Alien, Mine

by Sandra Harris

  “There appears to be a path over there.”

  Eugen’s voice floated through the dim twilight and his torch cut a straight beam ahead. She set off at a brisk walk before him and passed a patch of calf-high, glistening white nodes. The dreadful stench intensified, catching at the back of her throat. Her gagging reflex urged her to hurry on. The path ran up a steep rise through a wide cavern. She widened the beam of her torch and searched the secretive darkness ahead. Her imagination painted danger in every half-seen rock formation and her ears strained to catch the faintest sound.

  Eugen’s fingers gripped her shoulders in a gentle clasp and she muffled a yelp of surprise.

  “Please don’t stay away from me,” he begged.

  Surprise halted her stride and she gazed at him over her shoulder.

  What brought this on?

  “I thought that’s what you wanted me to do,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

  Uh-uh?

  General Mhartak would never use such a phrase. She had serious doubts Eugen Mhartak would either. She trained the edge of her light over his face. He peered at her with a slightly unfocused rapturous gaze.

  What the . . .?

  She turned forward and focused on their course.

  Eugen’s hand settled on her hip then slid down and squeezed her rump. “You have such a beautiful . . .”

  She rounded on him. “Eugen Mhartak, what is the matter with you?”

  A lop-sided grin curved his lips. He swayed ever so slightly.

  What the hell is going on here?

  She grabbed his straying hand and tugged him forward. “Come on.” She experienced true auditory discomfort when he, quite literally, sang her praises.

  “Eugen, I don’t wish to be rude, but— Shut. Up.”

  He leaned close. “I love you, you know.”

  Yeah, right.

  “I bet you’d say that to anyone. No, make that anything down here.”

  “Uh-uh. Oonly youuu.”

  “General, get a hold of yourself!”

  “I’d much rather get a hold of you.”

  Longing tempted her to believe him, but that odious reek seemed to have more than an upsetting effect on her stomach.

  Avoiding the multi-bulbed, pale protuberances on the walls that sparkled with a moist sheen, she dragged him over the cavern’s rough floor. Dexter coiled into a tight ball on her shoulder and chittered. She halted and flicked off the light. Complete blackness shrouded them. All her senses focused forward. She scented the air with her nose and tongue.

  Eugen’s chest and stomach pressed against her back. His free hand slid around her waist then delved up under her stretch shirt. His fingers caressed her breast, kneaded her wanton flesh. Her nipple pebbled in response to his marauding hand. The desire to thrust herself into his caress warred with responsibility. She dropped the hand she held and clamped it over the one arousing such aching need. The hand she’d dropped explored downwards, delving into her trousers then tunnelling below her knickers. She groaned and her body sang as his fingers flexed in her curls. Lust throbbed at her core.

  God, I’m going to have to fight my own body as well as him.

  She shoved the torch in a pocket, clamped both her hands over his, and focused on the possible threat of danger. Eugen leaned over her and licked the side of her neck. Her concentration went up in flames. The rapid, thwop-thwop-thwop of leather wings passed overhead.

  She pulled in a steadying breath. “Is that what frightened you, muffin?” she asked Dexter.

  Eugen curved her into his body and kissed his way up her throat to her jaw line. The hard, heated thrust of his arousal met with an enthusiastic counterpart in her own irresponsible body.

  Damn, at this rate we aren’t going to come out of this alive.

  She had to think! In the state he was in, Eugen would follow her anywhere without hesitation. She’d use that. A reckless idea, no doubt, but it was all she could come up with.

  “Eugen, dear,” she said, “just give me a moment to prepare myself.”

  Her body protested when she disengaged his hands. She ignored her outraged senses, backed off as far as she dared without tempting him to follow, then shone the torch in his eyes, hoping for the advantage of momentary blindness.

  “If you catch me, you can have me.” She turned and ran like hell, sprinting over flat floor and jumping rocky obstacles. Her lungs hauled in air, her tongue and nostrils searching for any trace of danger. Noise of pursuit shadowed her trail.

  Damn, he can move fast.

  Even impaired, he gained on her. Perhaps she’d given him too much incentive.

  The hairs on her neck screamed his nearness. His panting breath rustled with seductive provocation into her too receptive ears. She tore up a steep incline, images of reaching hands conversely spurring her on and begging her to halt. The path levelled out, her lungs strained for air.

  Dexter chittered an agitated hiss.

  Fright and exertion thumped through her heart. She swung the torch back and forth, seeking what alarmed her little friend. She lifted a hand and ran light fingers over his body to his head. He faced behind. More bats?

  A blue pulse flicked by and extinguished on the cavern wall.

  Apparently not.

  A distinct sense of peevishness rose. Didn’t the Bluthen know she was here?

  Sunlight nosed about in the darkness ahead and she cast her mind around, hoping to capitalize on anything to find a way out of the situation. She did not appreciate the irony that the best tactician in probably three sectors was hot on her tail and currently in no state to provide useful assistance. Light flowed a welcome invitation down a succession of large, rounded rocks. She clambered up and bolted into a sunlit chamber.

