembling in the cold, she curled in on herself and finally, exhausted, fell asleep.
“It’s about time you stopped your sniveling.” A voice sneered from too close to her ear. A scent of pungent, stale alcohol filled her nostrils, overpowering even the stink of the hood.
She recoiled from the man but he grabbed her hood as well as a handful of her hair and gave her head a rough shake. “Now, now, don’t be unfriendly.” There was a horrible mirth in his words as he roughly jostled her, delighting in her discomfort and fear.
The scream she let out was a mix of rage, anger and terror but the sound was a weak hiss through her abused vocal chords.
“Still have some fight in you I see. Well, I’m just going to give you this sedative, seeing as you are a wild hellcat.”
Before she could form any questions, a bite of pain pierced her upper arm. The injection was swift and efficient. The man’s hand released her and ran down her neck and chest for a rough and lewd grope of one of her breasts. She lunged toward him, knocking her body into his and ramming her head forward. He grunted with pain as her blind attack connected with his nose. At least she hoped that crack against her forehead had been his nose breaking under the impact. Her breast ached where his grubby hand had mashed her, and pain radiated through her skull but it was nothing compared to the sensation still pulsing through her at missing her alien.
“Get your filthy hands off of me.”
“You fucking bitch!” He shoved her back savagely and kicked her when she hit the floor. “It’ll be more than just my hands on you soon enough, whore. I’m going to give your medication time to settle in and then I will be back. You don’t even know the world of shit you’re in for, and I’m only the start of it. You’re going to wish you’d begged me to help you. It’s Christmas, I might have been feeling generous. You’re fucked now.” He sucked in a long breath through his nose with a wet, gurgling sound before he spat on her. The projected phlegm hit her hood between her eyes with a wet splat. At least the dirty cloth soaked in the worst of it.
He gave her one last kick and then the sounds of his heavy footsteps crossed the room and a door rattled open and slammed closed.
In silence she assessed her wounds. A few new pains to add to the list—a cracked or broken rib, a bruised breast and a throbbing headache, but she had a renewed determination. This wouldn’t to be the end of her story. She slid along the wall, wrung out, sore, soaked with sweat, but more determined than ever. Her shoulder bumped the far wall when the cuff caught on something that scraped against the zip tie’s plastic surface. A screw? All that mattered was that it was sharp.
Adjusting herself to better access the metal she began the work of sawing through her bonds. Each time she slipped the metal bit flesh rather than the ties, sending pain flashing through her. She thought of her alien and how he’d died protecting her.
Her alien.
She’d process all of that later when she was out of here.
What had they done with him? Would they dissect him as though he were only a huge moth rather than a being capable of honor and self-sacrifice? Not if she had anything to do with it, they wouldn’t.
Again and again she worried the plastic bands against the metal, saying a prayer to all the gods that might be listening to let her get out.
Scrape, stab, scrape.
Scrape, scrape, stab.
Her fingers were slick with blood but she focused on the scraping rather than the pain until at last the binding snapped open with a satisfying twang. She fell forward with a cry of relief. Racked with shudders, she pulled off her hood and flung it across what proved to be a cramped, stone-walled cell. A small window on the door let in some artificial light.
In the center of her prison was a round drain. Was this an animal kennel or a slaughter room? She couldn’t shake the horrific possibilities that could befall her if she stayed. The drug had not started taking effect but she needed to get out of there while she was still lucid.
She was just climbing slowly to her feet when keys rattled against the knob of the door. Crouching lower, she lunged toward the door, hitting it just as it swung open. The inhuman snarl of surprised pain shocked her.
Stumbling back, she threw up an arm to ward off an attack but warm hands cupped her face. At the instant of that contact, the low thrumming started, and in a heartbeat, swelled into a thunder of buzzing, rumbling perfection. It struck a perfect note in her bones, soothing her.
Her alien.
He was glorious. Alive. Whole.
She dared to believe she wasn’t imagining this.
He wore a tattered lab coat that was far too small for him. It was buttoned from the center of his chest to his hips, offering some modesty and hiding his wings from view. His glowing green gaze caught and held hers before she could pay much more attention to his attire. It was getting harder to focus on things, her head growing fuzzy from whatever drug they’d given her.
His long fingers stroked over her cheeks and down her neck. He whispered something to her, words that she couldn’t understand rolling off his full lips. He touched her here and there, each time pinpointing a place that had been wounded. When he brushed the back of his hand along the curve of her breast, an expression of fury twisted his features and he bared his teeth.
“How did you get here?” she whispered, reaching up to cup his face. “I thought you were dead.”
He grasped her wrists before she could touch him, eyes going wide at the condition of her bloody arms. Disappointment twisted in her stomach until he brought her hands to his lips and kissed the wounds, purring and clicking with concern.
She swayed on her feet, the feel of his warm mouth warring with the drugs in her system. With an effort she forced her attention to focus on him and noticed that he wore his share of blood. The jacket was spattered with crimson in thick splashes up the front.
