Protected: Alien Mate Index Book 2: (Alien Warrior BBW Paranormal Science fiction Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (32 page)

“Is that right?” Teeny was looking at Grav, not me. “Is she telling the truth?”

“Actually, yes—she is.” There was uncertain hope in his eyes too when he looked at me. “Leah healed me twice. Once from acid and electric burns and once from a knife wound. See?” He held out one muscular forearm. “Didn’t even have a scar when she was done.”

“Well…” Teeny took a step back from us but the blaster she held at her temple was sagging. “I…I don’t know.”

“Just let me try to help you,” I said coaxingly.

She looked at Grav again and he nodded.

“Let her try, Teeny. And if…if she can’t heal you, I…” He swallowed hard. “I swear I’ll take you out myself. If that’s what you really want.”

“I don’t want to live as a Biter.” Teeny let the blaster sag more. “You swear it, Grav? By the oath you gave me? Swear you won’t put a collar on me and take me back to my grandpapa if this doesn’t work. Just…” Her throat worked hard to get the words out. “Just let me die.”

“I swear it.” He dropped to one knee as he had when he swore the oath to me. “I swear it, sweetheart.”

“All right.” At last Teeny handed over the evil-looking weapon. “I trust you, Grav. She can try.”

Grav

I tucked the blaster back in my belt, relieved more than I could say to have it back. I couldn’t believe that my little Teeny had actually wanted to die but honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I’d rather be dead than live as a Biter too. Still, the fact that Teeny had gotten old enough and sophisticated enough to figure that out for herself and to make such a life-and-death decision shook me—shook me to the fuckin’ core.

I just hoped that Leah really could heal her. If not, I had just committed myself to a course of action that was…well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Come here.” Leah beckoned to Teeny, holding out a hand to the smaller female.

Hesitantly, Teeny sidled a little closer to her. She had the look of a hunted animal. It hurt my heart to think of the things she must have seen to put that look in her eyes.

“Let me see your arm, honey. It’s all right—I’m not going to hurt you.”

Leah’s voice was soft…coaxing. I was reminded of the way I’d seen her working with younglings when I watched her on the light screen of the AMI. She had a kind, comforting aura about her that seemed to stretch out and envelope Teeny, bringing her even closer though she hardly seemed to know what she was doing. Almost in a daze, she came right up to Leah and held out her arm.

“That’s good.” Leah smiled at her and cradled the wounded arm in both of her own hands. “Okay, now I’m not going to touch it. I’m just going to hold my hand over it like this—see?” She cupped one palm carefully over the ugly, festering bite mark that marred Teeny’s skinny little forearm.

“Now what?” Teeny asked in a small voice once they were in position.

“Now…” Leah took a deep breath. “Now everybody be really quiet and let me concentrate.”

There was a look on Leah’s face that was half worry and half determination. I saw that she had no idea if what she was trying would work or not but she was damn well going to try it anyway. She closed her eyes and Teeny closed hers as well. And then Leah bit her lip in concentration.

Please, Goddess of Mercy,
I prayed silently.
Please—you know I love both these females and both were given to me to protect. Please don’t let me lose either one. You have already taken one who was precious to me so long ago and I never really healed of that wound—please don’t take another.

I don’t know if the Goddess heard me or not but after a moment I saw something I hadn’t seen when Leah healed me earlier—a warm light was seeping out from under her cupped fingers. It was almost like she had trapped a small sun under her hand and I was seeing its faint glow.

Leah’s brow furrowed and I saw sweat standing out on her forehead. Her eyes were squeezed shut and I heard her murmuring something over and over under her breath.

“Heal—be healed. Hurts go away. Sickness leave. Heal this little girl—
heal.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a prayer or an invocation but suddenly Teeny gasped and yanked her arm away.

“Teeny?” I took a step towards them, worried. “Teeny, what is it?”

“My…my arm!” She was staring at her forearm in wonder. “It’s not cold anymore. It’s been ice-cold since the Biter first got his teeth in it. And look—the lines are fading!”

She held it out to me and I saw that she was telling the truth. The ugly black lines radiating out from the ragged oval bite mark were fading even as we watched. They went on fading too, until there was nothing left but the bite itself—and even that was almost gone. It was just a faint ring of indentations on Teeny’s pale green skin when Leah’s healing powers apparently reached their limit.

