The Alien Reindeer's Flight (A Winter Starr Book 14)

by S. A. Ravel

  “Apart from the one who saved your life, it is safer for you not to know.”

  “That's not good enough, Dasher. On your feet!”

  Haj'erel winced. That was the name that pulled him to her when the cold water drained his will to live. But with water in his ears, he thought she had said Das'hel.

  “Given what you have seen tonight, I understand it is difficult to believe that I mean you no harm.” Haj'erel unfastened his suit at the collar and pulled it open down to his abdomen, exposing his chest to her. “Then believe that the storm outside has not passed and I am in no condition to go out in it. Given the circumstances of our meeting, I have no right to ask for your hospitality. Nevertheless, I must ask for it.”

  Her gaze swept up Haj'erel's chest, lingering on the scars left by the attack before settling on the mangled flesh that had been his eye. He found himself unable to hold her gaze as she took in the evidence of his second failure.

  "What happened to you?" she whispered. This time, some fear left her voice.

  But as the fight left her, so did her newfound burst of energy. Her body swayed from side to side, her head lolled forward. Slowly, her arm–and the knife at the end of it–sank to her side.

  “Now that you are warm, you should rest,” he breathed. “As should I.”

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "So you can steal my supplies while I sleep?"

  Sweet Joyful Mother! What has this planet become while I slept?

  “The time to do that was before you woke. Now you would know who took them.”

  “Like you couldn't just jump in your spaceship and fly to a galaxy far away.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I'm too tired to argue. What's your name?”

  “My name is Haj'erel of...no. Haj'erel will suffice.”

  “How about Haj?”

  “That will as well.”

  “Haj...I'm Audrey. If you promise not to open my bedroom door, you can stay. Just don't steal my food? Please? If you're hungry, I'll share it with you.”

  Haj'erel shook his head as he stared at her in wonder. Did she have enough stored to share or was she willing to sacrifice to one in need?

  “Once the door you refer to has closed, I will not move from this spot until it opens again.” Haj'erel refastened his suit.

  Audrey backed toward the nearest room, keeping her eyes on Haj'erel. The knife, though, remained at her side. When she crossed the threshold, she slammed the door shut and locked it.

  Alone in his aijan's den, Haj'erel took a deep breath. He wanted to relax, but her smell was everywhere. Meadow flowers and Terran soil, punctuated by bitter fear. The last was an unwelcome pungent addition, but it was part of her and he was its cause, so Haj'erel savored it along with the other aromas.

  No, the Joyful Mother has no mercy for me. No mercy at all.

  In the morning–after he saw to her safety–Haj'erel would walk out of her sight, take to the sky again, and fly away from her. Forever.

  4

  Audrey

  Try as she might, once Audrey was on the other side of the door she couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep. It was the same bed, the same blanket she'd always used, but the strange man on the other side of the door sapped every bit of comfort from the situation. She pushed her desk in front of the door, praying it was enough to keep her half-giant houseguest at bay if it came to it. Then she pulled on a pair of pajamas with a tight drawstring, curled up in bed, and waited.

  Audrey liked the silence of this new world. It was the only thing she liked. But with Haj’erel on the other side of the door, it carried a new threat. Every creak of the house could be Haj doing things she could only guess at. In the silence, Audrey had nothing to do but think. Specifically, about the orgasmic kiss of life Haj had given her.

  Within minutes of meeting Haj, he had given Audrey the most powerful orgasm of her life in the most chaste way possible. Why didn't that bother her more? What had that kiss done to her? Even now, she could still feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Her body felt so hot, she hadn’t needed her heavy pajamas, even though it was still snowing.

  Don’t even think about it, girl. That one has issues.

  He was a crazy man who didn't have enough sense to value his own life. At worst, he was a raider playing crazy to steal her stuff. At least her conscience was clear. She hadn’t sent a…whatever Haj was into an ice storm to die.

