by Roxie Ray
“Well. It’s better than a jail cell,” she quipped as I guided her inside. “This is where I’ll live while we go back to your planet, then?”
I handed her the key card and nodded. “You will have sole access to this space. Your card will admit you to our canteen and common areas as well. After you shower and eat, you may find interest in going down to the viewing deck. As this is your first time in space, I understand that seeing the stars could be…stimulating.”
“Stimulating, huh?” She arched a dark gold eyebrow, then returned my smile by half. “Maybe later, then, yeah? For now…ugh.” Sawyer reached down to pull her dirty shift away from her legs, flashing me a tantalizing glimpse of her thighs—one that I pretended not to have indulged myself in. “Yeah, I think a shower could be nice.”
“Through that door.” I pointed her toward the bathroom. “You may find the water slightly too hot at first, but you will acclimatize to it with time. It has certain regenerative properties. Administered daily, it will help heal some of your wounds more quickly.”
She raised her hand up to the bruise over her eye, then nodded. “That sounds…nice, yeah. I don’t exactly enjoy feeling like a piece of meat that’s just been tenderized.”
Sawyer drew in a breath, then took a step toward the shower. She stumbled almost immediately, however—and once again, I was there to catch her before she fell.
Ridiculous thing. She consistently failed to remember her own limitations. But as I wrapped an arm around her waist once more and took one of her small hands in mine, she allowed me to guide her to the bathroom without further protest. When I took her to the door of the shower, she even gave me a small look of gratitude. It made my heart thrum against my rib cage just to know that she had found such safety in my arms.
“I’ll get my strength back soon,” she assured me with a little laugh. “You’re not going to have to keep leading me everywhere like a lost little lamb.”
I shook my head. In my studies of Earth, I had not yet come upon this word yet, but I could tell she meant it as an insult. “You should not say such harsh things about yourself. You are not a lamb. You are a brave, proud female who has been through more than most.”
She laughed again. “Whatever you say, big guy.” But as she glanced down at her gown, then at the shower, she stiffened slightly beneath my touch again. “I think I can take it from here, though. There’s plenty of stuff here in the bathroom that I can hold myself up with if I need, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough fight left in me to bathe myself, at least.”
Heat rippled through my chest once more. If I wished, I knew I could draw her attention again to how badly she had needed me to lean on just to take a few steps. If I pressed, I was certain I could convince her to let me help her out of the thin, filthy gown the Rutharians had dressed her in. Could turn the water on for her, strip down out of my own clothes and wash the dirt and blood from her bruised body and tangled hair. I yearned to be the one to do this for her so greatly, it took all of my own strength not to insist on as much.
But despite her bravery, she had already proven to be uncomfortable at my touch. Forcing her to disrobe in front of me and allow me to bathe her would only show her that my words had been untrue—and likely, that my motives were as selfish as she had initially suspected.
Of course, I wanted to see her body beneath her gown. Of course, I wanted to smooth my hands across her skin as the water of the shower rained down over us. But of course, neither of those things were desires that I had any right to feel, let alone claim.
It was exactly as I had already realized. This female made me long for things that it was not acceptable to want. As much as she may have needed me, I would have to let her do as she pleased. And more importantly, now that she was safe in her own room, now more than ever I needed to keep myself away.
“As you wish.” I backed away with a nod. “You will find a food articulator in the kitchen when you have finished washing. Simply speak into it and it will provide you with a meal of your choosing.” I smirked as I recalled how Bria and Kloran had initially struggled to convince the articulator to produce something that a human could comfortably eat. “Be specific with it, though. If you desire meat, you will have to explicitly state how you want it cooked.”
“Huh?” She shifted to face me, clinging to the door of the shower to hold herself up. “Why?”
“Because.” My smirk broadened. “It has been attuned to a Lunarian diet, not a human one. And we Lunarians eat our meat raw.”
“Weird.” A little smile blossomed on her lips at the notion. “Well. Okay. Cool, then. I can deal with that.”
“Then I will take my leave.” Another nod, then I moved back out through the bathroom door. Before I could close it behind me, however, I heard her clear her throat.
“Haelian? That’s your name, right?” Her voice was suddenly slightly meeker than I had heard it yet. When I turned, I saw a look on her face that almost suggested she did not want me to go.
“It is,” I said slowly. “Do you require something else, Sawyer?”
“No. It’s just…” She hung her head and stared at the black tiles of the bathroom floor. “Thank you. I know I was being a little prickly earlier, but…I really do appreciate everything that you’ve done for me. Like I said—this definitely beats hanging out in space jail and getting punched in the face.”
“You may not feel you have strength in your body right now,” I told her, letting my eyes linger on her until she met my gaze again. “But you have great strength in your spirit, Sawyer. If you have need for anything while you are here aboard my ship, please know that you only must ask.”
With that, I left her, though it felt like I had to tear myself away just to remove myself from her presence. Even when she had been insulting me, snipping at me and refusing my help, I had found it difficult to leave her side. And when she was in my arms, being amenable and asking me every question in the galaxies…
A small grunt welled up from my throat as I returned to the bridge. This female may not have had claws of her own, but she had somehow managed to summon some up to dig into me anyway. I enjoyed her company, and worse, I enjoyed caring for her even more.
