“Home sweet home,” Penny said, pulling her alien through the gate. Partially hit in a raid, the house had suffered fire damage. The back wall was completely gone and the oak tree leaned precariously, as if it would tumble over with a strong wind. The ground floor was uninhabitable but the basement suited Penny just fine. Looters skipped over damaged buildings and no one would look for a survivor hiding out in the rubble. Beyond the practical, this was her home. No alien would take it away.
Penny dragged the tarp into the house and Big Red thumped down the narrow basement steps. She didn’t try particularly hard to ease him down; he’d wake up with a headache.
“Why are you so heavy,” she grumbled, dragging him across the room to the mattress. “It’s like you got steel-plated bones.”
With Big Red situated as close to the mattress as possible, she immediately peeled off her shoes and socks and shoved her feet into a pair of slippers. They were cold but they were dry. Next, she worked to heat up the space. Without her batteries, the electric space heaters were useless. No worries. She had a backup with candles and terra cotta pots—another trick she picked up in scouts. On a baking sheet, she set two bricks on either side of a four small tea light candles. On top of the bricks, she placed the pot, upside down. The candles heated the clay, which radiated warmth into the room. It worked surprisingly well; the only downside being that, as the weather grew colder, Penny would run through her supply of candles.
Counting the remaining tea lights in the box, plus the pack of votive candles and the scented candles Aunt Jasmine liked, she had enough to get through the blizzard. She’d do a supply run as soon as the storm broke, if they weren’t buried under two feet of snow.
Big Red was still breathing, but the grey tinge to his lips remained.
Penny toweled off his hair, distressed that the river water had frozen and formed ice crystals on the ends. Not good. On the plus side, it kept her attention focused on his health and frostbite, rather than marveling at the length and silky texture of his inky black hair. The contrast between his gruesome face and luxurious hair was unreal.
Focus. Frostbite.
She needed to get Big Red out of his wet clothes and dry. Her fingers, numb from the cold, fumbled at the armor. The fasteners weren’t obvious. Actually, running her hands over the mottled grey armor, the fasteners weren’t there. That made no sense. There had to be a way to get the armor off. So much for high-tech space age design. Frustrated and cold, she finally found a seam along his side. She ran her finger along the seam and the fabric parted.
Penny tried not to ogle at the well-defined muscles in Big Red’s arms, or all the six packs of his abs. Black tattoos slashed across his shoulders and arms, like tiger stripes. She didn’t have time to ogle. He was red. He was built. She knew that already, having hauled his muscular butt from the river. Move on. The tattoos were primitive and exciting. Deal.
She couldn’t ignore the deep gashes across his stomach from the Suhlik’s claws. They would require stitches. She had needle and thread and could sew a button on, but she did not want to practice stitching up flesh. Nope.
She dug out the first aid kit and cleaned the wound. Definitely needed stitches, but it wasn’t bleeding heavily. It could wait until he warmed up. Maybe she’d luck out and Big Red had field medic training so he could handle stitching himself up.
She covered it in an antibiotic ointment and gauze.
Her eyes flicked to his hips. She’d have to remove his pants and she honestly didn’t know if that frightened or excited her...
Boots first. Can’t take his pants off with his boots still on.
The buckles to the boots were obvious. No high-tech space age design there. She undid the buckles and worked the laces open enough to slip off the boots. His red-soled feet were completely human, if you didn’t count his toes.
Penny brushed her fingers along each, testing for a reaction. She counted six—six toes—on a foot clearly made to hold six. Each jerked at her touch, indicating that sensation remained.
She ripped off his gloves. Six fingers. Well, five fingers and thumb. No talons or claws, though, which relieved her. Just an ordinary hand with too many digits. Polydactyly happened to humans, she’d read. Anne Boleyn was rumored to have had six fingers.
His hand was frigid. Penny held it between her own and rubbed to generate friction. Were any of his six fingers discolored? How could she even tell? Her skin would turn pale in the first stages. Logically, Big Red’s skin would turn pale, also.
She examined his other hand. His fingers were pale rose pink but without a point of reference she couldn’t tell if it was a normal pale or frostbite pale.
“Guess I’ll know when you wake up,” she muttered.
Big Red took a deep rasping breath. She dropped his hand like it burned her and pulled away. Gnawing at her lower lip, she waited for him to wake.
He remained unconscious.
She rubbed a fresh towel over his chest, down his arms, paying attention to his hands and finally his feet. She stalled as long as she could. There was no avoiding it. It was time to take off the alien’s pants. This day could not get weirder.
Penny found the same seam at his hip. It ran down his thigh and leg. Her finger followed the course and the fabric opened. She peeled back the damp armor from his legs, working her way up. Finally, when his legs and knees and thighs were dry, she squeezed her eyes shut.
If there was one thing in the universe she didn’t need to see, it was an alien’s dick. She’d lived a fulfilling life for twenty-two years without it and she could live the rest of it happy in her ignorance.
“On three, Novak,” she said to herself, and counted. On three, she removed the fabric covering his crotch.
Yup. She didn’t need to see what he had going on downstairs. Not one little bit of her was curious if that part of him was also humanoid. Even less of her was curious if they were compatible. Nope, zero curiosity.
