by Amber Stuart
“Are you okay?” he asks and the concern is clear in his voice.
Concern. Oh my god he can’t be real!
“Yeah,” I say unable to meet his eyes.
I’m choking up inside. My throat is tight, my heart is beating too fast, and my cheeks are burning. This room is too hot and for a moment I feel faint. Am I really such a cliche? Am I going to pass out because a man held the door for me? Pull it together Abby!
I take a deep breath and then let it out slowly. It’s all been too much, that’s all. I’ve had a lot happen in a short period.
We get in line then place our order. I order a coffee and a biscuit then Vin steps up and he orders enough for five people then follows it up with a large coffee. I’m staring at him wide-eyed when he glances over, smiles, and then shrugs.
“I’m healing, I need fuel for the process,” he says sounding sheepish.
It takes all my willpower to not laugh out loud. I have no idea what he’s actually talking about but he’s a huge guy so maybe it takes the food level of five normal people to keep him going. I can vouch for the fact that there’s not an ounce of fat on him. Not one ounce anywhere. Damn it, have to keep my thoughts away from that, somehow. Now is not the time.
We take our food and then slide into a booth opposite each other. He’s so large the table is pushed to my side far enough that my breasts are resting on it. I’m unusually conscious of this fact probably because I keep catching him looking at them. I’m wearing a t-shirt so it’s not like I’m even showing any cleavage but his eyes are making a routine of roving the room, meeting my eyes, quickly glancing down at my boobs, then back around the room. It’s a pattern and every time he does it I get a weird mix of desire, pride, and embarrassment.
He devours his food but his eyes never stop roving. I barely finish my biscuit by the time he’s finished. He closes his eyes and sighs then leans back and stretches his arms out to either side. The way his muscles work under his clothes is fascinating. The bulge as they contract then release is just sexy and firing my imagination which is already in all too much of a hurry to go down the paths of very physical desire.
“So, where do we start?” I ask.
“These proteins are very good,” he says grabbing a napkin and wiping at his mouth. He locks eyes with me, smiles, then his huge hand reaches across the table and rests gently on top of mine. “The history of your planet, of your people, is not what you think it is.”
“Great, a history lesson,” I say. “How about we get to brass tacks?”
“Brass tacks? I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he says.
I sigh. “How about you get to the point?”
“Ah, I see,” he says.
The weirdest feeling of deja vu comes over me. I’ve been here before. We’ve done this before but we haven’t, not in my lifetime. I would know it. The room shifts around me as my head spins trying to figure out this feeling of memories I don’t have, my need and desire for him, and then whatever else is going on. I look up from the table and meet his eyes. His mouth is moving, I’m sure that he’s saying something but I can’t make the sounds form into words. Everything beyond him is wobbling in and out of focus.
“Are you okay?” he asks as the world snaps back into focus.
“Yes, uhm, no…” I trail off as a wave of nausea passes over me.
I shake my head to clear it then look around the room. Everything is the same. People are eating and paying no attention to us outside the occasional glances but who wouldn’t glance at us? He’s gorgeous, like a movie star, or a model. They’re probably whispering and trying to figure out who he is and what they’ve seen him in and why is he with that plain, big girl?
“Abby, what is it?” he asks.
“I don’t feel that well,” I say.
“In what manner do you not feel well? Be specific,” he says.
“Dizzy, nausea, and a sense that…” I trail off before saying it and look into his eyes. I’m about to admit to my own crazy or that his crazy is infecting me. Am I ready for that? Do I want to ride this train? More importantly, do I have a choice?
“A sense of…” he trails off trying to draw me out.
“Deja vu,” I answer him deciding to ride the train to the end of the tracks.
“I understand, we should move again,” he says. “I think we’ve been found.”
He takes my hand and all but pulls me out of the booth and then we’re moving out the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He pulls me through the door and into the parking lot. I follow along mostly because I still feel nauseous and dizzy and my stomach is a cold, hard knot of fear. Fear that he’s right. Something is wrong.
He sets a fast pace and his long stride forces me to struggle to keep up. We make it about a block before I pull my hand out of his and stop. I’m panting and sweating and I’ve had enough.
“Look, this is way too far weird okay? We crossed over the crazy-hot line last night and today we’ve headed straight off the damn map. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know what you’re involved in and honestly at this point I don’t care. You’re hot, in all honestly the hottest, sexiest man I’ve ever seen, but it ain’t worth it. I’m going to go home, back to my life, you go on with…” I wave my hand around. “Whatever the hell this is and I wish you all the best okay?”
“Abby, I can’t let you go. The Infiltrator is after you. If you leave I can’t protect you and he’ll kill you. Also I need your help. The geography has changed too much, I need to find a cave that should be close to where you hit me.”
“Kill me?” I ask my voice cracking.
“I’m sorry but yes. I don’t know why he’s after you but he’s already trying to drain you.”
“Drain me? What are you talking about!” I’m embarrassed by how high pitched my voice is but my nerves are wound too tight to do anything about it.