  By morning, Audrey had no answers, hardly an hour's worth of sleep, and a desperate need for an IV drip of caffeine. The sun shone outside her window, with hardly a cloud in the sky. It was time to get her surprise guest on the road and start the clean-up.

  Audrey tiptoed to the door and pressed her ear against it. When she heard Haj'erel's soft, even snores, she cracked the door and peeked out. The giant of a man had shunned the couch in favor of a patch of floor in front of the door. He slumped with his back against the wood and his chin resting against his chest.

  He reminded Audrey of an oversized cartoon bear from Phoebe's favorite childhood show. It was purple, with a head half a size too small for its body. Two children visited the bear's magical realm every episode, and during the end credits he would stand guard over them while they slept. In every episode, he had his chin buried against his chest, just like Haj.

  Other than the awkward angle of his neck, Haj’erel looked like a normal man. With the fur gone, his defined jaw came into view. His full lips hung slack as he slept. Audrey’s fingers itched to brush over them, to kiss them again.

  Don’t even think about it. He’s hurt. He’s a stranger. He’s an alien!

  Audrey swallowed to clear the thickness growing in her throat. How could she be so suspicious of him? It was a survival mechanism, but also a shitty way to behave. She may have tried to save Haj, but he had saved her. If he'd wanted to hurt her, he could have just let her drown or die of hypothermia. The least she could do was share some of her food and any clothes she had that were big enough to fit him.

  But if he has his back to the front door...that means he was watching my door too. Audrey scowled at the thought. She really could have gone through her whole day without it.

  "If you wish to attack me, you've waited too long." Haj'erel opened his uninjured eye and looked up at Audrey. In the daylight, it was the most brilliant gold she had ever seen. She could have spent hours just staring at it.

  Woman, you cannot be this hard up for a man. Get a grip!

  Audrey cleared her throat. “Ya know if I wanted to hurt you, I could have left you in the lake.”

  "I can say the same." He leaned forward, bending his knee and bracing his forearm against it. "But it was me who pulled us both out."

  The afghan covering his hips tented, but the backlighting of the sun kept Audrey from getting a good look. She was almost disappointed.

  “So, where are you headed when you leave here?” She could only hope he was better at taking hints than he was at good mornings.

  “North. And from there, home.”

  “Where’s home?” Now we’re getting somewhere.

  Haj squared his shoulders and lowered his chin. "I do not believe you will know the name. It is far away and remote."

  Damn. If Audrey were in Haj’s position–alone and unarmed in a stranger’s house–she wouldn’t give honest answers to personal questions either. She’d been just as determined to give Haj the cold shoulder when she walked out of her room.

  "If I make you breakfast, can we call a truce? My aunt always said arguments are bad for the digestion." It had been a long time since she'd bickered with anyone, let alone before caffeine and calories.

  "I do not eat meat." Haj'erel closed his eyes and slumped down again.

  The man had a strange way of stating the obvious. Who ate real meat anymore? Well, the people in the colonies probably still had livestock. Settlers like Phoebe had something like meat. Even if Audrey could have kept an animal, she could never have eaten its meat. It would only have ended up another mouth to feed. She'd been vegetarian by
circumstance for years. Since the supply depot's restock periods had stretched from monthly to quarterly, Audrey had slowly started going vegan by circumstance, too.

  Figuring that was her answer, Audrey went to the kitchen. “Well I hope you aren’t used to fancy supply drops, because we don’t get those out here. There’s not enough people in this region for them to stock the depot with the good stuff.”

  Well, she hoped Mr. Picky liked ration bars and dehydrated apples because that's what she had for breakfast. If he didn't adjust his attitude, she might top it with her ill-advised sugarless sour cherry jam.

  Audrey had meals down to a perfected routine. She filled the kettle with water from the barrel. From that, she filled a pot halfway and added the dehydrated apple slices. If she had it, which she hadn't in forever, she added grains too. If she didn't, warmed ration bars gave the meal enough weight to carry her to the next. She'd have to set up a fire pit right after breakfast and start doing her cooking outside to avoid draining the battery too much before Christmas.

