by Marie Dry
The alien dragged her down the long wide hall and to the last room. He stopped and stared at the empty room with the one blanket neatly folded on the floor. Still dragging her, he went to each of the rooms. Pulling his lips back from his teeth, he chose the biggest room that had its own bathroom--Joseph’s room.
“Where is the furniture?”
“The others took it when they left.”
“Why did they leave you behind?”
She lifted her chin, even as shame overtook her. Nothing would induce her to tell him how unworthy the others thought her. “I was needed here to look after the farm while they’re gone.”
He didn’t say anything, just dragged her inside and forced her to face him. “Go and get your bandages and antiseptic and then care for my wound.”
It seemed to be a big deal to him that she cared for it. Though it didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he go back to his own people and have their healer look at his wounds?
She rushed to the kitchen, grabbed what she needed, and ran back, terrified he’d kill her dog while she was away. She nearly cried when she saw Killer, who never liked to be carried, sitting happily in the alien’s hand. He looked like a brave little lion surveying his kingdom.
The alien sat down on the rotting wooden floor, and she knelt next to him. Biting her lip, she pulled out the stick and cleaned the wound. She didn’t boil the water because she didn’t want to be away from Killer too long. He didn’t flinch when she pulled out the stick and not even when she poured alcohol over it. She’d stolen and hidden the alcohol long before the others decided to leave. Her punishments frequently involved whips, and she didn’t dare leave her open wounds uncared for. Though treating the wounds on her back by herself had been a nightmare. At last, she tied off the bandage and sat back on her heels. “Please give me back my dog.”
He leaned toward her, big and frightening, and she didn’t know how she could’ve ever thought him a baby alien. “You will call me Azagor. Not alien, not devil, not Satan, and not reptile.” His eyes narrowed, and he leaned even closer. “And never will you call me a baby.”
“All right.”
“Say my name.”
“Aza...Azagor.”
He patted her head, and she wanted to bite him. “Very good, female, never again forget.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Her voice sounded reedy and thin in the empty room. She trembled so much, she could barely stay upright.
He wrapped her long braid around his wrist, forcing her to stay close to him. “I am going to make you my breeder.”
Chapter 6
He’d used that term before, but she’d been too worried about Killer to pay attention. Susannah moaned and crumpled to the floor, fear threatening to rattle her bones apart. Breeder. She grew up on a farm and knew exactly what he meant by that. What did she ever do wrong? Was she such a sinner that first Caine had been taken from her and then Noah and now this...this thing wanted to turn her into nothing more than a farm animal.
He pulled her until they both sat against the wall, she in his left arm and Killer held in his right hand, her braid still wrapped around the wrist resting on her shoulder. “Find your courage, my breeder. This fear and shaking do not reflect well on you.”
She looked up at him, and his face was distorted. She could barely see him. It was only when she felt something tickle over her cheeks that she realized she was crying. Angrily, she wiped away the tears and lifted her chin.
“All right, I’m ready. Hurt me as much as you want.” She glared at him. “But if you so much as harm a hair on Killer’s head, I’ll find a way to kill you.”
Helpless, she was helpless again. At the mercy of this green devil with no way to defend herself. She was also strong. He had no idea how much pain she’d managed to endure in her life.
He roared until the windows rattled. Susannah clutched her hands over her ears, and she saw Killer’s mouth move, but she couldn’t hear his barks over the roaring. At last, it stopped, and he held her by the nape of her neck while he pressed his face close to hers. “I have om graz ra.”
“I don’t know what that means.” She despised how teary and scared she sounded. It was life with a brother in charge all over again.
“It means honor. I have honor, and I will never hurt my breeder. You will sponge me down when the fever comes, and then we will do the first knowing. I am a modern warrior. I will negotiate the hours after the first knowing.”
She had no idea what the first knowing was, but it didn’t sound as if it boded anything well for her. For Killer, she’d be brave. This time she’d fight. When the alien fell asleep, she’d rescue Killer, and they’d run. She knew this farm like the back of her hand. If only she could get away from him, he’d never find them.
He loosened her braid from around his wrist. “Preparing food will soothe you. Go and prepare food for you and your rat.”
She had no idea why he’d think preparing food would soothe her, but she was grateful to get away from him. Leaving Killer behind while she went to the kitchen felt like a betrayal of her pet, but she needed time to plan. To gather her courage.
***
Azagor lifted his hand, and he was disgusted at how much courage it took to bring the thing that close to his face. Beady little eyes stared at him. All he had to do was to close his hand, and he’d crush the pathetic little pest. A Zyrgin warrior didn’t fear anything, but to his shame, he had a hard time controlling his body, to prevent it from shuddering. He’d have liked to think it was disgust and, while that was part of it, gut-wrenching shameful fear was the reason.
He couldn’t kill the rat. Not now anyway. He bared his teeth at it. The thing stared back at him with surprising courage. Few creatures could hold his gaze at such close proximity.
