Alpha Alien: Mated (3 page)

"So, why not leave me on Earth? Can't you just do your finger wiggle and let me go?" If I could convince her to take me home, I would bury my embarrassing lust for Tlavi in a deep, dark hole.

"It doesn't work that way. There is a ritual. Although, it's unknown what needs to happen with a human. But, clearly
Pogona
exists between you both and we need to take you back to our planet to break the bond."

"
Pogona
?"

"It's the overriding urge that compels the life bond."

"Compels it to…?"

She waved her hand weakly. I sensed it was terribly embarrassing to talk so openly about something that must be common knowledge in her culture. "Well, to copulate, to be together. Mostly we don't disgrace ourselves. Strong feelings and events can trigger more…extreme actions."

She shifted uncomfortably. "I'm reasonably sure he was simply waiting to share a meal with us. I stepped out, and I wasn't thinking what would happen if he saw you. Although I really expected he'd have more control."

"Well, I, uhm, when he told me I was a prisoner, I tried to escape."

"Oh, oh dear. What happened?" There was a slightly horrified look on her face.

"I tried to hit him with the carafe, but he caught it. Then the momentum knocked us down."

"Which is when I found you?"

I shook my head. Now she just stared at me, clearly fascinated. "So you…you tried to fight him?"

"Well, I'm not keen on being a prisoner. But it was when I head-butted him that it got…" I trailed off for a moment. This was his sister. "Intense. It got intense." I could feel my ears burning; they must have been blazing red.

She sounded slightly scandalized. "So, that's where all the blood came from."

"Yeah, basically." I shrugged. They were holding me prisoner, they had to expect I wouldn’t just sit there. When he snatched me, I’d just shot up a man’s truck. Clearly I didn’t mess around.

"It's just…in our culture, women…we don't…I mean…we literally can't resist our life bond. Fighting isn’t something that is even possible."

"Well, when you walked in, I wasn't doing a whole lot of resisting." More like spreading and begging. All this alien technology, and no way for the floor to swallow me up when I’m so embarrassed I could die.

She got very still and quiet. "It's beyond that…it's awful."

"What do you mean?"

"I've studied humans, you know. I know that in a coupling, you aren't compelled to obey. We are. I've vowed to destroy whatever life bond happened to me. My brother and I…we promised each other we would help give each other freedom. We watched our father destroy our mother. He was cruel beyond reason. I'm happy to just let the bloodline die out and never mate. But Tlavi wants to continue our family line. So he must find someone appropriate."

“And I’m really not.”

“He’s wrong, you know. But he can’t see past the other ropes our father bound him in. He has a real fear of being controlled now. I will leave you to your thoughts. I must find him.”

She strode out of the room. I’d been thinking of him as a big, mean jerk, but I hadn’t thought about why our connection would be so painful for him.

~ * ~ * ~

Days passed slowly. Thea left me some books she’d picked up from Earth to study and would check up on me occasionally. I was staring up at the ceiling when she joined me one day, bearing a tray of food. We lounged on the divans, talking about one of the books we’d both read.

“How much longer until we are at your world?” I finally mustered the courage to ask.

“We probably have another two weeks, I think you call them?”

I gasped. “Seriously? Doesn’t this thing go any faster? I thought you were super advanced?”

Thea smiled. “I don’t think you realize just how far away your planet is from mine.”

“I’m getting the idea. Why were you anywhere near Earth?” At least another two weeks? Then the return trip? There was no way my mother wasn’t going to completely flip out.

“Tlavi never said, specifically. I think he could feel the pull towards your planet, to find you. We were hiding behind your moon when he was suddenly able to pinpoint you.”

Before I could ask her more, a jarring alarm rang through the room. I would rather have kept noodling on my upcoming fate when Tlavi came crashing into the room and grabbed his sister's arm.

He was furious - magnificent and incredibly furious. The world tilted and we were all swept off our feet. It was the first time anything like movement had happened while I was on the ship. It scared the piss out of me.

Tlavi swore. That scared me more.

Thea struggled to stand up.

"Security Protocol Alpha, red alert!" he shouted

Thea turned toward me, panic scrawled across her face. She stopped trying to stand up and crawled toward me, stretching her hand out. I reached for her, but before we could touch, spider-like metallic arms burst out of the ceiling and snatched her up. She was pulled away from me, screaming and still reaching out to me.

Tlavi finally made it to his feet. He staggered toward me and pulled me into his arms. Despite how scared I was, it was still a thrill for him to hold me. The ship seemed to have stabilized somewhat because he easily walked me to the edge of the room.

Far more strange than the crazy spider arms that grabbed Thea, padded chairs popped out of the wall. They almost looked like your standard racecar seat. All curves, straps and buckles. He shoved me into one and quickly strapped me down. If everything wasn't so chaotic, it might have even been fun to be so strapped down with him towering over me.

