by Rena Marks
A clamoring of boots thumped down the ladder and jumped onto the floor. The guard switched on a lantern. For the first time, I had a real view of my alien lover.
His skin was mottled with squares and colored in iridescent greens and golds. His eyes were solid black and he looked like he wore a Mohawk with the spiny things that started on the top of his head and rolled down his spine.
Other than that strangeness, he looked human. His lips were full and strangely sensual with that deep, purplish color, his eyes blinked, and yes I was right. They changed color. His nose was straight and narrow, his jaw strong.
And I knew what else felt human.
“Oh, look, you made it. We had bets on whether or not you or he would survive the night.” The sarcastic voice of the guard relieving me was the same one who’d brought me last night. He stood, smacking an electrical probe stick against the palm of his opposite hand. The glow of the lantern lit up his name badge.
Private Hotschsky.
“What the hell was in the shot you gave me?” I glared at him.
He snickered. “Just a little aphrodisiac. Alien-inspired. Relax. On that stuff, we all could have done you and you would have been begging for more. I bet you fucked him all night long.”
His eyes barely flickered to the alien. He unlocked the door to the cage, holding the lantern up to see the keyhole.
“Why do you keep him chained? He’s already locked in.”
“His strength is phenomenal. If he wasn’t chained with that specially enforced metal, he could probably bend the bars of the cage. Of course, we have that enforced with the alien metal, too, but there just wasn’t as much. Come on.” He held out the electric probe stick, pointing it toward the alien to keep him back. Miack stood still, obviously aware of the probe’s power.
I reached into Private Hotschsky’s belt and pulled out his knife. In a flash, I had it up around the alien’s throat, praying he had a jugular.
From the immediate freezing of both men, he did.
“What the hell are you doing?” the guard said.
“I want to make sure I get paid,” I said casually. “It was quite the night I had, after all.”
“I said you were going to. Don’t hurt him. He’s an important commodity,” the guard said. But his eyes flicked away when he said it.
“Perhaps you better call your comrades down here to bring my money,” I suggested. “In the meantime, pass me the key to his cuffs.”
The alien was still frozen beneath my blade. Poor guy. He was probably confused as hell, wondering why I’d had sex with him all night long and now was threatening to kill him.
“If you harm him, there’s nothing I can do to protect you,” the guard warned, passing the key.
I laughed as I unlocked his cuffs. They were set up so that the metal cuffs stayed around his wrists, but turning the key in the lock released the chain from the top latch. “You were going to kill me anyway. There’s no way you were going to pay me after what I did. In fact, you were probably looking forward to cutting me open and seeing what ill effects alien sex had on me. Now call them to bring my money,” I demanded, and pocketed the key. It may come in handy later.
Having other guards come down served the purpose of distracting everyone on the base long enough for Dad and Ria to get out safely. I was sure the military was contacting every other soldier on the base to be warned about me.
“Okay. Be calm.” The guard held his hands out to placate me, and touched a button on the side of his uniform. “Code Orange in the Special Ops.”
I could hear the faint sound of running feet above us, and then there was scrambling down the hatch door as more men practically fell into the dungeon in droves.
“What’s going on?”
I counted half a dozen men dressed in fatigues. All the military men looked alike. They all shaved their heads in the original buzz cuts, as if they could force the strength and order humans had so long ago.
“She’s threatening to kill him unless she has her cash. I assured her we’d bring it.”
The small, dug-out prison began to fill with more military personnel. Three more scrambled down, leaving the door open. “Look, we had every intention of paying you as soon as we got you up to the office.”
“Sure you did.”
More than likely, they’d already fucked the other prostitutes and discovered there was one extra girl. No doubt they’d decided to leave me to my fate after serving me the alien Spanish Fly, and would return in the morning to get rid of me before delivering the weakened alien to his destination.
“Let’s just go get it now, shall we?” I was trying to hold my cool, but the truth was, that many people in the small basement felt suffocating. I was starting to sweat.
Perhaps the drug was working its way out of my system. The thought panicked me. What if that drug had enabled the strength? What if the strength would disappear when the drug dissipated?
I nudged the alien with my knife and he hissed at me. All the guards froze.
“Careful with him,” Private Hotschsky said. “The upper-level Praydians will be upset if he’s harmed.”
I shrugged. “How careful I am depends on how easily you let me up the ladder and into the office upstairs.”
I really wanted into that office. I could smell how stale the basement air smelled, the rank sweat and body odors. Surprisingly, the smell of alien sex didn’t bother me at all. But I had to get out of the underground cavity. A small trickle of sweat dropped down the back of my neck. “Move,” I hissed to the alien.
He rose slowly and paused before standing all the way. I jumped on his back so I could hold the knife at his neck, and he staggered under my weight.
“Looks like the strength-stealing ruse works,” I said to the guards. There was no way this alien couldn’t lift me last night. Today, I could probably lift him. Suddenly, an idea dawned on me. I wonder if the guards even knew that his strength wasn’t just depleted, but had transferred to me. They didn’t seem like they knew. The poor idiots thought they knew everything.
The alien walked slowly to the rope ladder and climbed it. At the top of the open trap door, five more guards waited in the hallway.