Arterial spray, her horrified mind gibbered.
His fingers were crusted with dark red too. Claws extended from the tips of his fingers, curving into wicked talons that glistened with gore from the tips to his wrists.
She gasped as she regarded him, processing what she was seeing. It was all she could do to stay upright. He loosened his hand upon seeing her shock and like a cat, the razor sharp talons retracted. His lips moved as he spoke in soft, soothing murmurs, but she couldn’t understand anything. When her legs finally gave out on her, he caught her and cradled her against his solid chest. His gentleness was a stark contrast to the bloody fury she’d seen in his expression only moments before.
As he carried her out of the room, she caught a glimpse of the hallway around them and quickly turned her face away, letting his warm skin block the view. The body of a man lay crumpled in a pool of his own blood just beyond the door. Somehow she knew it was the man who had groped and injected her.
Maybe it was the drugs in her system but she didn’t feel anything but satisfaction, knowing that scumbag was dead. What did that say about her?
Her alien cupped the back of her head and stroked her hair, speaking in tones that soothed her as he continued walking without breaking stride.
Coaxed into the crook of his neck, she nuzzled in as close as she could, glad of his sweet, spicy scent and the steady buzzing-thrum of his song.
Footsteps pounded down the corridor and her alien tightened his grip on her, the low rumbles fading, to be replaced by a loud, dangerous snarl.
“Whoa! Hey buddy, easy. It’s me. Remember me? I got you in here.” Jeff’s familiar voice rose sharply, echoing in the wide, empty hall. “Jesus. What the hell
happened?”
It was so good to hear his voice and know her old friend was there. She forced her words as loud as she could through a throat torn raw. “Jeff. I’m okay. I’m here.” At least until the drugs did their work.
“Glo! Oh fuck.”
Gloria was jostled as her alien pressed her tighter to his chest and angled her away from Jeff’s voice, probably bodily shoving past him. He moved faster and she heard her friend’s footsteps falling in behind them. “Buddy, she’s hurt. You need to let me see her and help.”
But her alien just snarled out an answer in words she couldn’t understand.
“You have a mouth on you, don’t you? I don’t think even half of that translated, and I don’t appreciate being compared to a Pervian anal worm either. Your anger isn’t helping anything. Mey is going to kick your ass if you just run out of here. We had a plan. Stop.” Jeff sighed heavily and then spoke again but this time it came out in the same strange language that her alien had been speaking.
Mey? Who the hell was that? Someone Jeff knew at this facility?
“How are you even sp-speaking that?” she asked, tripping over the question in her raspy voice. Her tongue felt numb and clumsy. Maybe she didn’t hear all that correctly. The drug must be screwing with her head. At least it was dulling much of the pain, but it was as though a veil was slowly drawing across her senses.
Her alien hissed and snarled at Jeff, but he slowed at last and bowed forward with Gloria cradled safely in his arms. His glowing green eyes searched her face with concern as he stroked her hair and then turned his look to Jeff and coughed out what sounded like a command.
“Don’t take that tone with me. I’ve been trying to help,” Jeff grumbled and her old friend’s familiar face came into view at last.
His appearance made her gasp in shock. His curly blond hair was even more wild than usual. Instead of artfully disheveled, it looked as though he’d been pulling it with his fingers until curls stood on end in several places. There were bruises on his face and neck, too, and his eyes were wide and wild.
No, those weren’t bruises.
She peered at him as her alien bowed lower. They weren’t bruises after all. There was something smeared on his face. Glittering like colorful purple, dark blue and silver eyeshadow had been smeared haphazardly over his skin. It reminded her of the luminescent powder that gleamed across her alien’s wings, just in different colors.
“What the hell h-happened to you? How did you know I was here? And how did you g-get in here?” she whispered.
“We’ll explain everything after we get you out of here.” He reached for her and her alien snarled a warning and jerked her away from him. When she cried out in pain at the sudden movement, the two males exchanged a series of terse words. Her alien had picked up the pace again and was moving swiftly down the hall. After a moment, he stopped walking and warily offered her toward Jeff again. “If this big bastard will just let me look at you, and stop jostling you.”
“You b-better be ready to go into g-great detail,” she gritted out as he pushed open her eyelids and peered closely at her.
“I will. Do I ever not go into detail?” He chewed at his lip and gave a shake of his head. “You look like you’re going into shock. He says they gave you something? He says you…smell different to him. We need to get you out of here so Mey can check you out. The faster the better, before the bodies are noticed, and they call for support.”
She wanted to ask what he meant about her smelling different and who this Mey person was and about the bodies. Her mind tried to signal her vocal chords to obey, but the wires were all crossed and frayed. Her eyelids were extraordinarily heavy and she stopped fighting them and rested her cheek against the alien’s powerful chest. “I don’t feel so…g-good.” The steady beat from inside that broad, muscular expanse was soothing. If she could only collect her wits. She’d try that after resting for a moment, enjoying the lack of pain.
