Claimed by an Alien Warrior

by Tiffany Roberts

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s a surprise, which means you’re going to have to wait to find out.”

  “Zoey…”

  “Don’t you growl at me.”

  The wood of his chair creaked, conveying his impatience even before he spoke. “Well how long do I have to wait?”

  Zoey glanced at the oven. “Ten minutes. But then it will need a little time to cool.”

  “What should I do until then? I…I do not wish to be of no use.”

  “You…could tell me about yourself. Or about your planet, or how you got here.”

  She peeked at him as she moved the clumping eggs with the spatula. He turned back toward the windows, leaning forward with all four elbows on the table. His silence stretched, leaving only the sound of the wind over the roof and the gentle sizzle from the skillet.

  “You don’t have to. It was only a suggestion,” Zoey said.

  “My Umen’rak was traveling through this system because it was the shortest route home,” he said after a few more seconds. “We had completed our Nes’rak and struck a korvaxx staging point elsewhere in this galaxy.”

  “What do nezrack and korvaxx mean?” she asked.

  “Nes’rak is…duty. I think the word mission is the closest in your language. A task of great importance that is given to an Umen’rak to complete. And the korvaxx are an alien species we have warred with for a long while. After raiding an outpost on a world in the korvaxx’s control, we obtained intelligence on their war effort, and had learned of many more worlds they meant to conquer and enslave. That is what the korvaxx do; take and take until nothing is left. But with that information, we would’ve had the chance to stop many of their assaults before they were underway.”

  She looked at him again; his posture was hunched, his head bowed.

  “While we were on the enemy world, our ship must’ve been…sabotaged, or something of the sort,” he continued. “I was jolted from stasis by an explosion that destroyed a large portion of our ship. Our pods were automatically jettisoned to this planet, and the command module was separated from the wreckage. That module can function as a ship of its own, though its defenses and weaponry are somewhat lacking. That is what I’m trying to reach. I don’t know if it landed safely or if it crashed, but it is my only chance to get off this planet.”

  “Was your Umen’rak captured with you?” she asked, frowning.

  “Many died in the explosion or did not survive the fall to the surface because their pods were too damaged. But yes…some of them were captured with me.”

  Zoey stilled the spatula, keeping her eyes fixed on him. “What happened to them?”

  “I…” He lifted his head for a moment before sagging down again like a great weight was pressing down on him; she understood why. “I do not know. Not with any certainty. A couple were likely too wounded to have survived long, even with their nyros. The rest…the scientists were eager to learn our anatomy and had no qualms about inflicting harm upon us. Some of what I’d heard indicated that at least one of my companions was cut open while still living. The leader of the operation implied that the rest were killed due to similar experiments, but I was never offered any solid information.”

  Annnnnnd you just made him relive all that. Way to go, Zo. You’re really crushing it lately.

  Without paying much attention to what she was doing, she removed the skillet from the stove and scooped a pile of scrambled eggs onto one of the plates she’d set out.

  Zoey didn’t want to imagine what he’d been through while he was in captivity. She didn’t need to. As big and strong as Ren was, the horror and trauma he’d experienced was evident in his voice, in his body language, in the thickness of the air around him. She was glad that he’d confided in her, but seeing him like this made her chest hurt and her stomach flutter anxiously.

  She carried the plate of eggs and a fork over to the table, setting them in front of him. He made no move to eat.

  “What will you do if the command module doesn’t work?” she asked.

  “Attempt to get the communications into working order to call for rescue.”

  Zoey nodded and returned to the stove to cook the remaining eggs.

  “Thank you for the food,” he said after a long silence.

  “You’re welcome.”

  A few minutes later, the oven timer beeped. Turning it off, she grabbed a pot holder, opened the oven, and removed the pan of blueberry muffins from within.

  She wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or concerned when Ren didn’t turn to look at what she was doing. He sat hunched forward, lower elbows on the table, eating his eggs with slow, stiff movements. His fork occasionally clinked or lightly scraped against the plate, but he was otherwise quiet.

  Zoey plucked two muffins from the pan, hissing at the heat on her palm, and dropped them on a small plate to top each with a bit of butter. She brought the muffins and her plate of eggs to the table, sitting across from him. She placed the muffins on his side.

  “Surprise,” she said half-heartedly, forcing a smile as she pushed the muffin plate a little closer to him. Her smile quickly faded. “I don’t want us to fight.”

  Ren reached forward with one of his lower hands and picked up a muffin, drawing it closer for inspection. He gently poked it with a finger. “I don’t want to fight, either,” he said softly, meeting her gaze. “It’s all I’ve done for my whole life, and I am tired of it. Even when it does not involve bloodshed.”

  Zoey bit the inside of her bottom lip. “Forgive me?”

  “Yes. So long as you forgive me. I did not mean it the way I said it.”

  “I didn’t mean it the way I said it, either.”

  “I suppose we are a pair of fools, you and I. But…” He extended an upper arm and placed his hand over hers. “I have greatly enjoyed your company, despite the unpleasant circumstances that brought us together.”

  She stared at their hands and brushed her thumb against his. “Me too.”

