The Alien's Ransom: A SciFi Alien Warrior Romance (Drixonian Warriors Book 1)

by Ella Maven

  With jerky movements and a knitted brow, he pulled an intact package from another saddlebag. He made his way toward me, and by the time he crouched at my side, his expression was less thunderous.

  He tugged away the blanket from my body. I tried to hold on to it, but Daz didn’t even react, probably because he didn’t notice. Muscle-bound weirdo.

  He perused my body, poking at a few of my bruises, his nostrils flaring. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel like he was evaluating me like one would a prize horse. He looked into my eyes every time he found an injury, assessing my pain level as he touched it. He murmured words to himself, and would move on to each new body part with a comforting pat.

  I’d been objectified plenty. I was familiar with the expression someone wore when they had no interest in who I was as a person and only in what I could do for them. I considered myself a good judge of character. With Daz? His eyes held mine. He seemed to be trying to read my emotions. His jaw ticked when I flinched in pain, and he would speak to me even though he knew I didn’t understand him.

  When his hand slid up my inner thigh, I jerked, surprised by the heat that flooded my face. He took extra-long studying me after that. I looked away and grabbed for the blanket again, hoping he couldn’t see what I was thinking.

  He held out the qua to me, and I drank greedily. After that, he unwrapped the cloth package and took out a bundle of what looked like deformed produce. He picked up a greenish ball, which resembled a large white grape. He sliced it in half with his claw, revealing a jelly-like inside. With a grip on my wrist, he dropped one half in my palm.

  I stared at him. “What am I supposed to do with this? Just bite into it?”

  He held up the other half and opened his mouth. What happened next changed my life, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. He unfurled his tongue. It was blue and long enough to curl around his chin, and in its center was a row of three piercings, each topped with a metal ball. He took that long, pierced tongue and ran it around the edge of the fruit skin, all the way around, carving out the center. And then with a powerful slurp, his cheeks hollowing, he swallowed the entire jelly center in one gulp.

  I nearly dropped the fruit I was holding. I nearly had an orgasm. I nearly saw Jesus. Swear to God, I couldn’t move for a full thirty seconds, because I was afraid if I did, I’d find myself trying to hump his face. What else can that tongue do? was on the tip of my tongue.

  Daz swallowed, and even his thick throat working was hot as hell. He tossed away the empty fruit skin with a flick of his wrist and gestured with his fingers to me.

  My turn. My fingers weren’t long enough to scoop out the jelly center, yet he’d done it with his tongue. I moaned and leaned my head against the tree. I was going to pass out.

  Immediately, Daz was in my face, his eyes narrowed with concern. “Fra-kee? Fra-kee?”

  I laughed, which turned into an inelegant snort. I patted his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m okay, big guy. I needed a moment. Just a heads up, any human female will need a moment after seeing that tongue.” A flash of choking jealousy rose up my throat at the thought of another female being this close to him.

  What the hell? I’d known him all of one day, and I had already come to think of him as mine. What if he had a nice blue wife? Little blue offspring? And here I was perving on him when he probably viewed me as a pet rather than a compatible sexual being.

  But when he reached out and cupped my cheek like he was doing now, searching my eyes with those intelligent purple depths, I knew he saw me. And I could have sworn he desired me. I’d never been able to read human male social cues worth a damn. Maybe I’d been destined to be good at… blue alien mating rituals?

  I shook my head and focused on the fruit. I couldn’t eat it like Daz, but I did manage to lick it and suck the jelly from the center. It tasted a bit like strawberry pie filling. Sweet and refreshing.

  Daz picked up each piece of food, told me the name, and sampled it first. The yellow fleshy fruit that resembled a lemon with an apple center was called trasga. The purple roll was a uhora. They were both damn tasty.

  By the time we were finished eating, there wasn’t much light left. The blanket wasn’t protection against the steady breeze that had picked up. I shivered, and anxiety slid up my spine. We were out in the middle of nowhere, alone. Daz’s technical device—whether used for communication or directions—was broken. There were hippo-pig things who could swallow me whole. So far, I hadn’t done much to keep myself alive. Daz had done everything. He’d fed me, saved me from being hippo-dinner, and healed me.

