Alien-Under-Cover (11 page)

She noticed that he took care not to expose too much of her skin to the doctor, who held another instrument over her shoulder.

She almost smiled at the doctor when the pain suddenly stopped. “I like alien medicine. It works much faster than our stuff.” She’d get her hands on the doctor’s gadgets when she was better. “Wow, it’s amazing. I feel wonderful all of a sudden.” She saw the two aliens glance at each other. “What?”

Something moved in her shoulder. It didn’t hurt but she didn’t like the sensation. The euphoric feeling of a moment ago faded. “What’s he doing? How’s he moving the bullet without touching it?”

“Do not move, Julia.”

Through blurry eyes, she saw Zurian take the torn piece of metal with a silvery cloth when it emerged and hand it to the doctor, who also took care not to handle it directly.

“Why aren’t you touching it?”

“Poison,” Zurian said briefly.

“
What
? Who would poison a bullet? Am I going to die?” She tried to sit up but fell back with a moan. She’d never heard of anyone putting poison on a bullet before.

“No.”

“I d--don’t b--believe--” Something happened to her tongue. She couldn’t speak.

“Our medicine will heal you,” Zurian said.

The doctor injected her with a silver tool he pressed against her neck. She felt a prick and he stood back before she even realized what happened. He took out another tool from his pocket. How they managed to produce all these things and not have bulging pockets escaped her. Whatever he injected her with helped immediately. Her tongue felt normal again and her eyes could focus.

She could feel her eyeballs trying to pop out when he grunted and a flame sprang from the metal wand in his hand. He lowered it with terrifying slowness to her wound.

Julia screamed and screamed. Zurian pushed the doctor away from her. Mercifully, blackness overtook her before she had to endure too much of this torture.

***

Zurian grabbed Viglar by the throat and lifted him away from Julia. “You would burn my breeder?”

Zyrgin warriors healed without a hint of a scar left behind when their wounds were sealed with the flame. His Julia would not be able to endure the pain and it would upset her to have a terrible scar.

He tightened his grip. “You know the flame we tested on that Raider left him scarred.”

Zurian ignored the polite way the doctor made sure not to look at his scars. All his brother warriors were careful never to make him feel less than a warrior. When he started training he had to work harder, be tougher and ruthless to be considered equal to the other warriors. Ever since he joined Zacar’s squadron, the taunts had stopped. Even though he came from tainted blood Zacar had accepted him and treated him as a warrior.

“I tease her good,” the doctor boasted and, laughing, shook off Zurian’s grip.

Zurian gritted his teeth but ignored his pique at how easily the doctor managed it. Zurian had made peace with his bloodline a long time ago. “It is not your place to tease my breeder,” he insisted. “Zacar’s breeder is a bad influence on all of you. It is not seemly, the way you talk with her.” He knew both the doctor and Azagor spent time with Natalie.

The doctor showed him a palm without claws.

Zurian returned the gesture. Among warriors, it was almost a casual insult. Non-warrior citizens would never show each other impotent signs.

Julia whimpered at Viglar’s laughter.

“If you try it again, we will cross swords,” Zurian growled. “And stop laughing, it upsets my breeder. It was a good tease,” he admitted grudgingly. “Have you heard about the new weapon?”

“Yeah, I wonder what the technicians came up with now.”

“If they had to test it themselves, I doubt they would be half as imaginative in their gadgets.”

They both snickered.

“I have to deal with the reverend.”

“You need me to stay with her?” Viglar said immediately.

Viglar was a fine warrior, but in his heart he would always be a healer. That did not mean Zurian would allow him to be alone with Julia.

“I am going as soon as I am assured she can be left alone.”

“It will take time for her to be well again.”

“You do not go near her without me.”

“She is going to get worse for a few days. You need to keep her cool and feed her regularly. If she did not have access to our medicine, she would be dead already.”

“I will call you if I need you.” As soon as she was better Zurian would take the reverend’s head. It would teach the humans never to harm a Zyrgin breeder.

