The right human? Her? She couldn’t imagine why she was so special that anyone would bother. She was a part-time librarian with dreams of acting, but if she was valuable, would he have given her up so easily to this other guy? That didn’t seem likely. “What If he comes back for me?”
“He won’t.” There was no hint of doubt in his words.
“But how do you know? If he thinks I’m worth something, then he might—”
He interrupted her, shaking his head. “He’s dead so you have nothing to worry about.” He said it so matter-of-factly that she was speechless for a second.
“I still have you to worry about,” she mumbled. She heard him laugh, but her eyes were starting to slide shut and she was having trouble forming words. Fear of all those claws and teeth coming for her again had helped her stay awake, but now it was a struggle and even though she didn’t want to trust this stranger—she did.
Chapter 3
When she woke later, she could tell it had been a long sleep by how sluggish she felt and because her stomach was growling with hunger. There was a feeling of disorientation as she tried to figure out where she was. But that was the normal result of waking in a strange place, and this time, there were no issues with her memories.
They returned almost immediately and sent her heart racing. Her situation was one of two things: either she’d been kidnapped by an alien and was being held on a spaceship, or she’d been kidnapped by a crazy person who had built up an elaborate scenario to fool her. Either way she was in trouble and had no way to get out of it.
If she’d had her bag then maybe she’d have been able to fashion a weapon, at least, but it was gone along with her shoes. Her knee-length skirt was pretty, but it was designed for fashion, which meant it had no pockets to ruin the lines. She wore a camisole under her plain, button-down blouse which meant she couldn’t even cannibalize a bra for wire.
The room was so bare and plain that she knew she wouldn’t find anything, but she was locked in with nothing to do, so she got up and began to explore anyway. Now that she knew there were hidden panels, that gave her a starting point but no matter where she poked and prodded, nothing opened. She’d just gotten down on her knees and was searching under the bed, when the door whooshed open behind her.
He’d returned.
It took her a second to work her way back out and when she sat up, she found that he’d been watching her butt wiggle as she squirmed out from under the bed. It brought a rush of heat to her face when she realized the view he must have had. With her skirt rucked up around her hips and her backside up in the air, she had presented him with quite a show, and now he looked down at her with some feral expression of hunger that made her breath catch in her throat.
She swallowed hard and hastily adjusted her clothing. “I—I was just checking for my shoes. They aren’t here.” She knew it was a lame excuse, but she couldn’t tell if he bought it or not.
“You weren’t wearing them when I retrieved you,” he said, his eyes lingering over her body for a moment. The glance had a physical weight to it, and almost felt like a caress across her skin.
His gaze was so powerful that it made things in her body tighten and caused her breath to catch in her throat. That hungry look made her feel desirable, and she had to remind herself that he might have kidnapped her, and at the very least, might not even be human! She cast about for a way to distract him, and herself. As if on cue, her stomach gurgled loud enough to be audible.
“Come and eat, human,” he said, and just like that, the connection snapped, and the tension vanished as he turned towards the door.
She sighed. “Can you stop calling me that? It feels strange. I have a name, you know; it’s Rachael.”
He paused, turning back to look at her and then nodded. “Rachael. I am Ka’aav.” He pronounced her name oddly with a sibilant sound in the middle instead of the chuh she was used to, but she was glad she hadn’t corrected him when she had her own trouble with his name. She tried to pronounce the weird skip but the closest she could come was Kave.
He chuckled but didn’t correct her as he went to the door at the end of corridor and palmed it so it would open. He passed through and kept going. The door started to close before he realized she hadn’t followed.
“What’s wrong, Rachael? You said you wanted to see the ship. You won’t see much from in here,” he commented. When she didn’t move, he added, “If this is a trick and you’re not really on a ship then what’s to be afraid of?”
There was a tone of challenge in his voice, daring her to step outside the room. She couldn’t explain it, but suddenly she was terrified. It wasn’t him. She was wary of him still, but she’d started to trust that he was what he said he was; a protector, not an abductor, but the idea of seeing what lay beyond that door was unexpectedly frightening.
Was she on a spaceship? Was she locked in some strange themed room in the house of a kidnapper? The answers lay out there, and once she’d seen for herself, she’d know what her choices were—if she had any at all.
Maybe he understood a little of what she was feeling because he waited patiently, keeping the door open by standing in its way while she made her decision. When she finally pulled herself together and moved to join him, he gave her a look that she couldn’t quite decipher. Approval maybe? Later she’d learn to love that look, but just then, it confused her.
She tried to hold onto her suspicions as he took her on a slow tour of his ship. This could be faked easily, she thought. For the most part it was nothing but metal walls and sparce furniture that had been bolted in place, not unlike how she would have expected a submarine to look, but once they got to the control room, the last of her doubts were ripped away between one breath and the next.
The screen showing blackness and moving stars could have been film. Fancy bolted chairs could have been created by any clever designer with an eye for science fiction, but when he flipped the switch that erased their surroundings and made them appear to be standing in open space, she gave up and accepted—after dropping to the floor with a piercing shriek and a feeling of violent vertigo that she would never forget as long as she lived.
