Ruwen: Mated to the Alien Read online

  She needed him. Needed to give herself to him and become one.

  What?

  Lis didn’t think like that. She didn’t need anyone.

  In a rush, she came back to herself. It was like she’d stepped out of her body for just long enough to be overtaken by some lust crazed beast. His lips felt good against hers, and Lis could still feel that cloying desperation deep within her soul. But she didn’t own it; it wasn’t hers.

  She froze in his embrace. The alien seemed to sense her sudden reticence and pulled his face back a few inches, giving her just enough room to get a good look at him. Up close, the red of his eyes was even more menacing, and she spied strange ridges along each of his cheeks.

  Despite her fear and confusion, she was fascinated. Who was this man? He might have been an alien, but he was very definitely of the male variety. Without meaning to, her fingers reached up and traced along the hard ridge of his cheek, what she would have called a cheekbone if he were human.

  "Kih wag Ruwen," he said as he tilted his head into her embrace. ‘I am Ruwen’ in Interstellar Common, the language of the stars.

  "Kih wag Lis," she whispered. She only knew a few phrases of the language. No one on Earth used it. But now she had a name to put alongside everything churning inside her. Ruwen. Yes, that sounded completely right.

  He tried to say more, but she didn't understand. He realized it after a moment, watching the confusion that must have been evident in her own brown eyes. Did he think hers were as strange and menacing as she found his?

  Ruwen reached one of his hands up to place it over the one she held to his cheek. And when she spied the claws coming out of the first knuckles on his hands, she was reminded anew of the danger.

  This wasn’t right. He'd done something to her.

  Lis reared back, spinning around and taking out his knees in a move that only worked because he wasn't expecting her to fight him. Before he could recover, she took off running, vaulting over him to get to the door and down the hallway.

  He tried to reach for her, but his hands only grazed her pant leg, one of those wicked claws tearing a three inch strip in the cloth right above her ankle.

  This man, Ruwen, posed more of a threat to her than any of the Polans. None of them had sent her into a lust crazed frenzy. None of them had made her want to lay back and be taken by an alien stranger.

  Desire still curled deep within her, her sex swollen with unwanted need. It made the run all the more painful as she became aware of the uncomfortable tug of her top across her breasts.

  Had he attacked her with some sort of sex-laser? Or maybe an odorless gas? Did he mean to take her as his sex slave or to sell her to the highest bidder? Was this the reason those kidnappers had let her go without warning or real explanation?

  Had she been placed here to be hunted?

  Lis could hear him hot on her heels. He was too big to run both fast and silently, and, unlike her, he wore thick boots that pounded against the concrete floor. Her stride wasn't long enough to outpace him for more than a few minutes. She sprinted for several seconds before realizing that he was no longer stomping along behind her.

  Lis slowed, wary. The entrance wasn't far now, but she looked around and kept her ears peeled, hoping she could get a hint of where Ruwen had run off to.

  It was no use. Either she'd lost him or he had some sort of advanced cloaking technology and she was screwed. She set her sights on the end of the hall and took off, knowing she was only two turns away from freedom.

  She made the first turn and ran flush up against Ruwen, unable to skid to a stop before she fell against his hard chest. She got so close that she could hear his heart pounding, the rhythm a familiar thump thump thump just like her own. In time with her own.

  He took two steps forward, forcing her to back up, and placed a hand on the wall behind her, boxing her in. He leaned in close until they were only inches apart and breathed deep, taking in her scent. Then he scowled.

  Served him right. She hadn't showered in weeks, and the stench had to be ripe. She hadn’t been able to actually smell herself in days, a small blessing.

  His moment of distraction should have given herself the opportunity to fight, but when Lis reared her hand back, she couldn't make herself strike out. The thought of doing him harm felt… not wrong, exactly. It felt impossible, unthinkable.

  What had he done to her?

  He tried to speak to her again in IC, but she didn't understand.

  Lis tried again to hit him, but her arms wouldn’t work. She could imagine laying him out, her right hook renowned throughout northern Ohio for its swiftness and its sting. Still impossible.

  She pushed against him, trying to get out, desperation setting in. Ruwen placed an arm on her shoulder and smoothed it down, speaking words she couldn't understand in something that was supposed to be a soothing tone.

  Lis couldn't hurt him. But she could give in to her most base instinct. The one thing she wanted to do slightly more than give into desire and taste him again.

  She sucked in a deep breath and let out a bloodcurdling scream only inches away from one of his pointed ears.

  He flinched, giving her just enough room to duck under his arms and take off running one more time.

  Lis tore out the door and into the field. Nights were short on Polai and the sun had already started to peek over the horizon past the forest. She couldn't count on the cover of darkness to keep her safe.

  Instead of heading toward the woods where she'd come from, Lis took off toward the south, down a small path that she thought led up into the mountains.

  Ruwen couldn't be far behind, but she had to get away. She wasn't going to stop this time and let him cut her off once more.

  She heard him call out her name from near the door, but she kept running, the path becoming rocky and steep as she reached the first of the foothills that eventually led into the highlands.