“When she likes me more than you, I’m feeding you to an Eduki. It will find you no more than a nasty snack, but I will enjoy every moment that his teeth crunch down on your bones,” he told it in Zyrgin. “Or maybe I’ll get her a battle leopard, and it will eat you and replace you in her affections.” He thought about that and amended his words. “But she will like me most.” The thing licked his palm. “Stop that, you disgusting little rat,” he snarled at it, and it barked at him.
All the hairs from its head to its tail stood upright, and it tried to look taller and fierce. Considering his whole body was smaller than Azagor’s hand, it wasn’t a very impressive sight.
“The moment you’re not useful anymore, you’re battle leopard food.”
The rat lowered its head, showing tiny teeth, and Azagor pointedly closed his fingers, showing him real intimidation.
“I feel teeth, you feel my claws, rat.” Shame overwhelmed him. This pitiful creature couldn’t harm him, and, still, he feared it.
None of his plans with his breeder were working out like he wanted. At least now she knew her warrior was strong and not some weakling easily captured. He’d enjoyed the look on her face when he jumped out of the pit.
He was barely out of his third change when Zacar had recruited him. He’d been surprised, but also gratified when Zacar had told him his skill as a warrior and as a technician came highly recommended. His blood had been deeply ashamed of his technical skills, and he had tried to hide it, but somehow Zacar had heard about him. Azagor had assumed he’d go out on missions in a very junior capacity for many years before he’d become an officer. Instead, Zacar had promoted him after his third change, and he’d been accepted into the inner circle. After their alarm that he didn’t follow solely a warrior path, his blood, what Natalie called his family, had been ecstatic. He was the first warrior of their blood accepted into a royal conquering force. Their prestige in his village had doubled.
His first mission with Zacar had been on what he called planet rat in his mind ever since. He’d been trapped underground with rats crawling over him and trying to eat him for two days before Viglar had managed to take on a whole platoon of warriors singlehanded and rescue him. He’d been trapped benea
th a steel beam at an angle that made it impossible to use his Zyrgin strength to free himself. And he’d tried.
His loathing of rats was well known, and if Larz and Zorlof weren’t Natalie’s beloved sons, he’d have killed them the first time they put a rat in his bed. Larz was now married to Margaret, which was a fate worse than being eaten alive by rats, and Zorlof didn’t have an easy destiny, so he considered them punished enough.
“You’re living on borrowed time, rat. Your days of being carried around in her arms are over.” Soon she would focus all her attention on Azagor and forget about this furry excuse for a rat.
He’d give her the Eduki pelt and introduce her to Zacar. Maybe he’d find a way to make her hit him with the club as well. Zacar had told Viglar’s breeder of all his great deeds as a warrior. If Zacar did the same for Azagor, Susannah would be greatly impressed and want to have many small warriors with him. He wouldn’t even have to bargain with her about hours. She’d want to make small warriors with him all the time. He thought about the hours they would spend in the sleeping place. He’d used the little spare time he had to research human mating habits. Had viewed many films Natalie gave him. He knew he was more informed on the subject than any warrior on Earth. And about kissing. He was proud of being a forward-thinking, modern Zyrgin. While he waited for her to fall madly in love with him, he would make her kiss him. A lot.
The rat kept making odd whiny noises at him.
“He needs to go out to do his business,” Susannah said.
“What business?”
“He needs to pee.”
Azagor quickly went to the window and leaning out put the dog outside. Susannah made a strange sound, and he heard her run away. Keeping an eye on the rat, he tracked her movements. She ran around the house toward the rat. Did she really think she could grab the little rat before he could stop her?
The rat lifted a leg and peed against the house and then moved around sniffing, turned into circles a few times, and then squatted.
Azagor shuddered at the thought of holding him in his hand again. Susannah came to a halt close to the rat that was now dragging his butt on the grass. Azagor bared his teeth and lengthened his claws. It was not accepted behavior to show your claws to a breeder, but he told himself he was showing it to the rat. “I will kill him before you can reach him.” Azagor leaned out and scooped up the dog. “Come back inside,” he told his breeder.
Her shoulders drooped, and she walked back slowly, the way Alissa did when Natalie sent her to her room. He sat down on the floor and looked around. The humans living on this farm had acted like Aurelian locusts, eating and destroying everything and then moving on. He never came into the house the times he came to look at Susannah, and now he realized he’d been neglectful of his duty toward her. He should’ve known she lived like a slave. Why would the others leave Susannah behind? She couldn’t defend the farm and couldn’t manage it alone.
Still holding the rat who now seemed very interested in what was happening, he stepped out of his boots.
“How did you do that?”
“Superior Zyrgin technology,” he told her. Humans tied their shoes with laces and something they called Velcro and other primitive means. During their brief golden age, they’d invented weapons, but their clothes and buildings had remained the same.
She held out her hands. “Give me back my dog.”
“Finish preparing the food.” He could smell something foul cooking.
She left, muttering to herself, and returned a short time later with a plate and a cup. She set it down on the floor and returned with a small clay pan she sat down on the floor. “You will have to put him down so that he can drink,” she said shortly.
Azagor put the clay pan on the other side of his legs and set the rat down next to it. It went against every instinct to allow the rat sustenance. It lapped up the water with a pink tongue. One of its paws kept lifting, as if pawing the air.
