She doesn’t look like a dinosaur, though—neither of them do, Whitney thought. In fact, what the little alien girl and her mother most reminded her of were the Babar books she’d read when she herself was little.
They were French books which had been translated into English, all about a family of royal elephants—King Babar and Queen Celeste and their children— who wore clothes and drove cars and ruled over a country whose name she couldn’t remember. They had been her favorite books when she was four or five—she’d used to pour over them for hours. The idea of talking animals had fascinated her.
Well it’s not so fascinating now, is it? Whitney asked herself ruefully. Who would have thought I’d end up lost on an alien planet, trapped in a live-action Babar book and treated like a cross between a pet cat and a Barbie doll?
A hysterical laugh tried to bubble up from her throat but she pushed it back down in a hurry. The vast face of the alien mother was looming towards them like a moving mountain as she bent to examine what her daughter had brought home.
“Zhu-zhu, how often have I told you not to play with wild tweedles?” she scolded her daughter in a voice that was even deeper than the little girl’s. Despite her translation bacteria, it was a struggle for Whitney to understand her, maybe because her voice was on the lower end of the human hearing range.
“But Mama, look at them!” the little girl who was apparently named Zhu-zhu exclaimed. “See their funny hides—it almost looks like they are wearing clothes! And this one is so pretty—I’ve never seen a dark brown tweedle before!”
She gestured with her trunk, lifting Whitney up in a dizzying gesture which made her really glad she hadn’t had lunch before they’d left on their mission. If they had, she would have puked right there and then. As it was, she was rendered completely unable to talk even though she’d been meaning to reason with the adult alien at the first opportunity.
“Why yes, she does seem to be very unique,” the mother alien acknowledged, looking at Whitney with renewed interest. “And I wonder who could have dressed them up in such cunning little clothes?”
“I don’t know. I found them in the forest in my play area. There were two other wild tweedles but they ran away. These just stood there. And Mama, there is something else…” The little girl’s voice dropped to a whisper—if the grating boulder voice could be said to whisper, that was. “They talked to me!”
“They what?” For the first time, the mother alien sounded really upset. “Zhu-zhu, you must have imagined it! Please tell me you did. Because if you didn’t and these two have the Speaking Disease they’ll have to be destroyed. And I’ll have to have all the rest of my breeding pairs destroyed as well because you’ve contaminated our dwelling!”
“Oh no!” Zhu-zhu looked as though she might cry and Whitney, who had opened her mouth to try and reason with the mother alien, abruptly shut it.
“There, there, sweetums—it’s very rare, the Speaking Disease is,” the mother alien said consolingly. “And there’s never been a case of it on this side of the continent. You must have imagined it. You did, didn’t you?”
Zhu-zhu nodded eagerly, her trunk bobbing, which had the effect of shaking Whitney all around.
“Yes, Mama—I imagined it. It only seemed like they were speaking to me. I guess because they look so funny,” she said eagerly.
“That’s good then.” Her mother looked vastly relieved.
Whitney, however, was perplexed. What were they going to do now? She shot a glance at Rafe and saw that he was also stumped. But both of them were keeping their mouths firmly shut. There would be no reasoning their way out of this situation, she realized—they would just have to try and find some other way to escape.
“Are they a breeding pair?” the mother alien asked her daughter as she looked more closely at Rafe. “This one doesn’t have the lovely dark skin tones of the little female but they might be a match for all of that.”
“I don’t know, Mama.” Zhu-zhu shook her head, waving her trunk around. Whitney wished she would stop doing that!
“Well, let’s take them down to the kennel and I’ll see what happens in the matching pen,” the mother suggested. “Oh, and we’ll have to take off those silly clothes. They certainly can’t get matched with those in the way!”
Whitney felt a shiver of fear go down her spine and for the first time, her natural optimism began to slip a little. The kennel? The matching pen? And now the aliens were going to take off their clothes? What the hell was going to happen to them? Clearly she and Rafe were supposed to exhibit some kind of behavior to prove they were a couple—but what would happen if they didn’t get it right?
She had a bad feeling they were about to find out.
Chapter Ten
The vast alien house had several different levels but they were connected by ramps instead of stairs. Maybe because the alien’s ponderous bodies would have had a difficult time climbing stairs, Rafe speculated.
The main level, which they had come in on, seemed to be divided into several different areas. There was a food prep area, (if the vast silvery-blue appliances he saw were for cooking,) as well as a living area. Here there was a piece of broad, cushioned furniture as big as an Earth soccer field that was patterned in a green and yellow flowered pattern so bright it hurt his eyes to look at. And lastly, a work area.
This last was what Rafe’s eyes lingered on. Mounted on the curving wall above a kind of desk was a broad, flat screen that was unmistakably a monitor. And underneath it was a large cube with six sides, all of them covered in keys with squiggly patterns on them.
Could the cube be a kind of keyboard? For beings with seven fingers and two thumbs, it might be a practical way to type. And if the two were hooked together in a kind of communications device, he might be able to get some information as to their location in the universe. If there was a stable wormhole nearby it would be good to know—much better than taking a risk on the rogue one that had brought them here.
