Barbarian Alien (2 page)

I skip the part where Georgie was clearly shacking up with Vektal. I mean, the guy came with food and blankets, so I didn't care if she was giving the Incredible Hulk hand-jobs on the side as long as he took care of us.

"They left us with some supplies and went to get reinforcements for our rescue," I say. "Those are the demon guys outside."

A few faces brighten. "So they're nice?"

"They're conditionally nice." I wonder how much I should tell them.

Because our story is pretty fucking grim and there's not a lot of choices to be had.

Not-Hoth, it turns out, isn’t a hospitable planet. In addition to being cold as heck and full of monsters that want to have us for dinner, our new home also some sort of poisonous gas that’s going to kill us slowly. It's already working hard on us. Tiffany's comatose off in the corner, and I'm so exhausted I can barely raise my head. Right now? I just want to fall over and sleep. And it's going to get worse. This element in the air is going to kill us, because we don't belong here.

But there's a fix. Sort of.

The ‘cure' for the death sentence on this planet? A symbiont that the natives call a
khui
and we humans call a ‘cootie’.

To live? We're supposed to get…infected. Now, I admit that I've been pretty gung-ho about a rescue here. I'm the chipper one to Kira's glass is half empty. But I am royally wigged out at the thought of getting some sort of bug to live inside me.

The cootie sounds like it’s the answer to our problems, except there’s a catch, Georgie has told us.

Because the cootie is interested in propagating species. So when it sees two people that it thinks should be good mates and will make a perfect baby together? There’s something called ‘resonance’ that happens. The cootie starts vibrating in your chest whenever you’re near your new ‘mate’ and it won’t stop until the baby-making happens. And Vektal’s tribe of seven-foot tall blue, horned aliens? They’ve only got four females.

If we stay, we’re getting more than a rescue. We’re getting husbands. Georgie's already been claimed by Vektal, and she's pretty happy about it from what I can tell. They can't keep their eyes off each other.

But not only are we getting a cootie, we're getting a man. And we don't even get to pick the man. I'm not sure how I feel about this. So when I say that the guys are ‘conditionally nice', it's true. They're nice because they want someone to put their baby batter into.

"They're nice," I say again, a tight smile on my face. "And now I'm really tired." I ignore Kira's concerned look and this time, when someone offers me a blanket, I take it and curl up.

"What's wrong with her?" Someone asks. "She looks like hell."

I'm sick, not deaf
, I think crankily. But all that talking made me tired and I decide to let Kira answer.

"She's got the sickness," Kira explains in her soft voice. "We'll all get it unless we get the symbiont."

"Is that why she's so mean?" One of them – Claire, maybe – whispers.

Am I mean? Impatient, maybe. Tired, definitely. And sick. I just huddle down in the blankets. I can't even smell the hold anymore. I can't even feel the cold. I'm just…tired. So tired.

"She's having a bad day," I hear Kira say. "Give her time."

It's true. I am having a bad day. To think that despite being kidnapped by aliens and living in a smelly, freezing, broken cargo hold for the last week wearing nothing but a short nightgown…I can have a day worse than that? Why yes, yes I can.

The reason for my bad day shows up a moment later. He saunters over to me, where I'm trying to make myself small and invisible under the furs. He ignores the frightened cries of the other women and more or less storms over to my side. Then, he rips back the furs and thrusts a cup of something steaming under my nose.

He says nothing, just waits.

"Go away," I tell him crankily, and try to tug my blankets back.

The alien won't let me have them. Instead, he pulls them further away, out of my reach. He then pushes the cup under my nose again. It's obvious that if I want my blanket back, I'm going to have to drink that cup of steaming hell he keeps putting under my nose.

He's such a dick.

I take the cup from his hand and glare at him, then try to offer it to one of the nearby girls. "Anyone thirsty?"

He grabs my hand and guides it back toward me with a small grunt, indicating that the drink is for me and only me.

"Who's that?" one of the new girls whispers in a tiny, frightened voice.

"Part of the rescue," I say drily. "The pushy, asshole part." I lift the cup to my nose and sniff it. It smells meaty and like some sort of plant. It also smells like a dirty sock. And there's something peppery in it that makes my eyes water. "I don't want this." I try to push it away. My stomach has shrunken in the last week due to starvation, and the thought of downing this makes me want to puke.

