“OK.” Tamzin looked across to where the big man, Thomsk, had one arm wrapped around each of his children. That would be her fate soon enough; an alien would impregnate her with his seed and she would conceive an alien child. Another wave of nerves hit her and she was back to knowing this was wrong and she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t leave Earth.
“We’ve stopped,” Sybil said, standing up and going to the entrance of the hold. “They’re coming, let’s get everything together.”
Tamzin helped her friends collect their belongings and retrieved her own pack, the exertion bringing on a bout of coughing.
“Are you OK, honey,” Sybil asked.
“Sand in my lungs.” Tamzin cleared her throat and stood up. “Maybe I won’t get to go to Karal after all.”
“It’ll clear itself,” Sybil said, but her look showed concern too.
“Let me empty my pack for you.” Tamzin tipped the contents out, immediately picking up the photos of her parents and her underwear. The rest of her clothes were hardly worth keeping, but not worth giving away either, so she stowed them back in her pack.
Collecting anything of use, she handed the stuff to Sybil and then gave Thomsk her coin. “Here, I won’t need it anymore.”
“I can’t take it, Tamzin.” But Thomsk looked desperate.
“Yes you can, old man, you take it and use it to get by while you look for work.” She lifted his hand and placed the coins in it. “Think of me.”
“I will, Tamzin,” he said, pulling her into a hug.
She knelt down and gave his kids a hug too. “Look after your dad for me.”
“Will we see you again?” Sam asked, hugging her so tightly she wanted him to hold on and never let her go.
“One day, who knows.” But she knew. She knew that once she left here she would never look on their young faces again, never watch them grow up into young adults. “Goodbye.”
Looking up, she saw the alien called Garth standing looking at her, a strange colour skimming his skin. Something about him was attractive, she couldn’t deny that, but the other one, Okil, had such a nice, easy way about him. He at least seemed to like humans, whereas now, with the ragtag bunch of humans coming his way, Garth stood back as if they would burn him with their touch.
She smiled. He probably had a right to be wary: they had all been covered in rain, which contained its fair share of acid. Looking down at her hands, she saw the redness on her skin; it was drying out, wrinkling as if it had been burned. Oh well. It would heal. And then she began to cough, and panic filled her. That was something that wouldn’t heal, and she wondered if she should say it to the Karalians now, tell them she was tainted and they should leave her behind and take someone in better health.
Then she felt Sybil’s hand on hers, as she came to say her last goodbye. “Go, they may have medicine, or equipment, on their planet, to remove the sand you breathed in, or the clean air might make it easier for you to breathe. Here you will die. So take this opportunity and leave.”
Her eyes were fierce as she spoke the last word, as if she were kicking Tamzin out of her life, out of her heart.
“I will,” she said, knowing she would only be a burden to the woman who had taken her mother in and nursed her while she died. She wouldn’t do that to Sybil, not again. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too, honey, and when you are lying by a pool, drinking fresh fruit juice, think of us.”
“I will.” She hugged Sybil once more, and then the older woman pulled away and left the cargo hold.
Tamzin stood and listened to them as they walked down the ramp, not bearing to watch them leave. If she did, she would have run after them, told them to take her with them, ripped the tag out of her neck with her fingernails if she had to.
But her feet didn’t leave the spot until she heard the ramp close.
“You should come and sit down. You need to put a seat belt on,” Garth said.
She looked up at him, and saw a spark of red cross his face. “How do you do that?”
“What?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“Your skin, the colours.” She pointed at her own face, and swirled her finger around.
“It is just how we are. You show your emotions in your actions and in your words; ours are on our skin.”
“And what does the red mean?” she asked, coming closer to him, studying him.
“It means I am confused.”
“About what?” She frowned.
“About why you are so sad for your friends to go. Why enter the lottery?”
“That is a good question, Garth.” And one for which she had no answer. “Where do you want me to sit?”
Following him out, he indicated a row of seats and she sat down, while the two Karalians went to the helm. Leaning back in her seat, she was glad of the solitude; she needed the time to gather her thoughts. To accept the life in front of her and let go of the one behind.
Chapter Eight – Garth
“She is a good, strong woman,” Okil said as Garth powered up the engines.
“She is mine already, Okil, you do not have to sell her to me as if it were a bushel of kallis.” He flipped the switches and then said, “What is the protocol—do I leave here for Karal or do I have to return to that pit of an airport?”
“Here, let me.” Okil, realising the discussion on Tamzin was done, switched on the radio and called the tower.
“Clearance given.” The radio crackled.
“Let’s get out of here,” Okil said. “I have seen much of Earth, but this is one of the worst places. How do they live here?”
“Are these the people who will be moving to the new colony?” Garth asked, easing the throttle forward and taking them away from the rain and the sinking sand.
“I don’t know.” Okil looked pensive.
“Is that what your visit here was about?” Garth asked, more curious now he had seen the planet and its people.
“In a way.” Okil looked across at Garth. “I thought you weren’t interested.”
“I’m not. Curious, but not interested.” Garth turned his face to look out of the window of the control deck, realising how stupid he sounded.