Of course, the keyboard cube was as tall as Rafe was and probably quite heavy. There was also the matter of getting to it in the first place—it was placed on a desk the height of a three-story building. Also, he didn’t know these people’s written language—though he felt confident he could learn it, given a very little time. He was Kindred, after all, and the quick and accurate acquisition of new languages was in his blood.
But for now, he was held tightly in the grip of the child alien and there was nothing he could do but watch as she carried him and Whitney down the ramp which led from the upper floor to the lower one.
The lower level seemed to be divided into two main spaces. On one side of the subterranean space was a play area for the child alien which contained a huge dollhouse as big as an Earth mansion and a dress-up area with several colorful outfits strewn about. On the other side was a separate area filled with cages.
It was to this area that the child and mother alien took him and Whitney. Rafe frowned at what he saw. The cages were laid out in a semi-circle—nine in all—with four smaller ones arranged on either side of a much larger cage in the very center. Three of the four cages on the left side of the central cage had occupants and two on the right side did. The others were empty. All of them seemed to be lined with clean greenish-purple grass and several had large wheels and colorful toys inside.
The “tweedles,” as these aliens called humanoids, in the cages seemed to be much better groomed than the wild ones he and Whitney had encountered in the forest. Their long hair was combed neatly and they didn’t have any scars or cuts or bruises on their sleek, naked skin like the wild ones had either. They peered curiously through the thick wire cages as Rafe and Whitney were brought into their area and one or two of the males made threatening grunting sounds.
Marking their territory, Rafe thought and felt a spasm of unease crawl down his spine. He didn’t want to have to fight any of these mindless humanoids but he would if he had to, especially if it was necessary to keep Whitney safe. No matter what hap
pened, that was first and foremost in his mind.
“Well now, let’s get these silly little clothes off,” the mother alien said. She plucked Rafe from her daughter’s hand and began, rather clumsily, to tug at his trousers.
Rafe saw at once that he was going to be injured if he didn’t help. As unobtrusively as he could, he unfastened the magno-tabs which held his black flight leathers up. This allowed the mother alien to get a hold of them and strip them down. His high leather boots went with them and soon he was completely naked and vulnerable in her gigantic palm.
This must be what a cub feels like being handled by its mother, he thought, feeling utterly helpless as she examined his body, turning him this way and that with the tip of her trunk, which seemed to act like an extra hand and finger.
He thought of trying to bite her in hopes that she would drop him and he could run, but there was Whitney to consider. As long as he behaved he might have a chance to be with her. If he escaped, he would be always hiding and trying to avoid detection, which would make getting both of them out much more difficult. Reluctantly, he decided to endure the indignity and kept his jaw clenched through the inspection.
“Well—this little male has a few scars on his front so he’s no good for showing,” the mother alien said thoughtfully in that deep, rumbling tone of hers. “But he might be good for breeding—especially if he’s the other one’s mate.” She looked at her daughter. “Have you got her undressed, Zhu-zhu?”
“Oh, she undressed herself, Mama! She’s really smart,” the child alien gushed. “She seemed to know just what I wanted her to do—see? She’s already tame.”
Looking over, Rafe saw that Whitney was standing naked in the little alien’s palm. She was trying to cover her lush curves with her arms and hands but not having much success. She definitely had what he had heard Earth girls calling a “Plus-sized” figure—which unfortunately was exactly what he desired in a female. To his discomfort, he could feel his shaft getting hard, even though this was most definitely not the time or the place for lust.
“Well, well, so she is. She must have been someone’s pet before she got lost in the woods,” the alien mother remarked. “Some tweedles can be trained to do all kinds of things—this little one is doubly valuable since she’s obviously intelligent and she has such unique coloration.”
“Can we keep them then, Mama?” Zhu-zhu asked eagerly. “Since they’re so smart and pretty? Can I have them for pets?”
“Well, I think you’re a little young to have a tweedle of your very own,” the alien mother said. “But I tell you what,” she added indulgently. “I’ll let you help me with them. You can be responsible for feeding them and cleaning their cages—these two at least. And if you prove you can do a good job, we’ll talk about it again.”
“Yay! I promise I’ll do a good job, Mama! I promise!” The alien child jumped up and down excitedly, which nearly sent Whitney tumbling off her palm and down to the floor below which, though it was covered in some kind of thick, coarse carpet, probably wouldn’t have been enough to save her from a two story fall.
Rafe watched, his heart in his mouth as she toppled over and grabbed for Zhu-zhu’s fingers to save herself from falling. Gods, how he longed to be free to help her—to shield her from danger! But there was nothing he could do except watch in this situation. He couldn’t get to her in time to save her from the fall and he couldn’t catch her. He would be too late to do anything even if he did manage to extricate himself from the grip of the giant alien and get free.
Just like with Tenda. Too little, too late, he thought savagely and then shoved the memory away. He had to concentrate on Whitney now—not on the past.
Luckily, Zhu-zhu noticed her mistake and wrapped her trunk around Whitney’s waist just before she would have fallen. The mother alien noticed too and her massive, lipless mouth turned down at the corners.