  The rocks cut at her bare feet, but she didn't care. Let them bleed, so long as she escaped.

  He called out again, closer this time, his voice almost panicked.

  If she'd been thinking, it might have given her pause. But Lis couldn't waste the brainpower on speech or deciphering an alien language.

  She reached the top of the first little hill and stumbled, the rocks beneath her feet shifting and falling over a steep cliff. She reared back, trying to stop herself from falling. The edge began to give way, the path she'd been running along suddenly becoming shorter and shorter as the narrow tip of the hill collapsed under her.

  She was going to fall. She tried to step back carefully, but every step she took only made the ground give way faster, as if the rocks had been so precariously suspended that any pressure on them would cause a structural failure.

  Lis looked back over her shoulder and saw that Ruwen had stopped only fifty or so feet behind her, his feet still safe on solid ground. She felt a curious pang, unsure of why she felt regret.

  She took a deep breath and looked out into the valley below the cliffs. She was lightyears away from home, and this was where she'd be buried, bones forgotten, the end of her story a mystery to the few friends she had back home.

  The ground shifted again and Lis took a deep breath, a strange sense of calm settling over her.

  This was it.

  When she felt the laser pulse hit her between her shoulder blades, her cry was cut short, the beam freezing her completely in place.

  Everything went silent.

  Chapter Four

  Denya.

  Ru had traveled the stars for more than fifteen years. He’d met more alien species than he could name and had seen sights that anyone bound to one planet couldn’t imagine. But he’d always known that if he were lucky enough to find his mate, she would be one of the few Detyen women scattered across the universe.

  Now that universe had shifted, an impossible possibility opening up before him. A human denya.

  Lis.

  She was asleep in the vacant crew quarters, loc
ked in the small room but not bound. His blaster came with a freeze setting, holding its target in a beam of light, locked in place and able to be transported with ease.

  Until Lis had nearly fallen off of that crumbling cliff, Ru hadn’t considered using the weapon. He understood that she was scared, that she could not understand the sudden bond that had bloomed between them. But he would not force her. And he would never hurt her. Not unless she was in utter danger that only pain could save her from.

  His heart had leapt into his throat when he saw the ground give way beneath her. Ru had moved without thought, shooting at her and holding her in place in the final seconds before what would have been a fatal accident.

  He knew that humans were a hardy species, but even they had their limits.

  Ru had used the small tractor beam blaster attachment to pull his denya’s frozen form back up, and the thought of leaving her in the woods had never occurred to him. Knowing that she’d sleep for hours—the blaster was hell on anyone’s physiology—he placed her in one of the crew bunks and left her to it.

  Well, eventually he left her.

  He looked his fill, drinking in the stunning features of her face and her uniquely human curves. When he’d seen his first humans, he thought that their skin was strangely lifeless, unmarked by clan patterns, stripes, or spots. They came in a variety of colors, but all along one spectrum from light beige to dark brown. No one had the bright green skin he’d seen in photographs of his grandmother or the burning orange of his brother.

  Among his people, Ru would have been considered plain, his skin only a bit more yellow than Lis’s human coloring. The humans he knew thought him just as colorful as the rest of the surviving Detyens.

  When he looked at Lis, he no longer saw a dull skinned alien. Her skin practically glowed a golden brown, smooth all over, or at least smooth as far as he could see. He took off her jacket, but left her to rest in the remainder of her clothing. They were still strangers, after all, and she would no doubt be offended if he were to leave her naked without her consent.

  But the thought of her nakedness set his blood on fire.

  He’d felt the hardness of the muscles in her arms and legs when he placed her in the bunk, but it was the swell of her hips and her breasts that intrigued him. Detyen women were shaped much like Detyen men, broad shouldered, narrowed hipped, and small breasted.

  As an equal opportunity lover of all intelligent life, Ru had always had a special place in his heart for the female Detyen form. Yet, looking at Lis, he could feel his own preferences shifting. Was it the denya bond growing between them? Or was his denya merely an incredibly beautiful woman?

  Beautiful even when she’d been clearly lost in the wild for some time.

  He didn’t know how a human had ended up on Polai, but it was lucky for her that he was the one that stumbled upon her and not one of the native inhabitants. They did not take kindly to strangers and loved to lock up aliens and place them on display for the Polan public.

  The hardship had been etched into her skin by the dirt that hadn’t been cleaned away in weeks, not to mention the stench of hard living that had seeped deep into her skin and clothes. If he were another man, he might have taken the liberty of cleaning Lis off while she was unconscious. But he knew of very few women who would have appreciated that effort.

  So after leaving out washing supplies and a fresh set of clothes, Ru only took one more liberty. He retrieved a small dermal translator and smoothed it against the skin on the back of her neck, fingers reveling in the softness of her flesh. She hadn’t understood when he’d spoken to her in IC after she’d given her name. Now, at least, they’d be able to talk after she woke.

  Then he let her sleep off the effects of the blast, knowing she’d be out until morning.

  His ship was hidden in a meadow near the Polan foothills. He’d set the defenses up so that normal scans could not detect him. His primary cloaking device would be useless until it was full recharged, but the passive defenses would leave them well hidden. And once the ship was recharged, they could be off the planet in minutes and on to the next adventure.

