When She Belongs: A SciFi Alien Romance (A Risdaverse Tale Book 4)

by Ruby Dixon

  I help him finish peeling his tunic off, and then, to my surprise, he pulls it around my shoulders.

  "For you," he says. "Are you all right?"

  My eyes burn as I nod, fighting back tears. I'm not the one they're trampling on, but I can tell that all of his concern is for me. No one's ever cared so much, and it just makes my heart swell with even more love. I want to kiss him, but his lip is split and bruised, so I just push my arms through the sleeves and tuck the shirt around my body. "When we get out of this, I'm giving you the messiest, sloppiest, longest blow job ever."

  "If you like." He chuckles, leaning back against the wall as if fatigued. He closes his eyes and he looks so exhausted that it worries me. "Just so you know…whatever happens in the next while, I don't want you to panic." Jerrok's voice drops to a whisper. "No matter how I act."

  "How are you going to act?"

  "Like I'm dying."

  I suck in a breath, my stomach clenching in distress. "O-okay." I hope that was the reason he was limping when he came in. I hope. But then I remember the agonized creak of his arm just a moment ago and I'm worried. "Give me a signal word. If you're in danger and no longer pretending, use the signal word and I'll jump in and help."

  Jerrok frowns at me, opening his eyes to glare in my direction. "I'm not gonna do that."

  I ignore his protest, drumming my fingers on my thigh as I think. "What about the word 'terrarium'? If you say that, I know that you need my help. Or 'Outlander,' but I'm not entirely sure how you'll be able to work that into a conversation."

  "Sophie—" He reaches for me.

  The man is not a great listener, but then again, neither am I. I ignore his attempts to quiet me, shaking my head. "I know I don't have a gun, and I'm not very strong, but I'm a great ankle biter and like you said, they want me alive—"

  "Sophie, no. I'm not going to use a code word." Jerrok's expression is determined. "You're mine to protect, and that's what I'm going to do."

  "Well, what about you being mine?" I say, equally determined. "Maybe I want to protect you, too."

  His smile is achingly sweet, even as he rubs at his shoulder. It's bruised, the skin mottled around his prosthetic, and as I watch, he digs his fingers into the crude wiring coming from his skin, as if pressure will somehow stop the pain that's surely going up and down his arm. "I know you do. That's why I love you…and that's why I'm going to keep you safe. You trust me, right?"

  I nod.

  "Then let me take the lead." He grimaces and stops messing with his arm, letting it hang limp at his side. He reaches out for me with his good hand, a faint smile on his face.

  I take his hand in mine, because what else can I do?

  81

  JERROK

  The wiring in my arm is going to give out.

  It's never been the strongest. I've always known to be cautious with where my arm is joined to my flesh, because the wires and electrodes surgically attached were done sloppily at best, and they always feel a bit too loose at the best of times. After the attack from my captors, though, the wires have been pushed beyond their limits, and my body is sending phantom pain to that area even as the feedback alerts in my mind go haywire.

  Even so…it's a good thing.

  I try not to let Sophie know what I'm up to. She's worried enough as it is. With a damp strip she's torn off of my sleeve, she dabs at my wounds, her lips pressed into a thin line. I can't let her see how much pain I'm in, or how I'm digging my fingers into the spiderweb of wires at the juncture of my shoulder, loosening and snapping bits as I go. I have to get this done. I have to. No matter how much it hurts, I've had worse. I remind myself of that, even as another searing bolt of pain flares through me.

  Sophie's at my side, and she's safe, and that means I can endure anything.

  Our captors return far too quickly, and Sophie and I exchange looks. I dig at my shoulder one last time and feel one of the biggest wires give way entirely. My entire prosthetic arm is hanging by only one or two wires, and the whole thing could come off. I clutch at my bicep and glare at our kidnappers as I stagger to my feet. It's only two of them right now, the other somewhere else on the ship.