  Using his lower hands, he tore off a chunk of the muffin and slipped it into his mouth. A smile, small but genuine, crept across his lips as he chewed. “Somehow, it tastes even better than it smells.”

  Zoey grinned. “They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

  “And this does taste very good,” he replied, smile widening.

  She placed a hand over her chest. “Aww.”

  Despite her overacting, the fire inside her had rekindled. She’d tried to force distance between them, had tried to tell herself there was nothing to pursue here, that there was no future for them. That it would only end in heartbreak.

  But she couldn’t stay away from him.

  Maybe…she didn’t have to.

  The day was a good one, and they passed it as though the night before never happened. They talked in the kitchen as the sun rose, which, thanks to the continuing storm, only meant a shift from black to gray outside. Afterward, they watched a couple more movies. Zoey found popcorn in the pantry, and Rendash partook eagerly until the skins started getting stuck in his teeth. He scowled so darkly at the bag that she thought he was going to murder it.

  When the end credits started rolling on the second movie, Zoey stood. Rendash moved to join her, but she stilled him with an extended hand. “Stay here, Ren. I’ll be right back.”

  She hurried upstairs to the master bedroom. Kneeling on the floor beside her suitcase, she opened it and dug through her clothing until she found her little photo album. It was her most treasured possession. Her fingertips trailed over its worn, familiar front cover, and she felt a single moment of doubt. She hadn’t even shown Joshua these pictures, even after almost a year. Would Rendash care? Her father meant nothing to him, and his relationship with his parents hadn’t exactly been close.

  But it will mean that dad’s memory, at least in part, is with one other person in this universe.

  Zoey returned to the media room with the album clutched to her chest and smiled at Ren.

  “What is that, Zo
ey?” he asked.

  She sat next to him and lowered her arms, holding the album on her palms. Taking a deep breath, she cast aside her lingering anxiety.

  “This,” she said as she opened the cover, “is my dad.”

  The first picture was her father fresh out of high school — a young man, hair cropped short, face as bare as a baby’s ass. He wore a huge, proud, goofy grin.

  “And this,” she pointed to the newborn baby in his arms, “is me.”

  Ren leaned down to study the picture more closely before pulling back to glance at her again. “That was really you?” he asked. “You were so tiny. And wrinkly.”

  She chuckled, eyes on the picture. “Yeah, that was me.”

  Rendash tilted his head. “Ah, but there you are. Your eyes were just as beautiful then as they are now.”

  Zoey looked up to find Ren staring at her. Her heart did a little flip, and she blushed. She’d received so few compliments since her father passed that she couldn’t accept them easily, but his conviction made it impossible to reject his words.

  Though her eyes blurred with tears, Zoey smiled as she turned the pages, sharing each photo with Ren. Her as a baby; posing with her dad on her first day of kindergarten; her and her dad eating ice cream at the zoo; the two of them dressed as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask in hand-made costumes on Halloween when she was nine. With each picture, she shared a little bit of herself with Ren, shared a little bit of her father. He hadn’t been a perfect man, and even as a child she’d understood they had struggled financially, but they’d been happy.

  Her tears didn’t spill until she reached the final photograph.

  She gently brushed her finger over the plastic sleeve holding the picture. “It was his birthday and he was stuck in the hospital, so my grandma helped me bring him balloons and a cake. One of the nurses took this picture for us because grandma couldn’t figure out how to use the camera.”

  Little Zoey had climbed onto the bed behind him, smiling over his shoulder. Her father — emaciated and with a sickly pallor — had smiled just as wide, eyes sparkling with happiness despite his pain.

  “This was last picture we took together. He, uh—” she hurriedly wiped the moisture from her cheeks to keep it from dripping on the page and sniffled. “He died a few days later.”

  When she blinked away her tears, she realized Rendash was staring at her again.

  He lifted his hands and covered her cheeks, stroking them gently with his thumbs. “It seems to me that he had the heart of a warrior,” he said, “just like his daughter. He deserves every honor you give him. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

  Fresh tears flooded her eyes as she felt that pain, that loss, all over again. She knew it would never go away…but that was okay, wasn’t it? That was part of loving someone.

  Zoey slipped her arms around Ren and silently cried. He embraced her, sliding one hand up and down her back soothingly, and said nothing.

  “Thank you, Ren,” she whispered when her tears slowed. She turned her face toward him and rested her head on his shoulder, inhaling deeply. His scent reminded her of sandalwood, with a rich, earthy undertone. “Thank you for listening. For caring.”

  Without thinking, she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck.

  His hand stilled, and his muscles tensed, but his only move was to lay his cheek on her hair. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share him.”

  They remained like that for a while, and she let herself melt into his embrace, relishing the comfort he provided. He didn’t push her away, didn’t take anything for himself.

  Finally, she placed her hands on his shoulders and drew back with a soft smile. “I’m going to go wash up, and then we can make some dinner.”

  “King me!” Zoey plopped her piece down on a black square at Rendash’s edge of the board.

  He frowned, staring down for several seconds before finally picking up one of the discarded red checkers and crowning her new king. “How do you consistently penetrate my defenses?”