  But she had plans for the dirt over at the Griffiths' old place. Two supply drops ago, Audrey bought a packet of every grain seed the depot manager, Frankie, told her would grow in her soil. All she needed was one plant to thrive, and she'd have all the grain she ever needed.

  The thought brought a smile to Audrey's face as she turned on the stove burner. Her lips fell back into place when the pilot didn’t click. She turned the stove off and back on again, holding her hand over the burner to feel for warmth. It stayed ice cold.

  Audrey's stomach sank. She rushed to the light switch on the wall and flicked it. Nothing. The battery wasn't dying anymore. It was dead.

  "Did you turn something on last night?" Audrey yelled. She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but the lump in her throat was growing by the second. This couldn't be happening. Not with the road to the highway frozen over. Not the week of the last Christmas sit and sip!

  Haj'erel sighed and grunted. Seconds later, he ducked his head around the wall. "The lights when I checked your other den–rooms for intruders and the interior temperature control." Haj gestured to the small white box on the wall.

  "The...the thermostat?" Back when the world still made sense, Aunt Ruth had the thermostat connected to the solar generator.

  We’ve got the lake and the cellar if the summers get too hot, she'd said, but the winters are too dangerous to go without heat.

  Audrey hadn't turned it on in at least two years. In the winter, she slept on the living room couch and bundled up under an extra blanket. The thermostat just used too much juice.

  But she hadn't told Haj'erel not to touch it. How could she? Why would she? Who used a thermostat anymore?

  Audrey closed her eyes. The more she struggled to keep control of her spiraling emotions, the more they raged. Her eyes burned with unshed tears until she had to let them spill to relieve the sting.

  No generator. No battery. No useable road to town. And no way to answer the phone when Phoebe called for Audrey's last Christmas sit and sip.

  She couldn't see Haj'erel through the watery blur, but she felt him move closer to her.

  “Was that not right?” he asked, concern flooding his voice. “I thought you...would prefer not to be cold.”

  “You killed my generator,” Audrey said.

  “Is there no energy in the power lines?” he asked.

  Something in Audrey snapped. Haj'erel asked so innocently, but he wasn't innocent at all. She brushed the tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands and turned on him. She could practically feel the steam coming from her ears. This time the warmth had nothing to do with how close the handsome stranger was.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded. “If you want to steal my stuff, go ahead. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not a combat expert. I can't stop you. But you don't have to drive me crazy along the way!”

  Audrey brushed past Haj'erel, though where she meant to go she didn't know. He caught her arm before she could leave.

  “Tell me what upsets you and I will do my best to set it right.” He peered down at Audrey, his golden eye so earnest it tugged at her heart. But there was frustration there, too. Maybe he was just a good actor.

  She shook her head and blinked to keep the tears from falling. "You could have built a bigger fire." Audrey couldn't keep the thickness of emotion from her voice or the tremble from her lips.

  “That might have set your shelter on fire,” he said.

  “You could have set the couch on freakin' fire for all I care! I needed that battery.”

  The sandy-blonde giant furrowed his brow. “Can you not acquire another?”

  "The road to town is level with an off-shoot of the lake. It probably froze over in the storm," she said. "I would have looked at it last night, but I didn't because I saved you. And you won't even tell me what you're doing here."

  "Ice melts, Audrey," Haj'erel said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Always and without fail. "

  Audrey's throat forced itself open in a scream she wouldn't let past her lips. A tiny squeak escaped anyway. "Get out!"

  The muscles in Audrey's body tensed. She damn well meant the words that came out of her mouth, but Haj'erel was seven-feet-tall with at least three hundred pounds of bulky muscle covered in tanned skin and a layer of sandy brown hair. She had no illusions about her ability to back up those words.

  Haj'erel blinked. His lips parted for several seconds before he spoke. “You have supplies to last until a thaw. This dwelling is secure. I do not understand your anger.”