  "Well?" one of the V'tarrians asks. "Are you ready to talk?" He saunters forward, all confidence, and I try to seem more weak and pathetic than I am. I hunch my shoulders and shuffle backward, making it seem as if my limbs are twenty times heavier than they are. He gives me a narrow-eyed look, poking me with the front of his blaster. "You mesakkah aren't much in a fight. How did we lose the war if—"

  I snarl, and with a mighty heave, rip my arm free of the last of its moorings. With the weight of my body, I spin around, using the now-dead prosthetic as a club and slam it into my attacker's face.

  There's a crunch of bones, and the avian alien goes sprawling. His blaster skitters across the floor, spinning, and I see Sophie scramble to pick it up. Good girl.

  The other lifts his blaster and fires on me. The air hisses and the smell of burning flesh fills the room, but I'm too amped up on adrenaline to notice. I charge toward him and backhand him with my arm in a fluid motion, slamming him to the ground. He lands at my feet, and I raise my arm into the air and beat him again. And again. I don't know if I could stop even if I wanted to. I just know it feels too good to slam my heavy prosthetic arm into his face, and each time I pound into him, it's for Sophie. Every hit is for Sophie, and how they made her cry. How they scared her. How they threatened her—

  "Jerrok."

  Through a haze of pain and fury, I feel her cool hand on my shoulder. I blink, pausing, and turn my unfocused gaze on her. She holds the blaster out to me. "He's dead. They both are. We need to find the other."

  I glance down at the alien at my feet. He's…well, he's definitely not alive. These avians have brittle bones, it seems, and I've been in too much of a fury to notice my enemy was no longer fighting back. I glance over at the other, and he's dead, too, his beady eyes staring up at the ceiling, a sear-wound from a blaster in the center of his forehead.

  "I took care of him," Sophie says simply, gesturing for me to take the blaster. "Are you okay? Do you need a moment?"

  I suck in a deep breath and then nod. "I'm fine." I take the blaster from her hand, noticing that I'm spattered with gore, but Sophie is calm. She watches me with steady eyes as she picks up the other blaster from a pool of blood on the floor and arms it, the gun whining as it comes online. My side aches from where they shot me. My arm aches, too—which is hilarious because it's currently on the floor. It doesn't really hurt—it's all phantom limb pain—but my mind doesn't know that.

  I'm going to have a hell of a pain hangover later. For now, though, we have to finish cleaning house. I nod at Sophie, then look at my blaster. It's off at the moment—which means they were coming in for another round of torture instead of execution—and try to arm it…except I don't have another hand.

  On the floor, my old prosthetic twitches, as if trying to respond. I hold my blaster out to my mate. "On, please."

  She trades weapons with me, a firm look on her face. "I'm ready."

  "You should stay back." I don't like that she's going to be in danger.

  "You shouldn't have ripped your arm off and beat someone with it, but we'll talk about what we should and shouldn't do later," she tells me in a prim voice. "For now, we need to go kill another alien."

  Despite the pain I'm in, I grin at her. How in all the galaxies in the universe do people think she's soft? She's the fiercest thing I've ever met. "Let's do this, then."

  Sophie gives me a firm nod and puts a hand on my back. At least she's letting me take the lead. I head out of the rec room and down the hall, blaster raised and ready for action. Sophie is a step behind me, calm and cool, and I'm so keffing proud of her I could burst. We head toward the bridge in silence, and I try not to notice how much blood I'm dripping on the floors. It can be dealt with later. The Sister has a med-bay. I'll be fine.

  We get to the bridge, the door tightly closed and sealed. I
can't open the panel without tossing my gun aside, so I shoot it instead. With a sizzle, the panel shorts out and the door slides open.

  The bridge is empty, though.

  "How…" Sophie asks, just as an alert pings.

  "Escape pod launched," the Little Sister's computer intones. "Flight path set."

  I lower my blaster, fighting the irrational surge of anger rushing through me. I don't get to finish off my other captor. He's run away like a coward.

  "What do we do?" Sophie asks, looking at me.

  I thump down into the nearest seat, wincing at how much everything hurts. "We unlock the comms and ask the Jabberwock to shoot her down."

