by A. G. Wilde
It’d been so, so long since she’d felt the touch of another person.
Even in her panic, the feel of his soft velvety skin had been a little…jarring.
Trying to move back a little more, she raised her bound hands. “If you’re going to kill me, just…” she swallowed.
Just what?
Don’t do it?
Well, that goes without saying…
The alien paused over her.
“Whatever you’re saying, I can’t understand you,” he finally said.
Of course, he couldn’t.
She should have expected as much.
It wasn’t like there were ESL teachers on whatever planet this was.
As he crouched in front of her, she eased away from him a little bit more.
“I was sent here to catch you for the Goris,” he continued. “That was the plan, before I realized you were…this.” He motioned to her body, his anger seething.
This what?
The fact he’d gestured to her body only made her warier. His anger didn’t help either.
She hadn’t forgotten what the orc aliens had been suggesting that time long ago.
She knew enough to know what most aliens did with females that were weaker than they were.
She shuddered to think that her fate was either to be in his bed or dead.
“What am I going to do with you?” the alien mused.
“Cut these ropes, let me go…forget we ever met?” She met his gaze but he couldn’t understand her. Not that she thought it would make a difference anyway.
He was her enemy. He wasn’t going to let her go.
Deep inside, a sense of danger was settling. It was a sort of caution that was there before but now she was looking right at the cause of it.
At best, this guy was only a little psychopathic…
At worst…
Fucking hell…
He really didn’t know what he was going to do with the female.
Sohut spent the greater part of the next few hours deliberating this sudden problem he’d been thrust into.
This wasn’t a situation he’d even considered before embarking on the mission.
He had never thought the creature from a Class Four planet would have been a sentient being.
Once again, he felt a surge of anger and disgust from the fact that the Goris had expected him to overlook that very important detail.
They saw the female before him as an animal.
He knew exactly what that felt like—being seen as even lesser than a person.
His own mor hadn’t even thought he’d been worthy of the gift of life.
If she’d known he’d have come out ill…weak…she would have snuffed out his life while he was still growing within her.
But she’d lost that opportunity and so she’d sold him and his brother when they were only chids.
Life only got worse from there.
Working in the Tasqal mines as a chid, he and his brother were seen as barely having a consciousness…
They were used as machines, their only purpose to dig the rare talix metal from the rock.
They’d been beaten, starved, punished…abused…
Treated as animals.
His anger surged.
That’s what the Gori saw this delicate being in front of him as.
No.
Correction.
They didn’t see her.
When they looked at her they saw nothing and that was the problem.
He didn’t need to get to know her to see the flaw in their reasoning.
Eyeing her now, the glow of the light disc highlighting her features, Sohut stopped pacing to study her.
For the entire time, she’d sat still, her body curled into a ball. Now and then, her gaze searched the bushes.
In some moments, she’d worry her bottom lip, her face becoming distressed but whenever she realized he was watching her, she would go emotionless.
She was small.
Bigger than Larn but still small compared to him.
She didn’t have much weight on her either and he wasn’t sure if that was because she’d been living in the wild on her own for over an entire orbit or if that was just what she’d been like before.
An alien creature lost in the Koznia Jungle.
It was amazing she’d survived.
“Just how did you survive this long?” There was annoyance in his tone, lingering from his thoughts, and he tried to keep it at bay. “This world is…new to you. Dangerous.”
She didn’t respond but her eyes darted to his.
She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t snarling…nothing. She seemed alert, guarded, as if she was waiting on him to make some mistake so she could escape.
“Tell me,” he took a step forward and crossed his arms. “How did you survive?”
“Yoo cahnt uhn-der-stahnd mee enny-way.” She met his gaze. “Ai dohnt noh wat yoo wahnt.”
There was strength in her eyes.
Despite her circumstances, she was looking at him as if she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
He respected that.
“Iht dohzn maht-er wat ai tehl yoo.”
Her language was enticing. So many soft syllables. It made it difficult to determine if she was saying she wanted to cut his gonads off or if she wanted to give him an embrace.
Moving to his satchel, he took out the language up loader he’d bought so he could understand Larn.
He’d gotten the three most popular languages mined from data retrieved from Larn’s planet. He’d have to install each separately and hope that the female in his midst spoke at least one of them.
Popping out the device, Sohut eyed the female as he selected the first language file.
It was the most popular language on her planet. Something called Shai-neez.
She was looking at the device as if it was some weapon to use against her.
Pointing the device at the back of his ear, he depressed the button and what felt like an electric shock passed through his brain. He had to squeeze his eyes shut for a few moments.
“—Dah hell iz he doowin…” he heard the female whisper.
Nope, not her language.
Sighing, he selected the second most popular language.
Spah-neesh.
The second upload made him feel like he was going to pass out.