  He only had to convince her that he was worth it.

  Ru went to sleep that night with hope in his heart for the first time that he could remember in years. The looming specter of demise abated for once and he dreamed of a small house on a green planet that he could call home.

  While he slept soundly, he did not sleep for long. A scarce four hours later, he rolled out of bed and began to get ready to show Lis the ship and what he hoped would be the beginning of her first steps at life with him.

  If she had been Detyen, there would be no question. She’d know what the connection meant both for their relationship and for her well-being. Among Detyens, it was always better to mate first and sort everything out later.

  But she was human. Their mating rituals could last for years and fizzle due to one wrong word or look. Some even considered unconsummated romance to be the highest form of love possible.

  He hoped that she wasn’t one of those types.

  Ru powered up the small onboard computer and brought up an informational page about humans. Normally he used this encyclopedia for information about other species’ weaknesses, but now he simply wanted to know what Lis would eat.

  Their diet was not completely unlike that of his own people. When Ru heard the water pump turn on, he knew that Lis had woken up. He got to cooking while she showered. Soon she’d discover that she was trapped in those quarters, and he hoped to provide her with a welcoming meal before she could become too angry.

  She was not quite his prisoner, but he couldn’t leave her stranded here on Polai. And he didn’t know how he could let her go without bonding to her.

  She took her time washing up. The water didn’t stop running for a solid thirty minutes. But by the time it did, Ru had finished preparing a small meal and had set it at the eating station beside the food processors.

  His ship was too small for much of a kitchen. It could house a crew of five, including himself, but not enough cargo to make a profit on any normal shipping runs. But it was fast, and it could easily be piloted by one person if necessary. That made it great for the clandestine work that Ru had become an expert in.

  Dangerous, illegal, and highly profitable.

  What would become of that work was all up in the air now. He’d already been set to quit, and while young Detyens had never been known to save their credits, he’d been very good at his job. But he knew he was getting ahead of himself.

  When the water turned off, he left the food on the table and went to retrieve Lis. This was the most important job of his life and he wasn’t going to screw it up.

  Chapter Five

  Another woman might have tried to escape the moment she woke up in an unfamiliar environment after having been knocked out by an alien stranger who was too sexy for her well-being. But that hypothetical woman probably hadn’t just experienced the most restful sleep of the last month. So Lis took a moment to savor it.

  When she spied the pile of toiletries and the door to the small shower stall, her mind was made up before she could even think of leaving.

  She moaned as the stream of warm water hit her battered body and began to wash away the caked-in stink of the last several weeks. Lis scrubbed and scrubbed, washing her skin and hair until the water ran clear and her skin was red and tender from the effort. It took longer than she anticipated, and halfway through, she spared a glance back at the door.

  She had to be with Ruwen.

  So why wasn’t she freaking out? If a bit of soap and warm water washed away her fears, then she clearly had bigger problems than she thought.

  Lis finished up her shower and toweled off, now taking the time to survey the small room. Four bunks were bolted to the walls and suspended with retractable cables. All of those beds could fold up to more than double the size of the room. Only the bed that she’d slept on was currently folded out.

  The walls were made of a
dull gray metal and a small bench was flush up against the wall opposite the bathroom, suspended much like the bunks.

  It didn’t look a lot like the media shows she watched at home, but she was willing to bet that she was in a room on a spaceship. But judging from the pull of gravity in her feet, they were on land.

  Probably still on Polai. Was that good? She wasn’t sure.

  Lis pulled on the clothes that Ruwen had left for her. He’d left her to sleep in the nasty outfit that her captors had left her, and she was grateful for the respect of her privacy, of her body. She wasn’t sure what the blast he’d aimed her way had meant to do to her, but he’d saved her life. And he hadn’t stripped her down.

  She’d fallen quite far considering the amount of relief she felt that a strange alien hadn’t assaulted her while she was unconscious.

  That being said, she wasn’t ready to go easily. She tested the strength of the cable holding the bed to the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. Given enough time, she might have been able to work a supporting bar free from the bench, but she doubted she had long. She didn’t have time to tear apart the room to make a weapon.

  She tried the door and found it locked. No surprise there. Though now that she was clean and dressed in fresh clothes, she wondered why he hadn’t tied her up. She never left any of the assholes she collected as a bounty hunter back home unbound. They got into all sorts of trouble.

  But before another minute passed, Lis heard steps coming down the hall. They stopped in front of her door, and a moment later, the lock disengaged. She only had a second before the door opened and she spared a glance back at the room, checking to see if a weapon had magically materialized.

  There was a strange pull on her neck and she raised her hand to feel strange bumps and lines just to the side of her spine. A control chip? The door slid open before Lis could try to get a good look in the mirror.

  Ruwen stood before her, hands clasped loosely in front of him and a mild expression on his face. He raised a brow when he saw her jerk her hand quickly down from where it rubbed against her neck. “Good morning,” he said, words coming out loud and clear in English. He gestured to his own neck, “I placed a dermal translator on you. I hoped it would make it easier to talk.”