  “Guess I just have that effect on you.”

  After they’d eaten and cleaned up, their exploration had led Zoey to a stash of board and card games in one of the closets. Her excited shout had brought Rendash running. She hadn’t played such games since she was a little girl.

  Because Ren couldn’t read English, their choices had been limited, but they enjoyed the simple games as much as they would have anything else — it had taken several hands of poker before he was able to remember which card combinations were the most valuable, but he’d understood dominoes and checkers almost immediately.

  This was their fifth round of checkers. Zoey had won the first four, and each time she’d jumped his final piece, Rendash demanded a rematch.

  “The game is so simple, and yet I am unable to overcome you.”

  “I’m just that good.” Zoey grinned. “Maybe you need the right incentive.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet hers and tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  Zoey toyed with the small stack of checker chips she’d captured from Ren, lips pursed. “What if…every time you capture one of my pieces, you can ask me a question, and I’ll answer truthfully. If you get kinged, you can ask me to do something. Anything.”

  A mischievous gleam sparked in his eyes. “Anything?”

  “Anything at all.” She leaned forward. “But the same applies to you.”

  He rested his upper arms on the table and grasped the edge with his lower hands. As he held her gaze, a faint smile touched his lips. “Very well, little human.”

  Zoey shifted in her seat, a bit unnerved by his sudden confidence. But there was no way he was going to beat her. She’d already won four times, and she was well on her way to another victory. “Let’s do this, then.”

  There was a new intensity in the air as he made his move, and excitement danced low in Zoey’s belly. She couldn’t have realized that upping the stakes could turn the game into something so much more exciting.

  They each took another turn before Zoey jumped one of his chips. “Ha!” She added the checker to her pile and looked at Ren. “How many relationships have you been in?”

  “Based on my understanding of the term, according to humans, none.”

  Zoey furrowed her brow. “None?”

  “None.” Without breaking eye contact with her, he settled a finger on one of his pieces and slid it forward.

  She mulled over his answer as they played. How had he never been in a relationship? She knew he’d been raised as a warrior, but shouldn’t he have had something along the way? Did his answer mean he’d had sexual relations without emotional attachment?

  Two more turns passed before he jumped one of her chips. He claimed the red checker slowly, staring down at it as though in deep consideration. “How many males have you had sex with?”

  Zoey blushed. That was what she should’ve asked him — how many females have you had sex with? “You go right for the throat, don’t you? Two.”

  Palm up, he gestured to the board.

  Zoey moved her piece, not realizing until she’d already lifted her finger that it was a mistake. “Shit.”

  Rendash took his checker between two long fingers. It came down once, twice, each drop a rumble of thunder. One of his lower arms stretched forward to pluck two of her chips off the board.

  “King me,” he said.

  Reluctantly, Zoey set one of the captured black pieces atop his newly anointed king.

  “That’s two questions and an action, correct?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Zoey replied, bracing herself.

  “Are you attracted to me, Zoey?”

  She lifted her gaze. Her eyes roamed over his body of their own accord. She took in his broad shoulders, his strong arms, the rippling muscle of his bare chest and abdomen, and his hands. Zoey remembered exactly what those hands felt like upon her body.

  Arousal ignited deep within, flooding her core with sudden heat.

  She looked into his eyes. “
Yes.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a small, satisfied smile. He spread his arms a little wider and leaned back in his chair. “What do you want, Zoey? What do you really want, to make you happy?”

  Zoey swallowed, her heart skipping.

  I want someone to look at me like you are right now for every day of the rest of my life.

  She dropped her attention to the table, absently tracing the tiny, raised crown on the top face of Ren’s king.

  “I want stability. I want…a home.” she answered.

  “Explain, human.”

  “You’re out of questions.”

  “I wasn’t asking.”

  Zoey glared at him but couldn’t hold back a smile. “Bossy alien.” She sighed and shrugged as the seriousness of the explanation settled over her. “After my dad died, I never had a real home. I went to live with my grandmother for a little while, but she passed away the next year. After that…I had no one. I was put in foster homes with strangers, moved around from place to place — some good, some not so good. That was my life until I was eighteen. Then I got a job and saved up to get my own place.

  “My friend Melissa, the one who I was driving to meet, was in the last foster home I lived in. We became friends and shared an apartment for a little while but I…I wanted to see things.” More like I wanted to run away before everything fell apart, because why wouldn’t it have? “So, I hit the road and left Des Moines behind. I always wanted to see the ocean, and when I ended up in Santa Barbara, California, I just kind of…stuck around. I didn’t mean to stay, but traveling was expensive, so I got a job.

  “And then I met Joshua.” She frowned, sitting back in her chair and settling her hands atop the table. “I thought I had a future with him. We both had jobs, we found an apartment for a decent price, and I thought… He lost his job not long after we moved in together. We weren’t doing great, but we were making it, so I told myself it was okay. We’d make it work. One day at a time.” Zoey scowled. “But I found out the truth, eventually.”

  “And then I forced my way into your life, at that lowest point,” he said softly.