by Anna Zaires
Emily sighed and sat up, straightening her dress—which was now somewhat torn and stained with grass. “We dated for a little over four years,” she said, pushing her tangled hair off her face. “Not a lifetime or anything.”
“I see.” Zaron grabbed his discarded jeans off the grass. Getting up, he pulled them on and bent down to pick up Emily.
“Zaron, put me down! I can walk,” she protested as he swung her up into his arms, but he ignored her objections.
He needed to hold her so he could control the rage boiling within him—and keep his promise about not hunting down the human bastard who had hurt Emily.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As the day of Krinar arrival and Emily’s promised liberation approached, Emily found herself increasingly anxious. She had no appetite, and her nights were restless, her sleep frequently interrupted by bad dreams. When she was a child, she used to have nightmares about her parents’ car crash, but she’d grown out of that—or so she’d thought. In those dreams, she was always standing on the side of the road, watching as the car flipped over, and her stomach would fill with cold terror at the knowledge that she was alone, that everyone she loved was dead.
Emily told herself the nightmares had returned because she was worried about the invasion, but part of her knew the truth.
It was the upcoming separation from Zaron that made her relive the old pain of loss and abandonment.
“You know, you’ve got to be one of the strongest people I know,” her friend Amber had told Emily after her breakup with Jason. “I don’t know how you do it. Aren’t you ever scared of being alone? You act like it doesn’t matter that your boyfriend of four years just walked away and—”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Emily had interrupted. “I never relied on him for anything.” And it was true. Though the breakup had hurt a lot more than Emily let on, she’d never opened up to Jason fully. They’d lived together and been regarded as a great couple by all their friends, but they’d remained separate individuals, never bonding on a deeper emotional level. Emily used to think she loved him—and maybe she had, in a very tepid and superficial way—but she’d never let him get truly close. It wasn’t because she was brave, however—just the opposite.
She’d been too scared to let herself depend on Jason, to love him for real. That was the true reason for their breakup, not the disparity in work hours that Jason had used as an excuse. Something had always been missing in their relationship, and Emily now knew it had been her fault.
She’d been so afraid of being abandoned she’d kept Jason at a distance until he did exactly that.
But Zaron had somehow gotten through her shell. Emily didn’t know if it was the extraordinary sexual chemistry between them, or the hint of vulnerability she’d glimpsed behind his self-assured, arrogant façade, but she felt closer to Zaron than she’d felt to anyone in her adult life. Her captor scared her at times, but she was also drawn to him, pulled in a way that superseded normal attraction and something as simple as liking and friendship.
When they were together, she felt like her world was illuminated with a warm light, all her senses buzzing with electric awareness. As much as Emily wanted to hate Zaron after learning about the invasion, she couldn’t. They’d gotten too close before that revelation, had opened up to each other too much for her to despise him now. Besides, he’d saved her life, and as much as Emily resented her captivity and feared the future to come, she never forgot that she was only alive because of him.
“Why did you do it?” she asked during a walk one day. “Why did you go to all this trouble to save the life of a stranger? You had to know it would get messy, with the mandate and all.”
Zaron’s jaw stiffened, and his hand tightened around her own. “Because I had to,” he said, and before Emily could pry further, he drew her to him and kissed her with such savage passion she forgot everything but her own name.
And that was the problem. Zaron’s sexual expertise and mastery of her body were such that she was powerless to resist him. Whenever she tried to put up barriers between them, Zaron would storm through them with pathetic ease. She couldn’t give him the cold shoulder because he would just drag her off to bed and pleasure her until she melted, and then, when all her defenses were down, he’d do something sweet, like have his house make one of Emily’s favorite foods or take her on an extra-long walk in the forest. His domineering tendencies were balanced with kindness, his rough-edged sexuality mixed with gentle caring. He consumed her and treated her like spun glass at the same time, and Emily didn’t know how to cope with that.
Still, if their connection had been based solely on sex, it would’ve been easier. But whenever they managed a conversation without arguing, Emily had the unsettling sensation that she’d found her intellectual soulmate. Zaron’s scientific mindset, his dedication to his field, even his tendency to identify common plants and animals by their official genus and species—all of it resonated with Emily, fascinating her to no end. A walk through the forest with Zaron was better than an hour of Discovery Channel; he had an encyclopedia-like knowledge of everything that grew, crawled, walked, and flew in the rainforest, and would often sprinkle in little anecdotes about analogous plants and animals on Krina. He was careful not to say too much—that damnable mandate again—but what Emily did learn was incredible.
“A flying reptile that carries its eggs in a pouch and eats them when it gets hungry? You say these things are common on Krina?” she asked in amazement when Zaron described a creature called eponu. “How does it survive and reproduce?”
“It lays hundreds of eggs,” he answered, smiling. “It only eats about eighty percent of them throughout the incubation period. When the rest hatch, they battle it out in the pouch until a few winners emerge and fly away to feed on insects and other small creatures—until it’s time for those new eponu to reproduce. Once the females lay eggs, the males go back to hunting, and the females use the eggs for sustenance, thus starting the cycle all over again.”
