by Isabel Wroth
“You will tell me about such studies, later. Ga’rae is waiting.”
He took her back down to the medical bay and now that the initial shock had worn off, she discovered that the medic wasn’t any smaller. She noticed things about him now that she hadn’t before, like the silver in his black hair, and the scars on the backs of his hands that looked like burns. He smiled at her and inclined his head deeply, welcoming her back and asked for her to get up on his big medical table. She had picked up the long, soft skirt of the white dress she wore, and yelped in surprise when Tarek lifted her up in his arms like a child and carefully set her down atop the squishy surface of the table. “You said you felt no further discomfort,” He accused with a growl, and she just sat there for a second, mute by how strange it was to be picked up. No one had done that since she was a toddler. “I don’t, you surprised me. I don’t know anyone who could have picked me up like that, like I don’t weigh anything at all.”
He frowned at her, then at his medic, clearly confused. “I took note that most of the males brought aboard from your ship are slight of stature, like your female kind.” Ga’rae grunted, like he found the size of human men clearly lacking, “I could traverse the entire ship three times over with you in my arms and not tire. Perhaps more than that.” Tarek told her seriously, and her eyebrows slid up, her turn to be surprised. “How strong are you?” The heated amusement returned to his eyes and he actually winked at her a bit. “I will be pleased to demonstrate my strength at a later time. You will sleep well, knowing that your male is capable of defending you from any foe.”
“My, male?”
“Me. Yours.”
“We’re not going there right now,”
“I do not understand. You are going nowhere until Ga’rae has assured me of your health.”
“No, that’s not…I meant I’m not ready to discuss males, mine or otherwise, at this time. I’ve had enough shocks for the next few lifetimes.”
“Your female is humorous, Commander.”
“I do not believe that was her intent.”
They talked over her for a moment so she lie back, exasperated, unwilling to discuss mating, or anatomic and genetic compatibility. Or anything that made her think of sex and Tarek’s big, beautiful body naked above her. She was acutely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a stich of underwear on beneath the thin, yet somehow warm material of her white gown. And she glanced down to make sure her nipples weren’t showing through the soft fabric, catching Tarek’s gaze when he stopped talking mid word, his nostrils flaring like he could smell her and where her train of thoughts had turned.
Ga’rae cleared his throat and the same green light swept over her body, head to toe and back, over and over, each pass adding another more detailed layer to the hologram above her. It was amazing, and Ga’rae found her thousand and one questions amusing, but he patiently answered each one until she ran out and just watched in awe as he made notations on the paper thin, tablet like computer that circled his forearm, scrolling up and down, the hologram magnifying in the areas he indicated, and when she saw the complete and fully formed shape of her womb, her uterus and ovaries, a tear slid down her cheek.
Tarek saw it, frowned darkly and wiped it away as though it was offensive and asked her if she was alright. “Yes. I just can’t believe a transfusion of your blood…did that. It’s amazing.” Ga’rae hummed proudly and squinted as he moved to magnify again, blowing up one ovary, then the other with a grunt. “Your genetic makeup is extremely similar to that of Sarazen females. You carry your cubs for how long?”
“Approximately two hundred and eighty days.” She had to quickly explain the units of time she was familiar with, seconds, minutes, an hour, how many hours in a day, until the two men nodded and did some calculations of their own. “Five of our solar cycles.” Ga’rae grunted at Tarek, and Tarek grunted back. A lot of grunting with these guys. “And we don’t call them cubs, we call them babies, or children.” Ga’rae made notation of that too, “How many do your kind usually carry at a time?”
“Um, normally? One, sometimes two, rarely more than three.”
“Huh. Well, the gestational material is not yet fully formed, though your womb appears to be fully intact, but another blood transfusion would speed the process along. Or, you can wait, and allow yourselves some time before any cubs…babies, are to be had.”