“Do you have enough food without the others to help you?”
She stared down at the vile concoction in the badly chipped plate. “I have enough to survive.”
He didn’t tell her the truth when he’d said he didn’t need to eat for several days. He’d been taking food tablets, developed to sustain them during long campaigns, stashed in his uniform. He’d carried the tablets to avoid any chance of her seeing him eat the Zyrgin way. Now he couldn’t stomach the thought of eating food tablets while she didn’t have enough to prepare a good meal. Natalie regularly invited the warriors to eat at her table, and he knew what good human food looked like. What was on Susannah’s plate wasn’t it. He couldn’t give her his food tablets. They were developed specifically for warriors. Viglar would have to design some for Susannah.
She looked up at him, and her long black eyelashes fluttered like the butterflies they’d reintroduced a month ago. “What happens now?”
His blood flew faster in his veins. “Now you kiss me with tongue.”
Chapter 7
Susannah knew she’d gone gray. She could feel the color leave her face. Surely, she’d heard him wrong. His lips were thinner, looked harder than human lips, and a small part of her--the part that had relations with a man not her husband--wondered what they’d feel like against hers. But years of Joseph’s teachings had everything inside her recoiling. “No, please.”
“You are my breeder. You are supposed to want to kiss me.”
It was as if he built this idea of how things should be and just expected her to feel the same. “I don’t care what I’m supposed to want, I’m not kissing you.”
“You are a very unnatural human woman.”
“I’m unnatural?”
The injustice of that was too much to take. He was the one with green and gold skin, a horn on his head, and teeth and claws like an animal. Going around terrifying little dogs and demanding she kiss him.
He stuck out his head. “Kiss me,” he said and pulled his lips into a pucker.
If she wasn’t so scared, she would’ve laughed at the way he expectantly waited for her to kiss him, his lips pushed out. She looked down and saw Killer mimicking Azagor’s pose. He stood on all fours, his head forward, and his lips pulled oddly together.
Maybe she should do what he asked and then when he didn’t watch them so closely, she’d grab Killer and run. Swallowing hysterical giggles, she leaned forward, pressed her lips against Azagor’s, and then scrambled back. She grabbed her plate. “I have to clean the dishes.”
With that, she ran from the room, again abandoning poor Killer.
***
His lips still tingling from her touch, Azagor stared at the rat sitting with his head stuck out at an odd angle. “I don’t have a place for you in my dwelling.”
“Woof.”
He had heard Natalie tell Julia she felt chills down her spine when she was frightened, and he’d thought it a strange human reaction. Now he finally understood what she meant. The sounds this rat made sent chills down his spine. “I do not appreciate the strange sounds you make at me, rat.”
“Woof.”
“I will teach you respect.” A cunning thought occurred to him. Sometimes a warrior had to use strategy and not force. “You will come with her to my dwelling, but then tragically you’ll wander away, and one of the eagles will grab you. I will be heroic in my efforts to save you, but the eagle will get you. She will be sad, and I will console her.” He’d say all kind of untrue things about her dead rat, and she’d turn to him for comfort.
“Woof, woof.”
“I will gift her with an Ingvorian dragon. It wouldn’t irritate me and won’t take up too much of her time.” He’d seen how busy those small humans kept Natalie and Julia. He wanted her focused on him. That was another reason to get rid of the rat. She looked at it with caring and barely noticed Azagor.
The rat sat down on his haunches. “The way your tongue hangs out of your mouth is unattractive. I don’t understand why she prefers you.”
It rolled over, exposing its be
lly.
Azagor cocked his head. “Are you asking me to kill you?” What a worthless animal. It didn’t even have the survival instinct to hide its vulnerable belly.
He heard Susannah’s footsteps hurrying to him, and he scowled at the rat. She was hurrying because he had her rat, not out of concern for his wounds. Or because she wanted to kiss him again.
“Is Killer okay?” were her first words.
“Your rat is fine.” Was it too much to ask that his breeder show some concern for him? He was the one with the bandaged shoulder. He’d have to remember to irritate the wound again, or it would heal, and she wouldn’t care for him.
The rat ran toward her and Azagor grabbed him. “You stay, rat.”
“He’s not a rat. He’s a Yorkshire terrier.” A strange look, a look he thought might be sadness flashed over her face. “He’s probably the last of his kind.”
She gazed at Killer with such longing he almost relented. She had a sadness about her that he didn’t see when he came to look at her before he had to complete the project in space.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d needed him during the time he worked in deep space. “You will sit down next to me, and we will talk.” With another longing look at Killer, she sat down, as far away from him as she could get. She probably thought she was out of his reach. “Come here.” He pointed to the spot next to him.
With a sigh, she moved over, making sure to move slowly to show her reluctance. He put his arm around her and pulled off the cloth on her head before he wrapped her braid around his wrist. It felt like Aurelian silk against his skin. Holding her like this, his hand was close to her breast, and he had to resist the temptation to touch that intriguing full mound under her thick dress.
