Was that what she thought of him. He was a martyr? The way she’d said it, she sounded like she thought he was more of a victim–of his own doing.
He shook his head. He’d done the right thing. She might think he’d rejected her, but she’d realise--might even be relieved--when she calmed down and reconsidered that this was a mistake.
The thing was, as he strode through the cold, empty darkness that was so much like his heart that he couldn’t shake the feeling they’d both needed the release that could only be found in each other’s arms.
That he’d done a terrible, unfixable wrong, and that maybe, just maybe, she was right. About everything.
15
S he hadn’t realised how dead she’d been inside. Until now. She’d just found someone that made her feel alive, and she was going to die. Part of her wondered if that was how Mike had felt. They’d found each other later in life, married and then Mike was diagnosed with cancer before their life together had really begun. Had he gone through the emotional turmoil that now coursed through her?
With Mike, she had a reason to live, but if she was really honest, it was more as a nurse, a caregiver, than anything else. He was so sick, they had no sex life to speak of. She loved him, but it was lukewarm in comparison to the fire that lit her blood the way even a simple glance from Jo’Aquin did.
And she’d wrecked it with her words. She’d wanted him so badly that when he wouldn’t give her what she wanted, she’d reacted like a child and hit out at him. He’d come back to the campfire last night very quiet. He’d hardly looked at her, shutting her out with one worded answers and his back.
She couldn’t blame him. She’d orgasmed on his leg, for heaven’s sake. She mentally winced at the sight she must have made. The word slut had crossed her mind more than a few times last night and throughout the morning. The thing was, she’d never done anything like that in her life ever before. Not even with Mike and she’d been married to him. Lauren scoffed, ignoring the look of the soldier in front of her sent over his shoulder. No wonder he rejected her.
Lauren plonked a foot into the damp fertile soil trying to stop herself from going mad with the thoughts that tornadoed in her mind. Sweat constantly trickled down her spine. She was hot, uncomfortable and terrified. They walked single-file along a narrow animal path. MalCom and Mother led the front. How Mother kept up the pace, Lauren didn’t know. The old woman was a bag of tricks. Not all of them nice. Behind was a string of grim-faced warriors hand-picked by MalCom. They were going to help get her into the city and to the mastermind, where she’d willingly end her life. The knowledge was more than sobering. This was, effectively, her death march.
They’d decided to leave for the city at first light. Overnight, the invisible ants beneath her skin had increased their intensity, clawing her from the inside out. She knew it wasn’t really ants because MalCom told her how the change happened. It was the effect of her DNA changing into something the Reptiles could control her through. It just felt like thousands of ants’ feet attacking her under her skin.
She’d been careful to hide the advancing stages of the takeover of her mind, but she’d caught the worried glances of the men, as well as the object of her emotional turmoil.
He was every inch the Commander of a Starship. Controlled. Responsible. Distant. But if there was something she could do, was see personal pain beneath any façade. Watching those hollowed faces in the cancer ward try and put on a brave face gave her lots of practise.
It was confirmed in the glances she knew he threw her way when he thought she wasn’t looking. The muscle that constantly ticked at his temple when he clenched his teeth.
He was on edge. And something deeper pushed him. Enough for him to want to give his life for hers. She recognised a death wish when she saw it. Maybe that’s why she’d called him a martyr when, in fact, she should have called him a hero. Just because she’d chucked a tantrum, didn’t mean she had to hit out at him. He was trying his best in the worst of possible situations. Her words and actions had just been childish. Especially after he’d told her he would give his blood for hers. That he would lay his life down, so she could live.
And look how she treated him. Shame burned her cheeks, scalding hot. She owned him an apology. And soon. He was too honourable to be made to feel the way she’d obviously made him feel.
She stared at his rigid back, soaked with sweat. He went out of his way to protect her from wayward leaves that might slap her when she brushed past them, leaning backward to hold them out of her way. His gaze would flicker to hers, make sure she wasn’t hurt, then he’d push forward again.
She didn’t mind the view. She quite admired his height, the broad stretch of his shoulders, the solid clench of dense thigh muscles as his legs ate up the ground, and the extremely tight butt that rolled beneath his leaf-trousers. Not so good when she wanted to talk to him. Good and so bad all wrapped together.
She’d never ogled Mike the way she was quite happy doing to Joe right now. Physically, they were worlds apart. Literally. Ravaged by ill health, Mike had been frail and thin. Joe was the epitome of masculinity. A little shiver went racing through her at the memory of being clenched against that hard body of his. One touch definitely wasn’t enough.
She wanted him. She would have let him take her on that cold, hard cave floor if he’d been willing. That was so far out of her normal behaviour, she shocked herself. He was the only man that ignited such overwhelming passion in her. It was as though she had finally come awake into her full femininity. She was finally a sexual being. At her ripe age, when she thought she wasn’t capable of feeling anything remotely like that again, more to the point.
Mike had been safe. What she’d needed at the time.
Jo’Aquin was the exact opposite. What she couldn’t afford to feel right now.
Mike was responsibility.
Jo’Aquin was passion. Desire. Need. Everything that made her heart pound and blood flow through her veins.
