by Marie Dry
Another savage noise from his chest, and she inched back a bit. “That was resistance propaganda,” he said, managing to sound as if he knew everything and she said only silly things.
“I saw an ugly green alien that looked just like you, only bigger, grab a human and bite off his head. How can the resistance lie about that?” She tapped her forefinger against the trapdoor. “Tell me that, Mr. Clever Green Demon.”
He stared up at her, and she had the impression he was at a loss for words.
“I would’ve preferred to live the rest of my life without seeing that creature bite of a human head.” She shuddered again. “How can you keep eating with blood spurting everywhere?” She didn’t know which was worse, all the blood or the headless body that was still kicking in that awful claw. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. It had sucked the blood out of the decapitated human’s neck. “Crunching heads with your teeth is disgusting.”
“You know about the resistance?” he asked, ignoring her comment.
“Everyone knows of them.” He didn’t have to act as if she didn’t know anything about the outside world. In the short time she’d had the TC, she’d learned a lot.
He relaxed slightly, leaning back against the dirt wall. Blood oozed out of his wound. He had red blood, like a human. Did that mean he was one of God’s creatures? Was she evil because she was determined not to get close enough to him to care for his wound?
“The resistance created those films using TC generated images.”
She frowned. Didn’t want to admit she didn’t know what generated images meant.
He narrowed his eyes and clarified. “It wasn’t real, those were drawings that moved, not real Zyrgins and humans.”
She planted her palms on the ground and leaned slightly over the rim to mock. “Drawings that look like real people. That move? Only a baby would believe something like that.” How gullible did he think she was?
He stared up at her, and again she had the feeling he didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t even react to being called a baby.
“How do you know about the resistance, but not TC generated images?”
There was something in his voice, some emotion, and--so help her--if it was pity, she’d put back all the dirt she’d dug out of the pit and bury him alive.
“Caine told me about the resistance.” He’d shown her a way to contact them, but the alien didn’t need to know this. She rubbed her chest. She missed Caine and Noah so much. What did she do wrong? Was she such a terrible person that she had to be punished like this?
He didn’t move, the only physical sign of rage was the way his eyes glowed like red hot coals. But it emanated from him in a wave so strong, she shuffled back, ignoring the rocks digging into her knees through the heavy fabric of her dress. “Who. Is. Caine?” His voice was so rough she could barely make out the words.
“No one that needs concern you.” She visited his grave every day, but she couldn’t stand the thought of Caine in the cold hard earth. When she stood there, her heart aching, her arms empty, she pretended that he stood with her. Alive and talking to her. Telling her amazing things about the outside world. Assuring her that they’d get Noah back.
“I will find out,” the alien said, and it was a threat. He pointed to the cheese squashed into the ground when he fell. It lay inside the sizable dent his body had made on the floor of the pit when he fell in. “Why was there cheese on one of the sticks?”
“It was to lure you into the hole you evil...Satan.” It had been a huge sacrifice. Her food stores were depleted, and the soil wasn’t yielding anything anymore.
“You think we Satans eat cheese?” The evil pest dared to mock her after everything he’d cost her.
“It worked, didn’t it? You’re trapped in the hole like a rat in a trap.”
He moved, as if he would get up and break through the iron grid. “Do not ever again call me a rat.”
Keeping a wary eye on him, she smirked. It was heady to have the upper hand for a change. “I will call you whatever I want. You’re my prisoner, and you can’t stop me, rat.” She leaned closer. “Rat, double rat.”
He thumped his head against the wall of the pit. Several times. Strange grating sounds coming out of his mouth.
“Are you speaking your language when you make those strange growly noises?” She liked being like this, in charge and not afraid to taunt a dangerous being.
He stilled and nailed her again with those eyes that were sometimes black and then glowed red in an unholy concoction.
“We call ourselves Zyrgins and, yes, that was my language. A language so complicated that no other race has ever managed to speak it.”
If only she had a gun. “Are you calling me stupid?”
It was the one thing she’d promised herself when the others left her behind. Never again would she allow anyone to call her stupid or treat her like she was.
He looked up at her for a long time. She could almost feel his gaze like a physical touch on her head scarf, her face and for the longest time her breasts that were, thankfully, properly covered by her dress. Again, she had the feeling that he understood much more about her than she was comfortable with. “No, my...no, female, I would never call you that. I would kill anyone that dared call you stupid.”
“When you came here all those years ago, why did you appear in front of me and not the other women?” Every time Joseph put her in the pit, when the lashes fell on her back, when they took her baby, that’s what she wanted to ask. Why her?
“I did not choose them.”
“Choose for what exactly?” She scowled at him. When he’d appeared in front of her, out of thin air and she’d screamed and ran, she’d made the second biggest mistake of her life and told the others she’d seen the devil. Even before then, her life had not been easy among the cousins, on account of her being different. But after that, Brother Josephatus had said she was touched by evil and that she should be punished until the evil was purged. Life had become hell. She’d thought it was hell until they took Noah from her.