It bothered me a little that there was still a trace of the bite. Both times when Leah had healed me, it had been a complete healing with no sign of the injury left at all. I wished the mark would completely fade from Teeny’s arm as well. But I guessed I would have to take what I could get—and this was a hell of a lot better than I had expected or hoped for.

For all intents and purposes, Teeny appeared to be healed.

“This is amazing!” she whispered, still staring at her arm. “It’s a miracle—you healed me.” She looked at Leah. “Thank you. Thank you
so much.”

“You’re…welcome.” Leah’s voice was faint and whispery and for the first time I noticed she wasn’t looking too good. In fact, she looked awful—like she’d just run an endurance race and was at the limit of her strength.

“Darlin’?” I crossed swiftly to her and just as I got there she collapsed. I caught her, cradling her in my arms. “Leah!” I patted her cheeks lightly. “Darlin’, wake up! Wake up and tell me you’re all right!”

“’M all…right.” Her eyelids fluttered open for a moment and I saw bone-deep weariness in the depths of her big brown eyes. “It just…took a lot out of me. Hard to…to heal without a…a power source.”

She gave me a small, tired smile and I understood what she meant. The last time, when she’d healed me, she’d had the power of our sexual energy—the want and longing and pleasure we generated between us whenever we let ourselves get too close. But this time she’d just been drawing on her own reserves and she had nearly depleted them. It must have taken incredible power and strength to heal the Biter’s Curse, of which there was no known cure. She really was a
La-ti-zal
with powers that rivaled her friend’s.

“You gonna be okay?” I asked her, still looking at her anxiously.

Leah nodded, her head moving tiredly against my chest.

“I’m just all done in—feel like I ran a marathon,” she whispered. “But I think I’ll be okay if I can just sleep about a hundred years.”

“I don’t know about a hundred cycles but you’ve certainly earned a nap, darlin’.”

I kissed her affectionately on the forehead and she gave me the ghost of a tired smile. Then I looked at Teeny, who smiled at me.

“You ready, sweetheart?” I asked her and her smile grew into a grin.

“More than ready, Grav.”

“Good.” I cuddled Leah closer to my chest and headed for the door. “Come on,” I said, nodding at Teeny. “We’re going home.”

Leah

I had a very blurred impression of Grav getting me buckled into the shuttle and Teeny strapped in as well, in the back. Then he got behind the controls and I saw the desert moon of Chndra slide away from us as we thrust upward, into space.

“Clearing planetary atmosphere,” Grav said as we broke free and entered to blackness of space. “Leaving orbit around Chndra and headed back for the hopper. Thank the Goddess.”

I watched in the viewscreen through half-closed eyes as he maneuvered the shuttle to face his ship. The hopper was shaped like several large metal bubbles welded together and I could see it clearly through the rows and rows of dark red spheres that formed the Spider’s Web bobbing in the blackness of space.

Good thing the Web is turned off,
I thought drowsily as we flew towards it, prepared to slip between two of the spheres.
It certainly made getting in and out a heck of a lot easier.

In fact, it was amazing how well our mission had gone, when I thought about it. We had found Teeny and I had healed her. We hadn’t had to deal with the Widow or fight the pirates because Captain Verrai had already done it for us. We—

Captain Verrai.

Suddenly the realization I’d had just before we found Teeny came rushing back to me. Captain Verrai! I
had
to speak to Captain Verrai! Surely he was the male Magda had been talking about—the one I was supposed to talk to even though I felt I shouldn’t.

“Grav,” I said, struggling to sit up straighter in my seat. “Grav, I have to tell you something—something important.”

“Hang on a minute, darlin’.” He sounded distracted and his eyes were trained on the viewscreen in front of us as he maneuvered the small ship. “Just let me clear the Web and you can tell me.”

“But I need to tell you before we get to the ship. We need to go back to the Safe Haven bar,” I said.

“What?” He shot me a glance. “Why?”

I took a deep breath. “It’s about the Gold Skins—the Imperial Guards,” I said. “I have to talk to Captain Verrai.”

“
What?”
His quizzical expression turned hard. “Why in the Frozen Hells of Anor would you want to talk to that gold-skinned bastard?”

“Because,” I said. “He—”

Just then several things happened at once.