“Yes, but you’re resisting remarkably well. I can only resist them for a time because I have nanites in my body that…” he trails off looking thoughtful.
“Nanites?” I’m starting to feel like an idiot parrot.
I keep repeating parts of what he said but none of this is making any sense. None of this stuff he says can be real. What he’s shown me has to be fake. It’s all stuff I’ve seen in books and movies. And someone is going to kill me? I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I’m smarter than this. I’m not some too stupid to live heroine in a book. This is my life and I’m going to take control of it. He grabs me by my shoulders and crouches down so we’re looking at each other eye to eye.
“Abby, we need to have intercourse, now,” he says.
I almost faint. My head is light, the world is spinning, and my vision is turning gray at the edges. On top of this my panties are immediately wet and my clit is a tightly ball of tension screaming at me to say yes! Say yes, get naked, and take this man right now and right here in public. It doesn’t matter cause who wouldn’t understand if they just looked at him? Hell I bet straight men would at least consider having sex with him. That’s the primal side. The rational brain, which is very soft, barely a whisper, is saying something a whole lot different.
“Are you kidding me?” I say as the whispers of rationality try to exert dominance.
“No, why would I joke about such a thing? You are… beautiful, amazing, and I would not be so insistent without more proper courting rituals but it must be the thing that is protecting you from his ability.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about Vin, but no, I’m not going to just have ‘intercourse’ with you. You have a lot to explain.”
“Abby, I understand. I cannot express to you how much danger you are in, not even just you. This entire solar system is going to be destroyed if I don’t get to the control panel and activate the defense systems. Along with your planet, my crew will be killed as we try to fight the impossible odds. They are coming and right now they have an Infiltrator here.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because of the way you’ve been getting sick,” he says.
“What?”
“He’s draining you. That’s what they do, they feed off of your emotions, your memory, and your life force. The tiredness, the nausea. Tell me are you finding it hard to focus as well?”
“Well yeah but…”
“But nothing. They survive by feeding on other life forms. The nanites in my body give me a measure of protection. The only reason you’ve resisted this long is because some of mine are in you. We need to get more into your body immediately. The best way would be to take you up to my ship and have our doctors inject you but I don’t have that kind of time. This solar system doesn’t have that much time.”
“Your ship?”
I shake my head. I swear I’m going to quit the whole ‘pick one word and make it a question’ thing but how the hell am I supposed to react to this information overload. I can only handle so much crazy and the bad part right now is I believe him. He’s earnest, he believes what he’s saying and for whatever reason I do too.
“Yes, Abby, we have to move,” he says taking my hand and walking away.
I fall in beside him. Maybe I’m crazy too. If I am, then I might as well enjoy the ride, right?
“You have a ship?” I ask again.
“Yes,” he says glancing at me sideways.
“Okay,” I say. “So, if you have a ship, does that mean you’re an alien?”
“Yes,” he says matter-of-fact.
“Okay then,” I say. “Well now that that’s out of the way. Are you crazy?”
“No, why would I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You show up out of nowhere and start spouting off about some kind of alien vampire invading force and space ships and nanites. It’s just not an every day occurrence for me.”
“Yes,” he chuckles. “I guess it wouldn’t be. Well you’re taking it remarkably well.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I say. “So explain to me, you know slowly, because I’m completely lost.”
“My crew and I have been stationed here for the last ten thousand years,” he says his eyes still roving around as he all but drags me down the street.
“No way!” I exclaim.
“What?”
“You are not ten thousand years old!”
“Well, technically yes, but actually no,” he says.
“Let me guess, suspended animation, right?”
“Yes,” he smiles and stops turning to me. “Do you remember it?”
“Remember it?” I ask confused.
“Oh, I was hoping… well never mind,” he says and resumes pulling me down the road. “In reality I’m nowhere near that old but the nanites in my body and the cryosleep periods keep me young, allowing me to live far beyond the expected lifetime here on Earth.”
“I see,” I say.
“So what have you been doing up there for all this time? Sleeping?”
“Watching,” he says grimly. “Waiting.”
“Why? For what?”
“In case they returned,” he says.
“They? The other aliens, the vampire ones?”
“Yes, we call them Invaders. Ten thousand years ago was the last time they came. We were able to fight them off and drive them back into the depths of the outer galaxy. It costs… so much,” he glances over as he hesitates and I see deep pain in his eyes. “It also destroyed the human culture that existed at the time. One with which we had open contact. You were all much more advanced then. Just at the precipice of being welcomed into the Galactic Council when they arrived.”
“You’re serious?”
“Of course I am. You ask this very often, is there something I’m missing?”
“No, go ahead,” I say shaking my head.
“There, is that a place of rest?” he asks pointing down the road at a small motel.
“Uhm, yes?” I say.
“Good,” he says increasing the speed of his walking and I have to all but run along beside him.