“Not ready to discuss that either.” She said, hopefully cutting off any further discussion about babies, or making babies, or males she apparently owned. Nope. Not ready to go there yet. Really, not ready. “You said my people were wanting to speak to me?”
She could tell that the Commander was displeased by her insisting on changing the subject, but he remained silent on the matter and nodded, jerking his chin in Ga’rae’s direction, “Is she clear?” Ga’rae jerked his head back at the Commander in the exact same way, and grunted, “She is.” She slipped off the table before she could be lifted down and smoothed out the skirt of her dress, smiling up at him in what she hoped was a disarming fashion, and he looked down at her warily, suspiciously looking at her almost sideways while Ga’rae just seemed to be grinning. “Come,” Tarek told her, and she rolled her eyes.
She didn’t understand the layout of the ship yet, so she had no way of keeping her bearings, but she imagined unless you were intimately familiar with it, there would be no way to memorize the hallways. Smart, since it was a war ship. She would have to see if the Commander would tell her how he navigated his way around, later after she met with her people. When they stopped at a nondescript doorway, she looked up at the Commander and thanked him, “If you need to be somewhere else, I can manage from here.” His eyes hardened and he gave a slight shake of his head, swiping his palm over a space to the left of the door, and it slid open.
Six
The first thing she heard was a male voice barking out orders, and when she stepped forward she saw the thirty two survivors of the Aria in what looked like a large barracks, bunks set into the walls to leave a large open space in the center of the room. These were the guest quarters? Then what were her quarters called? Luxury suites? She stepped in and saw that just the other side of the doorway were two stone faced Sarazen warriors, still wearing their armor, glaring narrowly at the man she couldn’t see, but heard him still barking out orders. “Has he ceased his ranting yet?” Tarek asked them in their common tongue, which she understood now that she had been given that translation chip, which was another thing she wanted to ask about later. She’d have to remember.
The warrior grunted in response and flashed a quick sneer, slashing a glance her way and then back to the Commander. “No. He is citing unrest with the others and claiming that if they do not receive answers or communication with our leader soon, they will attempt to overpower one of us and incapacitate the other to get out of this room and find a way off the ship. The ones who arrived with your female were uncertain at first, but her courage gave them peace, this one makes them fearful, and they continue to refuse medical treatment because they are suspicious of our motives.”
She turned scarlet, embarrassed on behalf of her species for the behavior of the new arrivals, and opened her mouth to tell Tarek that she would fix this, but someone in the small crowd shifted, and she saw the one ‘citing unrest’, and the words died on her lips. “The females continue to crowd together, reeking of fear, the smallest of them more so than the others.” The warrior continued to report, but Tarek must have seen the expression on her face and shifted so that his body blocked her view, blocked her from sight really, and he gently took her chin in his hand and made her look up at him. “No matter the bleating of that coward, little one, you are safe here and I have already given my word that so too are your people. Unless the males foolishly try to attempt any such maneuvers to incapacitate my warriors.” She gave a strangled little laugh, her voice not any louder than a hoarse rasp. “Your warriors would only have to look at them, and their heads would probably explode.”
; Her words pleased him, she could tell, and it made the other two stone faced males give her approving nods. “Then explain your fear,” She gulped and tried to look around him, but his bulk simply just wouldn’t allow it. “Are all of us going to be staying in this room, together?” His eyes narrowed while he searched her face, his thumb moving gently up and down her jaw. She noticed how the warriors flanking them kept shooting the two of them little looks while still trying to keep an eye on the crowd of humans. “You, will remain in my quarters. But yes, unless my warriors have bonded with one of your females, all are to remain here.” She gulped, feeling like such a coward for the instant burst of relief, knowing she would be safe.
There was an old world saying, about better the Devil you know, than the Devil you don’t. She would in this case go running to the Devil she didn’t know to be out of sight of the one she did. Command Captain Ethan Arianite was standing at the heart of the knot of human survivors, and from the uniform sweep she’d been able to do, he was in fact the senior officer in charge. Which meant his word was now law, and unless the junior officers knew protocol and procedure verbatim, Ethan would twist it to suit his own needs and no one would be the wiser.
