Jalok

by Elin Wyn

  I decided at that point that there would be no way to avoid a confrontation.

  As soon as they’d worked up their nerve, or decided I was too far away from the main thoroughfare for my cries for help to be heard, they would rush me.

  But I turned the tables on them. I stopped in my path and bent over to check my perfectly tied boot laces. I hummed a little ditty while I waited for them to catch up.

  They would either have to finally approach me closely, or walk past.

  I waited until I heard their footsteps a dozen yards away and abruptly sprang up to a standing position. They blanched, exchanging worried glances as I flexed my scales to the surface.

  In my best nonchalant tone, I spoke. “Are you boys lost?”

  They again looked to each other in confusion. One of them, a bit bolder than the rest, stepped forward and shook his fist in the air.

  “We don’t want your kind here, alien scum.”

  “Yeah.” One of his compatriots stepped forward to stand abreast with him. “Look at what you’ve done to this city. To us. There’s not enough to go around for us humans thanks to your alien greed.”

  “Wow, you boys have your talking points well-rehearsed.” I cocked my head to the side and smiled. “But to be honest, you’re boring the hell out of me. Can we just get to the part where you violently attack me so I can work out my frustrations?”

  The two men glanced at each other. I could almost read their thoughts. This isn’t how this is supposed to go…

  “What, are you shy? Here, let me get you started.”

  I strode forward and snatched the first speaker up by his shirt collar. With one half assed toss, I could have shattered his spine against the nearby crumbling cement wall.

  But then I remembered the horror on Dottie’s face when I’d been wading into combat during the riot.

  I just kind of slapped him against the wall instead, much more gently than I normally would. His head still bounced off hard, and his eyes went glassy. I dropped the man in a heap on the ground and grinned.

  “Who’s next?”

  They surged forward, and I laid about myself with fists and feet.

  Again, I pulled my punches because of Dottie.

  She wasn’t even there, and I was worried how she might react if I crippled or killed those men.

  So I aimed my knuckles for their jaws, not their throats. When I had a hold of a miscreant by the throat, I just squeezed long enough for him to fall unconscious instead of snapping his neck like a twig.

  And when they ran away—those that are still able—I just allowed them to leave.

  I felt strange as I returned to my team.

  Why did I care what Dottie felt about how I chose to defend myself? Why had I held back?

  The answer never came to me.

  When I got back to base, Sk’lar just rolled his eyes.

  “If you’re going to insist on being out of bed, back to bodyguard duty for you.”

  I tried to repress a grin. At that point, I had forgotten that it had even been intended as a punishment.

  All I wanted was to get on the next shuttle for Kaster.

  Dorek stood outside the apartment door, face blank. I clapped his shoulder and he narrowed his eyes. “You’re relieved.”

  “Finally,” he grumbled. “What a skrell assignment.”

  Good. He obviously hadn’t gotten too close to Dottie.

  She answered the door when I knocked. “You’re back!” she squealed, and every moment of the day was worth it, just to have her near me again.

  With a broad smile on her face, she flung her arms around my waist.

  “Oh!” she scrambled back. “I’m sorry, you’re still hurt.”

  I pulled her closer, just for a moment, just long enough to breath in her sweet scent. “I’m fine now, promise.”

  “Come in,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me through the door. “You’re just in time. They’ve just finished cooling!”

  Inside the apartment, her brother stood in the kitchen, face carefully blank.

  Dottie bustled around, cutting a large brown square into smaller squares, oblivious to his obvious displeasure.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “These are brownies,” she beamed at me.

  “The ones that had been destroyed on your contraption?”

  “Yes!”

  She handed me the roughly cut brown cake and I placed it gingerly in my mouth.

  The explosion of flavor lit my eyes.

  “This is very good!” I exclaimed. “A warrior’s food!”

  “They’re favorites of human children as well.”

  I laughed.

  That evening, we talked, we laughed, and I found that, curiously enough, I couldn’t seem to stop smiling in her vicinity.

  But Adam stayed silent.

  It seemed that being around Dottie again was the perfect balm for my aching sensibilities, which had been so mistreated during my hospital stay.

  If only her brother hadn’t been lurking about.

  I wanted to trust Adam, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he just wasn’t the benevolent guy he claimed to be.

  From time to time I would catch him watching Dottie and I as we spoke.

  There had been tightness, tension in his posture, and his cold gaze silently judged.

  At the time, I tried to dismiss my feelings as mere paranoia, perhaps some left over apprehension from my near death experience.

  So I made an effort to ignore his uneasy stares and enjoy my time with Dottie.

  I was only partially successful.

  Dottie

  The knock at my bedroom door came an hour earlier than expected but I didn’t mind. In fact, I was happy.

  Jalok and I could have a bite of breakfast before heading into work. We were overdue for a relaxing morning.

  “You’re very early,” I grinned when I opened the door. Jalok didn’t smile back. In fact, he looked tense. “Is everything all right?”

  “No,” he sighed.

  Panic rose in my throat. I inadvertently took a step back into my bedroom.