It wasn’t usual to upload so much data in such short intervals. It was like smoking a whole carton of woogli smoke in one hour—completely unhealthy.
But he didn’t have time to wait the recommended intervals.
It took him a little longer to recover from the second upload and when he opened his eyes to look at the female, her widened gray pools were staring at him with a mixture of confusion and wariness.
“Yoor doowin sum-thin reely freeki uhnd ai dohnt laik freeki raiht nohw.”
Phek.
Not her language.
He closed his eyes again.
Looking at the language uploader, he grit his teeth.
This third language better be it.
Een-gleesh.
As the language uploaded, his consciousness waned in and out and he was vaguely aware that he’d fallen to his knees as the brain fog overtook him.
“Fucking hell, dohnt tell mee you’re doing dhrugs ohr something.”
He understood most of that. Triumph made him smile a little.
“Please don’t tell me the alien that captured me is taking drugs. Like…” She trailed off and huffed out a breath. “I can’t believe I let a druggy psychopathic hunter capture me.”
What?
He wasn’t a—
He opened his mouth to answer her and then stopped.
She obviously didn’t know he could understand her yet.
Maybe he’d keep it that way for a bit.
Resting into a sitting position, he blinked at her as his vision cleared.
“Should have stayed hidden in my cave. Might have probably starved to death but at least I�
�d have died free,” she murmured, her voice so low he was glad he had her language upload so he could understand what she was saying.
And being able to understand her brought a whole new level to their current predicament.
She was an intelligent being—a being whose language he now understood as well as he understood his own.
She wasn’t something belonging behind a barrier in a zoo—or worse yet, as a prisoner in some mine.
Surely, the Goris knew this. Why had they sent him to capture a being that should have a life of freedom just as he and they deserved?
He couldn’t take her back to them. That was clear.
Not after what he’d had to endure as a chid. Not after the life he’d have to live in captivity.
“There must be a way to get out of this.” He heard her murmur again and the illumination from the light disk caught a glassy sheen in her pale eyes.
He didn’t realize he’d been moving closer to her till she winced, her wide eyes turning on him, as she tried to shuffle away.
Her reaction wounded him a little.
He wasn’t the monster she obviously thought he was.
Outstretching his arms, palms down, he tried to communicate to her that he wasn’t going to harm her.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She was looking at him as if she expected him to continue…as if she was waiting for the word “yet” and that alone strengthened his resolve to prove her wrong.
He was nothing like the monsters that roamed this galaxy.
Nothing like them.
“We’re on the same side.”
An expression he didn’t understand passed over the female’s face.
“Sure looks like we’re on the same side.” She shook her wrists, which were restrained. “I also tie up people I mean no harm.”
Sohut fought to keep his face straight.
Reaching for her legs, he saw her eyes widen as she pulled them back toward herself.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He tried to keep his voice calm but deep down, her fear of him was rubbing against him. He hated the way she was looking at him.
It reminded him of too much.
When he’d been a chid, he’d had that look too many times as he’d gazed on the degenerates in the mines that he’d feared.
It was a look that should break the life-organ of any sane being…but most beings in the mines had evolved into the mindless animals the Tasqals had seen them as.
“I’m going to release your legs…” he said and waited.
The female’s eyes lit up a little as she stared at him, hope flaring inside their pale depths.
Reaching for her legs again, this time she let him take them.
His eyes met hers as he released the restraints around her ankles.
“I know you can understand me. Whoever took you to this world put a translator in your head.” He paused and touched the back of his ear then pointed to hers. “If you run, I will chase you…and I will catch you.”
Her eyes darted to the bushes and he could almost see the calculations in her head.
He didn’t want her running for more than one reason.
First, there was a spined creature somewhere on the mountain, and second, if he lost her, the Gori would no doubt send another tracker after her.
He needed to keep her with him in order to get them both out of this predicament.
Releasing her legs, he watched her with a wary gaze.
Her throat moved and she pulled her legs toward her again, but she didn’t try to run off.
Satisfied, Sohut settled back on his haunches, his gaze still on the female.
“I was sent here to retrieve you but…” his gaze moved over her face, “they didn’t tell me you were an intelligent being.” He paused, still studying her. “I have to decide what I’m going to do with you.”
Something akin to panic passed over her face so quickly, he almost missed it.
She was trying to hide her true emotions, probably so he didn’t know what she was thinking.
Smart.
She obviously didn’t trust him yet.
Her voice was soft and low when she spoke, almost stroking against his ear and it caused them to perk from the sides of his head.
“I wish you’d leave me alone and pretend you never saw me here. I wish you’d go back to those green orcs and tell them I’m dead,” she said. “But even if you could understand me, I doubt you’d do me that favor. You don’t owe me anything.”
