by Marie Dry
She stopped and her skin turned white, her spots standing out against her skin. “Why do you want me to enter your private quarters?” she said, looking ready to run.
Maybe she was worried he would do his superior teasing again. “Do not fear, human, I will not do teasing this time.”
She relaxed slightly.
He motioned to the door.
She lifted her chin and entered. She looked around, as if searching for danger, but didn’t comment. Viglar noticed she kept an eye on the door as if she wanted to make sure she could escape him. She wouldn’t make it.
He reached out and took her backpack and she stilled, like an animal hunted by a Zyrgin warrior. “Show me your hands.”
She put them behind her back, again reminding him of Alissa. “Why?”
“Your weak human hands have blisters. I will heal them.”
She tried to outstare him, and he waited until she realized she could never win against a superior Zyrgin warrior.
Pressing her lips together she held her hands out, palm up. They were covered in blisters and sores. He would take better care of her from now on. A warrior took pride in a well fed, cared for breeder.
Madison took a step back and visibly jumped when he took hold of her hands. “I thought your skin would be cold and slimy.” Madison closed her eyes. Please God kill me where I stand so that I die a merciful death before this creature tears me limb from limb. Or incinerate me with his laser eyes.
“A common misconception among human women,” he said, still holding her hand.
“Why human women specifically? Why didn’t you say humans?” She was curious, his breeder.
“You will never again neglect your health.” He cleaned the sores and put on some salve that would heal the worst of the sores in minutes. No doubt she’d ask him for the formula. “You are a very fragile human. You look like sticks put together to make a human, and now you are even thinner.
She didn’t answer him, just stared at her hands, frowning at the way the sores visibly healed. “You have to give me the formula for this. We could help so many people.”
Based on their history a few people will get rich and only those with money would receive the benefit. “Your painting duty will be reduced.”
She didn’t say anything, did not thank him. “You tried to work us into the ground in the first place so don’t act as if you’re doing me a favor by reducing these inhuman working hours.”
He would not have this discussion. “You will take your bath with unlimited water supply.”
Her head jerked up and her uncharacteristic silence was at an end. “I’m not taking a bath in your private rooms. I prefer my own place.”
He opened the bathroom door. “I will synthesize fresh clothes of better quality for you to wear. You can have a bath with unlimited water supply.” She opened and closed her mouth and he couldn’t read the expression on her face.
She took a step back, looking afraid of him again. She probably thought he would act without honor, the way a human male would.
“Or I can take off your clothes and put you in the bath and wash you.” He cocked his head. “I will wash thoroughly behind your ears.” He’d heard Natalie say that to Alissa and it was a logical act. Human ears became infected easily.
She glared at him, in the way that made her look brave and beautiful. “I would never take a bath in a stranger’s bathroom. My mama raised me better than that.” And what do you mean you’ll wash behind my ears. What am I, six?”
“No you are twenty four.”
She rolled her eyes but then gave him a strange look and went to the bathroom.
After Madison stormed away without thanking him for the bath and her new clothes, Viglar went to make sure the humans were working and not taking unnecessary breaks. They needed constant supervision.
He left the humans working and contacted Azagor about all the broken equipment in the hospital. He wouldn’t give them Zyrgin technology to exploit and turn against them, but he also couldn’t leave things as they were.
He found Azagor working on the antiquated X-ray machine. “Can you fix it?”
“No, I am rebuilding it and making improvements in the scanning abilities.” Before Larz and Zorlof were born, Azagor had been the youngest warrior on their expedition. His brilliance with technology had manifested even before his second change.
“You must rebuild all the equipment in this hospital. We also need replicas of most of it.”
Azagor pulled out a machine part and several others fell out. He flashed a fang. “I will synthesize equipment with Earth materials. It will be faster.”
“Some patients wait six weeks for an X-ray to be taken,” Viglar said. They’d never conquered such a decaying planet before.