The alien's big hand pushes it back toward me. There's a scowl on his ugly face and he shifts on his feet, waiting. The message is clear: he's not going anywhere until I drink.

Goddamn it.

I take a sip of the broth and immediately start to cough. The aliens have some weird taste buds. Georgie shared some of Vektal's travel rations with us, and it was like biting into concentrated pepper spray. This smells like the sock-flavored hot tea version and tastes even worse. I grimace and push it away, only to have the alien force it toward me again.

"If I spill it, I wonder if you'll make me lick it off the floor," I mutter to myself, but take another sip. It's not as awful on the second taste….oh, who am I kidding? It's rancid. But I drink it, because Tall, Dark, and Brutish isn't leaving until I do. It takes me forever to choke down the sips, and when I get to the bottom of the cup, there's a sludge that makes me gag, but I force it down, too. Then I hand the cup back.

The alien sweeps the fur over my shoulders and tucks it close to my body. He leans in close and I hold my breath. The rest of the ship is utterly silent, and I can feel all eyes on us. He adjusts the blanket, and when I glare at him, says one word.

"Raahosh."

Then he stands, scowls at the others for staring, and storms away.

"What did he just say?" one of the girls asks.

"It doesn't translate well," Kira says, touching her ear where the translator piece is. "Something like ‘Angry one who growls'."

"It's his name," I say, though I'm guessing. ‘Growly Bastard' suits him. This isn't the first time Raahosh has shown up to say hello. I woke up from a comatose slumber to find him in my face, forcing water down my dry throat. He'd staked himself out as my own personal rescuer, showing up to hand me meat, drinks, and making sure that I am warm.

In short, he'd been hovering since the hunters had arrived, and it is pissing me off.

Normally I wouldn't mind when a guy showed up and started giving me presents, especially since I was starving. But these presents weren't freely given. Captain Obvious wanted a mate, and he'd staked me out.

He wasn't doing that weird vibratey thing with his chest, though. Georgie had told me that Vektal had a khui – the cootie, as we liked to call it – and that when it recognized its mate, it would make him purr and make him want to sex me up. Vektal had vibrated for Georgie. Raahosh was silent, though.

Which made me thankful…and confused. If he wasn't vibrating for me, why keep coming after me? It made no sense. Stupid alien. I licked my lips and then made a face, because they still tasted like the tea.

"He's hideous looking," Claire says. "Do they all look like that?"

"No, Raahosh is scarier than most," I say cheerfully. I'm glad he doesn't understand English, because I don't know what he'd do if he hears me talking shit about him.

Vektal's kind of cute in an overgrown sort of way. He's blue, and Georgie says his skin is like suede. He's got big, arching horns that emerge from the edges of his hairline and curl around his head like a seven-foot tall ram. He's muscled all over, has a tail, and has these weird bumpy ridges on his arms and across the brow. Most of the other guys have a similar make-up, with only variations in height, coloring, and horns. Just your everyday blue alien people.

Raahosh stands out from the others in a few different ways. For one, he's the tallest. Which isn't much of a thing considering they all stand above seven feet, but it makes him seem to tower more than most. His shoulders aren't as broad as Vektal's, which means he's only enormous, instead of gargantuan. And while Vektal seems to be more of a pure blue, Raahosh is a darker shade, a grayish blue shade that just makes him seem like more of an Eeyore than the others.

The scars don't help that impression, either. One side of his broad, alien face is scarred up, deep gouges over his forehead and eye telling of a past encounter that he lost. They continue down his neck, and disappear into his clothing. The horn on that side of his head is a jagged stump, his other arching upward as a sleek reminder of what he's missing. Add in a firm mouth pursed with dislike and narrow eyes that glow with the weird blue provided by the symbiont?

I think it's a fair assessment to say that Raahosh is scarier than the others, yeah.

The fact that he's staked me out as his property is…irksome. I told Georgie and the others that for a cheeseburger, I'd do just about anything. But having an alien lay claim to me feels…weird. I don't even get a choice? This is like me saying "I want a cheeseburger" and someone slapping a pickle into my hand and saying "Fuck you, you get a pickle."

