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Mike didn’t look impressed, and I wasn’t sure why I cared, but his lack of interest stung.
I’d had the word “anti-social” thrown at me from a counselor or two, but it wasn’t that I didn’t like people. I just wasn’t sure how to deal with them. I never knew the right thing to say, or the proper way to act. Being with Ava by herself was relaxing, because she didn’t care if I said or did the “wrong” thing. But Mike and John were another story. I felt drained from being on my best behavior all day.
I had believed—oh, how hard I’d believed! Right up until the day I’d sat by his bed and watched him take his last breath, abandoning me to the cold reality of a world that had lost all the magic he’d brought into it.
John sat up from his lounging position. “Don’t worry, babe. This time we’ll catch some evidence on video.” He winked at Mike, and I got a dark and sneaking suspicion.
Since I had a fascination for the occult and paranormal, it was easy for me to support her beliefs. After all, it would be pretty arrogant to assume that we were the only intelligent life in the Universe.
I sucked in a deep breath as I stared up at the stars. It was only then that I noticed that the darkness right above me was not penetrated at all by starlight. A circle of lights flashed on over my head, and I was caught in their beam before I could make a sound.
It scrabbled at the holes, scraping claws along the clear surface of the box until scratch marks appeared on the material that made up the container. The longer it sniffed at the air holes, the more frenzied its movements became.
I think he was reacting to the smell of her fear
I didn’t understand what had happened to me. There had been many boxes before, and many soft meat females cowering inside them. None had affected me like this. I wanted this one out of the box. I wanted her.
I went back to my cage, where darkness beckoned. Always comforting. Reassuring. The light was what hurt. That’s where the slicers and stingers and hard arms pinned me down and stole my form, leaving me weak and changed. The darkness was where I was safe.
He continued to move his mouth about uploading languages into my translator, which I suspected meant I would have to submit to another ordeal beneath the lights. I would do it without a fight if it meant I could speak to her. At this point, I would do almost anything just to see her again.
My original plan had been to break free, hunt them down, and tear out their entrails to feast upon them. That plan had changed. She changed everything.
They wanted me to play their games, and they were going to use her to make me do it. Fury burned through me as I acknowledged that they would succeed.
I could taste her fear, but it was seeing what they’d done to her that nearly caused me to frenzy. I held on only with a thin thread of the mind that was developing in this now-time. My body wanted to go free, like in the before-time. What remained of my mind from that time wanted to let it go. To kill everyone but her.
They had punished me with pain because of that slowness. Now, they threatened to punish her if I was too slow, and I could tell that the ring was smaller than I’d ever faced before. The soft meats wanted to hurt what was mine. They were hoping I would fail.
If I wasn’t so concerned about failing—about causing my female pain—I might have enjoyed this challenge. I’d been growing bored in captivity lately.
She was to bear my young, though in the before-time, there’d been no need for another. I no longer had the eggs. They were inside her. The soft ones had taken something from me, but now I didn’t care. They’d given me this. The female.
I understood what had until then been incomprehensible. They wanted me to plant my seed inside this female. They also wanted to take my young away.
I was concerned that they might take the female away from me as well, after I’d done what they wanted. I couldn’t allow that to happen, but I didn’t yet know a way to escape with her—which meant that even if she continued to look at me with the same hunger I was feeling, I didn’t dare bury my eager body inside her to plant my seed. Not until I knew that I could take her away from this false cave and the watching eyes—before they took her away from me.
“I don’t want you to be afraid.” His upper hands lifted to capture my shoulders, tugging me against his body until my cheek was pressed against the cool plates of his chest. His lower arms stroked up and down my back. “Does this soothe? I have seen soft meats touch to ease fear.”
“I understand your words. It’s just that you speak of us like we’re all nothing but food. It’s a little unnerving.” “I don’t consider you food.” He rubbed his face plates against the top of my head. “You smell delicious, but this hunger isn’t to consume.”
I wasn’t easily frightened. Only my concern for Claire made me fearful now.
More spiked ones were coming. More to threaten my Claire. And I was helpless to stop them. To save her from them. Then I heard her scream.
I waited, as the creature had told me to do, holding tightly to the wrapper because it had given it to me, so it must have been important to the creature—important enough to squirrel it away beneath its scale.
I couldn’t blink back my tears. “You’re all I have in this galaxy. I have to rely on you, but sometimes, you’re so cold it scares me.” He stroked my face with his lower hands, pressing against my cheeks as if he could halt the flow of my tears. “Do not leak anymore. Tell me what you want from me.”