Jeff cursed colorfully in English and then spoke in that lovely language, but she was drifting into a comfortable, warm darkness. The numbness was a blessed delight compared to the agony her body had suffered. The presence of him remained. In the blackness of the chemical sleep, he wrapped protectively around her, thrumming into the deepest parts of her.
3
Gloria woke in luxury.
Silken fabric, finer than anything she’d ever felt, wrapped around her where she lay. The material under her was plush and soft and multiple pillows were arranged under her head and around her. She lay on her side, hugging onto one of them.
A dim light illuminated the space and she could make out a dainty bedside table decorated with a single vase and long-stemmed flower with lurid red petals, and what looked like a cell phone charger.
She sat up with a jerk when she couldn’t immediately name the flower. It looked like some hybrid of an iris, a poppy and a rose but one hundred percent not-of-earth.
Where was she?
The room came into focus. It was spacious, sparsely decorated and clean. There were high, curving walls in pale silver, white and ivory with tile floors covered in vivid orange, and red carpets. A window set in a strange diamond shape showcased the dark, snow-covered forest.
The events came tumbling back through a fog, swiftly gaining clarity. The crash. The shot. Her imprisonment. The injection. The blood. She clutched at her chest and saw she was dressed in a gown—the fabric even finer than the sheets—in an iridescent peacock sheen that shifted from evergreen to plum with her movements.
Those movements didn’t cause her pain. She felt whole. It didn’t hurt to breathe and the marks on her wrists where she’d cut them trying to free herself were healed except for thin pink lines. Had she been asleep here long enough for her wounds to heal so much?
Had she slept right through Christmas?
A pang ran through her as she thought about the hard-earned gifts she wanted to give her family. She had planned to deliver food for their traditional holiday meal. What must they think happened to her?
The room might look like an expensive hotel.
But what if I can’t leave? a little voice whispered in the back of her mind.
Instead of feeling fear, a warm, thrumming comfort passed through her. Rubbing along her throat, she looked around as she swung her feet out of the bed and saw the arched door was open and a towering figure filled the illuminated space.
Her alien stood in the doorway, looking at her with gleaming green eyes as though he’d been standing there, watching her for hours. He was dressed in a tailored robe of rich emerald fabric accented by gold embroidery and gleaming with jewels. His thick chest ruff was on display, along with part of his chest, where the robe was open before the first fastening, just hiding his muscular abs.
Her attempt to stand failed her and she settled back onto the bed, staring at the alien. He looked glorious. Like he’d stepped out of an exotic dream. One of her more erotic, lusty fantasies come to life.
His massive body was accented by the fit of the garment, particularly how his broad shoulders were framed by the looping golden fringe that might indicate his status or office. Or, perhaps it was just part of his culture. His wings framed him, spread slightly and twinkling with their natural brilliance even in the light of day. They looked healed. Hopefully the bullet that had pierced it had not harmed him or prevented him from flight.
Could he fly?
It was a question she wished she could ask him but he couldn’t understand her anyway. “What, you get tired of running around buck naked?” she asked, surprised that her voice came out steady and strong, without sign of the abuse she’d inflicted on it from her screaming.
A sudden, broad smile curved his lips, exposing the points of his fangs. He stepped into the room, letting the door slide closed behind him. The fabric of the robe flowed around him with his movements. Long slits up to the hip at each side and front allowed his wide strides free movement. Darker, though nearly translucent, fabric clad his legs. She could see h
is muscles though the gossamer cloth.
Wow, even his legs were sexy. She winced inwardly at her response. Get it together Glo.
His feet were still bare and she noticed the long toe claws this time. His light footfalls made no sound as he padded to her with predatory grace and sank onto the bed beside her. She wasn’t expecting a response, but he shocked her by answering.
“I thought I would attempt modesty. I am Azziarh M’harn, king of M’harn and the Amburry System,” the alien pronounced in perfect English. She couldn’t even hear an accent to his deep, rumbling voice.
“How are you speaking my language? How did you learn it so fast?” She twisted her fingers together to give herself something to do rather than reach out and run her hands all over his body, fur and wings.
His smile softened as he leaned closer, sliding an arm around her to draw her close against him in obvious invitation.
“My chief deputy, Mey. She has a keen intellect and is a wizard when it comes to linguistics. She aided us in this task. Though I’m told that she was assisted by her newly found mate. The translation device was inserted during your healing. And so, now I can understand you, as you understand me. It can be upgraded with other languages as needed.”
Mey again. Hadn’t Jeff mentioned that name in the bloody hall?
He flashed a toothy smile and leaned in closer, gazing into her eyes. All thoughts of asking about Mey or her mate fled under the weight of that look.
Lord, his eyes were even more beautiful up close. A radiant emerald glow reached inside her and pulled at her, heart and soul. Her stomach tightened when he lowered his gaze to her lips and lingered there, as though lost in his own wandering thoughts. It made her look to his mouth, particularly when his tongue caressed against the elegant bow of his upper lip.
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