by Marie Dry
A woman shouldn't have to deal with more than one thing the morning after being...fucked senseless. She cringed a bit at the crude word but it described the previous night perfectly. Gripping the quilt with shaking fingers, she peeked over her shoulder and sagged in relief and a little disappointment. She was alone in the tent. Shouldn't he at least have stayed and kissed her good morning? Maybe murmured sweet nothings in her ear. She giggled at the thought of taciturn Zacar, murmuring sweet nothings. It was more likely he'd roar at her to get up and hurry to the table so he could feed her.
As if her thoughts had called him, he stalked into the tent, with that graceful, silent stride.
"You bit me." The accusation flew out of her mouth before she could stop it. She remembered how he'd looked with his mouth wide open, those teeth growing to an enormous size, his eyes bright red and almost glowing. She'd come to see his red eyes as the windows to his soul. Beautiful, in a savage way. But when he'd bitten her last night, they were just scary.
Ignoring her glare, he came to sit on the bed. With his finger under her chin, he lifted her head to the side. Then bending down, he stared intently at her neck for a few moments. Uncomfortable, she lifted her shoulder and tilted her head to hide her vulnerable neck from him. Zacar moved her head and traced her sore neck with a gentle forefinger. Still, she didn't like those teeth this close to her exposed neck. Who knew when he'd get the urge to bite her again?
"Human women break easily. I did not know this." There was definite disappointment in his voice.
"I didn't break last night," she said hastily then felt a blush burning up her cheeks and neck. Just because she fainted like any normal person would have, after having their brain messed with, or getting bitten, didn't mean she was broken. Still, the clear disappointment in his voice hurt her. So what if her body was sore and aching? It wasn't as if she was used to making love the whole night long then being bitten into a coma.
"Viglar explained I cannot pleasure you for more than six hours a night," he said in a calm voice, as if pleasuring a woman for six straight hours was normal.
"Six hours?" she said and drew back a bit. Was he planning on...on loving her to death? She resisted the urge to cup herself protectively.
Wait. He said a night. As in every night? Andre could barely bring himself to touch her once a week.
Then something else he'd said caught her attention. "You discussed making love to me with the doctor?" She was beginning to feel real hatred for the hapless doctor and his silver instrument.
"Yes." Those red passion eyes narrowed at her. "Viglar assured me, with ample care you can manage six hours."
She cringed. "Ample care?" Visions of being kept in bed to rest after long breeding sessions floated through her mind. Though, not all of those images were scary.
"Do you always discuss your sex life with the doctor?" She could just see them lining up, discussing all their performance problems with the doctor. Although, if Zacar was anything to go by, then performance problems would be the last thing they'd consulted the good doctor on.
"Yes," he said, as if she asked strange questions.
"I don't believe this," she murmured, throwing her hands up in a helpless gesture. If the doctor didn't already know everything about her, he soon would. He'd already measured her, for God's sake.
"Viglar will give you...vitamins that will keep you strong."
Vitamins? "How on earth did you get your hands on vitamins?"
They'd been really hard to come by for decades now. Visions of them breaking into a pharmaceutical warehouse flitted through her mind. What if the police tracked them to her cave? They'd lock her up as an accomplice.
"We recreated the formulas in our synthesizer."
"How do I know those vitamins will agree with me?" If they made her feel like the implants did, she wanted nothing to do with them. "For all you know, it kills humans."
"It will work. We tested it."
Tested it? On who? Natalie dropped her head into her hands. "Let me guess. You captured a raider and tested it on him."
"Yes," he said without any hint of guilt in his voice.
She didn't want to know if they'd killed the man afterward. It was information she would prefer not to have. If this made her a coward, then so be it. Natalie tried and couldn't find it within herself to feel sympathy for the unfortunate raider. They had terrorized the country for years now and, even before Murdoch became their leader, they were vicious. They'd burned down her house and almost--
"Do you agree? Six hours?" he insisted.
The man had a one track mind.
"Umm--six hours? Well--what about two hours?"
Never in a million years would Julia believe she had this conversation. As teenagers, they'd fantasized about finding wonderful, exciting lovers, but these days they fantasized about having a love life at all.
"Four hours," he said decisively.
"Four hours a week?" she said hopefully. Andre would've had a fit if she'd demanded even one hour a week. Not that she would have had the courage to demand something like that from him. Apparently, dealing with an alien warrior had revealed a backbone she never realized she had. In spite of her fear of him, she'd stood up to him more than she ever did with Andre. Was it because she was older? Or was it the fact that since their break-up, she'd lost both her parents and her home?
He leaned down. "Every. Day," he grated right into her face in a gravelly voice she could barely understand.
She opened her mouth to protest but closed it again. Who was she fooling? She wanted him to make love to her. A man wanting her that much was like a dream came true. The gangly girl, once called broomstick by her classmates, was now desired enough by a man that she had to bargain with him over the number of hours he wanted to make love. She had one lover in college--the year before it shut down--if you could call him that. They'd been so young, only fumbling around then never getting together again, both too embarrassed to repeat the experience. After that, there was only Andre, when she'd come back home.