Viglar nodded and left.

***

Julia’s shoulder was on fire. She slapped at the flames and screamed. A strange green devil kept waking her to give her water and force her to eat some vile tasting soup. She tried to push him away but her hands wouldn’t obey her commands. Hot, she was so hot. “G’way, demon!”

Urgent, strange-sounding words disturbed her sleep. She glared in the direction of the noise and a huge demon came closer. He opened his mouth to reveal two large incisors growing in length. She screamed, trying to get away but she was trapped in a silver cocoon. He’d come to punish her for her sins. For not having the courage to tell what she saw.

The demon with the strange skin and red eyes bent over her. His large incisors, gleaming white, grew enormous and she screamed.

***

Julia jerked awake and panicked when she couldn’t open her eyes. What happened? Where was she? Why did she feel so weak?

It took several tries before she managed to lift her lids.

Silver all around her, hurting her eyes. Silver walls, silver bed made from the same material. Even the blankets covering her shone softly silver. Something blue covered her feet. She went to rub her eyes but her arms wouldn’t lift. It was a bear pelt at the foot of the large bed she lay on. A bear pelt? She could’ve sworn bears were brown.

She moved and pain shot through her shoulder.

Julia remembered now. The reverend and his men had shot her. She jerked upright only to groan and slump down again. Poison, she’d been poisoned. That must be why she couldn’t get up. Trapped in a house with a huge taciturn alien and a bear pelt he’d given her because he thought she belonged to him.

Julia’s whole body tightened. She had the sensation of someone watching her. The sensation a child had when convinced if he looked under the bed he would see a monster staring back at him. Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head. The alien stood over her, looking impossibly big, with his legs planted apart and his arms crossed over his chest. His features were terrifying, with that scar down his right cheek, his face expressionless.

“Water,” she croaked and couldn’t believe how dry and sore her throat was.

He picked up a silver goblet and, crouching next to the bed, lifted her with his left hand beneath her neck and carefully held the water against her lips. Even desperately thirsty, his hand on such a vulnerable part of her body caused her to tense. She swallowed greedily but after a few sips she had to stop. Her stomach had shrunk to the size of a pea.

“What happened to the others? Did Charles get the children away?”

“They are all safe.”

She screened her eyes with her hands. The gleam from the silver walls were impossibly bright. “How long was I out of it?”

“Almost a week.”

How was that possible? She’d seen many of her family’s enforcers shot and they were back on their feet within days.

“Your eyes hurt?”

“Yes, the gleam from the wall is too bright.”

He grunted something and the walls changed to a soft cream color. When she was better she’d try to figure out how he did it.

“Was the bullet really poisoned?”

“Yes.”

She remembered that alien doctor and his medieval torch. “That lunatic burned me.”

She tried to see how badly he’d damaged her and realized two things. A huge silver bandage, the kind that was still available when she was a child, covered her shoulder, hiding any burn marks. And she was naked.

“I would not allow anyone to burn you.” He still didn’t move, just stood there staring at her with those truly disturbing black eyes. They appeared endless. And when he’d transformed into his true form in her house, she’d seen red flashes in his eyes for brief moments. She would prefer to be anywhere but helpless and naked in a bed in his house.

“Thank you. That lunatic could’ve really hurt me,” she said. Her shoulder didn’t hurt anymore but she felt strangely lethargic. It might take a while before she was strong enough to get away from him. “Why would he do something like that?”

He hesitated. “That is how Zyrgin wounds are sealed.”

“Oh.” Julia didn’t believe for one moment the doctor would think that burning it was the way to seal her wounds. She looked up and gasped. Above her the night sky twinkled with starts, the moon only a bright sliver.

“What is this place?” She had a hazy recollection of him carrying her into a dome like structure and the doctor taking out the bullet--and starting up that terrifying flame--but that was all. The dome had looked solid from the outside. But if he can make the walls change color she supposed he could make the ceiling see through.

“Our bedroom,” he said.