For me, he would do anything, even if it meant denying what he was—a monster I feared would never truly understand why I wanted him to care.
I recalled her shudder of revulsion and the way she’d turned her back to me as if she couldn’t stand the sight of me. I also recalled the unpleasant way her reaction had made me feel. She didn’t like my form as much as I liked hers, and that bothered me.
I could feed her, producing nutrients within my own body to replenish the ones that she required. I had no problem eating whatever was available, and could translate the extra flesh into nutrition for her. I could then give it to her the same way I would give her my seed. My groin plate pulsed at the idea. Imagining her lips closing around that part of me made me nearly frantic with need.
“Our bodies are usually covered. We don’t have natural body armor like you do. We get protection from clothes, but we also use them to express ourselves.” I sighed and plucked disconsolately at my gown. “I miss my clothes.” “If they cover you, I am glad they are gone.”
“You smell better than that eel. You’re lucky I don’t eat people, like you do, or I’d take a bite out of you instead.”
“You remind me of home. Of my freedom. I would do anything for you.”
“My natural color has really blonde highlights that make it shiny. People always thought I had glitter in my hair.” I’d hated it, the way those bright strands had caught the light, drawing people’s attention to such a degree that perfect strangers would touch my hair just to lift the strands to see if they were real. I wasn’t sure what they thought they were going to discover.
“I would do those things again, if Claire is ready. Now that I’ve eaten, I’ve created more seed.” I laughed, rubbing my cheek against his chest plate. “Thrax, you do not need to go into detail like that. Trust me.” “I can feed my mate again, as well.”
“You are not heavy.” His arms squeezed around my leg and torso. “My mate feels good in my clasper arms. Not as good as when I am inside you, or when you taste me, but I like holding you. I want to carry you.”
“Can I taste you, Claire?” I swallowed, the taste of his fluid still thick and satisfying on my tongue. “As long as you don’t hurt me.” I thought of his mouth and felt a moment of uncertainty break through the haze of lust. He shook his head. “Never.”
He was frightening—a monster built by mad scientists. And he was also the sexiest male I’d ever seen.
A brief concern about pregnancy assailed me, before I reminded myself that he was an alien and the odds of getting pregnant by him were pretty low, if it was even possible at all. Even though the Iriduans seemed to think it was possible, I didn’t see how.
this is a dumb thought... did she ever think she'd run into a scorpion man that talked?! Plus what did she possibly think happened when they stuck needles in her lower stomach and investigated her vagina
He pressed his face into my palm. “I am not.” His eyes met mine. “I would go through it all again, knowing you would be at the end of it.”
I wanted everything from him—even the parts of him that scared me.
He was alien, and strange, and his body contained mysteries that sometimes freaked me out, and his mind was an even greater mystery that I feared I’d never figure out, but I realized that I could easily fall in love with Thrax.
“You are the flower with the sweetest nectar that is worth risking the thorns.”
“I never understood in the before-time why the other creatures took the risk. Now, I understand. The flower is a prize worth one’s life—a small cost for such a gift.”
“Do you ever miss the before-time?” His upper hands stroked over my hair. “No. You weren’t there.”
“Eat your eels. It’s been a while since we fooled around, and I can’t wait to get you back into bed.” He quickly rose out of his crouch, turning to reach for me with all four arms. “Food can wait.”
“My mate wishes that I was less ‘cold.’” I considered my words carefully, the full import of them striking me as I said them. “That means she wants me to help others. I want to do whatever my mate desires, so I will start with you.”
“Are you sure you can fit?” His answer to that was to fill the tunnel with his bulk, proving that he could fit, even if it meant cramming every last bit of breathing room with his mass.
“Don’t talk about him like that. He won’t hurt you, but if you treat him rudely, I might.”
“You seem to be doing a little better now.” “You mean I’m not pulling out my hair in hysteria?” She touched the matted mass of greasy curls on her head. “Tried that earlier—almost couldn’t get my hands free.”
he’d personally accompanied us back to the cargohold with the promise that I could kill him myself if any harm had come to Claire. It was that promise that had won my respect, because I had gotten the impression he wouldn’t be easy to kill.
I wanted her to be happy, and if that meant returning to her world, then I would do so. If it meant leaving her on her world, I couldn’t make that promise. I couldn’t leave her at all. I would rather hide away forever in the shadows of her life than be separated from her. I had nothing to lose but her, and she was the one thing I could never give up. She was my home, and no amount of sacrifice would ever convince me to leave it.
I realized that fear of death was nothing compared to the fear of surviving the loss of someone you loved.