“Now Zhu-zhu, if you want a tweedle of your own someday, you’ll have to do a better job of handling them! Look at that—you were being careless and you nearly dropped the new little female. Give her to me.”
She put out her trunk and the little girl reluctantly deposited Whitney, who looked pale with fright though she never said a word, into her mother’s grip.
“Now then, that’s better.” The mother alien examined Whitney from head to foot and front to back, just as she had done with Rafe. “How strange—she keeps trying to cover herself,” she murmured, using the finger-like projection at the end of her trunk to move Whitney’s arms. “Hmm, she doesn’t appear to be in heat but you never know—it’s difficult to tell with this lovely dark brown pelt,” she remarked.
“Are they a pair? Are they a matched pair?” Zhu-zhu asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her flat, round feet excitedly.
“I’ll let you know in a moment. Go and play with your dollies, sweetie. You’re too young to see this part,” her mother directed.
“Awww, but I found them! I want to see! I want to see!” Zhu-zhu protested, pouting. If a giant blue elephant-like creature could be said to pout, that was. But her mother was firm.
“I said go play with your dollies. If you don’t mind me this instant I’ll tell your Papa when he comes home and you know you won’t like that.”
The threat of the alien father seemed to get the little girl moving.
“All right,” she sighed sulkily and wandered over to the other side of the room, while throwing many looks over her shoulder as she went.
As soon as she was gone, the mother alien opened the large middle cage with her free hand and deposited both Whitney and Rafe inside. Then she closed the wire door, sat back on her massive haunches, and watched them.
Chapter Eleven
“What does she want? What is she waiting for?” Whitney gasped, still trying to cover her naked body with her arms and hands. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her curves—far from it. But it wasn’t pleasant to be suddenly naked in front of a man she had a crush on—or in front of a giant blue elephant alien either, if it came to that.
“I don’t know what she wants,” Rafe growled from the corner of his mouth. He was completely nude too—his muscular body displayed to perfection, but he didn’t seem to be trying to cover himself.
Whitney tried not to look but she couldn’t help noticing how his washboard abs led down to long, muscular legs and what was between those legs…well, let’s just say the aliens aren’t the only ones with trunks around here, Whitney thought and had to suppress a nervous giggle.
The mother alien moved closer, bending down to put her massive face right in front of the cage and the laughter died in Whitney’s throat at once. It was just so unnerving to have a face the size of a small moon staring at you like that! She squeaked and took an involuntary step backwards, tripping over her own feet as she did.
She would have fallen but Rafe reached out a hand and caught her.
“Easy there, mon’dalla,” he murmured in a low voice, meant for her ears alone. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Whitney didn’t know how he could claim that, but she was glad for his reassurance anyway. She was also grateful when he stepped considerately in front of her, shielding her from the view of the huge mother alien.
Wrinkles creased the forehead of the alien’s vast forehead and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“Well, this doesn’t seem to be going well at all,” she murmured. “I’m afraid this won’t do. No it won’t.”
And before Whitney quite knew what was happening, she had opened the thick wire door of the cage and was reaching in with her long trunk.
Rafe maneuvered to keep her safe but it turned out that Whitney wasn’t the mother alien’s intended target—he was. Quick as a wink, the snaky blue trunk had coiled around his waist and lifted him out of the large middle cage.
“Rafe!” Whitney couldn’t stop herself from crying. But when the mother alien looked at her sharply, she forced herself to be silent. No matter what happened, she and Rafe couldn�
�t let the huge alien think they had the “Speaking Disease” whatever that was. It sounded like an instant death sentence.
The mother alien deposited Rafe in the one empty cage on the left side of the middle and shut the door. She then opened another cage and got out a humanoid male with long, straight auburn hair which hung down to his bare, muscular ass.
With little ceremony, she thrust the new male into the middle cage with Whitney and closed the door.
“There now, little female,” she rumbled in her deep voice. “Let’s see how you like some new company.”
Whitney felt like she’d just swallowed a fist-sized lump of ice. As the male with the long auburn hair advanced on her, grunting in apparent interest, she backed towards the far corner of the cage, still trying desperately to cover herself.
She could hear Rafe shouting something incoherent—a rage-filled roar as he shook the bars of his cage—but he appeared to be locked in, so he couldn’t help her.
Grunting with interest, the new male came closer. He wasn’t as tall and muscular as Rafe but he was still much bigger than Whitney and more massive too. He was looking at her with interest and his nostrils flared as he got closer, as though he was searching for a scent.
Whitney backed further away and looked around for anything to use as a weapon. But though some of the other cages had toys and other pet accoutrement in them, the large middle cage was empty. It wasn’t even lined with the purple-green grass of the other cages. There was literally nothing she could use to defend herself if this big brute decided to rape her.
Except my nails, Whitney thought desperately. Despite her field work, she took great care with her fingernails—going to get them done was her little treat to herself once a week. Now she flexed her fingers and got ready to do battle. There was no way she was going to just let this mindless bastard do what he wanted with her. Maybe a little pain would put him off—or maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, Whitney wasn’t going down without a fight.
Pairing with the Protector: A Kindred Tales Novel (Brides of the Kindred) Page 6