  Eugen’s heavy breathing put him right behind. She ran through slanting sunbeams towards a large opening. Her senses detected a great expanse of air and she skidded to a halt, barely saving herself from tumbling down a long drop. Eugen’s hands slammed into the rock walls on either side of the opening to prevent his own fall. She ducked under his arm and dashed back the way they had come. The muzzle of a Bluthen rifle hovered about six inches from the centre of her forehead. Fear streaked in a debilitating wave through her muscles. She dropped her torch to the ground with a clatter.

  Dexter hissed and launched himself at the Bluthen.

  Alarm widened the soldier’s eyes and the rifle wavered.

  Dexter slashed the sharp bone-blade of his tail across the Bluthen’s cheek in furious strikes.

  Sandrea grabbed the muzzle of the rifle and swung it wide. Her boot slammed into her enemy’s groin. He doubled over, and Dexter sprang toward another soldier entering the cave. Eugen fell on two more.

  Her attacker lunged forward, grappling her arms. She twisted free with a violent wrench then punched a sharp jab into his chest. He stumbled back and she ploughed the heel of her palm into his jaw. From Dexter’s direction came the crunch of fracturing bone. A Bluthen body jettisoned by her and out the cave mouth, his scream Dopplering away.

  A loud, double report echoed around the cavern and she dived for the floor. The Bluthen’s hands clutched at her waist. She wriggled from his grasp, rolled to her back, and lashed out with her boot. Impact jarred up her leg as she connected with his knee. He staggered back, recovered, then groped toward her.

  Fear locked her eyes on him and she reached out a blindly searching hand. Her groping fingers closed over her torch. The Bluthen loomed over her. She lunged up, struck at him with a clawed hand, and kicked for all she was worth with both feet.

  He dodged her blows, and she swung the torch with all her strength. A sickening, grinding crack turned her stomach as it connected with the side of his head. He lurched, fell sideways. His skull slammed against the
rock wall of the cavern and he slid to the ground, motionless. She scrambled for his weapon and raised the rifle. He remained corpse-still.

  She swung the weapon towards Eugen. With his back against the wall, one arm raised high above his head, Eugen used his other hand to drive the remaining Bluthen soldier head first into rock. Repeatedly.

  Damn, he’s strong.

  She aimed the rifle toward the cave entrance. Nothing threatened. The soldier Dexter had attacked lay immobile, his head crooked at an awkward angle. She swung back to the Bluthen she had fought. Dexter, tail arched in lethal readiness, bone blade exposed, prowled over the body. At a patch of grey skin he placed a foot and balanced. His frill fanned out with jarring suddenness, then almost immediately he relaxed, then scrambled off the body and settled untroubled on a large stone.

  Her self-preservation instincts subsided. Adrenaline ceased its rushing pump and left her body in shuddering waves. Relief folding her knees, she dropped to the ground and with a shaking hand massaged her face. After a while, her wits regrouped, and she sent a wary glance up at Eugen. He’d finished rearranging his enemy’s bone structure, the unconscious or dead body now on the floor by his feet.

  “Are you injured?” he asked.

  “No. You?”

  “I am not.”

  He seemed in full control of his faculties, but until she was sure, she wasn’t going anywhere near him. “How are you feeling?”

  His calm gaze drilled into her for a moment. “I am no longer experiencing the effects of”—he paused—“whatever was affecting me.”

  She shot a closer look at the arm he still held aloft and her eyebrows rose in bewildered surprise. “Are you chained to the wall?”

  “Yes. One of them managed to secure a manacle on my arm. He attempted to shoot the retainer into me.”

  She winced. That would have been a big owie.

  Rising to her feet, she studied their predicament. A metallic clamp with blinking lights enclosed Eugen’s wrist. From it, a thin cable, about a foot and a half long, ran to a bolt buried in the rock.

  “You can’t pull it out?” she asked. Idiot, if he could he already would have.

  “I cannot.”

  “Can the wire be cut or shot?” She hefted the rifle.

  Eugen shook his head. “We have not in our possession the equipment necessary to severe this type of cable.”

  She sighed. Eugen, I really must teach you the simplicity of the word no. “How do we open the clamp then?”

  “If you can force something between it and my arm and apply pressure at the same time that I endeavour to extract—”

  “Yeah-yeah. I get the picture.”

  She stared up at the problem. Eugen’s wrist was quite thick. Perhaps the cuff wasn’t well secured. If she could lubricate it, he might be able to, with effort, slip his hand out.

  “It is unlikely we have much time. If you cannot succeed directly, you must go.”

  “Oh?” She advanced on him. Who’s going to make me?

  “These soldiers no doubt notified others of our position.”

  “Ah.” She handed him the rifle. “I’m not sure if Freddy over there”—she jerked her chin toward the soldier she had fought—“is unconscious or dead.”

  Eugen nodded and trained the weapon partway between the door and the questionable Bluthen.

  “The other one, the one Dexter attacked, is dead,” she said.

  “I know. I heard.”

  She smiled and placed a foot on Eugen’s partially bent knee. “Yes, Dexter’s almost as dangerous as you.”