“I chose you for my--” The alien hesitated, as if he tried to hide something from her. “I chose you as my woman,” he said at last.
She scrambled back, away from his words, her dress trapped beneath her knees, hindering her. Deep inside, where she didn’t want to acknowledge it, she’d known. Even so, it still shocked her that such a creature would want to, want to....
She couldn’t even think the words in her mind.
She jerked her dress out from under her and then leaned forward again. At this rate, she’d wear out her knees. “Never say such a thing again, you ungodly creature. I would never commit such a sin.” She shuddered to think of the punishments the others would mete out for something like that. They might have left her behind, but if she did that, they’d come back especially to punish her.
The silence stretched as they tried to outstare each other. His gaze burned her, and she had to blink. He didn’t. “Your eyes are ugly,” she blurted.
He thumped his head again, harsh sounds coming out of his mouth. At last, he stilled and visibly calmed himself. “I am aware of your beliefs. The human woman who...belongs to my leader explained it to me.”
“One of you took a human woman?” That poor woman. How could she have relations with such a big...
Her mind wouldn’t go there. It was a good thing she decided to capture this one. Who knew what he would’ve done to her if he walked around loose?
“Are you sure you’re fully grown?”
He was big, but if his leader was his size at least the human woman he kept captive wouldn’t be torn apart during relations. Nothing would convince her that the woman went to the creature of her own free will. Tiredness settled on Susannah’s shoulders. After she’d found Noah, she’d have to try and find a way to help the poor woman. She couldn’t live with herself otherwise. Then she’d settle somewhere the brothers would never find her, and, hopefully, life wouldn’t be a struggle every day.
“I will not be your--your woman. Your skin is like a snake’s. You must be some kind of unholy reptile. It would be a sin to have relations with you.” She bit her lip. She wouldn’t judge the woman their leader had taken. After she’d found a way to rescue her, Susannah would explain to her that she couldn’t help what was done to her and couldn’t be held accountable for the sin. If her relatives wouldn’t accept her back, Susannah would let her stay with her and Noah.
The alien’s skin changed, the green striations faded, until his skin turned a beautiful copper. “Does my skin please you now?”
“How did you do that, what are you?” In the weak light shining into the pit, his skin glowed, like Cousin Esther’s prized copper pot. The copper shine and the way his uniform bulged with well-developed muscles was oddly beautiful. Maybe Brother Josephatus was right. Maybe she was a woman of sin.
“Only a warrior can change his skin, it should please you that you were chosen by one.”
“The only thing about you that pleases me is that you are safely captured.” Blood oozed out of his wound again, and she sighed. “I will bring you some disinfectant and bandages for your wound.” She couldn’t ignore the fact that he must be in pain and getting weak from blood loss. But, he’d changed his skin color.
“Finally, you react the way my--b--woman should. You will look after my wound and sponge me down when the fever comes?”
She scowled at him. “I’m not coming down there. I’ll drop down what you need, and you can do it yourself.”
He made a low growly sound that scraped over her skin, and nothing could get her to say it out loud, but he was strangely beautiful, sitting on the dirt, his throat arched, those eyes staring at her.
“You are a most unnatural human female.”
“I’m unnatural? Who’s the freak with the green skin around here?” A freak that could change it from green and gold to copper.
“A normal female would want to bathe my warrior body when the fever comes.” He ignored her reference to his green skin.
“Are your kind prone to fevers?” She needed to keep him alive until they came for him. Fevers were tricky, she’d seen two cousins die from it, but she didn’t dare go down there.
“No.”
“Are you about to kick off, is that why you think you’ll get a fever?” she asked and didn’t know if maybe she should hope for that. She could just hand over his body. She rubbed the sturdy cotton covering her chest. The thought of this strangely compelling creature dead made her heart ache.
“Kick off?”
“Die.”
“You wish me dead, female?” He was scarier than the alien on the TC when he spoke in that accented, grating voice.
Susannah stared down at him and had the craziest urge to laugh and laugh until all the anger, pain, and fear escaped her body. They’d stripped her naked, whipped her, threw her into the punishment pit for two weeks. Because of him. Because she told them she saw a green demon. It led to her losing the person she loved more than her own life. And this creature calmly asked her why she wished him harm. As if she didn’t carry the reminders of what he’d cost her on her body.
“You cost me everything, demon. But I don’t wish you dead.” She only wanted him to stay alive because the resistance would probably pay more for a live alien. Not because he was less a monster than she remembered.
Maybe when she had Noah back, she would stop hating him, but now every time she looked at him, she remembered. The marks on her body ached as if the wounds were fresh. She didn’t have it in her not to hate him. But she wouldn’t become like Brother Josephatus. When she found Noah, when she had him in her arms again, she wouldn’t be a monster that knew only hate. “If you die from the fever, I’d give you a Christian burial,” she told him. He looked tough to her, and she didn’t see any sign that he was in pain, but he might be injured worse than she could see from up here.
