“There is no peace treaty,” Dane interjected. His face had become steely instantly, his jaw rigid and his eyes sharp. At that moment, I saw first-hand why people found the A’li-uud so fearsome.
“No, not yet, but we’re here to discuss—”
“I am here because I am forced to be.” He still hadn’t looked away from me, but the atmosphere had changed considerably. What had been strangely warm and electric was now frigid and unyielding. “We have nothing to discuss.”
“Actually, you were brought here because we need to discuss—”
“You do not understand me,” he said severely. “There will be no treaty between A’li-uud and humans, peace or otherwise.”
As hard as I was trying to remain professional, I was quickly becoming irritated by his constant interruptions. Furthermore, his obstinacy toward just having a conversation about ending this war was infuriating, and his intimidating appearance was rapidly losing its ability to keep me in check. I took in a calming breath, closed my eyes, and thought about my response before saying it.
“I’m afraid you’re right. I don’t understand you,” I said carefully. “You want to continue this war?”
“This war has only one end, and it is the decimation of your species.”
Again, he was speaking matter-of-factly, which was a disconcerting contradiction to his chilling words. I opened my eyes again to see him looking at me thoughtfully rather than aggressively, as I’d expected. Nothing about this man—this alien—made sense to me.
“You are frustrated,” he said.
I eyed him warily. “What makes you think that?”
He didn’t answer, but his expression spoke of the confidence he felt in his assertion. I sat back in my chair, the folder on the table still lying unopened, and sighed.
“Listen, Dane, I’m trying to work with you here. I would like to reach an agreement we can both be satisfied with, but I’m going to need you to meet me halfway,” I patiently explained.
His defined pectorals flexed beneath the glare of the standard office fluorescent lights overhead, and, for the first time, I realized just how cut his abdomen was. I could see each muscle as clearly as I could see his arms or his head. Deep ridges were cut between each, shadows cast within them, giving a whole new meaning to “six-pack.” It was practically enough to make me salivate, but I dragged my gaze back up to his face and blinked a few times to clear my vision of the godlike physique before me.
“There is no such thing as peace with humans,” he was saying. He spoke firmly, decisively, with little room to convince him otherwise. “A piece of paper stating you will not harm us guarantees me nothing. Humans attack without reason when it suits them with little regard for anything or anyone else.”
“That’s interesting because I’m pretty sure you were the ones to attack us without reason, and murdering any man, woman, or child in your path isn’t exactly a demonstration of regard for others,” I retorted.
“We had reason,” he said firmly.
I quirked a brow. “Oh? I was under the impression you bombed our fleet, took the survivors hostage, and only allowed them to return to Earth when another ship showed up prepared to fight. Where is the reason in that?”
Once more, the corners of his lips twitched and the edges of his eyes creased. I realized I desperately wanted that smile to break through his stony exterior, to see the Gentle behind the Giant, but neither he nor I was willing to make that happen. His chains clanked against the chair he sat in as he shifted, and he rolled his neck to loosen his knots. He had no intent of answering me, but I wasn’t giving up this time.
“Well?” I demanded hotly, crossing my arms over my chest.
His eyes slithered down to where my limbs covered my bosom before darting upward again, and I felt rosiness blossoming unbidden across my cheeks. “Call it offensive defense,” he said with a hint of snarky arrogance in his voice.
I pursed my lips. It was clear he was as unmovable as a boulder right now, and I had my orders. “Break him,” they’d told me. “We need him to talk. We need this war to end.” Foolishly, I’d expected to be met with just a few minutes of hostility before getting into peace talks, and now I was across from an alien leader who had made it clear that the only thing he was interested in talking about was ending humanity.
When he wasn’t talking about what he liked about me, that is.
I got to my feet, all business. “We’re obviously not going to get anywhere today, Dane,” I told him, tilting my chin upwards rather haughtily. I’d been told to break him, and that was exactly what I was going to do. “I’ll let you think about it for a few days, and maybe we’ll reopen the discussion then.”
7
Dane
I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d met with Roxanne, but it felt like too long. After she’d declared the discussion over, several soldiers had surged into the room and taken me to a truck like the one they’d transferred me in before. Then, after a brief ride, I’d been led into a large and well-secured building, where they’d shoved me into a cell with no windows and no furniture.
The location and status of my warriors had not been disclosed to me, though I tried to find out repeatedly as the soldiers strong-armed me from the truck to the cell. As an Elder, I was able to connect soul with them to find out where they were and what condition they were in, but I needed wind to do that. There was no wind in my prison; there was only stale, stagnant air that smelled of bleach and urine. I tried to create wind, spinning in tight circles at rapid speeds and waving my hands about like I was performing a wild tribal dance, but all I succeeded in doing was waft the stench into my nose until I nearly gagged.
When it became clear to me I was essentially helpless in my enclosure, I resigned myself to sitting on the floor with my back pressed against the wall, allowing my thoughts to take over. It wasn’t difficult. My brain was eager to recount every bit of Roxanne it could. I tried to redirect my mind toward more important things, like an escape plan or even the possibility of a peace treaty with the humans, but I was unable to think of anything other than a delicate, heart-shaped face and paralyzing green eyes.