She counted to three before cracking an eye open to peek. She took in his naked, alien form and slammed her eyes shut.
She didn’t need to see that. What that was, exactly, was a bulge where his groin should be.
She peeked through her fingers, just to double check. Yup, a smooth bulge. No wang. Huh.
The tension in her shoulders and back melted away. So strange; her red, six-fingered alien with tusks and tattoos didn’t have a penis. Maybe he didn’t keep his in the same spot as a human. The groin bulge appeared to have a seam, just a faint shift in coloration but that could be anything.
Completely naked, his form was bared for her inspection. She could turn him over, poke and—
No. That was wrong. It was one thing to get wet clothes off of a freezing man but entirely another thing to go poking crevices looking for sex organs to satisfy her curiosity. She wouldn’t want a stranger poking at her bits. Golden rule and all that.
“Let’s get you on the bed,” she said. Working from half-remembered first aid training, she crossed one arm over his chest and then lifted a thick leg to cross over. Once Big Red was properly positioned, she rolled him off the tarp and onto the mattress. His big red butt rotated into view.
Penny nearly scrambled backwards.
His tail sprouted at the base of his spine. From a distance, it looked thin and whip-like, almost feline in shape. Up close she could see now that it was segmented, like… She struggled to find the closest similar Earth creature. A scorpion. With the barb at the end of his tail, a scorpion was the only thing that compared. Red skinned, tusks, six fingers, no obvious penis and now a scorpion tail with a stinger at the end. There was no mistaking Big Red for anything other than alien.
“Don’t be such a chicken, Novak,” Penny said to herself. “It’s just a tail.” Part of her wanted to run a hand down the segmented tail, to prove that she wasn’t frightened, but she resisted the urge. She wouldn’t want anyone—or any alien—feeling her up while she slept, so respect a person’s autonomy and all that.
She covered
him with a down comforter before working on her own wet clothes. Her jeans were soaked to the knees. She undressed quickly, shedding shoes, socks, jeans and sweater. Wearing nothing but her faded cotton undies, she hung up her wet clothes to dry. Doing laundry wasn’t really an option so she needed to keep her clothes as stink free as possible. She sniffed the fabric of her jeans. It stank of river water. So much for that. Next time she took a dip, she should bring a bottle of detergent and do some laundry. She dressed quickly in a long-sleeved tee shirt, flannel pajama pants and shoved her feet into back into her slippers. Almost as an afterthought, she hung up Big Red’s armor, the fabric surprisingly heavy to lift.
Shivering, she moved quickly. The solar-powered lanterns had a few more hours’ worth of juice but she wanted to finish her work hanging wet clothes and get into bed. Wait… what was she going to do about the bed situation? An alien currently occupied her only bed.
Screw it. They needed to share body heat. The pot heater worked, but not well enough. If she weren’t frozen to the bone, she’d curl up in a blanket and sleep on the floor. She was too cold to be proud or prejudiced and it would only get colder once the storm arrived with howling winds. The flurries that had fallen earlier were nothing compared to a prairie blizzard.
Penny crawled into the sorry excuse of a bed, which was just the least singed mattress that she’d dragged down into the basement. It smelled of smoke and was lumpy, but it was better than sleeping on the concrete floor. She added another two blankets on top before shifting closer to Big Red until they were a foot apart. Even under the comforter, he radiated cold.
“Are you made of ice?” Before she could think better, she rubbed his arms to generate warmth. Slowly, ever so slowly, he warmed up. This wasn’t working.
Sighing, she shifted closer, pressing herself against his cold skin. “This isn’t what it looks like,” Penny said, to no one in particular. She’d been by herself for the past two months and had grown distressingly comfortable with talking to herself. “We’re sharing body heat, so don’t get any ideas.”
Big Red didn’t respond. His chest moved with even breaths.
This close, he smelled good, woodsy and sweet, just like he did at the river. “Don’t get any ideas,” she repeated for no one in particular, certainly not herself.
Kol
Kol had never given serious thought to paradise or the afterlife.
The stories of his mother’s people of Rolusdreus said paradise was a never-ending oasis with plentiful sweet water, green grass for grazing animals; all the best fruits were always in season, and game was so plentiful the wildlife walked itself right into the cook pot. The sun was warm but not oppressive. The moon was kind and soft, never cruel. And there was no sand in paradise. No grit to pollute water or spoil meals. No sand to work its way into your tail and ruin your mood. Paradise.
For his father’s people, the Mahdfel, paradise was a never-ending celebration. The brothers of the clan feasted and caroused. They would recount tales of their glories and challenge the greatest Mahdfel warriors to test their skills. Their mates and their sons would be together until the last star in the sky went dark.
Neither vision spoke to Kol’s heart. They could be true, they could be false, but he didn’t care either way. When the fire in his blood extinguished, his existence was over and that thought never gave him a moment’s trouble.
Now, inexplicably, he found himself in paradise.