“Stand clear or we find out what color an alien bleeds,” I snapped. They moved a good few feet back. If nothing else, they’d had instructions to bring this guy back alive. As soon as the alien almost cleared the trap door, I climbed off his back. When he was free too, I shut the hatch and locked it with a small pin to hold it in place, keeping the dozen or so guards in the basement. If the idiot had done that last night, I wouldn’t have gotten out this morning.
Then I smiled. Who was I kidding? I had the strength to smash the pin. Smash the door. Smash the whole building.
“Who has my money?” I asked politely.
“You know we can’t let you leave,” one of the guards said. They held out their hands, as if they had orders not to draw guns. After all, they could accidentally shoot the alien.
“But that’s exactly what I intend to do,” I said, taking the guard’s hand and jerking him roughly toward me. To my surprise—and everyone else’s—he flew over my head and landed against one of the cell doors with a crunch of bones. His body thudded as he sunk to the floor on his head, his neck at an odd angle.
Even if I wasn’t planning it before, now I knew all the guards would have to die. By the look of shock on their faces, it was apparent none of them knew I gained his strength. No one needed to know.
One of the guards drew his gun, and I was slow to react. He shot at me…and we all froze.
But there was no pain. The echo of the shot rang in the hallway and in my ears, and I could hardly hear. Then the alien groaned, and a weird, greenish stain appeared on the left side on his abdomen. In this close proximity, there was no way the guard could miss. Somehow the bullet deflected off me and hit the alien instead. I didn’t see how; he’d shot straight at me. But here was proof.
“You fucking moron,” one of the other guards h
issed and knocked the gun from his hands. I took that opportunity to strike, kicking one in the chest. Under the weight of my kick, his chest collapsed into a hole, blood immediately welling before gushing. It was as easy as kicking a piñata. At the same time, I punched the other in the throat and he fell, gagging on a choked airway. The last two guards stepped in, and I grabbed the hands they’d outstretched toward me. One arm broke at the elbow, the other’s ripped out of his shoulder.
The screams were horrendous, and I winced as I crushed their heads together, ending the shrieks.
The guards trapped in the basement were pounding the trap door. My alien captive had sunk to his knees. I grabbed the leg of the camouflage uniform of one of the fallen men, and ripped it off his body. Quickly I wrapped it around the Miack’s midsection. I wasn’t looking to save his life. I just didn’t want to leave a trail of blood behind us like macabre breadcrumbs.
I hauled him up and threw him over my right shoulder, taking care with his left side. At the last minute, I grabbed one of the guard’s electrical sticks. And then I made haste out the front door. Thankfully, the guard who normally watched it had been one of the five I’d just killed, so I was able to sneak to the left and head between the wall and building. I kept an eye out for Dad and Ria, but they were long gone. I was glad they’d listened to me, though I imagined Ria had to argue with Dad so he wouldn’t make it worse and hang around waiting.
The makeshift army base was going crazy, alarms ringing and boots thudding as they ran about frantically. At the edge of the building, there was no way to get out the gate without someone noticing. But there was a jeep with a first-aid cross stitched onto the soft side near the building we were trying to leave. I opened the canvas material draped over the back and saw a small cot on the floor. I laid him onto it, gave him a strap that resembled a seatbelt to hold on to, and crawled over him to get to the front cab. I pushed the button to start it, and roared out of the base on a horrendous squeal of tires.
Shouting sounded from the area behind me. I hoped the alien wasn’t so weak he spilled out of the back of the vehicle. But then a sense of weakness flushed through me. I swerved the jeep as the dizziness hit. My arms and legs felt like rubber bands.
No. This was how they normally felt. I had just gotten used to having the super-strength, and now it was gone, depleted almost as quickly as it came. I wondered if it had reverted to the alien, wherever he was, or if it was lost forever.
Another jeep joined the chase. I headed down the dirt trail, wanting to avoid the wooded area. I didn’t know how far ahead my dad and Ria were, so I certainly didn’t want to lead the jeep to them. God, I hoped they managed to find the binoculars and were watching now. The last thing I needed was for them to try to sneak back on base and get captured by trying to rescue me.
I turned a corner and shook my head to clear it. Think, I told myself. I had to lose the vehicle chasing me.
Wait. I knew where I was. The bottom of the ravine was ahead. I was going to have to drive right into the river and hope the rushing creek wasn’t too deep to plow through. Then in a wicked twist of fate, the jeep choked and slowed. I was barely able to veer off the road before it stopped completely.
Chapter Seven
I pounded my fist on the dashboard, but the gas tank showed empty. With a sinking feeling, I realized that was why it had been parked on the side of the building. It was waiting to be refueled.
I could hear the sounds of the other vehicle rapidly approaching, but since I’d veered off the trail, they didn’t notice me stalled below the road. Instead, they gunned it, assuming I had done the same to get through the creek. With a squeal of tires, the dust kicked up as they flew across the creek. It wasn’t fast enough.
They plowed headfirst into the water, and the vehicle sunk like a tank. The water moved faster than it seemed, rushing any objects that floated downstream.
I shivered. Lucky break we ran out of gas.
