Alien Mine (24 page)

Natalie drew in a loud breath and went forward. She must be crazy, but all that wonderful skin was hers to touch at last. When she'd fantasized about this, she'd sexily swung her leg over him and straddled him. After she'd done a slow striptease. In reality, he was so big she had to clamber over him and awkwardly straddle him. Still fully clothed. Flushed and unsure how to proceed, she timidly touched his chest. This is the first time she'd ever been this bold with a man. She thought of the way bullets bounced of his skin. "If you changed to your warrior skin, would you be able to feel my touch?"

"Yes."

"Would you change for me? Allow me to touch you while you're in your warrior form?" It had been a very secret, forbidden fantasy of hers, touching him while he looked like the dangerous alien she'd seen that day he rescued her from the raiders.

He looked at her for a long time. The atmosphere became charged, aggressive and she braced herself for a violent rejection. She was the one straddling him but he was not the helpless one in that moment. Then, at last, he changed and suddenly a slightly bigger green-and-copper alien lay beneath her. Adrenaline rushed through her blood and she had to bite her lip hard to fight the urge to flee. She held still and forced some oxygen into her lungs.

She touched his chest again. "Can you feel this?"

"Yes."

"Are you more or less sensitive like this?"

Again, a long silence. "More sensitive," he finally gritted.

"But bullets bounced of your skin." Natalie sat back stunned as realization dawned. "This is your natural form, isn't it? This is natural but different from warrior mode. The one you show normally isn't really you."

He didn't answer her, but he didn't contradict her either, and she knew she'd guessed right.

"Why?"

When he pushed her off him and stood up with his back to her, she thought he would ignore her question again. She ended up sprawled on the bed strongly considering the merits of fleeing the tent. Then he turned into a copper stunning-looking bald man again and faced her.

"This is what all breeders find acceptable." Bitterness coated his words. "You like this form. The real Zacar looks like a monster to you. I knew you would never allow me to touch you in my natural form."

Natalie got up and walked over to him. She placed her palms on his chest and looked up at him. "Change back to your natural form. Please."

For the longest time, she thought he wouldn't do it, then he shimmered and a greenish-copper alien, with rougher features than she was used to, stood naked in front of her.

Never taking her eyes off him, she raised a hand and traced the ridge on his forehead. Then both sides of his nose, before trailing her finger down the bridge of his nose. She pressed her finger over his nostril, the way he'd done to her the first time they made love.

"I find this form very acceptable."

Someone, it had to be a woman, must have rejected him in his true form. Jealousy stirred at the thought of some exotically beautiful alien woman, able to stir up such strong emotions in him.

The tent turned upside down. One moment, she was standing on her tiptoes, touching him, and the next, she found herself on her back with him looming over her.

"I fuck you now."

She drew back, her head digging into the cushion. "Where did you learn that word?"

"What word?"

"F--the word you just said," she said. She wouldn't admit out loud that she found his rough voice using that crude word exciting.

"That is what your few databases, that are still operational, call it," he said.

Bending his head, he kissed her with an expertise that made her doubt if he was really a stranger to kissing. His lips that appeared so hard were soft and warm against hers. At the back of her mind, she wondered what he meant when he said still operational. Then he moved her shirt out of the way and leaned down to kiss the valley between her breasts.

She forgot all about databases and injured aliens.

Natalie stroked his bald head, the texture of his skin pleasing her palms. He was slightly warmer than a human and, since her escape attempt, she couldn't get enough heat. Everywhere he touched her skin, pleasure and heat followed.

He ripped open her shirt and roughly pushed it off her and, instead of complaining about his rough treatment of her clothes, she urged him on while she kissed and licked his deliciously naked chest. He pulled of her pants and while his hands roamed, his lips lowered to her breasts.

He sucked her nipple into his mouth, using his slightly rough tongue with such skill she would've flipped him over and had her way with him if she could have.

This time there was no deliberate, ritualistic lovemaking. He worked his way down her stomach with hot wet kisses that had her writhing in pleasure. She thought he was slightly out of control. When she felt her teeth against her stomach, she cringed from him.

"What are you doing?"

He lifted his head to stare at her with a disconcerting unblinking gaze. "Pleasuring my breeder."

"Could you do it without using your teeth?"

