by Ella Maven
“No,” I whispered. My dream was still vivid in my mind, and I felt feverish. What had that been about? Now I was having full on sex dreams about my alien partner? I refused to look him in the eye. What the hell was going on with my subconscious?
He didn’t seem to notice my inner turmoil, too focused on my health. He slowly peeled away the fur to release my arms, and I stretched them over my head. The skin of my shoulder pulled, and I grimaced at the pain. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the skin was still red and angry, but at least the blisters had burst. That did a lot to douse my dream-induced arousal.
Bosa was carefully packing a cloth with a green paste. I glanced around me but couldn’t determine where we were. Underground, maybe. The walls and floor were dirt, and there were no windows. A flame flickered in a lantern in the corner.
He hovered over me as he placed the wrap on my shoulder with the cool paste on my skin. I let him maneuver my arm. His expression was grim, and he was focused on his task in a way that caused his eyes to glow even brighter, and his high cheekbones to stand out in stark relief under his eyes. His jaw was set, and I could feel his anger simmering below the surface.
When he’d faced off against those Gattrix, I’d been in indescribable pain, but I’d forced myself to remain alert during the battle in case more showed up. But it’d only been two. Bosa had literally ripped the limbs off one Gattrix. This wasn’t like picking a crab for dinner. This was an eight-foot-tall giant Predator-like insect. Taller than Bosa. And he’d dispatched both with a deadly battle lust in under a minute.
When it mattered, he didn’t fuck around. He’d defended me when he could have just left me. He’d promised me the next time that he had to use Babe would be proof he intended to keep me safe. And he’d kept that promise.
He secured the wrapping on my arm with a bone needle before running his hands over my skin in a cursory way as he tested my temperature. Maybe that was what was wrong with my subconscious. It was just about gratitude.
“How am I alive?” I asked.
He sat back and rubbed at the Gattrix blood stains on his face. “I injected you with a venom antidote.”
“You had some?”
He shot me a look. “I’m always prepared.”
“How did you know what dose to give me?”
His tongue toyed with the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t.”
I stared at him for a moment. He’d been worried. I could see the emotion lurking in his eyes like a shadow. “Thank you. For saving me.”
“Second time now.”
“Are you keeping score?”
His head cocked. “Keeping score?”
“Like in a competition. Because if so, you’ll win. I don’t think there’ll be a time where I have to save you.”
He grunted. “You never know.”
I bit my lip. “I’m sorry your home is ruined.”
“It wasn’t home. Just a hideout.”
He’d called it his home away from home, so he was definitely downplaying this. “Still.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Where are we now?”
He squinted in the dim light. “Another hideout. I have a few. I prefer the trees, but this works too.”
I wanted to ask him again why he was risking his life for me. He watched me carefully and beat me to speaking. “You’re about to ask a question.”
“I was, but you said we can’t have that discussion anymore.”
He let out a husky laugh that seemed to surprise him. “If you told me when I was younger if, as an adult, I’d be helping a human female prevent the stealing of her kind from Earth, I’d have told you to yerk off. But life didn’t go as planned. I stood by for too long while our own females were hurt…” his voice trailed off as his head dropped between his shoulders.
I rolled to face him. “You mentioned your pardux abused your females before… what actually happened?”
I thought he’d blow me off like he did before, or change the subject, instead he tossed a small stone in the air repeatedly, seemingly lost in thought. He sighed heavily. “The Kaluma believe in respecting our elders. And the pardux is even more important than that. He is our leader. Our everything. But our last pardux should never have been allowed to lead. His father had been an excellent pardux, and I was young when Varnex took over, but I’d heard rumors that some had doubts about him, most believe he’d mature and rise to the role. He didn’t take the changes to the planet well as new settlers arrived. When his oldest son disappeared, he lost himself a bit. He isolated us and insisted on growing our settlement himself…” His lifted his eyes to me, and his gaze was burdened.
“Wait,” I said, putting a few pieces together. “Grow your settlement… as in the population?”
He nodded with a heavy swallow.
“So he…” I felt my stomach churn. “What did he do with your women?”
“Our females used to have varied roles in the settlement, but he narrowed the duties of all unmated females to one… servicing him.”
“Sexually?” My voice squeaked. “Like a harem?”
“They all wore collars to match his matz.” His brushed his fingers over the white marks on his chest. “When we mate, the females wear collars to match their mates. He claimed them all. He insisted that his seed was the most powerful and should be used for the future of the settlement. Except none of the females grew with child. So our population remained stagnant except for a few already mated females.”
“How…” I didn’t want to place blame, but that was horrible. “How did it get that far?”
“He was good at convincing everyone that what he did was best for the settlement. I was still a novice, and I’d always been raised to obey the pardux without question. Still, there was a time when I could have done something, and I didn’t.” He tossed the stone against the wall.
I listened to it clatter to the ground with an aching heart. For him, for the women. It was easy to see these aliens as their roles—assassins, warriors, pilots—but many had stories full of humanity. They carried guilt and had loved ones and goals and dreams. Just like I did once upon a time.