Emily showered him with more questions at that point, and he answered them, apparently deciding that it would do no harm for her to know about some of Krina’s unusual creatures. He also told her a little bit about his childhood and how his family had encouraged his interest in nature from an early age.
“I come from a family of scientists,” he said as a way of explanation. “My mother is a botanist, my father is a physicist, and three of my grandparents are biologists like me. I guess you could say exploring nature is in our blood.” He said it offhandedly, like it was no big deal, and Emily had to battle a familiar surge of envy.
She would’ve given anything to have her parents around to encourage her in her life’s ventures.
“What does your family think about you being here, on Earth, so far away from them?” she asked, trying not to sound as jealous as she felt.
If Emily’s parents and grandparents had been alive, she would’ve never left them to go to a different galaxy.
To her surprise, Zaron’s face tightened. “I don’t know,” he said, stopping next to a lush tree fern. His gaze was inscrutable, but there was a hard undertone in his voice. “I haven’t spoken to them much in the last few years.”
He didn’t elaborate, but Emily could read between the lines. Zaron’s estrangement from his loved ones had to do with his wife’s death; she was almost certain of that. He must’ve found it difficult to be around his family after his tragic loss. Grief could be isolating—Emily knew that better than anyone. For several years after her parents’ deaths, she’d had trouble making friends in school because other kids felt uncomfortable around the orphan. It was as if they were afraid that misfortune was contagious, that by being around her, they might let loss and pain into their own lives. Even some well-meaning teachers had made her feel like an outsider by being solicitous in all the wrong ways, and it was entirely possible that Zaron’s family had done that too, treating him like a broken person to assuage their survivors’ guilt.
&
nbsp; Without a word, Emily reached out and squeezed his hand, and they walked the rest of the way in silence. Zaron hadn’t spoken about his wife since that one time, but Emily knew he still grieved for her. She suspected that part of the reason why he made love to Emily so often was because sex was a distraction for him too—a way to cope with his grief and pain. It was nothing he said or did, but every once in a while, she’d catch a look of raw agony on his face, and she knew that at that moment, he was thinking of the wife he’d lost.
Thankfully, in recent days, those moments had become increasingly rare. In fact, most of the time, Zaron seemed focused on Emily to an almost obsessive degree. When they weren’t in bed together, he was constantly questioning her about her life, wanting to know about everything from her favorite foods to her friends to her former boyfriends—though the latter subject did make him oddly tense, as though he was jealous. In general, he seemed possessive of her—far more possessive than Emily considered reasonable under the circumstances.
“Zaron, you do know I’m leaving in a few days, right?” she murmured as they lay in bed one evening, their legs tangled together after another steamy bout of sex. “I’m not yours, no matter what you make me say when I’m on the verge of orgasm. This—you and me—it’s just temporary.”
He pulled back to meet her gaze, and she saw that his jaw was set in a hard line. “I know.” His tone was even, but she could hear the lethal edge behind the words. It reminded her of when he’d questioned her about Jason. For a brief moment during that conversation, she’d had the crazy thought that Zaron might harm her ex-boyfriend. It seemed ridiculous afterwards, but at the time, she’d been convinced that she’d sensed something dark and violent in the man who held her captive—something that had terrified her.
“You are letting me go, right?” Emily asked, doing her best to keep the sudden anxiety out of her voice. “When your people arrive, I can go home.”
Zaron’s expression was unchanging, his eyes completely black as he said, “Yes, of course.” But then he reached for her, pulling her to him, and Emily forgot all about her unease.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The day before the ships’ arrival, Emily woke up particularly depressed. Her nightmares that night had been so bad she’d woken up crying twice. Zaron had been worried that she was sick or in pain, but once she explained that it was just a bad dream, he’d given her exactly what she needed: the comfort of his powerful arms holding her in the dark.
It was that night that Emily faced the truth.
Her fear had come true. She’d fallen for a man from a different planet, a member of a species she still knew very little about.
The realization shook Emily to the core. She couldn’t love Zaron; she simply couldn’t. He was holding her against her will, and his people were planning to invade her planet. What kind of twisted person fell in love under those circumstances? Besides, he wasn’t human. He might look like a man, but he was as different from Emily as she was from her cat. Even their lifespans weren’t compatible. In a few years, Emily would begin aging, but he would remain the same. And then where would they be?
No, stop. Back up. It was ridiculous for Emily to think so long term. Tomorrow she would leave, and that would be it. His strange possessiveness aside, by now Zaron had likely had his fill of sex with her, and he’d move on to someone else, maybe a woman of his own species… someone who could replace the mate he’d lost.
Someone who wasn’t Emily.
Emily’s chest squeezed painfully, her eyes prickling with tears. You don’t love him, she told herself. What she felt had to be an infatuation, a result of their forced proximity. They’d spent so much time together over the last two weeks that it was only natural for her to become attached. Besides, even if she was crazy enough to want to stay, there was no future for them, no chance to be together in any lasting way.
No. Determined not to give in to her illogical feelings, Emily got up and headed to the shower.