Azagor tightened a bolt that looked as if it was manufactured by a child. All the human technology had obvious screws and lines. Sabotaging their equipment could be done by a pre-first change warrior. Even Alissa could manage it with the right tools.
“I have to be captured by my breeder tomorrow, I will give Larz instructions to synthesize the equipment.” Larz was the son of their leader and, because he took his breeders punishment for trying to kill a warrior, he was stripped of his warrior status for two human centuries.
“Captured?” Viglar would never allow a human female to capture him. Not even Madison. It was important that the humans knew the Zyrgins were superior to them and in control.
Azagor stood and smiled at Viglar. “She is digging a hole to have me fall in and making sharpened sticks to incapacitate me.”
“You won’t pick up enough speed for the sticks to penetrate your skin.”
Human females were the oddest creatures in the universe. And apparently Zyrgins had caught the oddness disease if Azagor would meekly jump into a hole and pretend to be captured.
Azagor got up and cleaned his hands. “I know. I’ll make a cut and pretend the sticks hurt me.”
“You are not worthy of being a Zyrgin warrior. Take the woman to your dwelling and give her the Eduki pelt.”
Azagor showed him a hand without claws. “I will have my breeder, which is all that is important.”
Viglar left, not prepared to conduct such an impossible conversation. It worried him that he wasn’t acting like a warrior should. Instead of getting to know Madison he should take her to his dwelling and claim her. But then he would not have the pleasure of teaching her, showing her his superior knowledge. Seeing her eyes flame like green fire when she argued with him.
***
For Madison, the next two weeks rushed by in a blur of studying, painting, and doctoring. With her painting schedule reduced she now had four hours sleep every night. Still, she was tired all the time. Viglar tried to reduce her hours, but already she heard snide comments behind her back about being the alien favorite. Of being an alien lover.
Whenever she talked about him and called him Frankenstein, there he stood. The most aggravating part of it was the way he managed to work harder than them, double the hours, and without lagging. At least he didn’t order her to take a bath in his quarters again. The others knew she reported to his office every morning and her relationship with her colleagues became strained. Several of them made caustic remarks about doctors going to alien quarters and getting their duties reduced. The unfairness of it all brought tears to her eyes sometimes. Even with her reduced painting schedule, she still worked longer hours than any of the others.
The worst of the bunch was Sandra, whose pointed little remarks were starting to grate on her. The woman had something to say about her clothes, her accent, and her quaint sayings. Sandra managed to make her sound like a back-country hick. Madison supposed she was a back-country hick, but didn’t like Sandra calling her that. The worst were the hints that the alien was interested in Madison. Sandra managed to make it sound as if Madison had a royal time in Viglar’s office instead of her studying and being grilled on what she learned until she wanted to scream at him to leave her alone.
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br /> Night after night, she dreamed--sensual, scalding-hot dreams--and all of them involving the alien. No matter how much she tried to reign it in or told herself it was a sick fantasy to have about the invading alien, her mind had a will of its own. She sometimes dreamed strange sensual dreams. Dreams where he claimed her as his and made love to her until she lost consciousness. Those nights she woke aroused and on the verge of coming.
A month after she took a bath in Viglar’s quarters, Madison walked into the staff room, praying Sandra wouldn’t be there. The woman had become downright hostile. Madison stopped when everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at her. It wasn’t the normal embarrassed silence when everyone had been talking about you and wondering what you’ve heard them say. No, this silence was because they knew something she didn’t.
“What’s going on?” Her mother, her brothers. Please let them be all right.
“It’s not your family, they’re fine,” Rachel quickly assured her. Rachel knew how hard Madison took the disappearance of Rory, how it haunted her family not knowing what happened to him. Losing another member of their family had hit everyone and especially her mother, hard.
Madison noticed that Rachel had new shoes, the expensive kind that were well made and hard to obtain. How did she afford it on an intern’s salary? Madison shook off the thought. She had bigger concerns than Rachel’s new shoes.