  I wanted to trust him completely with my life, but I still had no idea what he planned to do with me. Did he have any intention of returning me to Earth? I could barely think about home without my stomach dropping down to my feet, so I focused on the here and now. Survival. If only I knew if Daz was someone I should trust. He wasn’t even the devil I knew. I didn’t know him at all.

  I shook as goosebumps lifted the hair on my arms, and I pulled the blanket around me tighter. His head went up, and he looked right at me.

  “Hi,” I said softly. “Sorry, just a little cold.”

  His chest heaved, and he gazed upward into the darkening sky. From his waistband, he pulled a handheld tool with a sharp blade attached to the end. I sucked in a breath and braced my hands on the ground in case he came at me with that thing. Instead he walked over to a smallish, young-looking tree, and began chopping. The sounds of the blows filled the air, and in minutes he had several poles stripped of twigs, plus several large, flat, palm-tree-like leaves.

  He stalked over to me with these supplies, and using a few vines he’d tugged off another tree for bindings, he proceeded to build a three-sided lean-to. He covered the roof and sides with the leaves. I tugged at one of the poles, finding it surprisingly sturdy.

  Damn, if he were on Earth, he’d be Home Depot employee of the month. I added another tally to Daz’s pro column. He’d made me an actual shelter to shield me from the elements. My ex-boyfriend hadn’t even been able to make a shelf with a plank of wood and two brackets. The shelf had been so crooked my succulent had slid right off and landed face down on my carpet.

  By the time he finished our shelter, the planet was dark. Distant stars shone bright in the sky along with the faint glow of another sphere. It resembled our moon, with a gray color and cheese-like surface. I wished I could ask Daz if it was, in fact, a moon. As I settled into the shelter, huddled on the ground with my measly blanket, the unfamiliarity of my surroundings reminded me of how alone I was. What would happen if, instead of building a fire and making camp, Daz up and left me here?

  Without him, I’d be a goner. I’d been mostly paying attention to all he was doing to keep us alive, but I had to really focus from here on out. This wasn’t the type of situation where I could go with the flow. I had to observe and be responsible for my own survival, especially because I still didn’t know Daz’s motives for helping me.

  The fire he made was just big enough for some warmth and light. When he was finished, he rose and made his way toward me. He stopped outside the shelter, and I could barely make him out. He reached around to his back and a click echoed off the trees. A second later, his pants dropped to his ankles.

  I didn’t even scream. My breath froze in my lungs as I caught a glimpse of a massive alien cock. One little glimpse was fucking enough. I wanted none of that.

  I scrambled to the shelter’s corner and cowered with the blanket over my head. He didn’t want to hurt me, did he? Surely, he knew that huge thing entering my tiny body—no matter the wonders of an elastic vagina—would hurt like hell. For a while, nothing happened. I couldn’t see him through the blanket, but I could feel him looming there, and I could hear his breathing, and a purring that seemed to rumble from his body.

  Then, with ease that shamed me, he yanked the blanket out of my hands. I tried to scramble for it as he placed a knee on the ground beside me. “No!” I shouted with my hand out. “No! No P in V, no P anywhere near this V,
Daz!”

  He stared at me curiously, seemingly unbothered by my alarm. Then he picked me up and, in a swift move, lied down on his side, tucking me against his front as he put his back to the shelter’s entrance.

  “Ch-ch-ch, Fra-kee,” he murmured into my hair. “Ch-ch-ch.”

  He patted my stomach where his arm kept me in place. I was starting to think there wasn’t a literal translation of ch-ch-ch. Maybe it was more of a calming sound than an actual word. An “everything is okay” kind of assurance. His body was like a furnace, and in a few minutes my entire body warmed. Unable to help myself, I settled into him. One massive hand played with my hair, while the other stayed wrapped tight around my body. I couldn’t ignore the fact he’d placed himself at the entrance, blocking me from potential harm.

  He was hard. Absolutely. His cock poked my sleep shorts, but he didn’t thrust against me or try to cop a feel. Occasionally, he would rub his face against my neck or bury his nose in my hair and inhale. His hand on my stomach would flex, but he seemed to be holding himself in check.