The darkened red spheres all around us suddenly blazed to life. Lines of red sprouted from them, weaving together, interconnecting, for all the world like a real spider’s web. Grav’s little shuttle was right between two of the spheres when it happened. Before I knew it we were stuck fast—caught like…well, like a fly in a web.

At the same time, I saw pits in the two spheres closest to us open up and millions of tiny silver insect-looking things like metal spiders suddenly flew out. All of them were aimed straight at the shuttle and soon enough I heard the dry little,
chink…chink…chink
sound of their slender, needle-like legs making contact with the metal hull of the ship.

“Grav,” Teeny whispered from the back. “Grav, what’s happening?”

“Don’t know, sweetheart. Just sit tight.” Grav’s voice was low and I saw that he had a knife in one hand—a long, curving, wicked looking blade that glinted in the glow of the instrument panel.

Then I heard a soft whirring noise right over my head. I looked up, my heart pounding. What was going on? Why had the Web come back on just at the right moment to trap us? And was there any way out?

A whooping alarm suddenly sounded inside the cabin and I heard a metallic voice saying,

“Warning—Hull Breach! Warning—Hull Breach! Oxygen loss imminent. All passengers should evacuate immediately.”

“Oh my God!” I looked at Grav. “What—”

That was as far as I got before one of the skinny metal spiders fell from the ceiling above my head and landed right in my lap.

I shrieked in wordless terror—roaches aren’t the only creepy crawlies I hate—and propelled myself into Grav’s lap.

“Careful, darlin’!” He narrowly avoided stabbing me with his knife but I barely noticed. I was too busy shaking my legs like crazy, trying to get rid of the awful metal spider. And then I heard Teeny’s voice, coming out soft and frightened.

“Grav,” she whispered. “The…the ceiling.”

I looked up instinctively and saw to my horror that the metal spider which had fallen on me had friends. They were squeezing in through the narrow hole the first bug had made and boiling across the ceiling in a wave of long, thin, needle-tipped legs and sleek, fat silver bodies.

I don’t know if you remember that old show—Fear Factor? The one where they subjected contestants to their worst fears? Sometimes they would take somebody and lay them down inside a clear plastic box and then dump bugs all over them.

I couldn’t stand to watch when they did that—I had to change the channel and concentrate hard on something else. Just the idea of having that happen to me freaked me out. So you can imagine how
actually
having it happen made me feel.

I panicked.

My heart started racing so hard I could hear it pounding in my ears—my breath came in short, ragged gasps and I started to feel dizzy and ill. My hands got cold and clammy and I thought I might go crazy if I couldn’t get out of the shuttle. It had seemed roomy enough earlier—even too big, since it was made for alien males Grav’s size, not Earth-sized females like me.

But now with the spiders filling the ceiling and beginning to rain down on us, it seemed no bigger than a coffin—a tight silver coffin filled with bugs that were squirming all over me.

“Oh my God!” I gasped, writhing like a fish all over poor Grav’s lap. “They’re in my hair—
they’re in my hair!”

It was true. I felt their long, silver legs tangling in my long strands. And then they were skittering over my shoulders and arms and up and down my legs. They were even getting on my
face!
I stopped screaming and clamped my mouth shut—no way did I want one of them in there!

But then I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were constricting with panic and behind me I could hear Teeny screaming and twisting around, trying frantically to get the spiders off her as well.

The only one who kept his head was Grav. He kept one arm around me and with the other, he smashed as many of the metallic spiders as he could. They made crunching-splattering sounds and their soft gooey innards—which were a bright, poisonous shade of green—came raining down on our heads.

I didn’t know which was worse—the dead spiders or the live spiders. Either way, I felt like my heart was about to burst in my chest I was so completely freaked out.

Oh my God,
I moaned inwardly, since I didn’t dare to open my mouth, lest a spider get inside.
OhmyGod,OhmyGod,OhmyGod!

And then a cold, female voice spoke from overhead.

“Be still!”
it commanded sharply.
“Cease this useless thrashing or my minions will be forced to sting you.”

I was so surprised that for a moment I
did
hold still. Where was the voice coming from? From one of the spiders? From the hole in the ceiling which was gradually letting out our oxygen? Even now it was getting hard to breath but I honestly didn’t know if that was from lack of O2 or the fact that my entire body was in overdrive.