It seemed plausible that I was so consumed with her simply because I hadn’t had the company of a female for so many months, but I couldn’t fool myself. My fascination was not with Roxanne’s gender; it was with Roxanne. Certainly, her enticing curves and classical features were a draw. The way her lips curled and parted when she spoke had entrapped me more than the very prison I sat in. Nevertheless, her beauty was just a shadow to the magnetism of her soul.
She was uncertain of herself. I’d felt that the moment she’d walked into the room. Yet, the way she’d squared her shoulders and held her chin aloft revealed a desire for confidence that was more commanding than if she’d possessed solid confidence, to begin with. She’d had a measure of pride met with an equal measure of modesty, and, though it was for the sake of my opposition, her compassion for the perseverance of life was evident. Why else would she, an unsure woman of no great stature, meet with me and attempt to persuade me to her side? On top of all that, her mind was as open as an expanse of Albaterran plains. None of the prejudice or hatred I’d been met with when interacting with other humans was remotely present in her company. She approached me as I was, not as she perceived me to be, which was the way of the A’li-uud and a delicious breath of fresh air.
Perhaps that was the source of my attraction to her: she reminded me of an A’li-uud, but she was human. She seemed to lack the traits of humanity I loathed while possessing the traits I revered of the A’li-uud. There had to be something more, though, because otherwise my desires would have been reserved only for others of my people.
There was more. I recalled the way she smelled, that sweet, flowery aroma lingering beneath the sharp manufactured scent she wore. It had lit something inside me to smell her, leaving me feeling soothed and stimulated at the same time. The way her cheeks turned pink when I told her had stolen my breath, and
I’d felt my heart quicken to twice its normal rate when they became red enough to match her lips.
The woman was enchanting.
Three deafening bangs sounded on the sole door leading to my freedom, and a slot appeared at waist-level.
“Hey! Alien!” a raspy tenor called through the new opening. “Get over here!”
I clambered to my feet, my sword banging between the wall and my thigh as I did. They’d tried again to separate me from my weapon, but the sword’s magic hadn’t allowed it. Once I was alone in my cell, I attempted to hack through the walls and the door with the blade. Unfortunately, that was one power the fuchsia scimitar did not have, so the saber became nothing more than a companion in my imprisonment.
After cuffing me through the slot and restraining me with more ankle and wrist shackles when they entered the tiny room, two soldiers took me by the elbows while a third followed closely behind. They traipsed me through narrow corridors with more cells similar to mine on one side, then through larger rooms with smatterings of tables and chairs. Finally, after what felt like hours, they pushed me through a narrow exit, and hot, yellow sunlight scalded my face. I smelled steaming tarmac and boggy mud, a combination that I couldn’t reconcile in my mind, but I didn’t have the chance to see anything before being thrown into the back of another military truck.
I knew they were taking me to see Roxanne. She’d said she would give me a few days to think about things, and then we would meet again. I was certain they weren’t taking me to my warriors, and it seemed unlikely they would take me to my death if they needed me for their precious peace treaty. The soldiers may have been acting on their own, gone rogue perhaps, but I doubted it. Something in my gut told me I was going to the see the human who’d had me in fits since our last conversation.
As focused as I wanted to stay on getting free and finding my warriors, especially going into a meeting about the future of humans and A’li-uud, I couldn’t pry my mind away from the Ambassador. It wasn’t just rampant lust for her undeniably exquisite body, though some of that was present. I needed to know her. I needed to discover why she was intrinsically different from the others of her kind I’d encountered. I needed to understand why she affected me so.
The truck started to move, bouncing me on the hard bench and jangling my chains, but I was too caught up in my musings to notice. Somehow, I’d become enraptured by a mere human who I’d met for no longer than ten minutes—fifteen if I was being generous. There was something unique in her very being, and I was determined to find out what it was, even if it meant discussing a truce.
8
Roxanne
“The alien is here.”
I glanced up from my computer. “Thank you, Madeleine.”
She nodded and left. After my initial meeting with Dane, Madeleine had bounded into my office and demanded to know everything from what he looked like to what he said. I’d told her the information was confidential, and, when she’d continued to press me, I’d insisted rather snappishly she go back to her desk. She knew as well as I that, while the meeting may have been confidential to the public, she was exempt from such restrictions. That, in conjunction with my brusque tone, had led to her stalking around the office with a sour expression on her pretty face and little to say by way of socializing for the past few days.
Under normal circumstances, I would have apologized with pastries and a fresh scoop of gossip by now, but I didn’t care this time. My interaction with Dane had my insides twisted up in ways I’d never felt before, and I didn’t want to share that with anyone because I found it both embarrassing and exhilarating. Whatever those feelings were, they were my own, and I wanted them to remain that way.