Once she got back to her normal life, her attachment to Zaron would fade with time.
She was certain of that.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“So where is she, your human girl?” Ellet asked, looking around Zaron’s living room. She was in Costa Rica this week, and had taken Zaron up on his invitation to visit. “You still have her, right?”
“I do. She’s showering right now,” Zaron said, sitting down on a long floating plank. “She just woke up, so you’ll have to wait a bit to meet her.”
“Ah, you’re letting her sleep in. Good.” Ellet walked over to sit down next to him. Like him, she was dressed in human clothes—a pair of shorts, a tight T-shirt, and hiking boots—but to Zaron’s eyes, she looked unmistakably Krinar, with all the sleek dark beauty of their race. Giving him a wide smile, she said, “I was a bit worried that you might be wearing her out. Humans need so much more rest than us, you know.”
Zaron frowned. Ellet had just voiced his own concerns. Emily had been looking rather tired lately—not to mention, sleeping poorly. Was it because of the demands he placed on her human body? “I’m careful,” he said, but even he could hear the doubt in his voice.
“I’m sure you are,” Ellet said consolingly. “It’s just that it’s easy for our males to get carried away and forget how fragile human women can be.” She paused, then asked delicately, “Did you do it again?”
“Drink her blood? No.” Zaron raised his knee to hide his body’s automatic reaction to the subject. “I promised her I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?” Emily asked, stepping into the room.
Cursing silently, Zaron got up and turned to face the wall to Emily’s bedroom—a wall that had dissolved soundlessly a moment ago, letting Emily in. Out of habit, he’d been speaking to Ellet in English, and she’d been responding in kind. How much had Emily overheard? The human girl’s face was pale, her hands clenched in the skirt of her dress, but that could be because she was startled to see Ellet.
“Emily, this is my friend and colleague Ellet,” he said with a smile that betrayed nothing of his thoughts. “Ellet, this is Emily, my guest.”
“Hello, Emily.” Ellet rose gracefully to her feet and stepped toward Emily, extending her hand in a human greeting. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Emily hesitated for a millisecond, then shook Ellet’s hand. Zaron noticed that the human girl’s grip was firm, the delicate muscles and tendons in her forearm flexing as she squeezed Ellet’s hand. “Hello,” she said, her lips curving in a bright smile—the same smile she’d often given Zaron when they’d first met. It was Emily’s artificial smile, he now recognized, the one she used to hide her nervousness. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
“Ellet is a human biology expert,” Zaron explained, watching as Emily stepped back. “Your species is her life’s work.”
“Is that why you came to Earth?” Emily asked. “To study us?”
“Yes—and to assist in the settlement process.” Ellet shot him a quick glance. “Zaron told you about that, I presume?”
“Yes, he did.” Emily gave her that overly bright smile again. “He told me everything.”
“Oh, phew.” Ellet swiped her hand across the top of her head in an exaggerated gesture of relief. “And here I was afraid I’d have to walk on eggshells around you. That’s the correct English expression, right?”
Emily’s smile turned a bit more genuine. Ellet was charming her, Zaron thought with amusement.
“That’s right,” she said to Ellet. “Though I’m sure you know that, since your English is absolutely perfect.”
Ellet grinned. “Why, thank you. Aren’t you sweet? No wonder Zaron here finds you irresistible.”
Emily’s creamy cheeks turned pink. “How long have you and Zaron known each other?” she asked, clearly eager to change the subject.
“Oh, not that long,” Ellet said breezily. “Twelve or thirteen years, right, Zaron?”
Zaron nodded. “We met at what you humans would call a biology co
nference—a gathering of experts in the field of species studies. Now, Emily, you haven’t had your breakfast yet. Ellet, would you care for something to eat as well?”
“Sure,” the Krinar woman said with a wide grin. “I haven’t had house-cooked food in a long time.”
* * *
Zaron had the house prepare a wide variety of dishes, and the three of them sat down to eat breakfast. Almost right away, Emily started peppering Ellet with questions, asking her about everything from Ellet’s role in the settlement project to life on Krina. Zaron did his best to steer the conversation to relatively safe topics, but Emily kept prying and Ellet seemed oblivious to Zaron’s subtle signals.
“Oh, yes, women on Krina have all the same rights as men,” she told Emily when the human girl asked about gender relations. “I mean, the men tend to be highly territorial and protective of their women, but there’s nothing stopping us from getting the jobs we want or even participating in the Arena fights if we’re so inclined—”
“Arena fights?” Emily asked, latching on to the one tidbit Zaron had hoped she’d miss.
“It’s just an old tradition,” Zaron cut in before Ellet could respond. “A sport of sorts, like mixed martial arts here.”
Ellet glanced at him with eyebrows raised but didn’t contradict him. The deadly Arena challenges had more in common with gladiator fights in Rome than modern human sports, but Zaron didn’t want Emily to know that. To explain the ancient institution of the Arena, he’d have to go into the violent history of the Krinar and their predatory origins. If Emily knew that his people had once hunted weaker primates for blood and that her kind had originally been designed as a substitute for those primates, she’d worry about the invasion even more.