With Mike, she wanted to die.
With Jo’Aquin she wanted to live.
Which was a moot point, especially since there was no way she was going to get out of this alive. If she was going to have him, time was running out.
She pushed a large leaf out of the way and pushed through the widening gap of the path to walk next to him.
“Lauren, walk behind me so I can protect you,” he said.
“There’s nothing but damp leaves and rotting vegetation.” She brushed past a leaf and condensation trickled down her arm.
“But we are outside, and the Reptiles can track you,” he said.
Ah, yes. So they could. She clutched the lump of crystal strung around her neck and waved it at him, “Mother gave me this, remember? Said it would block out any signal.” That, apparently, was why the cave protected them. Something about the mineral content of the crystals interrupting signals. All she knew was that they had been safe from any further Reptile attack while they’d been underground, so it must have worked.
They’d travelled as far as they could in the cave system until the intertwining tunnels broke through the other side of the mountain. It was how villages of centuries past visited each other. Rather than walk over the mountain, they’d modified what was already naturally there. A fact she was grateful for.
Jo’Aquin grunted and kept his eyes on the ground. A trickle of perspiration rolled down the side of his face. She studied his not-quite-human features. His features were more angular. His cheekbones were a little higher, the hollows a little more defined, his jawbone stronger. His brows arched upwards at the end, lending an almost vampiric look to his face. The overall effect was dark and sexy, something which struck a chord inside her on a very deep level.
She didn’t consider herself a superficial person, but damn if her body didn’t respond in a way that drilled all the way down to her cells.
“So, do all…people…of your…race…look like you?” she asked. Great, Lauren. You want to talk to him about life and d
eath stuff, and you come out sounding like a tongue-tied teenager.
“We are Hexonians. And by ‘look,’ do you mean skin and hair colour?” Jo’Aquin asked. He eyed her warily. Maybe talking about something as benign as looks was a good thing. He was at least talking to her now. Maybe this would be a good segue into the other, pressing topic.
She couldn’t exactly ask him if everyone from his planet was ‘dead sexy,’ so she simply said, “Yes.”
His shoulders relaxed from their tense line when he answered her, at least. “We are all colours, just like your people on your world. Some have light hair, some so dark that it appears deep purple. But that is really only from people that are born at the polar ends of Hexion. None like the fiery colour of yours. It reminds me of the deepest Hexion sunset in winter, when the reds pierce the sky as though blood torn from a wound.” He threaded a strand of her hair between his fingers. His fingers grazed her neck as he let the strand slip. Her mouth went dry, her body on hyper alert. He caught himself and placed the strand on her shoulder, a frown gouging his forehead.
That was almost…poetic. There was so much more to him than being a Commander. She wanted to discover him. She was utterly fascinated.
“How far away is Hexion from Earth?” Her mind boggled with the fact that a week ago she had no idea there were aliens, now, not only did she know of the evil Reptiles, and of this planet, but that there were many others. To top it all off, they seemed to take the knowledge of other planets and species of people in their stride.
There must have been something in her voice, because he glanced at her, his features softening for the first time since they’d woken this morning. “Two hundred light years.”
She blinked up at him for a moment. “That’s a…long way.”
His lips twitched a little before evening out into a firm line. “We have light speed technology. A journey, such as that, will take a little over a month for one of our vessels.”
A month! It would take humans five lifetimes at their rate of technology. “A Galactic Federation vessel. That’s what you called it?”
“That is correct. Ours is one of the largest vessels in the Hexonian Fleet.”
“But, how come no-one…from Earth…knew you were there?” she asked. There was a whole lot of space junk orbiting the Earth. Satellites. Powerful telescopes. Surely someone had seen something unusual in the night sky.
Maybe they wanted to avoid mass panic and remain hidden. Or maybe the governments of the world had kept their presence a secret.
“We have very good cloaking technology, refined over centuries,” he said.
Centuries! When Earth thought the world was flat, his race was refining cloaking technology. How long had they been travelling into space? How long had they known about the Reptiles and how long had they been in space? “Has every other planet in existence travelled through space except Earth?”
Jo’Aquin held a branch over her head as she passed beneath. She smiled her thanks. “There are many other planets much more primitive than Earth. Some with only fauna and no other life forms. Some are so old that their planet is dying.”
They walked a little while, Lauren lost in her thoughts. “How many planets have the Reptiles invaded?”
Jo’Aquin sighed. The sound was long, drawn out, and filled with pain. “Too many. Advanced as well as primitive. The main purpose of the Galactic Federation is to stop them invading more.”
“Is that why you were hovering over Earth?”
They walked in silence and Lauren was afraid he wasn’t going to answer her. “We are on a mission to protect Earth.”
“Why?”
He glanced at her before reaching across her to clear her path. “We think that Earth is their next target.”
16
S he tripped. Jo’Aquin reached out fast as lightning to catch her elbow before she fell. He waited until she’d balanced before letting her go. “What the hell? When were you going to tell the people of Earth?”