It leaves me no breath for talking as I focus on keeping up. I feel fairly certain that if I don’t he’ll throw me over his shoulder again. That would be just too embarrassing. Though that primal part of me finds it intriguing in an alpha male, caveman kind of way. He stops just outside the office and crouches down so we’re eye to eye.
“How do you feel? Any tiredness? Soreness, trouble focusing, anything that would indicate he’s still close?”
He looks deeply into my eyes and I’m struck again by the depth and color of his.
“No,” I pant. “I’m just… out of breath.”
“You’re sure? It could be a sign of-”
“I’m sure,” I cut him off. “Just not in shape to run a marathon with you.”
“Good,” he says then we walk into the small, rundown and mostly dirty office.
A greasy, weaselly looking man sits behind the counter reading a magazine. He doesn’t look up as the door chimes and barely glances at us when we reach the counter.
“Twenty-five for an hour, sixty-five for the night,” he says.
“The night,” Vin responds.
The man stands up and gets a key. An old fashioned, real, put it in the lock key, and slides it across the counter while keeping his hand on it. Vin pulls out a wallet and lays out the money then the man takes his hand off the key.
“Last room to your left when you walk out,” the clerk says, sliding the money directly into his pocket then resuming his position and picking back up his magazine.
I feel sleazy and dirty. This is another first for me, my first time in a ‘no-tell’ motel. I had no idea a place such as this existed so close to my home. They actually rent rooms by the hour? Are there prostitutes nearby? Oh my god this means that guy behind the counter thinks I’m a whore! Vin pulls me along until we reach the last room. He steps to one side and ushers me inside then he takes a long time to carefully look all around. I assume he’s looking for anyone following us. Which makes sense sense. We’re being tracked by an alien vampire. He comes inside and locks the door. Vin reaches for the top of his suit and starts to unzip it but I hold my hand up, open palmed in a stop motion.
“Woah,” I say.
“Abby we must,” he says.
“First things first, you’ve given me half a wild story. I need to know the rest, I need to know this is real.”
“I understand,” he says.
He walks closer to me and my heart rate goes through the roof along with my blood pressure. The burning fire of desire flames into a roaring bonfire in my core. The aching emptiness and need to be filled rushes in and makes me want to throw all caution to the wind. I want satisfaction much more than any truth or story. The closer he gets the more desire overwhelms me. I feel so small in comparison to him and he’s so exquisitely sexy, he exudes raw sexual desire.
He’s close, so close my nipples strain against the fabric of my bra as if they’re reaching for him to touch. My panties are soaked with excitement. My legs tremble remembering the touch of him as he worked his way to my core. My clit is a throbbing bundle, desperately wanting touched. Every fiber of my body screams for relief. My throat and mouth are too dry to talk. Then he passes by me and takes a seat at the small desk. The chair barely seems able to hold his massive girth and it groans in protest. He motions towards the bed so I stumble the few steps to it and sit on the edge facing him.
“When we first came here you humans were fairly advanced. We joined with you and exchanged cultures, technologies, and it was fruitful for both sides. You were almost ready to join the Galactic Council, as I said, and we were mostly here as a transition team to make sure everything went smoothly. The Invaders were a distant memory for us even at the time. History told of two previous invasions that were thwarted somehow but no one knew for sure how. The official story was that the glory of the Galactic Armada was enough to fight them to a standstill but I serve in
that Armada. Those of us on the inside, well you hear things that throw that story into doubt.”
“Wait a minute, so we had space travel?” I ask.
“Not exactly, humans had an ability to open gates between worlds,” he says.
“Oh, of course,” I say deciding to not question him further for the moment.
“The Invaders had devoured and destroyed their own home world. After draining it dry they turned the entire planet into a ship of sorts. Now they must fuel it and to do that they travel from galaxy to galaxy draining the suns they find. They take all the energy, fuel their planet ship, then travel on to the next.
They are ruthless. They care nothing for any other life. They themselves, as I’ve told you, feed off the life force of other beings and their planet ship feeds off the life of other planets, their suns. When we, along with the humans, fought them off the last time we thought they were gone for good. We beat them off barely. The battle left most of Earth destroyed, killing millions and effectively knocking your civilization into non-existence. We would not have beat them without the partnership of the humans and that has never been forgotten.
My crew and I were stationed here as a precaution and an honorary guard. We are but a single battle-ship though and while we will fight them to the last man the odds are low that we will be successful in our mission. Unless we can activate the planetary defense program that was installed and used the last time. That is what defeated them before but somehow it’s been disabled.”
“Okay,” I say thinking about his story. “Who’s the ‘she’ you say I remind you of?”
He looks down at the ground. I hit a nerve but at this point I have to know. For whatever reason I’m buying his story. In a lot of ways it makes sense. The suit he’s wearing, the technology, and the creepy feelings I’ve had. More than anything though it just feels right and I still can’t shake the feeling I know him.
“She was a human, like you,” he says without looking up. “Beautiful, curvy, perfect in every way. We were committed to each other. Actually we were going to do the local ritual of marriage but then the Invaders came. We were losing the battle and she sacrificed herself to save us all.”