She wasn’t afraid for herself, she was smart enough to realize she’d been claimed by a giant alien warrior, and that giant alien warrior who already didn’t like Ethan was not only the commander of his ship, but apparently of the entire alien race’s armada, of ships and could order his men to throw Ethan out the airlock. She was afraid for the other women, who didn’t have a giant alien warrior to protect her right now. “Clary, explain your fear.”
Tarek’s voice deepened to a rumbling growl, and she looked up at him, taking a risk. He had been protective of her, kind to her, he had sequestered her in his own quarters, away from her people, where he would have had every opportunity to harm her, and hadn’t. “Is there anywhere else the women can stay? I don’t care if it makes the men freak out, stun them all, incapacitate them if they act up, but the women need to be somewhere else. Please,” His eyes hardened to metallic disks, and she watched his pupils elongate vertically, felt the thrum of tension rise and the two warriors beside them stiffen in readiness. “It will be so.” Tarek growled softly, and the warrior to her left lifted his wrist to bark short, sharp commands to someone listening to prepare a second barrack on another level for the women.
She almost sagged with relief, and her alien warrior, missed none of that. “They are already frightened of my warriors.” She nodded and took a deep breath, knowing that this wasn’t going to be pretty. “I’ll handle it.” He still hadn’t moved or let go of her face, “You are in no danger,” She nodded, unknotting her hands from the folds of her skirt and let herself relax into his touch. “I know.” Him at her back gave her courage to do this, to step around him and approach the knot of scared, angry humans still reeling from having just lost their home, and discovering they were the only ones to survive our of eight thousand. She knew she was, but she wasn’t plotting to harm the beings who had rescued her like an idiot. She was about to yank the tiger’s tail and hope the lion at her back was faster. “Captain!”
Her sharp shout made Ethan stop mid hissed word and comically turn around like he was expecting someone else. Almost saluting before he could stop himself and scowl when he saw her. “Lieutenant, nice of you to join us. You’re out of uniform.” He said nastily, and she stopped just out of reach of the closest crewman, calmly folding her hands in front of her, emboldened by the heat of Tarek behind her. “And you’re out of line.” The look on his handsome face was comical, the shock that made his blue eyes fly wide, his tanned cheeks turn hot with anger and his jaw clench. He was taller than she was, likely one of the more muscular among the remaining human crew, certainly the most attractive, but then his parents had both been stunning, so it wasn’t surprising. However it was almost inconceivable that the two highly intelligent scientists had spawned such a disgustingly stupid beast of a son. “What, did you say?”
She saw how the knot of seven people she’d managed to get on the shuttle to escape, moved away from the rest of the group, clearly having chosen a side in what was likely going to be a shit show. “I said, you’re out of line. Clearly, you’re in shock after what just happened to us, we all are, but as the senior officer in charge of the remaining survivors of the Aria, you should be regrouping, not plotting a coup. Sir.” It became very clear, who was with Ethan in panic mode, and who was not. Some of the crew looked relieved that Ethan’s stupid idea of trying to take over the ship wouldn’t fly, and when she looked to her seven, who’d known that the warriors could speak English, the women almost smirked, and the two men just looked stony, standing at the head of the little group, with the women behind them. Brooks and she didn’t know the younger one’s name, but she liked them already.
Ethan shoved through the small crowd and stumbled to a stop when Tarek stepped up closer to her, glowering first at him, then at her and looked her over with a leer that previously would have made her skin crawl with uncertainty. But she’d always been too big for him, too difficult to shove into an unoccupied storage room, too big to use his strength to overpower her. Didn’t mean however that he and his pack of vultures couldn’t have cornered her and held her down while he attempted to rape her. Too bad his pack of vultures were already dead. Too bad he wasn’t with them. “You, are not in charge. You, do not tell me what to do,” He hissed at her under his breath, trying to use his size to intimidate her. But now that she’d seen the seven foot tall warriors in full battle armor, Ethan fell a bit short of the mark. “You’re right, I’m not in charge.” Smugness lit Ethan’s eyes, and she hooked her thumb over her shoulder at Tarek. “He is.”