And then because I'm thinking of phallic objects, I eye Raahosh again. Not in an obvious way, of course. I'm lying down and my eyes are mostly closed, but I can see him and another alien guy moving at the edge of the ship, packing bags and double checking things. Georgie and Vektal are nowhere to be seen. I watch Raahosh as he bends over and then stands up.

He has a really long tail. I wonder if that's an indicator of anything going on in another, ahem, area.

Not that I care. Maybe if we have to get this parasite thing, it'll choose someone other than him. Wouldn't that just piss Mr. Pushy off?

I fall back asleep daydreaming of the look on his face when my cootie rejects him.

RAAHOSH

My khui is an idiot.

It must be. Why else would it ignore the women of my clan and the moment we enter the den of the dirty, ragged humans, it begins to bleat in my chest like a quill beast? Or that it chose the frailest of the sick humans to select as my mate?

A mate that glares at me with knowing, angry eyes and refuses to eat the medicinal broth that I bring her? That pushes aside my hands when I try to help her to her feet? Who scowls when I bring her water?

It's clear that my khui is full of foolishness.

"Did you resonate for anyone?" Aehako asks at my side. He stuffs a fur into a traveling bag. We are preparing the humans' cave for travel, since they are too weak to do so. Everything must come with us, Vektal says. It does not matter that it is stained and filthy, or useless. The humans have so little that he is sure they will treasure whatever they have, so it must come. Two of the hunters that resonated for females have been sent off to get furs from the nearest hunter caves, because the humans are poorly equipped to face the harsh snows, and they have no khui to keep them warm.

This will be remedied shortly, however.

A sa-kohtsk is near. The large creatures carry many khui, and we will hunt one for its meat and ensure that the humans will not die of khui-sickness.

I think of the hollow eyes of my new mate and how miserable she looks. Most of the human hides are a pale color, but my human is paler than most. That must mean she is sicker. I will insist she be one of the first to get a khui.

Aehako repeats his question. "Raahosh? Did you resonate?"

I don't like to lie, but I also don't want anyone to know, not when my mate is glaring at me as if she is furious.

Raahosh is scarier than most.

Her words cut. She is smooth and pale and weak, and yet I am the one lacking? I shrug and shoulder the pack. "It matters not. We will see what happens when the khui are in the humans."

"I didn't resonate." Aehako looks glum, his broad features downcast. "Do you think more will resonate when they come into season? Perhaps they're not in season." He gives me a hopeful glance.

"Do I look as if I know human seasons?" I snap. "Finish your bag. We need to hurry if we are to get the humans close enough to the sa-kohtsk to hunt it."

Aehako sighs and returns to work. I tell myself he is young. In fact, he might be the youngest hunter in our clan. He will get over his disappointment, or another human will resonate for him later. Or even a sa-khui woman, perhaps one not yet born.

All I know is that I am resonating for one of the dying humans, and if she dies, she takes all my hopes and dreams with her.

I have never had a mate. Never had a lover. Women are few in our clan, and women that want to mate with a scarred, surly hunter even fewer. I never dreamed that I would have a mate of my own.

Now that she is here…I'm not entirely sure how to act. So I remain silent and it takes all of my energy to will my khui to remain silent when the humans stand up and begin to ready for the long trek back to the clan caves. Hunters have returned with furs and one is being cut up to make foot coverings. Others are securing their flimsy clothing, and Vektal's new mate, Shorshie – she of the tongue-tangling name – helps another wrap a thick fur cloak around her.

Only a few of the humans are not readying themselves. The one with dark skin and hair like a tuft of sweet-weed lies unconscious under her furs. Vektal says she is one of the sickest. There is another who has a broken limb, and she leans heavily on Pashov for support to stand.

And then there is mine. My human, who ignores everyone around her and resolutely huddles under the blankets.

She is stubborn. My khui chose well in that aspect. I am stubborn, too. Together, we will make very stubborn kits. A bit of the resentment in my heart leaves at the mental image of the human holding my child to her breast. I would have a family after so long.