  “What’s wrong?” I could barely get the words out.

  “You’re going to have to stay home today,” Jalok said gently.

  “Someone else went crazy, didn’t they? Who died? Is it Anita? Eluna?” My voice rose in pitch with each word and my hands started trembling.

  “No one’s dead.” Jalok stepped close to me and lifted my wrists. He pressed my trembling hands together and wrapped his around. “Listen to me, no one is dead.”

  “Then what’s wrong? Why do I have to stay here?”

  “There’s been a break-in at your lab,” Jalok said.

  “A break in?” Slowly, the words clicked into place. “What’s been taken?”

  “I’m not sure yet but whoever it was thoroughly trashed the place.”

  “The lab is under twenty-four-hour surveillance,” I said. “Have whoever’s looking into the break-in look through the footage.”

  “The cameras have been shut off for weeks,” Jalok informed me.

  “What? That’s not possible. Highly classified work happens in that lab. There’s no way it would be left unguarded.”

  “It’s not uncommon for places with low funding to use cameras as a visual repellent rather than actual surveillance equipment,” Jalok explained.

  Oh.

  He made a good point. Funding came in trickles rather than waves.

  But to have cameras, and not really use them, seemed foolish.

  “So, you have no idea what was taken or who did it?”

  “Not at this time. The other members the Strike Team are working on it right now. They’ll figure it out, I promise.”

  “All the more reason why I should be there!” I insisted. “I’m familiar with everything in my department. I can figure out what’s been taken.”

  “That’s out of the question.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “You know why, Do
ttie. You’re doing valuable work and under no circumstances are you to be put at risk.”

  “It’s not my body that’s valuable, it’s the information I’ve gathered! Why can’t I do my part in protecting that information?”

  “Because if anything happens to your body, I’d lose my mind,” Jalok exclaimed. “My job is to protect you. Please let me do that.”

  “It’s not fair!” I couldn’t hold back the floodgates on my anger any longer.

  It all came pouring out of me. I started to pace the length of my living room, desperate to expel the frantic energy coursing through me.

  “Fair?” Jalok blurted. “This issue is bigger than being fair.”

  “It’s not fair that I’m not allowed to defend my life’s work. It’s not fair that I’m one of the only people who can figure out what’s missing and you won’t let me work! It’s not fair that I can’t get one single day without something going to shit!” I was shouting but I didn’t care.

  For the last few weeks, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut and doing what I needed to do.

  How much more was I expected to put up with without batting an eye or losing my mind?

  Tears welled up faster than I could blink them away. They spilled down my cheeks. When I tried to take a calming breath, sobs shuddered through my chest instead.

  “Dottie?” Jalok’s voice sounded so soft and caring. It only made the tears come faster.

  “Leave me be for a minute, okay?” I couldn’t look him in the eye. I felt like a child.

  “No way.” He closed the distance between us and placed his hands on my shoulders.

  My eyes went to the burned, broken skin on his right arm. The sight of it only made me more upset. He only had those scars because he was assigned to protect me.

  Unable to look at his scars, I stepped closer and put my head against his chest.

  Jalok went stiff at first, then gently wrapped his arms around me.

  “You’re allowed to be upset over everything that’s happened,” he told me. “You’ve been through more than a normal person goes through in a lifetime.”

  “How do you know what a person goes through in a lifetime?” I asked.

  “I don’t. I was just trying to make you feel better. I pity you humans if your normal lives consist of this much change, stress, and violence.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but I laughed anyway.

  “I’m sorry for freaking out.” I took a deep shuddering breath. “Between you getting hurt, my brother coming home, and now my work being trashed, I’ve hit every extreme emotion in a short time span. Most humans don’t do well launching from one extreme to the other.”

  “Evidently. Come. Have a seat.”

  Jalok lead me over to the couch. Once I was settled, he sat down beside me and laid his hand on my back, rubbing in small circles.

  “I’m fine now,” I assured him.

  “I’ll ascertain that for myself, thank you.”

  I wanted to say something snarky in an attempt to bring us back to normal, but I couldn’t make myself do it.

  Instead, I took a deep breath and let my head rest against his shoulder. To my surprise, he rested his cheek on the top of my head.

  I turned my head to look up at him and he leaned back to look at me.

  “Are you all right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Instead, I leaned forward. My lips pressed against his in a gentle kiss.

  When he didn’t kiss me back right away, I felt embarrassed. I pulled away.

  My cheeks burned red.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I wasn’t thinking and-”

  Jalok didn’t let me finish. His hand snaked around my shoulder to the back of my neck. He pulled me to him and pressed his lips against mine, fiercely. Claiming me.

  This time, I let myself sink into his kiss. I took in the warm, firm feeling of his lips.

  His tongue flickered at the seam of my lips and I opened for him, letting his tongue twist around mine, in a prelude to what we both knew was coming.

  He tasted like his scent. Warm, spicy.

  Mine.

  When we broke apart to catch our breaths, I searched his face. His eyes glimmered with a need that matched my own.