“I thought it would help clear up your doubts,” he said, helping her up. He sounded amused, so she glared at him.
“You could have warned me!” Her heart was racing a mile a minute, and there was a panicky feeling clutching at her chest that was slow to recede once the walls returned.
He chuckled. “Yes, but this was more entertaining. Besides,” he said. “Nothing really prepares you for the first time you experience space with the walls gone. It hits all your primal fears.”
Well, he was right about that. She didn’t think even the most careful explanation of what was going to happen would have helped her be ready for the nothingness of space. “It was—” She struggled for the right words to describe the experience. Nothing in her vocabulary seemed adequate somehow. “Immense. I felt so … small.” Tiny, insignificant, just an unimportant speck in the grand scheme of things.
“I understand. We all react the same the first time. Well—” He paused, “maybe not the screaming and falling part, but those feelings are normal. Do you believe I’m an alien now?”
“Yes, you’re an alien and I’m in space—oh god, I’m in space!” A shudder rolled down her back ,and she took a slow deep breath to calm herself.
“But you’re safe now,” he reminded her. He reached out slowly and touched her arm. When she didn’t flinch away, he reeled her in until he was holding her tightly. “You’re safe.”
Safe? What did that even mean when she was a million miles from home with a stranger? What did safe mean now that she knew there were aliens out there? Not just one race but more … she didn’t even know how many, but she knew that Kave and the thing that had attacked her weren’t the same.
Her memories of that were still fractured but she remembered all the hands—not human hands, but thick digits and sharp claws—coming at her. And the teeth. She bu
ried her face in Kave’s strong chest and made a whimpering sound.
His arms tightened, and she could feel him gently rubbing her back. “It’s a lot to understand at once,” he said in a gentle tone that calmed her.
“I don’t—he was so nice looking, and then suddenly he wasn’t. His hands were clawed, dangerous, and there were too many of them. I fell backwards and then—that’s all I remember.” A nauseous feeling made her close her mouth and she had to swallow hard.
“Human appearance is required on Earth. He wouldn’t have changed until he was ready to strike,” he said.
She tensed and looked up with a sudden frightening thought. “Are you hiding what you look like too?”
He shook his head. “No, Rachael, this is how my people look off Earth. We can’t change shape the way they do, so we have technology that makes small changes to ensure we fit in. The skin, the eyes—otherwise we’re not so different physically.” He paused and then clarified, “Well, not things that would show in public anyway.”
She blushed and would definitely not be asking what he meant by that! It did make her curious, but it was too much to deal with now. She filed it away with many other questions for later when she’d adjusted. Maybe then she’d also ask why she felt so comfortable being held in his arms when the few things she knew about him should have sent her running in the opposite direction—not that there was any place to run on the small ship, of course.
She had a strange instinct to trust in him and she couldn’t deny the chemistry, but she wouldn’t be in a spaceship far from home if she hadn’t let herself be led by the last handsome man she’d seen. There was incentive to be careful with this one.
She forced herself to straighten and push back out of his arms, cutting off that oh-so-comfortable feeling before she got too used to it. “You said something about food?” she asked, not quite meeting his eyes. Although she’d started to get used to them, it was still uncomfortable to see them dead on, and that was a convenient excuse for not looking into his face.
The truth was that she was afraid he’d read too much in her own eyes. She didn’t want him to know how attractive she found him, or that being held in those strong arms had excited her.
“Yes, you need to eat!” He snapped the words with irritation clear in his voice; she jumped before she realized that he wasn’t annoyed at her but at himself for forgetting. “The venom should be out of your system by now, but food will help restore your energy,” he said as he turned and strode off, leaving her to follow or not.
She followed.
Chapter 4
The technology he used to prepare their food held all of her attention. She couldn’t believe how easy it was. She wasn’t used to men who could cook at all, so she’d expected the alien equivalent of sandwiches or frozen dinners—and she was partly right about the latter. But when he pulled off the lids and slid them onto the table, she was surprised at how tasty it looked and smelled. No frozen meal on Earth ever cooked that fast or had ever looked that appetizing.
Despite the appearance, she was nervous about what an alien might consider food. She was prepared to choke down enough to survive because she had no other choice, but there were lingering concerns. The water was less worrisome, and she sipped eagerly from the flask he handed her. It was clear and cool like it had been drawn straight from a mountain spring.
When she’d had her fill, she turned to the food. “Are you sure it’s safe? I mean, for humans?” she asked in a tone that managed to sound both worried and hopeful at the same time.
He nodded as he cleverly folded the metal tops into spoons and handed her one. “It’s safe, Rachael. I’ve been to Earth remember? Our foods are similar enough to cause no issues.”
She took a tentative bite and her eyes widened immediately. “This is so good!”