“
What
?”

She struggled to sit upright. He sat down next to her and helped her up with his arm around her shoulders. Julia froze, aware of him in every cell in her body. As if he had somehow imprinted on her.

He radiated warmth and safety when he was the most dangerous being she’d ever met. If he ever disguised himself again, she would recognize his heat and the male coffee and spice smell of him. She should’ve recognized it in the reverend’s basement. In that hellhole, he’d been the only thing that smelled good.

Now that she didn’t relate to him as John anymore, she didn’t know how to act. Every time he’d appeared in her house they’d fought. Well, she’d been fighting and he’d humored her. Through all their struggles, she’d been aware on a very primitive level that he desired her.

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why have you brought me here, looked after me, cared for me?”

She blushed and pulled the sheet higher over her naked breasts. Did he take off her clothes? She had a vague recollection of him sponging her down, constantly ordering her to eat. His demon eyes followed her every move, lingered on her shoulder and the tops of her breast for a moment. This close, she could see his square chin and the prominent veins running down his neck.

“I am a warrior with honor.”

“What does that mean?”

“I care for my breeder.” The muscles in his arm holding her against him tightened. He leaned down, moved his lips over her forehead, her nose, her chin.

If she closed her eyes, she could believe she was back in the reverend’s basement and John was kissing her. His lips felt so familiar. Except that he wasn’t John then and it wasn’t John kissing her now.

He stilled with his lips over her ear, and the breath ghosting over it caused chills to break out over her whole body.

She searched for something, anything, to say to break the intimacy of the moment. “You can’t keep me here.” She had to put as much distance between No Name Town and herself as she could manage. “I would like to see Natalie before I go.”

Sometimes if you acted forceful enough, people could be steamrollered.

“You will stay here. I will keep you safe from what you fear.”

So much for steamrolling him. “You have no idea what I fear and why did you come to my house all those times?”

“I saw you in the street and decided to have you as my breeder.”

“Why do you keep calling me that? Please tell me it has a different meaning for Zyrgins than the unpleasant picture in my mind.” Nothing would move her to admit that she found him compelling despite his green gold skin and ridged bald head. “And if you planned to kidnap me all along, why did you wait so long to do it?”

He always appeared calm and in control, a lot arrogant. For the first time she saw him hesitate.

“To you, being my breeder means you belong to me.”

Her stomach rumbled again and she was sure her cheeks turned an unpleasant crimson shade.

“I bring you food.”

He moved to the door so fast she had to call after him, “Wait, why did you wait so long to kidnap me?”

He stopped. “I wanted to court you in the human manner first,” he said without turning and then he was gone.

That was courting? She thought about the fear that had ridden her for so long. Not knowing when the enforcers would find her and scared out of her mind the demon would come back.

She became aware of a pressing need for the bathroom and looked around a little frantically. The wall to the left of her had a thin line the shape of a door and she really hoped that led to a bathroom.

She carefully sat up and, although her shoulder had stopped burning, her head buzzed unpleasantly. She had to sit a moment before she could wrap the thin silver blanket around herself and struggle to stand. She fell down on the metal floor with a soft moan. Being this weak scared her, made her feel helpless and at the mercy of the demon alien.

Warm hands picked her up and returned her to the bed.

“Is that the door to the bathroom?” she gestured vaguely to where she saw the thin line marking the shape of a door and prayed aliens used bathrooms.

“Yes.”

He lifted her and she hastily clutched the blanket to her. The door slid open when he touched the wall to the right of the thin line, still carrying her. He walked in and carefully set her down on her feet, holding her against his warm body. In the reverend’s basement they’d been forced to be physically close. The heat coming from his body was so familiar. For one crazy moment, she wanted to lean against him, absorb his heat, and draw comfort from him.

She remembered the way he would rub her against him when she fought him every time he appeared in her house. Many times, she’d gotten the impression that he used every opportunity to touch her, to rub against her. Julia searched for something to break the intimacy.