If and when she let me, at any rate.
Even as I walked away, though, I could not help but imagine her shapely body beneath the hot water and steam of the shower. The way the water would comb through her golden hair, river and fall down her full breasts and broad hips as it washed her body clean of her experiences on the Rutharian ship and down the drain.
7
Sawyer
Haelian hadn’t been lying. The shower ran hotter than acid rain during a Sector Two heatwave. When it first hit my skin, I yelped in surprise—and a little bit of pain, too.
But Haelian hadn’t been lying about getting used to it, either. Once I’d forced myself beneath the searing stream of water, I could feel it smoothing out all the knots that had wound themselves into my muscles and soothing the bruises on my ribs, my shoulders, and my knees. It was almost relaxing, in a way. By the time I was done, my skin was bright pink but at least I was finally clean.
After I toweled off, I rubbed the fog away from the mirror over the sink and peered into my own reflection. Just a week ago, I’d been a blushing bride-to-be without a care in the world—or, at least, if you didn’t factor in a class full of sticky-fingered five-year-olds and a big, scary wedding to plan. But now…
I raised my fingertips to the bruise that had left my right eye swollen and puffy. It was yellow around the edges and a purple tinge had started to sink in all the way from my cheekbone to my eyebrow, but it definitely felt better coming out of the shower than it had going in. The cut on my forehead, the one I was pretty sure I’d gotten from my car crash before I’d passed out, looked like it was actually starting to heal okay. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t even walk away with a scar.
But as I stared at my wounds, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was to have walked away from everything tha
t had happened to me at all. From the car accident, to my apparent abduction, to waking up in a jail cell for… sex slaves…
I watched my eyes fill with tears in the mirror as a sob wracked through my chest. I didn’t want to cry, but this was the first time I’d been alone since I’d been rescued. This was the first chance I’d had to even really consider any of it.
I’d been kidnapped. Stolen away from my home and sent off into the depths of space. Locked away. Tested for breeding, Adskow had said. I could only guess at what that meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good. I’d been beaten, knocked out, shot at, and—just barely—rescued. Saved by a giant, fanged and clawed alien man. A man, I could only hope, was one that I could actually trust.
All things considered, crying was kind of the only way I could react.
Intergalactic travel, laser guns, flying saucers and space battles were all real. Aliens were real. I’d been abducted by them. I’d nearly been made into a sex slave by one race of them before I was saved by another race entirely. And no matter what Haelian had said, I still had every reason to believe that the motives of both species were one and the same.
I’d been tested for breeding by the Rutharians, and Haelian himself had asked Adskow about getting my consent to be tested by the Lunarians as well before he’d realized I was in the room. Sure, Haelian had said he had no interest in my womb, but knowing that the Lunarians had population problems, and knowing that the only people they knew of who could fix those problems were human women like me…
My mouth went dry as the memory of being in Haelian’s arms rose up in my mind again. It wasn’t exactly a bad feeling, being carried around like that. Like I weighed nothing and he could easily whisk me away to wherever I wanted—or wherever he wanted, for that matter. I’d imagined Aiden carrying me that same way through the door of our honeymoon suite on our wedding night. But of course, between managing his business, cheating on me with strippers, and banging his best man, Aiden had never really had time to hit the gym. Whatever muscles my ex-fiancé back on Earth had were just for show. He hadn’t even been able to lift a finger to help with the wedding planning. How the heck did I think he was going to pick me up and carry me across the threshold once he’d made me his wife?
Unlike Haelian, who was tall, fit, and undeniably buff in ways I’d only seen in pro athletes and male models. He’d been able to carry me to safety while fighting against an entire horde of alien bad guys trying to stop us. If I was being honest with myself…ugh. Obviously, he was good-looking. Obviously, he was every bit the macho tough guy of my wet dreams, even if he was fanged and clawed with inhumanly orange skin. If it came down to it, if my only choices were either being abused by Rutharians, going back to the planet where my lying, cheating ex-fiancé lived, or getting knocked up and cared for by a guy like Haelian…I’d never admit it to him, of course, but my life on Earth had been in shambles long before some sinister aliens had dragged me off into the stars to become enslaved by a bunch of demonic-looking space baddies.
As far as my current dating pool went, I knew I could do a heck of a lot worse than the handsome general of a baby-crazy alien race.
I blinked at myself in the mirror then laughed through my tears. What was I even thinking? I knew I’d been through some serious stuff over the last week, but I barely remembered any of it, and it hardly justified downloading the space-version of a dating app so I could find myself some intergalactic man candy. The fact that I was even considering Haelian like that right now was either a testament to how hot he was, or proof that I was going just as crazy as that woman who’d been in the Rutharian jail cell across from mine.
Of course, I couldn’t stay with the Lunarians. And there was no way I was letting myself get knocked up by one of them just for saving me. Finding a greeting card that said Thanks for saving me from being beaten and raped by the Rutharian horde wouldn’t be easy, but that didn’t mean I needed to go native and start making babies for the Lunarians instead.