“Zyrgin warriors don’t die that easily, female.” He moved, as if he wanted to stand up and intimidate her. She was even more grateful now that Brother Josephatus had made the iron cover for the pit. Life could be strange sometimes. When she’d been in the pit, she’d hated it. Now it kept her safe. He leaned back again, hunching his shoulders, and, again, she had the uneasy feeling that he’d forgotten that he was trying to appear weak and injured.
“I will get the bandages and antiseptic.” She needed to be away from him for a while. He upset her in ways she didn’t understand.
“Before you go, tell me about your TC.”
She turned back and frowned at him. “My TC?”
“I did not think your people had technology. You said you saw the propaganda clip on the TC.”
She shrugged. “We don’t. Brother Josephatus--I mean, Joseph--said it was the devil’s instrument, but I had one I kept hidden.”
Joseph had insisted they called him by that pretentious name. When they left her behind, she’d promised herself that never again would she call him Brother Josephatus.
Even if they took her back, she wouldn’t call him that.
“Is Brother Joseph the male who never did any work and ate so much he became a very round human?”
She smiled, and it felt strange on her face. Properly raised cousins were supposed to work and not give themselves over to frivolous pleasures that made you smile. “Yes, that’s Brother Joseph.”
He cocked his head at a strange angle. “What do you plan to do with me?”
“I think I’m going to sell you,” she said.
Chapter 2
Azagor rubbed his forefinger over his ridge. She thought to scare him? Him, a Zyrgin warrior? She stared down at him, so serious. He doubted she ever smiled like other humans. He liked that about her. Humans looked odd when they smiled.
Azagor wiggled the twig in his shoulder, trying to alert her to her duties. Instead of harboring fantasies of contacting the resistance, she should want to tend to his wound. Sponge down his body and be so impressed with his superior warrior’s physique that she would want to be his breeder.
“Who would you sell me to, little human?” He smiled at her with lots of teeth, and she scurried back until only the top of her head was visible. Satisfaction coursed through him. It was time she learned her warrior would only allow her so much. He was beginning to rethink his plan to appear weak and wounded, like the human males in Natalie’s movies.
“The resistance,” she squeaked.
“You know how to contact the resistance?” She might think to sell him to the resistance, but he doubted she knew where to start.
“How hard can it be to get hold of them? I’ll contact them soon to come get you, so you’d better behave,” she said, and she looked shifty.
Azagor thumped his head against the wall again. His skull would probably be misshapen by the time he claimed her. His breeder thought him ignorant, that he would fall for such an obvious bluff. Her own ignorance would get her killed if she got hold of the wrong faction. Many humans used the mantle of the resistance to further their criminal activities. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill her or do worse to her. The moment she let fall she had an alien captive, she’d have all kinds coming here to claim him. “You think to contact them on your TC?”
She chewed on her lower lip in a way he found oddly arousing. Kissing was foreign to Zyrgins. The other warriors said it was odd, but extremely pleasuring to press your lips against that of your breeder. Larz told him if you did it right, they’d even let you put your tongue in their mouths. His body sprang to attention, and he pulled up his leg to hide his arousal from her. No doubt, she’d call that ungodly too. Ever since he saw her all those years ago, he’d been researching all the things he wanted to do with her after they did the first knowing.
“The TC broke, but don’t think I won’t find a way to let them know I have an alien to sell.”
“What will you do if they don’t come? You will have to feed me, and you’re going to
have to think about bathroom facilities.”
“Don’t try to scare me. They will come.” She moved away from the pit. “I’ll go and get the bandages and disinfectant. And I’ll bring you some food as well.” Her footsteps receded and then stopped. She ignored his reference to bathroom facilities.
“I’m not hungry,” he shouted. The last thing he wanted now, with a stick irritating his shoulder, was to have to eat human food. He’d taken the protective strength of his uniform for granted all these years. The warrior uniform was developed to make them invincible in battle. He’d never realized how frustrating it would be to have to cut a hole in his uniform. Getting the stick into the cut he’d made to his shoulder with his knife had been a challenge as well.
“All right, but don’t complain to me when you get hungry later.” She sounded relieved. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of food. He should’ve made sure. From now on, he would provide for her. She stood out of sight, but he could hear her breathing. For a long time, she stood in one place, waiting, probably wanted to see if he tried to escape. Azagor settled in. Until he could take her home as his breeder, he wasn’t going anywhere.
His communicator beeped. It had been beeping the whole time he talked to her, but like most humans, she didn’t hear it. The way breeders tended to scream until a warrior’s ears ached had alerted him to a weakness the humans could exploit. He was developing implants to protect their more sensitive ears against sound-based weapons. It would allow them to retain their superior hearing and also enhance it when necessary, but automatically protect them against any shrill sound. Zurian’s breeder, Julia, was a weapon on her own when she screamed.
His communicator beeped again, and he swore. Everyone knew he was getting captured by his breeder today. He had trained several warriors that could do the work he did almost as well. The project in space was nearly finished, and Zacar didn’t need him for that anymore.
“What?”