I hadn’t been able to stop fantasizing about him for three days. The image of his toned, capable body hovering over mine came too readily to my mind, and the sound of his low voice purring huskily in my ear was almost like a memory even though it had never happened. Every time I thought back to our conversation and mused about how to approach him this time around, my thighs craved to feel his fingers and my core scorched. Alien or not, the man was sexy.
Getting to my feet, I snatched the same folder I’d brought with me last time from one of the piles on my desk and strode from my office. Madeleine barely looked at me as I breezed past her, but I didn’t bother to smile or make a brief comment either. Questions whirled in my head, a new one added to the mix with each step I took. Would he be willing to talk about the treaty this time? If he wasn’t, how was I going to get him to cooperate? Was it possible that he would never agree to a ceasefire and the extermination of the human race would be on my head? And why, oh why, was I so ridiculously attracted to him?
He was sitting in the same chair as last time when I entered the room, and he was staring at me with the same gaze that stripped me of all premise. Beneath those ghostly eyes, I felt naked, but this time I was titillated by the feeling rather than uncomfortable.
“Hello, Dane,” I greeted him cordially, keeping my tone light and friendly. As I closed the door behind me, I offered him a smile. He returned it with an inquisitive tilt of his head. I took no offense and moved to the chair opposite him, placing the folder on the table. “I hope you’ve been well for the last few days.”
“Quite,” he said. He sounded surprisingly stiff given his thoughtful expression.
“Good.” I yanked the seat back and sat down, scooting forward until my arms could rest comfortably on the table. Propping my elbows up and intertwining my fingers, I rested my chin on the tops of my hands and asked, “Have you given any thought to what we discussed last time?”
Dane moved very slightly. It would have been imperceptible if not for the rattling of his chains when he did. “Yes,” he replied softly, his voice slightly hoarse.
It was a simple response, but it was layered with meaning. I could hear through the silken arcs of the syllable that he was answering for more than thoughts about the treaty, and tingles of pink blossomed unbidden across my cheeks. I cursed myself internally for blushing so soon into our meeting. Thus far, I’d imagined myself to be doing a bang-up job at maintaining my composure. In one word, he’d taken all of it and crushed it into powder, leaving me flushed and warm like a shy schoolgirl with a crush.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. It sounded like my throat was full, my words round and a little garbled, and I cleared my throat to play it off as a physical glitch rather than an emotional one. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t tug my eyes from his, which were delving into me like they sought my deepest thoughts. My torso involuntarily bent forward millimeter by millimeter, closing the gap between our faces. From this short distance, I could smell him now, and the scent was intoxicating. It was woodsy and earthen, but it was also fresh and clean as snow.
A deep, guttural growl rolled from the back of his throat, predatory and animalistic. His eyes narrowed as he regarded his prey. Every inch of his body was statue-still down to the last colorless hair on his head. He was poised, ready to strike and lethal. We were close, so close, and his heady essence was pulling me ever closer…
My stomach pressed against the table’s edge, jarring me back to reality, and I jerked away. Dane didn’t flinch, but his expression changed noticeably to something unreadable. My breath came in short bursts. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it. Trying to collect myself, I picked up the folder, tapped it on the tabletop a couple of times, and laid it back down again.
“Shall we?” I asked rather breathlessly.
He didn’t answer, but he gave me one short nod in response. I reciprocated with a nod of my own and flipped the folder open. Inside, there was a thin stack of papers and several vivid photographs. I slid the photographs to the side.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. I looked up at him again. “I have to go get a pen.”
He was still looking at me with that same unreadable expression, but he said, “You do not need a pen.”
“I have to record what we—”
“You have to record nothing.” His tone was stern, and his gaze matched. “My demands are simple.”
Surprised, I sat back in my seat and rested my hands on the chair’s arms. “All right,” I said indulgently. “What are your demands?”
“You will release me. You will release my warriors into my custody. You will order your military to stop attacking and imprisoning A’li-uud.” He said each demand like he was ticking off a list and my eyebrows lifted higher every time he added a new one. “You will provide me one of your ships. You will allow us to locate and return all surviving members of our fleet to their crafts without risk of assault if the crafts are still intact. You will not inhibit our return to our planet—”
“Your intention is to retreat?” I asked, stunned and a bit smug at having interrupted him for a change.
His eyes narrowed again, but this time it was with dangerous disdain rather than lascivious hunger. “No,” he said in his clipped way. “My intention is to meet with the Council.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what—”
“The Council,” he continued, returning things to normal with his interjection, “is A’li-uud authority. They must be consulted if you wish the war to end by any other means than the annihilation of one side or the other.”
My hand itched for a pen to scribble down what he’d just told me. I was certain nobody knew of this Council. “I thought you were the leader, though. That’s what you told Sergeant Hawkins,” I said mildly accusatorily.
“I am the leader on this mission,” he clarified. “I am the only Elder who came to Earth, and I was only a warrior when I first arrived.”
“How did you become an Elder, then?” I asked, leaning forward and utterly intrigued.
Dane: A Scifi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 3 Page 4