“Well, since you’re curious, and you will not be returning to Earth, nor will you be on Karal long, I will tell you. The Hier Ruler is trying to instigate a coup d'etat.”
“A what?” Garth asked.
“It’s a quaint human term for where the government is overthrown.”
Garth looked at Okil, his expression worried. “We should not get involved in such politics. What if it spread to Karal?”
“That is why this is strictly between you and me, Garth. I received a coded message through the wormhole from Earth. I’m not sure how they managed it, but apparently it has taken them some time to get the technology to work.”
“And you went to meet the person who wants to overthrow the leader of Earth?”
“I went to see if it was a legitimate prospect, or just someone yanking our chain.”
Again Garth looked puzzled. “You have picked up too many Earth phrases.”
“It’s Darl’s fault. Anyway, the Hier Ruler wanted to make sure the contact wasn’t some kind of plant by the President of Earth. The two leaders have never seen eye to eye.”
“And was it legitimate?” Garth asked.
“It appears so.” Okil looked extremely pleased with himself. “It means Earth has a chance. If we have someone Lytril feels he can trust, he will think twice about protecting it.”
“Lytril? I didn’t know you were on first-name terms with our esteemed Ruler.”
“I’m not, at least not to his face, but his female comes to visit Tikki, and surprisingly he doesn’t make her call him Hier Ruler. It seems the Hierarchy is soft where she is concerned. As you will be soft where your female is concerned.”
“I doubt it,” Garth said, casting a glance back to where Tamzin sat, looking so alone and sad. His heart did indeed ache at the sight of her, and once more he b
lamed it on his prime, his need to mate with her.
“Anyway, I would appreciate it if all this stays between us two. But I thought you should know, because by the time you return things will be set in motion. We need a new planet for them, Garth.”
“So you say.” Garth turned towards the beacons, glad to leave this sector of space, and he willed himself not to think of the people he had met on Earth, although that was increasingly difficult when his mind kept turning to Tamzin and the way she moved, her curvy figure, and what she would look like naked.
And all too soon he was going to get his wish. They were docking at the space station, where they would disembark and go through the decon’. Naked. He struggled to deal with his obsession for her; they had only spoken a handful of words to each other, and his lack of control was out of character.
“I’ll go ahead, and leave you to bring Tamzin,” Okil said, opening the hatch onto the space station. “Explain it to her, Garth, this is all so new, so sudden, and she will be frightened.”
“Very well,” Garth said, heading out of the control room to where Tamzin was looking out of the window, staring out into space.
“I never expected it to be so big,” she said. “I always thought the deserts were big, stretching on endlessly, but space is never-ending, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, although if there is an end, the Karal have never found it.” He sat down in the seat next to hers. “We have to go aboard the space station. Before you go to Karal, you have to go through the decon’.”
“What’s that?” She momentarily shifted her gaze to look at his face, staring at his features, and his colours flowed across his skin unchecked.
Tamzin lifted her hand to his cheek and stroked his skin, sending his body into some kind of ecstasy. Garth jolted back, as if she had struck him, his hands now covered in waves of blue and green as if a storm was circling his body, the sensations like the swell on the ocean.
“Decontamination. It will take all the impurities from Earth out of your system. We cannot risk anything contaminating our planet.” But something had already contaminated it. Had contaminated him.
“Does it hurt?” she asked. “Because I’m certain I’m full of contaminated stuff.” She held out her hand and showed him where the acid had burned her skin.
“It will heal. Once we are on Karal, I’ll get the doctor to look at you. He deals with the humans all the time and is sure to have some salve that will help.”
She smiled at him, but there was still a sadness in her eyes, and he wanted to chase it away, make her happy. He was like some romantic fool, and that disturbed him nearly as much as the closeness of Tamzin’s warm body.
Chapter Nine – Tamzin
Decon’, this was going to be a new experience, stripping down to her naked skin on an alien space station. Yep, she could safely say nothing in her life could have prepared her for how surreal that sounded.
“And I have to be naked?” she asked, wondering if it was some idea of an alien’s perverted joke.
“Yes. Especially since, in your case, those clothes are going to have to be incinerated.”
She looked down at the rags she was wearing. The rain had dried, but left small burn holes that would make the fabric fall apart over the next few days. Talk about contaminated, he was right.
“But what am I supposed to wear?” she asked. “Shall I go back and get a change of clothes from my pack?”
“No.” He shook his head and backed away from her. “While you strip, I’ll go and find something else for you to wear. There are spare overalls on the station.”
She should have felt happier about him leaving, but the thought of stripping, in a room with the door open, was a little too much. Puffing the air out of her cheeks, she slowly took off her jacket, which had kept out the worst of the rain. It was a good job she had chosen hard wearing over style, but the cuffs of her sweater had got wet, and her serviceable grey pants were pockmarked with holes, so she slipped them off too. Leaving her in her underwear. What could be wrong with keeping her bra and panties on?