  Each gesture he made had me letting go a bit more and easing up on my cautiousness. Did that make me weak? Maybe it did.

  My gaze drifted from the darkness of our homemade shelter and up through a seam in the leaves. The stars looked hella close. I searched the sky for Earth, for the unmistakable blue, green, and white colors of home. Of course, I didn’t see it.

  I hadn’t wanted to let myself think of my life back on Earth, because the memories physically hurt. I didn’t think I’d ever get back. How could I? The spaceship that had brought me here was long gone, and I couldn’t even communicate with the one creature on this planet that seemed to give a shit about my well-being.

  But I missed my home. My life. My apartment wasn’t much, and my job wasn’t my dream career, but they were mine, and I was proud of them. Paris, my best friend, would be frantic at my absence. We had a standing Thursday night wine and whine date. Who knew how many Thursdays I’d missed? I didn’t know how long I’d been gone or how much time I’d spent on that ship. If only I could see Paris now, I’d tell her I’d wear whatever color for her wedding that she wanted—peach, plum, fucking puke green.

  I even missed my dad, as complicated as our relationship was. I wanted to survive, but I wondered how long I could stay this strong in a place completely foreign at every turn.

  “I want to go home, Daz,” I whispered. “You’re nice and all, but I’m a human. I belong on Earth. I don’t belong here.”

  His body tensed behind me, and then he lifted his hand and ran it through my nest of hair. I didn’t even want to touch it, but he petted me like I was a cat. He began to talk, and I recognized zero of what he said, but his voice was low and conversational. Despite my sorrow, my eyelids grew heavy at the muted tones of his voice, and finally I had to close my eyes, shutting out the vision of the unfamiliar starry sky.

  Five

  Daz

  I woke up instantly alert. In front of me, Fra-kee lay on her side, her back to my chest. Her breaths were deep, even, and steady. She slept. Yesterday had been a long day for her, and despite her fragile body, she’d handled herself well. She hadn’t run off and done anything stupid, and while she was wary of me, she seemed to be starting to trust me. Or at least she trusted me to keep her safe. When the pivers pack had shown up and nearly thrown her off my bike, I’d kept myself—just barely—from dissolving into uncontrollable rage. The sounds of her screams would be ringing in my ears for many rotations.

  I didn’t want to feel this pull toward her. My life was complicated enough already, and now I was risking my life, my brother’s, and the rest of the males in my clavas. All for her. Yet I couldn’t find it in me to abandon her. She trusted me and betraying that trust would break me.

  In little time, the human had come to mean a lot to me. I wanted her touch. Her smiles. Her approval and respect. Her laugh reminded me of my brother’s, and I wanted to hear more of it. I wanted to see her mouth split into that wide, open-mouthed grin and hear that excited peal rumble up from her throat again. Sax never held back—when he was happy, everyone knew. His laugh was the loudest I’d ever heard, and even though I usually rolled my eyes or punched him playfully on the shoulder instead of laughing with him, I never tired of hearing it.

  My chest tightened. I missed him. Sax was the best of us brothers, or at least I’d always thought so. We’d been through everything together—the virus taking our parents and our females, working for the Uldani, and then fighting in the Uprising to achieve independence. Losing Rex had nearly ruined me, and if it weren’t for Sax, I wasn’t sure what kind of shape I’d be in now. Throughout our lives we’d had to fight, kill, and mourn, but Sax had always been there with kind words or a joke. He grounded me. He reminded me I had a flecking sola.

  Now the Uldani had him somewhere secret and wouldn’t give him up unless we delivered these females. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes at the sweet scent of Fra-kee. Her skin was so soft beneath my palms, and her lush lips were parted as she slept. The thought of betraying her and handing her over to the Uldani went against everything I was and everything I stood for. It was ingrained in every fiber of my being to protect females. Drixonian males had a creed of putting females above all else. She Is All. Our father had drilled it into us before we could talk.

  But if I didn’t follow through on my agreement with the Uldani… History might repeat, and I’d lose another brother. They’d killed my brother Rex, one of the best Drixonians to ever live. And every life mattered—we had no way to reproduce.