Until Zacar captured her, she always thought she'd missed out on the sensual gene. Apparently, the problem was that she was wired to respond to a fierce alien.
"Is this normal on your planet? This bargaining?" It might be flattering, but four hours a day? Her body simply wasn't built to take the strain. She didn't even want to think about the chafing. Didn't women on his planet have the option to say no?
"No, Zyrgian breeders are strong."
There was that word again. Strong. She could hear an underlying scorn for anything weak and shrank back into the bed. Taking a deep breath she forced herself to look relaxed, instead of scared out of her mind. She'd inherited her asthma from her mother who in turn inherited it from her grandmother. What if it was possible to have children with Zacar, and they were born with asthma.
Please let my contraceptive work against aliens. Three years ago, she had an injection that was supposed to be effective for ten years. Like many other pharmaceutical companies, the company producing it went bankrupt shortly after that, though. Most medicines were too hard to come by or so expensive she'd never be able to afford them. She still didn't know what she was going to do if she couldn't find anyone selling inhalers. When some of the pharmaceutical companies had gone bankrupt, they abandoned warehouses full of product, which were quickly looted by thieves, the medicines sold on the black market to the highest bidder.
He pulled her flush against him, his delicious heat soaking into her bones. Even with the alien gadgets heating up the cave, the snow falling outside still somehow seeped in, chilling her. Her failed escape attempt had given her a permanent disgust for, and fear of, snow and cold. She'd always been determined to stay on the mountain, but now, with everything that had happened, she questioned that decision.
He bent his head and moved his lips softly over hers in a tender caress. His gentleness, the sensual way he made love to her was astonishing for such a fierce warrior.
"Four hours, yes," he murmured a
gainst her lips, making the intimate moment almost forbidden. He was relentless.
"Yes, but no biting." She knew she should make more conditions, but with him kissing her, his hands roaming over her body, her mind stopped functioning. Who knew she could be like this. She forced herself to lean back and glare at him. "No biting," she insisted.
"No need for biting," he said and she relaxed. "Yet."
Natalie scrambled back from him. "What does that mean? Do you plan on biting me again once every week or something?"
"Not a week, maybe a few years," he said, as if it was normal to bite a woman every now and then when he felt like it.
"You're not biting me every few years. I refuse."
"I will bite you."
"Why? What purpose does it serve?"
"It is custom to my people. A warrior bites his breeder every few years," he said, while looking her straight in the eye. His voice sounded sincere but he had to be lying to her. Some sixth sense vibrated in her body, warning her that he was only playing games with her.
"Why?"
"It keeps you healthy."
Could that be all it was, a way to keep her healthy? She enjoyed his lovemaking but the way her skin came alive when he licked her, vaguely made her feel as if some of her will was taken from her.
"Tell me why your saliva makes my skin burn with pleasure." She felt her cheeks heat when she admitted the effect he had on her. But she wanted answers. Too many things were happening around her, and to her, while she was kept in the dark all the time.
"It is proper that I pleasure you with my tongue."
"That's not what I asked." He was very good at dodging questions.
He didn't answer, but looked at her with that inscrutable face.
Before he could answer the door opened and one of the aliens grunted something her translator did not understand. Zacar tensed and grated something back.
"Zacar? I think something's wrong with my implant. It occasionally misses some of the things you say and now I'm only hearing grunts from whoever spoke to you."
"I will test your translator." Without any further explanation, he left.
What was all that bargaining about, if he could just turn his back on her and walk away as if she was nothing?
With him gone, she was once again aware of her blinding headache, but she didn't dare ask the doctor for help. She'd find something in the supply cave after she had breakfast. Her father had left it very well stocked.
Clutching her head, she groaned and was about to get out of bed when Zacar re-entered with a small silver box in his hand. She scowled at the instrument, the same one he'd used to put the tracker and translator in her head.
He pressed his thumb on the side of the device and it emitted two soft pulses. Then he pointed it at her and she had to resist the temptation to cringe. Who knew what he was doing to her brain? Her headache increased until she could almost feel the devices crawling around in her head. Could his bite be causing her headache?
"The translator is working," he said, and she had the impression he wasn't interested in hearing any more about it.
"And the dog tag? Is that still working, as well?" she asked snidely.
"Dog tag?"
She sighed and shrugged on her robe before getting up. She frowned down at the carpet. Normally, the cold seeped through the carpet from the cave floor. When she was barefoot, her knees would ache, it was so cold. Now the temperature remained nice and moderate.
"Did you do something to heat up the floor?" An awful thought occurred to her. They weren't that far from Yellowstone volcano. Her toes curled up, away from the floor and she had to resist climbing up Zacar at the thought of lava running beneath her feet.
"We put in temperature control. I will feed you breakfast now." He moved to the chest and took out some jeans and a shirt for her. He pawed through her underwear until he found the skimpy lace underwear Julia bought her last Christmas. They'd made a pact to give each other feminine gifts they wouldn't buy for themselves.