“No, this is worse,” Sandra said with badly hidden relish.
“Don’t exaggerate, Sandra,” Rachel said.
“Maybe she won’t consider it worse. Who knows what she and Frankenstein do during those long hours in his office,” Sandra said.
Madison ignored Sandra and frowned at Rachel. “What can be worse than someone in my family being hurt?”
A long silence and Madison’s brain frantically searched for something that could make most of them look at her with such pity. A thought occurred to her and she rejected it She couldn’t be that unlucky, could she? She frowned and counted the days. It couldn’t be, just last week she and Rachel had their monthly pizza. They squeezed it in no matter how tired or broke they were. It was last week, wasn’t it? “What day is it?” Her stomach knotted.
She knew the answer by the look on their faces. This was the day some unfortunate doctor got to go with Viglar on his monthly visit to the orphanage and the shelter. The doctors who’d had a turn to accompany him had told them he made scathing comments about their lack of training, their sloppy techniques, and useless humans in general.
He’d been absent a lot this past week, but she received several pointed notes from him on her Touch Screen. All doctors used the TC and, apparently, he thought its sole use was to send the doctors at the hospital rude all-knowing notes on everything they did wrong. If Sandra saw the detailed criticisms Madison received from him, she wouldn’t make suggestive remarks on how she spent her time in Viglar’s office.
The aggravating thing was that he was right all the time. His pointed and, what she thought, sarcastic suggestions actually worked.
“I’m sorry, Madison, I promise I’ll come and visit you in hospital afterward,” Rachel said sincerely and she wasn’t joking.
“For you, it will not be such a bad experience I’m sure,” Sandra said.
“What do you mean by that?” Madison was getting really fed up with Sandra’s poisonous little remarks.
Sandra smiled at her, that falsely sympathetic smile that Madison hated. “He asked for the spotted doctor with the ugly hair.”
Madison glared at her. “What the hell is your problem?” Best to ignore the woman, but she was starting to grate on Madison’s nerves. “Never mind.” She turned away from Sandra.
If she had to do this, then Madison would use the opportunity to explain to him that it was rude to call her freckles spots. Obviously, where he came from they didn’t have freckles. She suppressed the urge to wipe at her cheeks like she used to do as a child when she wanted to rub the freckles off her skin. Lucky buggers those aliens, not having freckles and hair that got you teased all the time.
“If Frankenstein’s monster kills me with his frigid silences or those freaky eyes, I’m going to come back and haunt all of you.”
They all speculated on the fact that his eyes were black and not red like in the resistance broadcasts, but every time he looked at Madison his eyes changed color. Became blood red. A quiet fell over the room, thick with dangerous undertones. They suddenly paled and stared at something behind her, and Madison closed her eyes. She didn’t have to turn to know that Frankenstein stood behind her. How such an abnormally large alien...thing...person could walk so stealthily was beyond her. Taking a deep breath, she turned, prepared to look into the eyes that filled with red tendrils whenever he looked at her.
Chapter 7
She turned and faced the pesky invader. Faced those black eyes that already had red tendrils mixing in with the midnight color.
The silence from her colleagues behind her was deafening. She connected with that red devil’s gaze and lost the ability to breathe. He towered over her. Standing much closer than she thought he’d be, and he had the sheer nerve to run his silver scanner thing over her body. None of them had ever seen him do much more than run the scanner over humans and inject them with a pen-like instrument that made a small hissing sound when he injected who-knew-what into them. Even more aggravating was the fact that everyone he treated that way walked out of the hospital healed.
“See anything interesting?” she asked and wanted to bite off her own tongue. Behind her the collective breaths being taken in broke the silence.
He cocked his head at her, and it was a strangely reptilian movement. She was fairly certain they weren’t reptiles, though. She’d be very surprised if, apart from the freaky eyes and green heavily veined skin, his DNA wasn’t very close to human.