  Fire raced through my veins and his hands, his touch, was the only thing that could quench the burning.

  I kissed him again, harder, hungry.

  Jalok’s other hand pressed into the small of my back. When he pulled me as close as physically possible, I still felt the need to be closer.

  Without breaking our kiss, I shifted so that I had one leg on each side of his lap. My chest pressed up against his. Something about that much physical contact with him at once ignited something in me.

  I let out a soft, shuddering gasp when his large hand slipped under the hem of my tank top.

  A cool breeze from the open window tickled my exposed skin and sent goosebumps up my spine. Jalok moved his hands up my back slowly.

  I found myself arching against him, eager for his hands to explore more.

  As if he read my mind, Jalok slipped my tank top towards my shoulders.

  I raised my arms and allowed him to remove it completely.

  When I lowered my hands, I tried to wrap them around his neck but he stopped me.

  “Wait,” he murmured. “I just want to look at you for a moment. The light’s hitting your skin perfectly. You look like you’re glowing.”

  I tipped my head back and basked in the warm morning light as Jalok ran his hands over my skin. A bolt of pleasure shot through me when I felt his hand on my bare breast.

  He paused as if waiting to see if I’d pull away.

  When I didn’t, he started gently stroking his thumb over my nipple.

  Sparks ran through me at his touch, driving me to move closer. As I rocked my hips, I felt the evidence of his arousal.

  Oh.

  He felt huge.

  For a moment, panic ran through me. What was I doing?

  Would this work? What if…

  But desire pushed me along.

  Only one way to find out.

  I opened my eyes and reached for the clasp of his trousers. Just as I’d felt through the fabric, but now I could see him in his full, red, rigid glory.

  And with every caress of his hands, down my back, around my thighs, over my breasts, I relaxed into him.

  Wanted him more.

  Jalok lifted me slightly so I could slip off the simple pair of navy panties I had worn to bed.

  Naked in his arms, I leaned forward to kiss him again.

  Jalok lifted my hips and slid forward. I spread my thighs for him. He lowered me slowly. When I felt him press against my entrance, I shuddered in anticipation.

  Instead, Jalok teased me, just letting the broad head part my wet folds.

  “You’re cruel,” I murmured.

  “Only a little,” Jalok smirked as he slowly lowered me onto him, controlling the agonizing, wonderful pace.

  I let out a cry as our bodies joined together, as every thick, hard inch filled me, until finally, finally he was seated fully within.

  “You’re not the only one who can tease,” I answered, working myself up and down the length of him, further stoking the heat that’d already built up inside me.

  Jalok pressed his hands against my back, flattening me against him, taking back control. Every brush of my skin against his drove me closer to the edge. I threw my head back, urging him on with every rock of my hips.

  When the pleasure inside me reached the point of no return, I sank my teeth into Jalok’s shoulder. He let out a hiss and wound one of his hands into my hair.

  I thought he was going to pull me back, but instead, he brought me closer, urging me to bite again.

  Excited that I found something he liked, I left a trail of little bites from his shoulders up to his earlobe.

  With a loud growl he tightened his grip on my waist, burying himself deep inside me over and over again until I cried o
ut, helpless against the wave of sensation slamming through me.

  We reached our climax together.

  At one point, we were so tightly wound together that I didn’t know where my limbs ended and his began.

  I slumped against his chest, spent and satisfied. Jalok held me close and pressed kisses into my hair.

  “After all this,” he murmured, “You deserve a lie in.”

  He scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the bedroom.

  It was too hot for blankets so he laid me down on top of them.

  After fetching a glass of cold water for each of us – I drank mine down in one go- he settled down next to me and held me as I drifted back to sleep.

  The lab could wait.

  Everything could wait.

  He was beside me.

  But even as I drifted away, content and lazy, I felt him pull away.

  Jalok

  Did I want to be skulking around after Adam as he meandered through the streets of Kaster that day?

  Absolutely not.

  What I wanted to do was bask in the afterglow of passion with Dottie.

  Never in a million years did I believe I would be attracted to, let alone develop feelings for, a member of another species.

  Humans are soft and squishy, and nowhere near as resilient as the Skotan are.

  Not only that, they have the annoying habit of thinking they’re right about everything.

  But Dottie had challenged my prejudices, and made me second guess a lot of things about my life.

  And I knew without a doubt, she’d be challenging me for years to come. I’d found my mate, and I planned to keep her.

  The memory of her soft skin against mine lingered in my mind even as I tracked her brother.

  Adam was allegedly going to have another meeting with the Search and Rescue unit in Kaster that day.

  But Adam had been on his communicator.

  A lot.

  Far more than seemed necessary for someone as yet without a vocation or friends in the area.

  It hadn’t taken much convincing to get cousin Cazak to watch over Dottie for the rest of day.

  Much as I wanted to spend my time with her, I couldn’t let my suspicions about Adam go.

  Tailing someone when you’re built like I am is a daunting task. I didn’t exactly blend into the crowd in Kaster, even though I was hardly the only Skotan around.