This wasn't happening. She wasn't having this discussion in the middle of the hottest encounter she ever had, bar the first time she made love with him. She groped for the blanket, suddenly feeling the need to hide form that unblinking gaze. A moment before it had been exciting and almost forbidden to be naked with him. Now all she felt was vulnerable.

He went rock hard against her, and she swore she could see flames dancing in his eyes.

"I will not bite you."

She inched the blanket higher to cover her breasts. "Promise?"

"I have omgraz'ra. I have said."

"Uh--okay."

Suddenly the mood was broken. As much as she wanted him before, now she just wanted to cover herself and be on her own. She inched back from him or tried to. His hands on her hips tightened. She was no longer aroused. She just wanted to crawl under the blankets and forget how large and vicious his teeth could become.

As if he knew how she felt, he moved back a little and picked up her hand. She looked at their hands, his copper green and hers pale and washed-out looking against his. It illustrated the differences between them with cruel clarity. Could such different people live together, make a life together, like he seemed to want.

He bent his head and kissed her palm then licked the skin there. His tongue swirled and licked the skin over her pulse and her heartbeat went crazy. Pleasure tingled over her hand and wrist. When he moved that dangerous tongue to her arm, ecstasy followed in his trail. He explored farther until her whole arm burned with desire. How could kisses and licking a mere arm cause such bliss. He took the inner flesh of her upper arm between his lips and suckled. She gasped and her hips lifted. She grabbed hold of the bedding beneath her.

He licked and kissed her shoulder and moved the blanket just enough to uncover her breasts. She felt her face heat and focused on his chest. She leaned down and kissed his muscled skin, tracing the veins leading down his body. Never would she tire of kissing his beautiful skin. He worked his way down her sides, ignoring her breasts.

"Please," she moaned.

She wanted to touch him, kiss, and lick every inch of him, but he pushed her back and kissed his way down her body.

He ignored her plea, the way she lifted her breasts toward his mouth, licking and sucking his way down her side to her hips and legs. By the time he reached her knees, she didn't care when she felt his teeth. She needed him to stop teasing her. Do something, anything, before she expired from wanting him.

"Please Zacar, I need you. Don't tease me anymore."

He looked up at her, his flaming eyes causing spasms deep in her pelvis. She looked down his body and saw that his penis pulsed, erect and tantalizingly, close to where she wanted it.

"No teasing, Zacar." Now she sounded like a barbarian. She concentrated on speaking in a full sentence with difficulty. "Your tongue is more dangerous than your sword," she told him on a moan when he swirled his tongue over the crease on the inside of her thigh.

It seemed some analogies were universal. He cocked his head and she felt the heat from her toes spread to her face. "You know what I mean?"

"I will pleasure you with my tongue and my sword until you know that I can satisfy my breeder." Crouched between her thighs he leaned down and licked the inside of her knee, moving slowly much too slowly up her leg.

Would he just tease her while her body ached with need? She'd complain about him calling her breeder later. Right now she had his lips and tongue right where she wanted them.

"I need to touch you, Zacar."

Her hands tingled with the need to touch his beautiful skin, to trace the veins over every inch of his body. She lifted a hand and caressed his shoulder. Then she moved down his neck but couldn't reach more of him.

He looked up at her briefly. Then his mouth was on her and she forgot about touching him, forgot her own name while she twisted and moaned. She opened her eyes to find him braced over her, staring intently down at her. She lowered her eyes to his chest, suddenly shy of him.

"Natlia."

She looked up.

"Look at me, look at me while I breed you."

They stared at each other.

"Right now I don't really care what you call it," she groaned. "Please just be inside me."

He entered her slowly, all the while staring into her eyes. "You please me, Natlia."

He surged home and she sucked in a breath. He set a steady rhythm, pulling out slowly and then surging back hard. She held onto his wide shoulders that were hunched over her, locked her ankles around his waist, and dimly heard someone moan.

"Natlia."

She looked up at him. His eyes captured hers as he drove the pleasure higher with desperate strong plunges into her body. She heard herself scream, couldn't make sense of what she was gasping out against his chest. He became taut and rock hard against her and she heard him roar before she gave herself over to the intense pleasure that was almost pain.

Chapter 12

Lying in his arms afterward, she slowly stroked her hands over his chest, mapping the ridges and hollows she found with her fingertips. She followed the pronounced veins appearing and disappearing on his skin with a curious forefinger. "Who was that man you talked to before Zurian brought Azagor in?"