“Human--”
“Doctor Madison Johnson,” she said and stuck out her hand. “I thought you might like to use my name for a change.” She vaguely heard someone giggling nervously.
He might not have any manners, but her mama taught her right. She was tired of him popping up behind her calling her human as if that was her name. Listening in on private conversations. Ordering her to have a bath in his rooms without bothering to find out her name. Making her study until her head ached.
He looked down at her hand, and she forced herself to hold her eyes steady and not drop her head before that death gaze. Something changed. As she watched, the red tendrils turned into solid red.
“You will be ready to leave for the orphanage in half an hour human time. Do not be tardy. Humans do not have any sense of time.” Of course he had to tack on that last sentence.
“Wait, I need you to synthesize something for me.”
You could hear a pin drop. At last, she fully understood that expression. She refused to fidget under that red gaze.
“You will come with me,” he said at last.
He took her to his living quarters, and she made a point of running next him and not after him like some little slave. “What do you wish to have?” he said as if he was a genie and happy to give her everything she desired.
“I’d like two big bags of sweets.” She showed him what she wanted on her TC and he nodded.
Madison expected him to ask her what she wanted it for or at least why so much, but he merely grunted at the wall and two bags appeared.
“How did you do that? Will you show me how to do it?”
He turned and suddenly the vibe in the office changed, became charged with tension and sex, and all he’d done was turn towards her.
“I am willing to trade like a human.”
Madison took a careful step back, his teasing her about eating humans still fresh in her mind. She doubted Zyrgins ever traded for anything when they were strong enough to take what they want. “What do you want in exchange for teaching me to get your wall to spit out stuff I want?” Great, she sounded like an idiot. She watched science fiction movies so she knew about synt
hesizers.
“A kiss,” he said without any emotion. As if he’d asked her for money.
Madison stood rooted to the spot. She wanted to run, but she also had the curious urge to find out what his lips felt like against her. What he tasted like. If his kisses were as hot as the dreams she had of him. “Why a kiss?” she asked.
“Zyrgins do not kiss. I am curious and want to experiment with you.” She’d always thought little Tommy telling her he was willing to overlook her freckles if she’d let him kiss her and look down her blouse when they were fourteen the most unromantic lead up to a kiss she’d ever heard. Viglar got him beat hands down.
“I could get one of the other women to kiss you.” He might be mostly hated, but he had his share of groupies among the nurses as well.
He stood straighter, looked as if he wanted to chop off heads again. “I have honor, I will only kiss you.”
Madison debated, tempted to find out what it was like to kiss the alien she’d been having sensuous dreams about for so long. “So, in exchange for you showing me how your synthesizer work and allowing me to synthesize anything I want you want a kiss?” Visions of doing a roaring trade in chocolates and being able to afford a car floated tantalizingly in front of her.
“I said I will show you how it worked. Not that I will give you unlimited access.”
“Uh uh, I want access at least twice a day or no kissing.” Rachel would never believe her when she told her about this. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Rachel about the kiss, if she ended up kissing Frankenstein. Rachel was already convinced that Viglar was interested in Madison.
“Access under supervision twice a day. My final offer,” he said.
If they didn’t kiss on his planet he probably didn’t expect a deep kiss. She stepped forward and went on her tiptoes. “Bend down, I can’t reach your lips.” She sounded out of breath, her heart beat overtime.
Staring at her out of those very red eyes that she was beginning to think meant more than violence he bent down. She grabbed his shoulders for balance and pressed her lips against his. She’d meant to only touch his lips with hers before making a run for it, but she couldn’t resist moving over those surprisingly soft lips. He didn’t move, kept regarding her with that unblinking gaze. She bit his bottom lip and then stood back, but he grabbed her back and copied her actions. His lips opened hers and his tongue surged inside. It was a brief almost curious gesture, but when she pushed against his shoulders and stepped back from him her legs shook. Who knew kissing an alien could be this good.