  82

  SOPHIE

  I hover over the med-bay tube, watching as Jerrok's wounds are stitched by a dancing needle that moves over his skin. His bruises are covered in a thick paste and bandaged, and his shoulder is a mess of bloody wires and torn skin. The stupid med-bay computer didn't do much for it, just slathered it with more paste and bandaged it, too.

  Jerrok's arm is on a table nearby, the occasional finger twitching as if it's trying to respond to silent commands.

  Jerrok, meanwhile, is sleeping peacefully, his big body calm as the needle stitches up his gut shot. Luckily it missed all vital organs, but he lost a lot of blood and a synthetic replacement is being fed into him through a tube in his good arm.

  "He'll be fine," Alyvos reassures me as the ship “slides” and we both automatically reach for something to hold onto.

  "I know," I tell him, but I'm not moving from this spot. Not until Jerrok wakes up.

  The Jabberwock didn't shoot down our escaped pilot. Instead, they hunted down the escape pod, captured it, and forced the feathered alien to talk. I'm told it didn't take much “encouragement” to get him to speak, but I don't ask what that encouragement was. I don't want to know, and after what he did to my pet and my mate, I'd take a blaster and shoot him myself.

  I glance over at Sleipnir, who's in the other tube, sleeping off the heavy dose of sedative they gave him. According to the avian alien, they hadn't been aware of Sleipnir's presence on board and had shot him full of their entire payload just to be safe. My poor carinoux's breathing is labored, but he's been injected with all kinds of medications to counteract the drugs, and I'm told he'll be fine in several hours.

  "Can I get you anything, Sophie?" Alyvos asks politely, touching my arm. "I need to go back to the bridge and monitor things, but I can ask Iris to join you if you'd like company."

  I turn and give him a faint smile. "I'm all right. I'm just going to stay here."

  Iris and Alyvos—along with Sentorr and Zoey—have joined us on the Little Sister. Kivian and Tarekh (along with their mates) remained on the Jabberwock, and our two ships are currently “sliding” through space through some lesser-used paths to try and lose any sort of trail we might have inadvertently sent back to the V'tarrians. It's been a twisty ride for the last few hours, but with Zoey and Sentorr helming things, it's all under control. We've split up from the Jabberwock just in case and will rejoin them tomorrow on a flight path, but for now, we're on our own.

  There's a lot of cleaning to be done, but…I can't bring myself to leave Jerrok's side. Or Sleipnir. One of them has to wake up soon, or I'm going to lose my shit.

  Alyvos pats my arm again and leaves, heading for the bridge. They've changed the ship's systems to manual control, since we can't trust any programming that the V'tarrians might have done. According to the prisoner, we were just another ship in a long line of ripped off space travelers. It seems that the V'tarrians have a system—ransom the ship to whoever's willing to pay, leave stealth agents on board to kill whoever takes her, and then return to port to do the same thing over and over again. No wonder the Slatra system is considered off limits. It's dangerous, all right.

  I run my fingers over the tube, desperate to touch Jerrok's hand. I'm so damn needy. It's just…he's everything to me. I know he's going to be fine and he's only unconscious because it's standard procedure for this sort of thing—so the patient doesn't move while being stitched—but it's still making me crazy. I press my forehead against the glass, miserable. "I love you," I whisper. "You know that, right?"

  "Sophie?"

  I sit upright, looking over at Zoey as she enters the med-bay. It's the first time I've seen her since they boarded, because she's been busy with piloting the ship and a million other things, and I've been busy with…well, hovering over Jerrok and Sleipnir. I know no one originally wanted Zoey on the Sister because they worried it would be painful for her, but her smile is bright and her expression is more relaxed than it has been in days.

  Her eyes are red, though. Alyvos told me that she'd burst into tears at the sight of the message written in the steam on the mirror and hadn't stopped weeping for some time.

  "Hi." I give her a wan smile.

  Zoey just moves to my side and wraps her arms around me in a hug. Now I'm the one that feels like crying. I put my chin on her shoulder and we just hug each other for a long, long moment in silence.

  "This is the first moment I could get away," Zoey says, pulling away after a time. "I wanted to thank you for finding that message."