  She loaded her weight in her foot, pushed upward with the other, then laced her hands behind his neck. Her breasts confronted Eugen’s face. He grunted as she steadied herself on his knees.

  “I feel I must apologize for my inappropriate actions.” A tense quality threaded his formal tone. “However, I meant what I said.”

  “Really.” She gazed upward for her next handhold. “I’m surprised you can remember what you did or said in the condition you were in.”

  She stretched up to test a knob in the rock for stability and her body swayed closer to Eugen.

  “I recall very clearly . . .” Eugen’s voiced trailed off into a gruff growl.

  Her breasts responded to the gusts of hot air from his breath. She strangled a moan and leaned into the rock for support. A nipple traced one of Eugen’s cheeks with teasing lightness. Fingers of sensuous delight streamed from the tight bud and flushed over her skin.

  This probably isn’t a good idea.

  She lowered her arm and forced her body to draw back.

  “Right, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to push hard with my left leg and get my right knee on your shoulder. Ready?”

  “Do it.”

  She put her weight in her left foot then shoved upward, flexed her right leg, and landed her knee on his shoulder. A second later she slid her other knee into place and straddled Eugen’s head. Surprise that her manoeuvre worked almost startled her into falling backwards. Through her river-damp trousers, Eugen’s body warmth caressed her inner thighs and her undisciplined libido spurred her imagination into thoughts on just how and where she’d like his head between her legs. A rush of moist heat rippled through her core. She leaned into the cavern wall, barely constraining herself from banging her forehead into the rock, and squeezed every one of her quivering muscles into rigid obedience.

  Goddammit, woman, get a grip!

  She gathered her wits and inspected the manacle. Optimism flared at the marginal space between it and Eugen’s wrist.

  “Sandrea?”

  “Yes, General?”

  “Do you accept my apology?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “Do you believe I mean what I said?”

  She wiped oily sweat from her arms and took a deep breath. “I have to admit that I’m having trouble convincing myself of your sincerity.”

  Silence filled the cavern.

  “I see,” he said. “For what reasons?”

  “Because your words contradict what you said on the Vega.”

  He shifted below her. “I’m afraid I do not understand.” A frown coloured his voice.

  “After we had sex,” she stated baldly, her heart stinging for she’d thought they’d made love, “when you said that I need not worry that my position with you would be affected.”

  She leaned and smeared a mixture of perspiration and body cream as far as it would go into the clasp.

  “But I . . .” He paused. “I’m sorry, how does what I said then contradict my statements of earlier today?”

  “General! You accused me of sleeping with you in exchange for not being abandoned by the Al—”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “And I got the impression you found the whole incident distasteful and certainly had no wish to pursue a physical relationship with me.”

  “No! That is not true.”

  “What did you mean then, General?”

  “I did not find our union distasteful, quite the opposite I assure you. And I did not accuse you of offering sexual favours to gain our support.” His sigh sounded . . . regretful. “At least that was not my intention. I thought, after the damage my caresses inflicted, that you would prefer I never advance my attentions toward you again.”

  She thought that over. “What damage?”

  “Sandrea, scratches blemished your skin, all the result of my actions.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So I thought you might be horrified and repulsed and I wanted to assure you that you would not have to endure approaches from me if that was your wish.”

  Hope bloomed. “So you don’t find me objectionable?”

  “I really did mean everything I
said, Sandrea.”

  A blaze of joyous bliss melted her heart into a happy puddle. Sharp exhilaration ignited in her every cell.

  He really loves me! Oh thank the Good Lord, he loves me!

  “I promise you,” Eugen continued, “I am exerting an enormous amount of will power right now to not show you precisely how much I don’t find you objectionable.”

  A hot sun of elation blazed through her body, and she couldn’t prevent a triumphant wiggle. “Oh, Eugen, I—”

  Dexter barked several times in quick succession.

  Damn!

  “T’Hargen’s coming,” she said.

  “Not that I doubt you, but how do you know?”

  “That grumbling chatter Dexter just made. He does that when T’Hargen is about. In fact, he’s got a sound for every member of the outfit he’s met.”

  Mhartak peered into the gloom of the passage leading to the cave and tried to focus past the exultation suffusing him and on the approaching form.

  She accepts my love! She does not abhor my touch.

  The occasional brush of her thighs against his head proved most distracting and he burned to shower her with the physical manifestation of his devotion. Knowing her sweet sexual centre, hovering just above the sensitive swell of his cranial ridges, was his to—

  “Should I come back later?” T’Hargen drawled, leaning against the rock entrance and crossing his arms.

  Mhartak glared at his brother, then realized he spoke of his and Sandrea’s unusual position, not the thoughts running rampant through his mind. Though quite probably the enlarged degree of his cranial ridges may have influenced his brother’s remark.

  “Oh.”

  Sandrea’s murmur of surprise sparked hope in him. “You are succeeding?”

  “I have a feeling,” she replied, “that this piece of equipment does not like my sweat. It’s loosened considerably, see if you can—”