His mate pressed against him, one arm over his hip and she growled lightly in her sleep. He wore no clothing, which was his idea of paradise, naked in bed with his mate. Cautiously, he moved his hand to her lower back. She wore clothes, which did not align with his idea of paradise. Moreover, her clothes were scratchy and unpleasant against his skin. He should remove the offending garments, for her comfort. Strictly her comfort. She could be injured and requiring medical attention...
Kol itched to pull back the blanket to inspect her for damage but dared not move. She slept. He would not move until she woke. Until then, he would keep watch.
In the dark and the cold, he scanned the room. His low light vision was good enough to detect structural damage. Wherever they were, it was shelter. Barely. His mate had been hiding herself in the burned out shell of a building. Correction, the lower level of a burned out shell of a building. Clever. The delicate scent of desert flowers and crisp rain wrapped around them. Even in this ruin, her natural fragrance permeated the air.
A visual inspection confirmed the room to be secure enough. For now. He would be unable to do a complete security check until his mate woke.
His memory of events was foggy. The bridge collapsed. He hit the water. Then, nothing.
Kol frowned. His mate had defied his orders. She did not flee as he commanded. Then again, he had a translator chip implanted. She did not. She had been unable to understand his command.
He gently rubbed his hand in a circular motion on her back. Regardless of their language barrier, self preservation should have compelled her to flee.
Still, she remained.
He itched to wake her and ask, despite knowing that it would be a fruitless activity. He only knew a handful of Terran words. The translator chip implanted behind his ear allowed him to understand the various Terran languages but it did not give him the ability to speak Terran. His wrist communicator could function as a primitive translator, but he was currently nude. Without rolling away and disturbing his mate, he was unable to locate his armor and equipment.
Kol studied his mate’s sleeping visage.
She was brave. He knew that. After his body hit the freezing water, he felt it begin to shut down. He slipped under the water and knew he would join his ancestors in some version of paradise. But this female fished him out. She endured the freezing water and risked being discovered by another Suhlik patrol for him.
She was clever. Tiny against his frame, she simply did not have the strength to carry him from the water to shelter. Yet here he was. Her clever brain devised a method to carry him.
She was resourceful. She had been hiding for months—months!—in the charred ruin of a building to avoid detection. The lingering scent of smoke masked her own scent, making her invisible to Suhlik and Mahdfel alike.
She was soft in his arms. Compellingly soft. He longed to explore her curves, to taste her skin and drink from her cunt, but remained still. To take from a female without her permission was reprehensible. Unforgivable.
It also violated the terms of the treaty. The Terrans were very adamant in placing restrictions on how the Mahdfel warriors selected their mates. No physical relations with a female without permission. No claiming a female without first submitting to the genetic test for compatibility. Any female tested had to agree to the test. Finally, no testing would be conducted until the Suhlik left Earth. It was as if the Terran authorities did not trust the Mahdfel and expected the warriors to snatch females off the street to breed them.
Indignation stirred in his chest. The warriors of his clan were honorable. All the Mahdfel clans acted in honor. They were Mahdfel, after all. Not Suhlik. If the Mahdfel said they would do a thing, it would be done and when the Mahdfel swore to protect Earth against the Suhlik, they would not rest until the last lizard left the system.
He huffed, blowing back the curls against his mate’s forehead. The curls intrigued him. Rolusian hair hung straight. It did not curl in such a manner. Her warm, rich brown skin was so much more appealing to his eyes than the pale pinks and sickly beiges he’d seen. He suspected she could withstand the harshness of the twin Rolusdreus suns better than most Terrans. This pleased him deeply.
His female was small and soft and brave and clever. She was many things obvious to the naked eye and many more things he could only learn in time: the sound of her voice, her laughter, and her sighs of contentment, of annoyance, and of pleasure. Especially of pleasure. He joyfully anticipated learning all he could about his Terran female. Above all, she was for him.
When she woke, Kol would a
ssess her for injury. Then he would conduct the same assessment for himself. He ached and the cold suppressed his innate ability to heal. The Suhlik soldier had landed several blows to him and shredded his armor. He needed to secure the perimeter of their shelter and safeguard it against further Suhlik attacks. He would also inspect his equipment and repair as needed. If his communication unit worked, he would send a location beacon. His clan would arrive in short order and escort his mate to the secured zone under the shields. He would present her to his father and the other males in the clan would be jealous that Kol found a worthy mate so quickly.
It was a long list, but not a single task could be accomplished until his mate woke from her rest. Until then, he rested with her in paradise.
“Rest now,” he murmured to his mate in a language she could not understand. “I will keep watch.”
Chapter Five
Penny
For the first time in ages, Penny was warm. Actually warm, not just “not freezing” or chilly, but properly warm from the tip of her nose down to her toes. Winter arrived swiftly in the Midwest. One day a storm front rolled through and washed away the inhumane heat of summer and left the bitterness of a winter white sky and a cold wind that sliced to the bone, skipping autumn entirely.
She shouldn’t be surprised. Everything changed quickly nowadays. One day Earth was, well, boring old Earth, and the next it was invaded by aliens. One day she was a college student, the next she scavenged in ruins. One morning she had a house. By the evening, she had rubble. What was the sudden drop in temperature compared to everything else that vanished within a day?
Snowed in With the Alien Warlord Page 3