“My people enjoy our pleasures, and eating is meant to be a pleasure. Even on small ships where things are limited, we manage to stock the best supplies we can,” he said, laughing. He watched as she took a second bite before turning to his own meal. He had two packages to her one, which seemed fair enough considering how much larger he was.
“The flavors are strange. It’s not like Earth food but it’s great,” she assured him and then began eating at a pace that was almost embarrassing. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until the food was in front of her, but now she couldn’t slow down until the foil package was entirely empty.
She found herself eyeing his second portion in an obvious way. He didn’t ask if she wanted more, he just pushed it over to her and fixed another for himself.
After the briefest hesitation, just to be polite, she dived in and demolished that too. “I’m so sorry. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days,” she said as she finally sat back and shook her head.
“You haven’t.” He took the discarded packages and shoved them into a drawer in the wall as he explained. “The venom he used was potent, Rachael. It’s been nearly sixty Earth hours since you were taken.”
“Sixty hours?” she repeated. “How could … I don’t feel like I slept so long.” Her tone sounded flat as it took her emotions a second to catch up enough for her to realize she’d found that extremely upsetting. Why being unconscious for that length of time should add to the stressfulness of the situation, she wasn’t sure, but she suddenly felt even further from home.
“Yes. You were in a stasis field for most of it, and that slows your bodily functions for a time, but eventually your needs will catch up. Hunger is usually first.”
His habit of answering exactly what she’d asked and nothing more made her want to lash out at him. She wanted to curse at him, at the whole situation. She had not yet demanded he take her home because she was afraid of what his answer would be. There was a vague idea in her mind, that having saved her he would now return her, and finding out that it wasn’t true would probably crush what was left of her spirit, so she hadn’t asked before now.
“What’s going to happen to me now?” There was a long silence and when she shot a nervous look in his direction, she thought his expression looked grim. She could have been wrong; his eyes did make it hard to tell what he was thinking, but the silence was an answer in itself. “Oh,” she said softly.
“Rachael—”
That terribly kind tone in his voice told her all she needed to know. He might not have been the one to abduct her, but he wasn’t planning to return her. He didn’t need to explain the reasons why because it didn’t matter. “I’d like to freshen up, please. You must have a washroom, and if it’s been days, then I’m overdue,” she said, cutting off whatever his excuse might have been.
He frowned and seemed to want to pursue the topic, but she’d reminded him of a valid point. Until dinner, she’d been able to think about nothing but food, but now other needs were pressing, and she really did need a bathroom.
She just hoped it was a bathroom that worked for humans. She hadn’t forgotten his comment that they were mostly the same ‘where it showed in public.’
“This way,” he said, as he led her back towards the room where she’d woken. For a second, she panicked, thinking he was going to lock her back in, but no. The corridor that had seemed blank and empty had hidden surprises. She was starting to think that every wall on the ship did.
He gave her a serious look, narrowing his eyes. “I’m going to give you the freedom of the ship so you don’t need to wait for me to open the doors, but you will stay out of the control room. It’s dangerous. Do you understand?”
Of course she understood! She had no interest in crashing them, and that was probably a very real possibility when one couldn’t even tell where the controls were. “Yes, Kave.”
His eyes searched her expression for a moment and then he nodded and pressed his palm flat on a discolored section she hadn’t noticed before. The door slid open. Instead of letting her go inside, he tapped out a complicated sequence on the panel, and then took her hand and pressed it to the same spot, holding it there until the
door closed again.
“Rachael, I will see if it’s possible to bring you home. Things are complicated and it may not be an option, but I’ll make an attempt,” he said suddenly.
His hand pressing down on hers was a warm and reassuring weight. She took a deep breath and nodded. She believed him; maybe that was stupid of her, but she did.
“It should work now,” he said as he released her hand.
“You know this is only useful if I know where the doors are hidden, right?” she pointed out, but obediently touched the panel again. This time when it opened, she went inside. He followed her in to explain how things worked. She was grateful that he’d thought to show her because their version of a lavatory was like nothing she’d ever experienced, but at least it seemed to have all the important bits.
She did have to pee urgently, and she took care of that first. The shower, or their version of it, was next although it didn’t seem to use water. She wasn’t sure how it worked, but she did feel cleaner when she got out. He’d shown her how to work the cleansing unit for laundry and she was delighted to find it only took a minute to run everything she had through the cycle before her clothes emerged warm and clean.
There was no rush to leave the room, but there wasn’t much to do once she’d taken care of the essentials, so eventually she had to open the door. He wasn’t waiting for her like she’d half-expected, but it was a small ship and the number of places he could be were limited. When she opened the door at the end of the corridor that led into the main part of the ship, he was there waiting.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
It was only after she’d nodded that she realized she actually did feel better. Being clean and fed had boosted her mood even if the rest of her situation was a little dodgy. She shifted, one arm rubbing the other, trying to think of something to say. It wasn’t like they had vast interests in common, and she certainly wasn’t ready to ask more questions about her future. “So, what do you do to keep busy on a ship like this?” she asked finally. “It doesn’t seem like there’s much to do for entertainment.”
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