Her words tugged at something inside him and he fought to seem unaffected.
Pretending he didn’t comprehend a word she said, he tapped his hand against his chest, catching her attention.
“Sohut. My name is Sohut.” He stretched one of his hands toward her and she leaned away.
“South?” Humor sprung into her eyes and that one emotion transformed her face for the few seconds that it was there. “South? Don’t tell me. You’re a spawn of the Kardashians.”
What?
The Ka’rdshin were a species that lived on Mexcla VII. He didn’t look anything like a Ka’rdshin. How did she even know about them?
And she’d butchered his name in the process too.
“Sohut.” He stressed his name.
“South. Your name is South.”
Frowning, he hit his chest with his palm. “So…hut.”
“Sowut? Kinda like shout?” She paused. “Grout?” A slight chuckle left her lips and despite that it was at his expense, he could feel himself relax a little.
When he nodded, she scrunched up her nostrils. “Nice to meet you, Grout.”
The female had the audacity to snicker at her own silly, silly joke.
“Not like it matters anyway. I don’t know why you’re introducing yourself to me when you’re my enemy.”
He opened his mouth to correct her, but didn’t.
For a few moments, she refused to meet his gaze, then she finally looked at him and rolled her eyes.
“Fine. My name is Cleo.” She paused then brought her wrists to her chest. “Cleo.”
Clee-yo.
It was a beautiful name. A sort of sound that made a smile spring behind his eyes when he repeated it in his mind.
It sounded like the name of a beautiful blossom.
“Cluu.” He repeated, purposely mispronouncing the syllables.
Cluu was old Merssian for “wild thing.”
Funny, it fit the female perfectly.
“Clee-yo.” It was her turn to frown at him. “Clee,” she paused, “oh. Cleo.”
“Cluu.” He nodded and turned away from her before she saw the smile twisting his lips.
As he stood, her sound of exasperation almost made his shoulders shake in a silent laugh.
Regardless that she’d tried to murder him earlier, he might like this Clee-yo.
It was good he’d been the one to take this job. If the Goris had gotten other hunters, there’s a chance she’d have been in a cage heading to Kezna Zoo by now.
At that, his gaze fell to the signaling device the Gori’s had given him.
The same device that held her DNA, activated with just the press of a button to lock on to her until they removed it.
She had no idea it was resting in his satchel.
She’d been lucky the Gori hadn’t caught her before.
He guessed she hadn’t approached them as closely as she had approached him.
Grabbing his satchel, he settled beside Clee-yo and pulled out one of his food packets.
He could feel her gaze on him as he took a bite and chewed purposely slowly, watching her reaction.
Her mouth curled in disgust as she watched him and he almost choked.
“You can have some.” He outstretched the packet to her, close enough for her to reach it. All she had to do was lean in and take a bite.
He knew she wanted it.
There’s no way she wasn’t hungry.
If she’d gone hunting since he’d entered the jungle,
he was sure he’d have found out.
Her eyes narrowed on him.
“I don’t want your food.”
The little wild thing was a liar.
Her gaze wandered and fell on the food packet.
She wanted it.
“Take some.”
Pale eyes blinked at him and he shoved the food toward her once more. He could see the mental battle in her eyes.
Leaning forward slightly, she took a begrudging bite of the sluu dough and chewed.
Her lips moved so delicately as she chewed that he sat staring at her for far too long.
It wasn’t only her scent that was captivating.
Regardless of her efforts to make herself invisible, she was catching his attention at every turn.
She seemed to notice his gaze and her frown returned as she jerked away.
“I know you can’t understand me, but this doesn’t make us friends.”
No, it didn’t; but it was a great phekking start.
11
The blue guy was sleeping.
Or maybe he was pretending to sleep.
Studying him now, his back turned toward her, she glanced at the jungle beyond.
She could shuffle away but glancing at her hands, she gulped.
That would be stupid.
Plus, he hadn’t hurt her yet.
He’d been…kind so far.
If she escaped now, she wouldn’t have use of her hands till she managed to get this alien rope off. It wasn’t like normal rope at all and she was sure rubbing the bands against a sharp rock wouldn’t break them.
Maybe that’s why the blue guy, Grout, had fallen asleep.
He was sure she wasn’t going to be stupid enough to run off.
It wasn’t the first time aliens had thought she wasn’t stupid enough to do something…only, this time, this alien might just be right.
Sighing, she settled her back against the vines running upward against the rock.
Her belly wasn’t empty, thanks to the food he’d shared, but she was thirsty.
She’d been hesitant at first but his food was like cake, only doughier.
After a year of eating meat, having a pastry had been like having a piece of heaven.
Licking her lips at the thought of the food, she eyed the rock pool in front of them.
The reflection of the light on the water reminded her of that time her father had left her in the wilderness alone.