“I’m sorry, Bosa. I really am.”
He shrugged and his tone grew almost shy. “Helping you could be my way of taking care of my guilt. I couldn’t help those females, but I can help you.” He lifted his chin in the air and avoided my gaze. “And maybe I don’t mind your company as much as I thought I would.”
I went up on an elbow to try to look into his eyes. “Did you just admit to liking me?”
“I admitted to not disliking you,” he sniffed.
I laughed, and I could see the corners of his mouth lift into a small smile. “I’ll get you to admit you like me. One of these days.”
“Don’t push it, human,” he huffed.
I laid back down with a grin on my face. “This might be one competition against you that I win.”
I swore I heard him mutter, “Maybe.”
Bosa
I watched her sleep, waiting to see if she’d cry out from a visul. Her eyes flickered below her eyelids, but her face remained slack in sleep. With her lips slightly parted, her breath whistled between her teeth and the sound made me smile.
Reaching out, I ran the pad of my finger down the bridge of her nose. She didn’t stir, and I couldn’t resist continuing my perusal—brushing her lips and tracing the column of her throat. When she wrinkled her nose and smacked her lips, I quickly drew my hand back, afraid I’d be caught.
The pendant that had originally drew my eye rested on her chest between her breasts. The pattern was nearly identical to the marks on my chest. I didn’t believe in her fate or destiny, but there was something about this human…
I wasn’t the only assassin in the galaxy. Someone else could have done the job. They would have delivered her without looking back and by now she’d be… my lips curled back in a soundless snarl. I marveled at how she’d survived this long on her own. I had always considered hu
mans helpless. Beneath me. But this one? She was far from helpless.
She rolled onto her side and cried out in her sleep when her bad shoulder squished into the bed pallet. I immediately scooped her up and cradled her from behind to prevent her from rolling into her injury. She grumbled before settling back down in my arms like she was made to be there.
My scales itched. My eye twitched. This felt so right that it was wrong. I’d never thought far ahead. I took each rotation, each mission at a time, but I began to look ahead. Originally, I’d planned to deliver her to the Drixonians on our twin planet Corin. They had a settlement with many human females. They’d care for her and find her a respectable mate. I squeezed her without thought, and she whimpered in her sleep. I eased up my grip and breathed through my nose until the panic in my chest faded.
Give up Karina to another? But the alternative would be to take her home with me, and that was… impossible. A human wouldn’t be accepted, and I couldn’t imagine her there, living with me in my tree hut, swinging down the vines, making food, bathing in our stream. Visions of her laughing with Gurla and Wensla filled my head. So, I could imagine her there. And she’d fit in.
I shook my head. No. Ridiculous. We needed to focus on our Kaluma settlement, not dilute it with a human. And that was even if she agreed to come home with me. She stirred my cock and made my vurs pulse, but I was muscle for her. A partner in crime. Nothing else. I’d keep my hands to myself and my head on straight. I couldn’t give into these delusions of a future with her. And if she knew how badly I ached to place my mouth on her slit, she’d run away.
“I need to get clean.” Karina sniffed under her arms and wrinkled her nose. She’d woken up recently and was munching on some jerky. “I’m not being a diva. If I don’t wash my body soon, I could get a rash. Infection. Sickness.”
Alarmed, I stared at her. “Are humans this fragile?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t bathe.”
“A little time in the sun bakes the impurities from my scales.”
“Your hair?”
“Every thirty rotations or so.” I tugged at my braid. “I am about due.”
She stared at me. “Well good for your genetics or whatever. Human skin needs cleaning.”
I thought she smelled fine. Great even. A musky floral scent that surrounded us in my underground hideout. “We will stop on the way.”
Her eyes lit up. “We’re leaving to get my supplies?”
I nodded. “We’ll head to the farm today, and along the way find a spring or a cleanser.”
“Either will do,” she nodded. “I mean, I’d kill to get my hair wet, but at least an air cleanser will clean me.”
I checked her shoulder, and while she tried to bat me away, muttering about how it felt better, I prodded the irritated skin. She was healing well, and I was so thankful I’d had the anti-venom with me. I had Wensla to thank for that. She packed everything she thought I’d need, and while sometimes it was a burden to lug the supplies around, I sent a silent thanks to Wensla for saving the human’s life.
“How does it feel?”
“Like I burnt myself with a frying pan. I’ll live.” Her voice lowered as she ducked her chin. “Thanks to you.”
After applying a fresh smear of paste on the bandage, I wrapped her shoulder again. “Don’t sound too happy about it.”
“I don’t like being in debt to anyone.”
I cocked my head. “Did I say you were in debt to me?”
She shuffled her feet. “No.”
“This isn’t a competition to me.” I gestured to a packet of jerky on the bed. “Finish your meal. We leave as soon as I get packed up.”
She shoved the jerky in her mouth and chewed rapidly. With a smile, I turned to gather our supplies.
Eight
Karina
When we arrived at the Pucin farm, the stillness gave me pause. No lights shone from the windows of the mud-brick house despite the dim early morning light.