He pressed a kiss on my forehead and stroked my cheek. "I should have updated the security protocols." He strapped himself in next to me. "You would be with Thea in an escape pod right now, if I hadn't forgotten."

I was trying desperately to not panic, but a few tears slid down my cheeks. I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice when I said, "I don't understand what’s happening. Is something wrong with the ship?"

He took hold of my hand and squeezed it gently. "We were attacked. Piracy isn't just something that happens on your world. I had to initiate escape protocols when the ship was damaged."

"Pirates? Are they going to board us?" I wasn't sure I could take a change in captivity. At this point, while I'd be denied my freedom, I'd been well cared for. Who knows what pirates would do to me?

"No, we're a faster, better ship."

"But the shaking and the spider arms."

"My sister was taken to an escape pod that will get her to safety. Well away from those monsters."

"What about us? The ship?"

He said, "We out-maneuvered them, easily. But in the process, we took heavy damage."

"Oh my God, what does that even mean? Just tell me."

He squeezed my hand so tightly I could feel it throb from blood loss. "It means we're going to crash."

"Into what?! Are we going to die? Why can't we get into an escape pod, too?"

"There is only one and it's long gone. The ship's trajectory has us aimed at a habitable planet."

"Habitable? If we survive crashing through the atmosphere and slamming into a freaking
planet
, you mean." I was more than a little terrified and careening directly into hysteria.

"Yes, that."

"How are you not freaking out? Why are you so calm?"

"I'm not calm! I'm making sure we have a damn good chance of surviving the crash and what comes after."

"How can you know if we have a good chance?" I was going to die on some rock billions of miles from home and, in that moment, I just really missed my mom. The tears were falling in earnest now. My short, poorly planned life was going to end abruptly in a fiery crash, and I didn't want that to happen. I wasn't ready.

"This is the most protected part of the ship. We're in Alpha Protocol now, which means everything is being positioned to protect this compartment and us."

With that statement, a complicated set of controls dropped down in front of him and he let go of my hand. "The ship will be, to use your phrasing, totally trashed. But all the power will go into the inertial dampeners, which should keep the disruption to us limited.

God, he was really smug, which was a little crazy considering we were about to wreck his pretty little ship. A smidge of concern would make me feel a hell of a lot better. Instead, I was the only one who was upset.

But there was nothing I could do about it, so I closed my eyes and pressed against the padding that surrounded me for a few long moments, regaining my calm. He wasn't interested in dying either, so maybe he was right to be so assured. Of course, just as I'd reached some level of calmness, he swore at the controls and the ship started lurching around like a drunken sailor.

"We're entering the atmosphere."

This was it. Do or die, literally. My teeth clattered as I asked, "Should we be feeling all this?"

"No."

Oh God, panic time.

Those were the longest, scariest moments of my life, waiting to die in a fiery space craft as it cratered into some random planet. Maybe if there was no existing life here, our remains could fuel something. Gotta think positive. My bones could be what colonized a whole new world!

I was grateful we were strapped in, and that there was enough of whatever magic juice running this thing to make the chair wrap around my body, encasing me in protective goo. Then we hit the ground and the room around us, but it was as if we were in a floating cocoon. I felt totally divorced from the violence and chaos that swirled all around us.

After everything stopped moving, I took a few long, shuddering breaths. I was alive! I survived. Excited, I turned to Tlavi, only to see a gash across his face. Not good. It was probably from the controls that were shattered around us. Blood ran down his face and he was unconscious.

I was alive, but this was still really bad. I fumbled around with my straps, figuring out how to get out of this thing. All while panicking that the one being who knew how any of this worked could be dying next to me.

When whatever I was slapping at finally gave way and released me, I tumbled out of the seat and onto the ground. We'd landed more or less upright and it was easy enough to stand up. I pushed what was left of the control panel out of the way and got closer to him.

"Please, don't be dead. I really need you to not be dead."

No matter how we got on each other’s nerves — not to mention how he had kidnapped me — the thought of being alone God knew where was more than I could take. I reached out and touched his face, praying for him to open his eyes.

He didn’t, but he moaned and moved slightly. I took that as a win. If I managed to still be alive and unhurt, maybe he wasn't too badly injured.

I looked around, getting a handle on what materials were available to me. A bundle of fabric on the ground caught my eye. It looked like one of Thea's dresses.

"Sorry, Thea. He can buy you more, if we ever get out of this." 

I used the sharp edge of the broken controls to rip the dress into lengths of fabric. A miraculously unbroken decanter rolled on the ground next to my foot. It was full of vitae. I dampened some of the cloth with it and wiped the copper-colored blood off his face. Instead of his normally stern and frightening glare, he looked vulnerable. Still unnervingly handsome.