She took a step towards the big chair situated in the centre of the room, her eyes casting over all the flashing lights on the control console, and a new nervousness covered her. Did she trust these aliens; how did she know they weren’t going to wipe her memory or something even more sinister?
“Here.” He came back in and placed some overalls, folded neatly as if they had been steam ironed, onto a shelf by the door. “Once you take off the rest of your clothes, I can set the program to run.”
“Can’t I stay like this?” she asked nervously, now wishing she had stripped down and was sitting in the chair, at least she could have covered herself up with her hands. Now she would have to stand naked in front of him and then walk to the chair. A thrill coursed through her body. Did that mean she liked the idea?
A heat crept between her thighs, answering her question.
Taking her courage in both hands, she walked over to where he stood, watching her. Then with her eyes fixed on his, as if challenging him, she unclasped her bra, letting her breasts fall forward. He licked his lips, and she wanted to feel him on her skin, his full mouth trailing kisses along her body.
Embarrassed by her thoughts, she let her eyes drop. Big mistake, now they were zeroed in on his groin, where his pants were stretched tightly across his hard cock. At least she hoped it was hard, because he looked huge, and panic filled her. Humans and Karalians were physically compatible. Right?
“And the rest.” His eyes dropped down to her panties, and she hesitated, not wanting him to see how wet they were from her arousal. What was she, some kind of nymphomaniac? No, it was the shock of being here, standing in front of this colossal man, with his dark hair, which was curled around his collar, not cut short as you would expect an astronaut’s hair to be.
And his eyes: deep pools of desire, dark, unfathomable, but a stark contrast to his skin, which now glowed gold and yellow.
“Tamzin, take off the rest of your clothes.” His voice was a command, sending shivers through her body. Something about him made her feel alive.
And then she erupted into a burst of coughing, her hand to her mouth, almost doubled up, as her body tried to get the sand out of her lungs. The moment was broken.
Garth came forward. He lifted her up, placing her down onto the chair. “Are you ill?” he asked, his expression concerned.
“It’s the sand. I got some in my lungs. I’m sorry. I should have told you. If you need to return me, I’ll understand.”
“Return you? It makes you sound like a bottle on a shelf I could just return to the store because it’s tainted.” He urged her back, his hand innocently stroking the side of her breasts, but that didn’t stop her body reacting. Inappropriate timing again.
“Well, I’m not going to be much use.”
“You can still breed.” He turned to the computer console and pressed a few buttons. So that was what she was to him, a breeding machine. It didn’t matter if she was dying as long as she could pop a baby out. “You were picked for me specifically.”
“You lucked out, then.” The coughing had subsided, for now.
He didn’t say another word, simply came back to where she sat in the reclined chair, and hooked his hands around the elastic of her panties and dragged them down over her plump thighs.
“The decon’ will begin shortly.” He placed her panties on top of the overalls. “Stay in the seat. I’ll come back for you when it’s done.”
Then he exited the room, pressing a button for the door to close, and she heard the sound of it sealing. Sealing her in here, with what? Gas? Was it safe? She lay still, not daring to move, holding her breath so she didn’t breathe it in.
But that was useless, and the air escaped her lungs, making her cough again. Trying to calm herself, she lay back, closing her eyes and decided to let whatever happened, happen. She was tired of fighting, tired of struggling, and if she could make Garth happy—he seemed reasonable, if
demanding—then she might have a good life.
Another cough. If she lived that long. Her mind wandered back over the images of her mom lying in bed, blood coming from her mouth as she coughed and coughed until her eyes bulged. Tears pricked Tamzin’s eyes. She hoped that wasn’t her fate, that she had been plucked from Earth just in time to be saved.
As she lay there, she knew she would do whatever it took to please the aliens. Because she wanted to live.
With that decision made, she relaxed, letting herself think of what the planet would be like. Again her mind shifted and instead began to wonder what Garth was like. Naked. What he would be like as a lover. Something she had never experienced, partly because she had worked all her life, and partly because she didn’t want to bring a child into the world, a child who might end up an orphan like she was.
There was no fun watching your parents die when you were still a kid yourself.
In the distance an alarm sounded, but she was too wrapped up in her dream world. Only when a hand was placed on her arm did her eyes fly open, and she looked into the beautiful deep pools of hope that were Garth’s eyes.
“Are you OK?” he asked, his hand still on her arm, stroking the side of her breast.
“Yes, I was dreaming.” She stared at him until he looked away, his emotions out of control.
“You should dress.” He pulled back, but didn’t leave.
She got up off the chair, feeling different. Feeling weird. “What was in that stuff?”
“I set the decon’ to sedate you. I was worried it might be painful for you otherwise.”
“Painful. Why? I thought you said it wouldn’t hurt?” Now she was suspicious of him: should she trust what he said? At all. Or did he lie to the poor human creature to keep her happy?
“Normally, it doesn’t. But I changed the settings to make sure it removed all impurities from your system.”
She reached for her panties and tried not to feel too self-conscious as she dressed, knowing he was watching her every move. “Was I that bad?”
Hunted: BBW Alien Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 4) Page 4