  “It's my house. You don't have to understand. You just have to leave.” She could grab a knife from the kitchen drawers. She could grab Aunt Ruth's cast iron pan from the cabinet and bash him over the head with it. Or he could turn either weapon on her. And in his case, it would be self-defense instead of justified rage.

  Haj'erel's gaze moved down Audrey's face and settled on the floor. “As you said, the ground is frozen and I lack proper clothing to shield me from it. I've not taken enough nourishment. What I've had hasn't been the right kind. If I go into the elements now with no firm destination, I will not survive.”

  It was Audrey's turn to blink in surprise. “No destination?”

  “I am not from here. I don’t know where here is.”

  Those were all the reasons she'd let Haj'erel stay the night in the first place. And she hadn't just saved his life. He'd saved hers, too. Suddenly the weight of her anger felt too heavy. She slumped, first by her shoulders then folding at her hips until she rested on the cracked, peeling linoleum.

  "I'm...sorry," she whispered. Those few words felt like the hardest thing she had ever done. Not because of the sentiment behind them, just the pure energy it took to twist her lips and tongue into shape. “I should have told you not to touch anything. I just...my baby sister was supposed to call me for Christmas. She'll be out of range not long after that.”

  Haj'erel crouched beside her. “I did not know.”

  “And you thought I'd be better off in a warm house after falling into a frozen lake. I don't mean to sound ungrateful. It's just I promised Phoebe, my sister, that I'd talk to her on Christmas.” But Phoebe would be fine. She had her new husband and her new life in the stars. There would always be a first Christmas where the Pope girls didn't speak. Audrey just wished she had known it would be this one.

  If she had known, she would have spent longer on the last call. She would have moved Christmas up. What did it matter if they moved the holiday? It only had meaning when they shared it together.

  Haj'erel put his hand on Audrey's shoulder. The pulsating warmth drew her attention from her spiraling thoughts to his calloused fingers. “The depot you spoke of earlier, they will have supplies there, yes? Including a new battery for your generator?”

  Audrey stared into Haj’s golden eye, temporarily lost in it before she nodded. “But like I said, the road froze over after that storm."

  “You have tools?” Haj'erel pulled hi
s hand away and slid to his feet with the fluid grace of a gazelle. “A hammer or an ax?”

  “They're in the tool shed out back.” Before the words were fully out of Audrey’s mouth, Haj’erel was at the front door. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Enjoy your breakfast, Audrey,” he said. “By the time you’ve finished, I’ll have a path clear.”

  He said the words with such conviction, Audrey was sure he meant to make good on them. Crazy people were secure in their delusions, right?

  She admitted it was ridiculous to kick him out. Did he plan to make her beg him to stay? Well, Ruth Pope’s girls did not beg.

  “You won’t be able to clear the road by hand.” Audrey slid to her feet and shuffled to the living room closet. She pulled out her biggest coat and passed it to him. If he was going to be crazy, he should at least stay warm.

  Haj stared hard at it for a second. “If I clear the lowest point, will you be able to reach the depot?”

  She nodded. “I’ve got tire chains, yeah. But you won’t be able to. The ice is too thick. Look, I said you don't have to go, but if you’re that eager to leave anyway, there's another paddle boat at the dock. The lake's not exactly toasty, but it shouldn't be frozen yet.”

  “You cannot paddle a boat and supplies back here alone, unless you are far stronger than you appear." Haj took a long look up and down Audrey's body, as if to inspect her for hidden muscles.

  Her skin burned under his gaze. “It wouldn't be a walk in the park, but I could do it.”

  “I thought not.” Haj plucked the coat from her fingers. “But this I will take and for it give you thanks.”

  “I could probably find some thicker pants that will just fit you, if I dig.” And if she used a loose definition of the word fit.

  “No need,” he said. “It won't take long.”

  Audrey opened her mouth to argue with him, but the view of his firm, rounded ass in the jumpsuit as he turned toward the door stopped the words. By the time she blinked herself back to reality, the giant of a man was gone.