Ethan’s adams apple bobbed nervously, but that was it. He had a good poker face for the most part, but the crazy in his eyes and the rolling white of them was a dead giveaway that his balls were lacking in size. “He, is also responsible for having destroyed those things that killed our people and demolished our home. He, is responsible for your rescue and the reason the thirty three of us are alive and safe.” She looked beyond Ethan to the other survivors and saw that most of them were blushing hotly and looking uncomfortable for having even considered repaying such generosity with hostility. “His name is Tarek, and he’s the Commander, of this ship, and all the others in the Sarazen armada. He’s offered us sanctuary on their world, a world with an environment that can support our needs. So I suggest, Sir, that you stop your idiotic plotting and not jeopardize that opportunity for us in case the Commander decides to rescind his offer, return us to the Aria and let us fend for ourselves.”
The ones considering joining in on Ethan’s crazy scheme took a very obvious step away from the Captain, except for two of the men, who were looking at her, at Tarek and his warriors, their suspicion plain. “The Aria is gone,” One of the women said, and she looked over at her, noting the engineering patch on her arm, “There is no saving her. Whatever weapons were used not only ripped a hole the size of Texas through our hull, it destroyed the main engines and life support. There might be a handful of shuttles left, but those aren’t equipped for deep space travel. We would run out of air before we even had a chance to find one of the other ships.”
She hadn’t known that, and it was devastating to hear, but it made the decision between their lack of options, much simpler to make. “Since we’re stuck in this room, we don’t know that for sure,” Ethan bit out, his lip curling at her and she could tell that whatever was about to come out of his mouth next was going to be nasty. “But you’re not stuck, are you, Lieutenant? New dress, new friends. Just how did you secure us this opportunity for us? He likes you, so do his friends. Is that what you meant when you told your little science crew, to do whatever it took to survive? I must have been wrong about you if you’ve managed to fuck your way into such a sweet deal for all of us.”
His voice was smooth as silk, and to someone who didn’t understand English his tone might have been construed as kin
d, but the look in his eyes was anything but. She blinked, and Tarek had stepped past her. His hand was around Ethan’s throat and Ethan was dangling from that massive fist about two feet off the ground. “If you speak such words to a female in my presence, or the presence of my men, you will not speak, ever again. Do you understand?”
He spoke in perfect English, and those last two men who had considered listening to Ethan’s bullshit, backed off.
She glanced up and saw that Tarek was totally and completely giving Ethan his entire focus. And that his pupils were again slit vertically. His muscles weren’t even looking strained as he held Ethan’s kicking and writhing body aloft, and his hand, his fingernails had elongated to black talon like tips. When Ethan choked out a, “Yes,” Tarek threw him, threw him, across the room with that one hand and Ethan hit the wall, then slid down choking and looking at Tarek in horror. She wondered if it was morally wrong of her to find that enjoyable. “Any of you who wish to return to your ship and decline our hospitality, may do so. We will accept none of you who act towards females as that one does.” Tarek stabbed his finger with its black nail at Ethan, “If you wish to test our strength against your own, my warriors will happily accommodate you. Understand you will die, very quickly.”
What made Tarek’s words most frightening was the fact that he didn’t speak above a conversational tone, and there was no mistaking the harshness of his promise. And the fact that when his lips moved, she caught sight of fangs that hadn’t been there before. Retractable claws, fangs, elongated pupils, just what in the hell had she gotten into? “I understand your military system places that male, in command. I will not accept any words of honor from him, because my people do not honor the words of a coward. You will choose another to be your representative.”