I had a life back on Earth, even if it was going to be a confusing one once the Lunarians were able to return me there. I’d been on the phone with my mother during my car accident. She’d be furious that I broke things off with Aiden, but now that I knew I’d been gone for a week, I knew she was probably worried sick about me, too.
In fact, she probably thought I was dead.
I wiped away my tears and headed into my new bedroom. I had to brace myself against the wall the whole way there to keep from falling over, but I was determined to get some real clothes on my body before I worked on sorting out some food. I had to get back to Earth at some point, if not for my mother’s sake, then for my own. I could rebuild my life once I returned. Until then, I needed to take care of myself—and I couldn’t exactly call Haelian back in to dress me.
Laid out on the bed, I found a pair of soft blue pants that clasped around my waist and ankles. Haelian must have laid them out for me while I was in the shower. The fabric billowed out around my calves and thighs in a way that felt kind of glamorous. The top was a low-neckline halter that pushed my breasts all the way up to my collarbones and left my back bare. I slipped my arms into a pretty gold kimono that would keep my back and shoulders warm and my feet into a matching pair of little gold slippers. It was a far cry from the button-downs, pencil skirts and sweaters that I normally wore on Earth, but this wasn’t Earth, I reminded myself. And if nothing else, the slippers were a lot more comfortable than the kitten heels that I’d been required to wear at school.
Unfortunately, dealing with the food retriculator—or whatever Haelian had called it—ended up being a lot more difficult than getting dressed. No matter how loudly I yelled into it, it didn’t seem to know what a sandwich was. When I asked it for a grilled chicken breast, it spat out something scorched with the feathers still on it. Haelian had said that I’d have to be specific, but did I really have to tell it to pluck my food before cooking it? Ugh.
I wanted to sink to the floor and start crying again, but I knew that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I was clean. My hair was still damp, but untangled. And even though I was still having trouble finding the strength to walk, at least I was dressed. Haelian had mentioned a canteen somewhere aboard the ship that I would have access to. I bet if I could get myself out into the hall, I could find someone to ask for directions to it. Either that or my growling stomach would eventually lead the way for me—whichever came first.
I clutched at my tummy over the soft fabric of my pants with one hand and held myself up against the wall all the way to the door with the other. Now that I was clean, safe and no longer wearing a dirty old hospital gown, all of my attention was focused on how hungry I was. It made me dizzy even thinking about how long I’d gone without eating. My stomach felt raw and acidic, like the acid inside it was starting to eat clear through me. Inside my head, it felt like my body had started to metabolize my brain.
Getting to the hall nearly used up all of my remaining energy, but to my relief, once I got outside, I spotted two figures moving toward me, an orange-skinned male and a female. More Lunarians. The man was nearly as tall as Haelian, dressed in a white military uniform with dark, short hair and a deep, swollen scratch mark on his cheek. I thought I recognized him from the group of Lunarian men who had come along with Haelian during the rescue mission. He’d been carrying the crazy woman in the cell across from me—which would explain the scratch. The woman was shorter and looked absolutely beautiful. Her long, gray hair was curled loosely all the way down to her waist, and the clothing she wore was dripping with jewels. She looked like a princess, so pretty and radiant that it actually made my jaw drop a little.
But it wasn’t my jaw that I should have been worried about, I quickly realized. It was my knees, which gave out so hard and so fast that this time I kind of regretted not asking Haelian to stay with me. When he was around, at least, when I didn’t have the strength to stand, he never let me hit the floor.
I blinked hard, trying to banish all the little black specks from
my vision as the dark-haired man and the beautiful woman rushed to my side.
“These humans,” the man growled with annoyance as he took hold of one of my arms. “Weakest constitutions of any species I have ever encountered.”
“Do not be so rude, Nion,” the woman snapped back at him. She took my other arm, and together, they lifted me back up onto my feet. “She has been through much. It is a wonder she is even sane, let alone conscious.”
“Thank you,” I said weakly. “I’m really sorry. I was just…”
“Shh.” The woman settled my arm around her waist, which was closer to being level with my shoulder than it was my hip. “There is no need for apologies. We are here to help. Are we not, Nion?”
“Yes, Leonix.” The man—Nion—sighed, then placed my arm around his hip as well. “It is true, little human. I apologize for my rudeness. It has been a long day.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. When I glanced up at him, he gave me a little smile of encouragement. “It’s been a long day for me too.”
“Then what are you doing out of your room? You should be resting in bed, ridiculous thing, not prowling the halls.” Leonix clucked over me like a mother hen. “If you’ve been bathed and fed, the best thing for you is a good, long sleep.”
“That’s the thing.” I laughed awkwardly. “I can’t get my food thingamajig to work, and I’m starving. Could you guys maybe point me to the canteen? Haelian said there was one somewhere nearby…”
“We can do better than that,” Nion said. “We will take you there ourselves.”
“Oh, no,” I started, trying to pull away. “You two look like you’re headed somewhere, and I don’t want—”
“Nonsense.” Leonix spoke with a kind of authority that stopped me from struggling immediately. “You can barely stand. We will help you to the canteen and find you something to eat. Do not bother arguing—it will not help you. We insist.”