  I tried to think logically. That was why I was drexel, because I had always chosen what was best for my clavas and for our species. Choosing Sax, a beloved Drixonian warrior, over a few unknown females should have been an easy decision. Sure, She Is All was our creed, but the concept had been forged when our females ruled Corin, and we were a prosperous, plentiful species. Did She Is All apply now?

  Yet, as Fra-kee slumbered in my arms, I couldn’t deny how protective I felt of her. She fit in my arms perfectly, and from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, I’d known she was special. If only I could talk to her and maybe hear her laugh one more time. I ignored the ache in my cora over what was to come, but the Uldani didn’t expect us for another few rotations, so I had time to come up with an alternative plan. Unfortunately, my comm device had been broken when the pivers attacked, so I couldn’t check with my males to ensure they reached the hideout or give Tark notice I was coming.

  Tark was in contact with Shep, the oldest living Drixonian. Maybe he’d know something I didn’t about the appearance of the human females. If not, at least he’d give me the ability to speak with her.

  Her breathing changed, and her little nose twitched. I held still as her eyes blinked open. Suddenly her body tightened, and she jerked to a sitting position, nearly slamming her head into mine. Chest heaving, she glanced around with wild eyes before focusing on me. Her shoulders dropped, and she placed a palm on her chest, exhaling roughly. “Nut a dreeem,” she said with a crack in her voice.

  Her eyes flooded and dripped, and as she bit her trembling lip, I understood her leaking eyes were a sign of sadness. My gut clenched. “Fra-kee.” I pulled her against me, and she came willingly, pushing her face into my chest. I knew what it was like to lose everything I’d ever known. If I could take her back to Earth, I would, but I couldn’t even get back to my own home planet.

  I didn’t know what to do or how to soothe her. I didn’t have experience with females or young. I liked the feel of her hair, so I petted it. The action seemed to make her happy, and her body softened against mine.

  After a few moments, she pulled back and smiled at me. The sight took my breath away. I was sure—surer than I’d been of anything in my life—that it was my duty to keep her smiling. I smiled back, the ill-used muscles in my face stretching to accommodate the action.

  Fra-kee sucked in a breath and slowly reached out a hand. She rubbed my hair between her fingers. “So suf
d,” she said.

  She ran the back of her hand down my cheek and over my jaw. Her fingertips brushed my lips, and I couldn’t hold back. I stretched out my tongue and curled it around her finger before I licked at her palm. I held back a moan as the taste of her skin burst on my tongue.

  My tongue piercings rubbed her soft skin, sparking memories of lessons taught to me by the Drixonian elders. Those who had survived the sickness refused to let us forget our ways. They pierced us when we were old enough—precursors of the pain warriors would have to endure—and taught us the ways of pleasuring females. I never thought I’d use what I was taught, but at this moment I thanked every elder I’d ever come across for not letting us forget the Drixonian pleasure skills. My training was the only reason I was able to restrain from immediately plunging my tongue down her throat.

  Fra-kee’s eyes went wide as I continued to taste her, and red tinged the pale skin of her cheeks. When she didn’t jerk her hand away, I ran the metal balls of my tongue piercings around the webbing of her fingers and teased down to her wrist. Fra-kee’s breathing sped up, and she rubbed her legs together restlessly. I flared my nostrils, trying to inhale her scent. Was she aroused?

  I’d been taught that a tongue could bring as much pleasure to a female as a cock. I wondered if human females had similar interests. I wanted to taste her and show her all the ways I could make her smile and laugh and scream. During my training, I’d assumed I’d be nervous and unsure around a female, but giving pleasure seemed to be a very part of my sola. I’d never felt surer of myself than I was now, sampling the taste of this female.

  Last night, Fra-kee had been wary of me and my size, but this morning she was much more agreeable. I placed her hand on the side of my neck and leaned toward her. At first, she stiffened, but then her lips parted. I ran the tip of my tongue over her lips, and a high-pitched moan flitted up her throat. Oh, she was sweet. Soft. So lush and perfect. My cock hardened to a spike, and I pressed my lips to hers.