He glanced down at her and his black eyes grew red tendrils. It was fascinating to see the slow, mercurial change from black to red this close up. The passionate lover of a moment before was gone. In his place was an implacable warrior.

"You did not see another Zyrgin."

"Of course I did."

"No, you saw something similar to your TC," he said, his words clipped with precise emphasis.

Something in his voice, in the way he said it, sent shivers down her spine. He leaned over her, but it was different from before, when he'd leaned over her with passion blazing in his eyes. This time he meant to intimidate her and, to her shame, he succeeded.

"A--all right," she said, not wanting to anger him further.

But she knew what she'd seen, knew he was lying to her again. He'd been talking to the scary alien. But she didn't have the courage to insist.

He laid her down on the bed, arranging her limbs to his satisfaction. He started with her hair and she moaned in remembered pleasure as he licked the skin at her temples.

"I'll say it again, that tongue of yours is a lethal weapon." She loved the way he touched every inch of her skin with the flicking movements of his tongue. He moved onto her forehead and by the time he reached her toes she was a puddle of pleasure.

***

The next morning when she woke, he was gone as usual. She went through her morning routine with quick efficiency then rushed to where Azagor slept. She faltered to a stop and for a moment, the cave tilted beneath her.

His bed was empty. It couldn't be. Did he die during the night? They had advanced technology. The doctor should've been able to heal him.

The cave, the cold, and everything else disappeared until all she saw were the ghosts of people who'd left her. First, her grandmother had died, her fiancé had walked out soon after, then her parents died close together. And now Azagor was gone before she'd even been given the chance to really know him.

She wanted to throw up. How long before Zacar left, too?

She heard the clang of metal and walked to the cave entrance, her legs feeling as if they'd give way at any moment. Were they busy with preparations for the burial? Zacar must be devastated. He wouldn't show it but she knew he would feel responsible.

Vaguely aware of her surroundings, she pressed her hand against the wall and the door slid open to reveal the area in front of the cave. Only three aliens practiced with their huge gleaming swords, the spot in the formation where Azagor usually practiced glaringly empty.

"How can you just continue with your routine as if nothing happened?" she whispered. Over the clang of the swords, she shouldn't have been heard. But Zacar stepped back with a strangely formal bow then came over to her.

"Where's Azagor?" she asked, hoping he would say the young warrior was all right and out on an errand.

"He was weak from blood loss. I had to kill him," he said with an almost expectant air.

It took a moment for the words to sink in as she tried to figure out his expression. She staggered back. The world was uneven and treacherous beneath her feet. That beautiful young warrior was gone? He'd never again fix her TC or look at her with such adorable fascination?

He was gone because Zacar had killed him. The man she'd made passionate love with only last night--no, the savage alien, incapable of feelings, had killed his own comrade.

Everything disappeared. Sight and hearing were swallowed by darkness so complete, she wasn't even aware of the passage of time.

Zacar threw back his head and laughed, an unearthly loud and ugly victorious sound. He looked down at her with that emotionless face and killer's eyes. "I teased you good?" he said, as if he'd done something really well. As if he expected a medal.

Reality came back to her slowly. Her hands hurt from slapping Zacar's face, her throat raw from screaming at him.

Her breath hitched. Slowly, so slowly, she lowered her hands. "What?"

"I tease you."

"You--you teased me? What does that mean?" Pressure built up in her brain and she knew it would explode out of her skull any moment now.

"I said something that is not true to tease you. Like people who are close do," he said, as if waiting for her to praise his actions.

It took a long, long time for the meaning of the words to register. Surely he couldn't be that cruel and unfeeling. "Azagor is--is alive?"

"Of course. He went to redeem his honor." No hint of laughter was left on his face or in his voice. If she was very lucky, she'd never hear Zacar laugh again.

"And you thought it would be funny to tell me he's dead?"

"It was."

She grabbed her hair and yanked it with a vicious tug. "What's wrong with you?" she yelled. "You don't do that. You never do that." She took a breath, trying to get her thoughts straight. "You never ever joke or tease or laugh about illness or death, or anything like that." She grabbed his shirt and tried to jerk him toward her. He didn't move. Instead, she moved herself closer to him. "Never," she screamed in his face.

"You teased me about that Darth Vader warrior," he said, for all the world as if he was the sane one here.

"What? Are you ten years old now?"

"No, three hundred Earth years," he assured her. Every expressionless inch of his face convinced her he was serious.