Bosa was on high alert too, his blue eyes studying the house. “I want to check inside,” he said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
I waited in the hideout where I kept my explosives as Bosa went to investigate the house. I lost sight of him as he turned the corner to the back of the house. Watching carefully, I waited for any movements or noises inside.
Then the front door opened and Bosa strode outside, walking casually as if he wasn’t worried about being seen.
“Bosa!” I hissed as he reached my side.
“It’s okay.” He crouched down next to me. “The house is empty.”
“Yeah, but they could be coming back anytime.”
He shook his head. “They’re not coming back, because they’re dead.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“It doesn’t look like an attack. They were huddled together under a fur. So maybe it was old age.”
“Huddled together under a fur?” Oh damn, why was I getting teary-eyed over an old alien couple dying in each other’s arms? “Did it look like they died in pain?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I wrapped up the bodies and buried them together. We can sleep in the house tonight. There is food and other supplies.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I feel bad staying in their house.”
“They don’t need it anymore, kotche.”
I pressed my lips together. “Yes, I know that, but…”
He pulled me to my feet. “Come on.”
I followed him toward the house and tentatively stepped inside. Glancing around, I felt like I was invading someone else’s space. They decorated… like alien grandparents. There were knickknacks all around and some homemade art on the walls made of colored yarn. Pucin were stocky, hairy creatures with flat faces and large hands. Farming was their specialty, and these two had plenty of fertile land.
Bosa stood along a table, poking at a black box, and twisting a wire. “What’s that?” I asked as I stepped up next to him.
“This is a signal collector. We might be able to hear dock activity since all arrivals and departures are announced through public signals.”
“Well, that’s handy,” I said. “Wish I had one of those all these years.”
He smiled at me. “Seems like you did an outstanding job pissing off Frenz without one.”
I smirked at that. “Good point.”
After tidying up a bit and grabbing a bite to eat, Bosa led me from the house.
Honestly, I really wanted to sleep “Where are we going?”
“I promised you.”
“Promised me what?”
He only grinned as we ventured into a dense forest around the farm. My feet tripped on large roots and insects the size of walnuts buzzed around my head. I batted them away and rubbed at the back of my sweaty neck. “Bosa,” I couldn’t hold back the whine in my voice. “It’s hot.”
He only smiled as he finally stopped in front of a large leaf the size of a Corolla. He tilted his lips up in a smirk as he shoved the leaf to the side. “You said you wanted to bathe?”
What lay beyond nearly took my breath away. At one end of a small, sparkling clear pool, a waterfall trickled down, barely hiding the narrow alcove behind it. I wanted to weep. Water. Glorious, clean, fresh-smelling water. I inhaled deeply and let out a satisfied sigh.
“Happy?” Bosa asked.
I couldn’t hold back the face-splitting smile. “Very happy.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth and the matz on his chest and neck seemed to shimmer for just a brief moment before he turned away with a jerk and showed me his back. “Then bathe,” he spat gruffly. “We don’t have much time.”
I glared at his back, unsure what caused his drastic mood swing. “Stay like that. I’m undressing. Don’t peek!”
“Like I want to see a naked human,” he snorted.
“Like I want to see a naked human,” I mimicked, and I swore he huffed a laugh as I shucked off my clothes. Taking a running leap, I let out a yelp as I cannonba
lled into the water. When I surfaced, I turned to find Bosa glaring at me, his clothes drenched. I remained submerged up to my neck. “Should have stayed out of my splash zone, Kaluma,” I laughed as I filled my mouth with water before spitting it out in a stream in his direction.
He shuffled out of the way, still glaring. I cupped my hand to send another spray of water in his direction when his hands went to his pants, and he began to lower them. “Hey,” I called out, squeezing my eyes shut as I whirled around. “Warn me before you go pants-less.”
“You think you’re the only one who wants to bathe?” He asked.
I squinted one eye open when I heard a splash behind me. Turning around slowly, I didn’t spot him, until a figure emerged from the water. Bosa tossed his head back, his loose hair flying in an arc as he smoothed his hands over his face and back through his long white locks. Like some sort of Love Island montage.
Turning his head, he speared me with those fluorescent eyes, and for a moment, I forgot to breathe. He stood in the shallower edge of the pool in waist-deep water. Clear droplets ran down his scales to settle in the muscled grooves of his stomach and his hipbones.
“Jiminy Cricket on a tractor,” I muttered to myself. When I’d first met Bosa, he was as alien as everything else I’d met on this planet. I hadn’t viewed him as a gender really, just a… thing that wasn’t human. But now, I knew him and his personality. He was a fully-fledged being to me with his own thoughts, feelings, and motivations. As he stood with the sun glinting of his bronze shoulder spikes, I only saw a tall, gorgeous, stacked male.
“Keep staring like that, Karina,” my name rolled off his tongue like a promise. “And I’ll get curious about the parts of your body hidden beneath the water.”
I tried to deny I’d been staring but the words jammed in my throat. No point in lying to him. I’d been staring. And a stupid, stupid part of me want to know what he looked like below the belt. Did he have human-like anatomy or something else?