"I can get my own clothes, you know." If she let him, he'd take her over completely. She grabbed the jeans from him, ignoring his narrowed look. Pointedly, she took out a different shirt. "Some privacy please." She thought he would object, but to her relief, he turned and left.
"Just let him try and feed me like an infant," she muttered under her breath.
"I will feed you, Natlia," he said from outside.
She sighed and pulled on her clothes. She'd wear him down eventually.
When she emerged from the enclosure they built around her tent, she found several of them standing around her fire pit. She recognized that pose. It was the same for men all over, who puzzled over the workings of a gadget.
For the longest time, they stood looking and pointing at it, grunting to each other. Despite what Zacar said, she knew her implant was acting up because when she got closer, she could suddenly understand them. As if a loose wire had suddenly connected. Hearing their criticism, she wanted to protest that not all humans lived like this. If it wasn't for the raiders, she'd be living in the farmhouse, with solar power and better ways of managing the snow.
Without asking her opinion, they took the coal and ashes away, and put a silver sphere in the middle of the stones. When they opened it, it glowed bright, as if sunlight had suddenly pierced through the roof of the cave. It looked like a larger version of the devices they'd put in the hollows of the cave walls, like sconces. Even in the supply cave. The cave immediately heated. If they ever decided to move on, she was so going to steal that particular part of their technology. And the shower would definitely stay behind, too.
"What do you call those glowing stones?" she asked.
Startled, they scrambled to get away from her. Even the surly one took two steps back while glaring at her. Her shoulders sagged and she turned away from them.
Zacar appeared from the back of the cave and stopped to growl at her. He shook out a fur-like cloth and motioned for her to sit down.
Approaching cautiously, she sank down on the luxurious pelt. Their space ship had to be enormous, because he kept producing things she knew weren't found on Earth.
He folded the fur over her with care. His hands and lips had turned her body to fire last night. She blushed, looked down at the pelt to hide her red face. It was soft and silky under her fingers. Whatever animal it had come from must have been huge. Unless...
"Is this from an animal or did you produce it synthetically?" she asked his retreating back. She glared at that broad back when she realized he'd already prepared her breakfast and was fetching it from the kitchen table.
"It is the same as the bears on Earth that became extinct." He sank down in front of her with a graceful movement, while balancing her breakfast and what smelled like very strong coffee in his hands.
"Did you use up my whole stash of coffee?" She sounded sulky, but she didn't care. Who knows if she'd be able to get her hands on coffee once this batch of beans was gone?
"No," he said and held a small piece of bread before her lips.
They glared at each other for a while before she sighed and opened her mouth.
"Are any animals on your planet extinct?" she asked once she'd swallowed the bread. On Earth, very few species had survived. For a while, cloning had seemed like the solution, but it never got past the planning stage.
"No, our environment is strictly monitored to ensure that it never reaches the rate of extinction on Earth." He looked around her cave and she could see the judgment in his eyes. Of course, no one on his perfect planet of Zyrgin had to live in a cave.
He had a scary knowledge of her planet. The kind of knowledge an advance scout would have. "How do you know so much about Earth?"
"We uploaded the databases."
"Oh."
"How long does the snow normally last?" he asked while feeding her another piece of bread.
"At least seven months, but it could be longer. The weather has been strange lately. One year, we had no snow at all.
The year before last, we had snow for the whole year." She shivered, remembering how close they came to freezing to death. If her father hadn't known how to fix their generator, they'd have died. She really hoped the snow melted soon this year and they had a long hot summer. And if it did melt, she would try and get away from Zacar.
Though Natalie didn't know what she'd do if an opportunity to escape presented itself again. She'd never felt safe in all the time she went to school in town. After her parents died, she'd been lonely and scared. Now, for the first time, she didn't fear raiders, or hunger, or anything else, except that she might have an asthma attack in front of Zacar.
"We can keep the cave warm, but it is better if you do not try to go out into the snow. Humans get hypothermia easily."
She knew his very lack of inflection was supposed to hide his disdain for human weaknesses from her.
She nodded her agreement, instinctively pushing her toes closer to the warming stone. They ached with remembered cold. She wasn't going away from the delicious warmth of those stones anytime soon.
"How come you seem immune to the cold? Don't your kind get hypothermia?"
He had to have some weakness. Not that she planned to harm him if she discovered one, but it would be good to know, just in case.
"I am a warrior."
She mentally groaned and couldn't help rolling her eyes. That's his answer for everything. His arrogant statement still didn't explain how he managed to be out in the cold without a severe case of hypothermia.
She'd been foolish trying to escape into the snow. If not for Zacar, she could've died. He'd moved over the boulders and snow as if out for a stroll. And he'd done it all while carrying her over his shoulder.
She gently cupped his hand as he moved to place another piece of bread to her lips. It was warm and solid, capable of keeping her safe. "Thank you for saving me. I would've been dead by now if you didn't come for me."
No reaction, he simply turned his hand and gripped hers briefly before feeding her the next piece of breakfast.