She shook her head slowly from side to side and held her hands out in front of her. "No, I don't want to hear this. I simply can't deal with that now. Just promise me, no more teasing."

"No. I like this teasing."

"I'm not talking about that anymore." She started to walk away from him.

"Time for breakfast," he said.

She sighed. At least he called it
breakfast
now, instead of
first meal
. If only he'd embrace the idea of her feeding herself?

At that moment, Azagor walked in and she would never have guessed he'd been severely wounded the previous day. How was he supposed to redeem his honor? It wouldn't surprise her if he had to kill the raiders who'd wounded him.

"How did he redeem his honor?" she asked Zacar.

"He killed all the woumbers at the pass," Zacar said, all traces of his earlier humor gone.

Natalie had to suppress a hysterical giggle. It was like living in an alternate reality. One where the raiders were free game instead of the biggest menace the country had ever endured.

While he fed her, she watched curiously as Azagor went to the side of the cave, next to the hook, and pointed a silver object at the wall. At first, nothing happened. Then she forgot to chew when a perfect rectangular shadow formed slowly.

Zacar turned her head back toward him with a firm hand on her chin. "Stop watching my warrior."

"I was just wondering what he was doing," she said defensively. "Is it some kind of art?"

"No."

"So what's he doing?"

He hesitated and her shoulders slumped. Like some pampered concubine or favored pet, he carefully fed and groomed her, but kept her in a cage of ignorance.

When he tried to feed her another spoonful of eggs, she shook her head. They had to have a kind of synthesizer stashed somewhere, because he kept producing delicious things for her to eat. Things that had become scarce in town years ago. Since Azagor had started tinkering with her TC, she had an unlimited amount of movies to choose from, some where the characters used synthesizers.

"Fine, don't tell the little woman anything, because heaven knows she'll rush out through the snow and down the mountain to tell everyone," she muttered under her breath. She jumped up and walked toward the tent.

She half expected him to call her back or come up from behind, pick her up, and kiss her senseless. To at least insist on knowing what bothered her. Her shoulders slumped when nothing happened. When would she accept that she wasn't dealing with a human male but an alien warrior whose whole being was focused on war and battle?

She cleaned the tent and rearranged her clothes in the chest before sitting down on the freshly made bed. Maybe she was sulking like a child, but would it have killed him to come after her? To offer to tell her anything she wanted to know? Beg her forgiveness for keeping her in the dark? She couldn't stop a giggle at the thought of Zacar begging.

Deciding she could ignore Zacar just as well from the main cave, she went and sat down in front of the TC. Pretending to watch the cell, she glanced over at Azagor every now and then. Not only was she still curious about what he was doing, she worried he might be overdoing it.

After about an hour, she could see a rectangle recessed into the wall. Not even trying to pretend she was still watching the TC, she sat up straight and stared at Azagor. His actions made sense all of a sudden. He was carving a passage into the wall. But a passage to where? How could such a small silver object disintegrate solid rock? No dust or noise, no flying pieces of rock polluted the air. Only a smooth perfectly rectangular passage was cut into the cave wall. What on earth were they planning to do? Carve her mountain full of tunnels? Tunnels to where?

Zacar came in and walked over to her. Drawing her up, he pressed his forehead against hers. "Stop watching my warrior," he growled.

Not giving her a chance to respond, he seated her again and went over to Azagor. Zurian and Viglar joined them at the beginnings of the tunnel as well. They all growled at each other then suddenly stopped for a second. When they continued, the growling became recognizable words. She stared at the TC, pretending to watch as she listened in on their conversation.

"How many?" Zacar asked.

"Hundreds," Azagor answered, handing something to Zacar.

Hundreds of raiders? Did he mean there were hundreds of raiders at the pass? And what had he handed to Zacar? A report of his activities? Did alien warriors fill out reports?

"Waiting for the snow to melt?" Zacar said.

Azagor nodded and Natalie bit her lip to suppress a smile. They'd picked up nodding from her. No doubt they'd be horrified to realize she found it cute.

"Any witnesses?" Zacar asked Azagor.

Azagor made a strange hissing noise that could only be described as savage. "None left alive. And I used a human form." For the first time, she realized that, while Azagor might be young and slightly smaller than the others, he was pure warrior. He stood with easy confidence and, according to what he told Zacar, he'd killed his share of raiders.