  "It was purely by accident," I tell her with a wry look. "But you knew what it was?"

  She laughs, the sound watery and just a little shaky. "Oh yeah. When I was younger, Adiron found a stash of old human movies somewhere and we watched them together. He used to laugh at human technology as if it was the funniest thing ever." Her face lights up in another bright smile. "One thing we saw in the movies was people leaving messages written in a foggy mirror, right? So Adiron always thought it was funny to write something—usually incredibly juvenile—in the mirror and leave it for me to find. He hasn't done it in years—" Her voice catches and she pauses, composing herself. "But at least it's a message."

  "Do you know what it says? I couldn't read it, just that it was a name."

  Zoey nods slowly. "Lord Straik sa'Rin. It's an old family House back on Homeworld. Very influential…or was. They've fallen out of favor since their House leader took up with a human and married her."

  "Such a deviant," I murmur. "Is this guy dangerous? Why didn't they leave any other messages?"

  "I don't know," Zoey confesses. She looks worried, glancing down at Jerrok's med-tube and then back at me. "The only thing I could find on Straik was that he was the black sheep of his family before they became pariahs. He was the heir before Lord va'Rin's human wife had a child, so I don't know if he's on a rampage or what. He's also rumored to be a bit of a treasure hunter, so I'm hoping they're all just working together and it's nothing more dire than that." She crosses her arms over her chest and shrugs. "It's an answer, at least. And I know they're alive."

  I don't add on “Or they were at the time they left the message” because I'm not going to do that to Zoey. If she believes they're alive, I believe her. She knows the brothers better than anyone. "So how do we find this Lord Straik?"

  She snorts. "That's the thing. I pulled flight logs and checked with my friend back on V'tarr and you'll never guess where Lord Straik sa'Rin's ship was last seen."

  My heart sinks. "The Slatra system?"

  "Bingo."

  Damn. "What do we do now?"

  "The Sister needs an overhaul of her computers," Zoey says bluntly. "We can't trust whatever they've shoved into her programming. Sentorr suggested that we head back to Jerrok's station. My brothers are safe for now, because Lord Straik is a rebel but he's not a murderer. We can regroup at Jerrok's place and figure out where to head from there. I think we'll have to come back to the Slatra system, but we'll need new info for the Sister if we take her with us, since she's compromised."

  I look down at Jerrok in his tube, the stump of his shoulder bandaged. He ripped off his own arm to protect me, and it's a sight I'll never get out of my head as long as I live. Now he has to pay for it, though, because no one knows how to reattach a prosthetic arm and get it working again. Even the me
d-bay computers, advanced as they are, won't help.

  "Jerrok has to go to Three Nebulas," I tell Zoey. "We can't go back to his station yet."

  "3N? Why?"

  I give her a calm look. "Because we're going to take his credits and get him a new arm."

  83

  SOPHIE

  Heading to Three Nebulas Station is a little intimidating. I'm going as myself, not hiding under my ooli mask. Instead, I'm going as Jerrok's pet, and Tarekh and Alyvos both are accompanying us as we visit Zakoar of the Broken Back.

  Jerrok protests the thought of us going out of our way just for his arm, but I am utterly adamant and insist upon it. We're helping the others, they can help us. That's how these things work. And late at night, when we're in bed together, I catch Jerrok touching the stump at his shoulder. I know what this means to him, and I intend on seeing it through. He won't insist for himself, so I'll insist for him.

  This time, when we head through the station, it's different than the one we visited near Jerrok's home. Sleipnir absolutely will not leave my side these days. If we try to close him into a room by himself, he gets utterly destructive and wild, so it's better to just have him with me at all times. That means he sleeps with one paw on my hip, and even now on the station, he's at my side, wearing the world's smallest collar and hissing at everyone that walks too close.

  We have a lot of room to walk around on 3N. No one wants to get too close.

  Really, that's fine with me. I know parading Sleipnir around feels like asking for trouble, but he's so protective of me that we can't leave him behind and I like having him with me. Plus, we're all armed to the teeth for this visit. I've got a blaster of my own at my belt and two knives tucked into my boots. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.