Just like that, the world grew quiet. Slowly, I hauled my weakened legs out of the jeep and moved to the back to check on the alien. God, it felt like I was walking through quicksand now that the heightened strength was gone.
I pulled aside the canvas. Miack was half-sitting up, still clutching the strap with his right hand. The left he used to clutch his side.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I said.
But there was a bright side to being stranded in the bottom of a ravine in a useless jeep. There were first aid kits lining the vehicle. Not that we could get these to my people, but there would be useful products for me. It was going to be a long walk, and I no longer had the creature’s strength.
I looked up at the top of the ravine.
“I can probably get the jeep hidden if I can push it backward to the edge of the cliff,” I said out loud. Not sure if I was talking to him or to myself, but it seemed to make more sense to talk. I went back to the front of the vehicle, and flipped the gear shift into neutral. I steered the wheel to the right and used all my might to push. Slowly, the jeep inched backward, gaining a bit of speed as it rolled downhill to rest at a stopping point at the edge of the rock wall. I set the gear back into park, flipped the emergency brake, and crawled into the back.
Sweat was beginning to pool between my breasts and I smelled like rank alien sex from the night before. But first things first. Technically, it was my fault the alien was wounded, so I had to see what was going on there.
I tied open the canvas flaps of the jeep to let the natural sunlight in and caught my breath at the complete view of the alien’s skin color in daylight.
It was beautiful.
His skin-color was rich, patches of iridescent colors in green and gold, like sheer magical scales. There was a darker area over his throat and I realized it was stiffer there than the rest of him. Almost like a scar.
He watched me warily, his midnight blue eyes barely blinking. And when they did, of course, they were no longer midnight.
* * * * *
Miack:
I had watched my mate crawl into the back of the crude human transport vessel. Even without my strength, she still accomplished much. I grudgingly admired her determination. For a human, a race that was considered the cockroaches of this galaxy, she was unusual.
I still remembered the horror of last night when they thrust her into my cage. I smelled the sweet scent of Sanxia emanating from her pores and I knew there was no way this human wouldn’t attack eventually. It was beyond her control.
To my surprise, her touch wasn’t abhorrent. In fact, my cock stirred, despite my humiliation at my comrades finding out one day that I fucked an insect.
Then the sinking feeling hit when I realized why her touch wasn’t abhorrent.
Sweet Goddess Hespestia, this cockroach was my lifemate. Me, the heir of the Supreme Ruling family of Nisibian, on a mission to take out the Praydians, had a mate from this backward, goddess-forsaken planet.
“The good news is,” she whispered softly, her voice rolling like honey through my veins, “we’re in a jeep with first aid supplies. Don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up. Sorry about kidnapping you, by the way. Where does it hurt?”
She ran her small fingers down my side, checking my wound and finding the sore area.
“Ahh,” I gasped like a female, sinking back down on the mats. My skin usually protected me from wounds by morphing to scales, but my unstable power had reverted to my mate until the escape. In return, I shielded her from being wounded with a protective force field. It was a defense mechanism, for if a warrior’s mate dies, his strength dies with her. I wouldn’t be as weakened next time, now that I knew what to expect.
But there was no way I could explain this to the small human. The idiot human doctor had removed my throat implant, and there was no way I could form the sounds needed to mimic the English language. I could understand her fine. The fools thought they could remove my language understanding implant, but they only removed half of the system.
The bigger idiots that th
ey were, they proceeded to discuss their plans in front of me. In the morning they would ship me to the Praydians. And my hated enemy knew I was coming, of course. They were the ones who supplied the Sanxia to the humans and told them to weaken me by sex.
Not once did they ever imagine it would be my once-in-a-lifetime mate sent to me.
Right now, she stared at my body wonderingly, not having a clue as to what she did to my libido. Humans were curious creatures, their skin one-toned in various shades of pink that offered barely any protection against the harsh rays of their sun. A sun made harsher by the landing of the Praydians on their planet. She traced a scale with her smooth finger, thinking it was skin like hers. On the contrary, when in fighting mode, my scales would activate, hardening to protect my body. Not that anyone had even gotten close enough to damage me.
Not since she weakened me.
“Too bad your spiky things don’t protect you here,” she said, carefully unwrapping the material she’d packed it in earlier.
“My spines?” I asked. “Pfft. Who ever heard of spines on an abdomen?”
But then again, my human mate had no spines anywhere. I had no idea how she protected herself normally.
She removed the stripping and winced. She took a quick look at the inside of the travel vessel. Grabbing a small white box, she opened it and removed a small bottle. Pouring the liquid into the palms of her hands, she rubbed them together. Then she reached for some white, soft material, tearing open the sheer packet. It was wet inside, and she began to clean my skin with it. The cold startled me, and I sucked in a breath with the shock.
“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s okay. It’s just to clean it so I can see what I’m working with here. You’re covered in green. I guess that’s your blood.”
Good Goddess, what color did they bleed?
She continued to dab at the edges of the wound, and a feeling of lightheadedness loomed. There was something foreign embedded in my body.
“You still have the bullet,” she said. “I’ll have to get it out. It’s gonna hurt.”