The muscle ticked at his temple again. “The overriding mission was to gather intel. In order to do that, our presence needed to be secret.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to tell the people of a planet they’re about to be invaded? Give them half a chance of protecting themselves.” She slashed a leaf out of the way, blind to where she was walking. She knew there’d be repercussions when everyone found out there were aliens, but wasn’t it better to let a planet protect itself? It might be the one thing that brought Earth together. Finally.
“Lauren, when Reptiles invade, it is done in a few hours. No planet targeted for invasion has been able to protect itself in the history of invasions. Even with complex technology. The Reptiles plan too well and are too fast,” Jo’Aquin said.
“Plan! How do they plan? Go undercover on a planet? Break into their intelligence centres? To plan, they’d have to learn what makes people tick. Get feet on the ground. How would they do that? They don’t exactly blend in, you know,” Lauren said. The volume of her voice rose into shrieking mode.
A hand on her shoulder halted her in her tracks. Jo’Aquin cast his gaze upwards and into the thick tree canopy, tense and alert. “Keep your voice down. They might not be able to track you, but they’ll certainly be able to hear you.”
“You didn’t answer me, Joe. How do the Reptiles plan their invasions?” She kept her voice down, but she needed to know the answer.
The people on the track behind them stopped walking. The men right behind them looked at them in confusion. She didn’t care. She was going to get her answer, and she was going to get it now.
Jo’Aquin’s lips thinned while he considered her.
“Tell me, Joe. Not like I can tell anyone else on Earth from here,” she said.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and she watched the decision flash over his face before he opened them. “They abduct their targets and experiment on them until they perfect the way in which the mastermind can work. Once they do, it’s a quick matter of setting up the mastermind in a position central to the population and starting the implants. Once they’ve done enough people, the mindless become their slaves and help the Reptiles. With a relatively small number, they’re able to enslave a lot of people.”
Lauren blinked up at him, heart stuttering. “That means…they abducted me to…they were going to experiment on me.”
He nodded, “You were one of the first to be taken.”
“One of the first. There have been others?”
His mouth tightened. He really didn’t want to tell her, but she clenched his sleeves in her fists, twisting the material. Again, he nodded. “Always covert, we haven’t been able to discover where they’ve been taking the humans.”
“How…how many others?’ the words were barely audible.
His breath out was low and long, “Enough.”
“So…so they could invade…any…any time now.” Visions of horror ripped through her mind. Mass death. Broken bodies. The enslaved billions enslaving others. A holocaust.
His voice was gentle. “That’s why we were there, Lauren. We were waiting for a break. Just one slim break where we could discover exactly how they do it. Where they take the abductees. What they do with them.”
“That’s why you came for me. I was your break.” His leaf sleeve tore a little in her clenched fingers.
He nodded. “When they took you, they left the planet in full view. They never do that. I knew they had something special they didn’t want to get away.”
“You couldn’t let the opportunity go,” she said. He hadn’t rescued her because of anything more than intel. Part of her was hurt. Part of her liked to think that maybe she’d been special in some way. That he’d rescued her because of some other reason. But the logical part of her knew there were no knights in shining armour that would rescue a damsel just because she was in distress.
The men waiting along the path started to fidget. Some cast furtive glances into the jungle.
Joe noticed. “We need to kee
p walking, Lauren.”
He cupped her elbow to steady her but made no move to push her on. He waited for her, watching for her answer. Consideration she wasn’t used to. She was the one who was always strong. She was the one always watching for signs of weakness. She had been strong for so long. Control tightly kept, so that his consideration brought tears to her eyes.
A lump wadded her throat. She nodded shakily, dipping her head so that he wouldn’t see her tears. He guided her in front of him. They started to walk, but he kept close, clearing her path with his long arms and broad shoulders, catching her in the large cage of his body.
“So, did it help?”
“Help?”
“Did I help? Am I going to help? What they did to me. The implant. Is it going to help the people of Earth?” She had to know if her death was going to do some good. If it possibly could. That what she was going to do would not be in vain.
After all, wasn’t that what the Galactic Federation had been hiding from Earth for? An opportunity such as this? Something that would save the people of Earth.
His hand on her shoulder had her spinning around. His eyes searched hers, something like pain stretched his features. “Lauren, if it’s the last promise I make, I will get the word out to save your planet. What we do here will not be wasted.”
Heat blossomed and her chest constricted. She clutched his arms, using him as her anchor. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Are you sure?”
“On my honour as a Star Fleet Commander, I give you my personal word. If not for you, Lauren, many others might not have a chance. Many more might yet be saved.” His brow furrowed as pain flashed across his face. He was so adamant. Determination made his hard features even harder, and even then there was something that went even deeper. A pain so raw and deep, and so hidden that only a person who saw that look on faces every day might be able to see.
Whoever it was, they were important to him. A wife maybe? She was surprised at the stab of jealousy that reared through her, but quickly shoved it aside. She’d think about that later. Maybe that’s why he rejected her. It hadn’t been anything about her, as such, but that he had a wife, maybe even children and she’d gone and thrown herself at him like–yes, that word again–like a S. L. U. T. He just wanted her to stop embarassing herself. God, she was a terrible person. A really terrible person.
JoAquin: An Alien Abduction Paranormal Romance (A Hexonian Alien Abduction Romance Book 1) Page 10