Ruwen: Mated to the Alien Page 4

  “And why three days?” she asked, not offering the explanation he hadn’t asked for.

  “The cloaking device burnt out on entry. It takes five days to re-cycle. I landed two nights ago. If we try to leave without cloaking…” he trailed off.

  She finished for him. “Kaboom?”

  “If that is the sound of an explosion, then yes.” They shared a little smile. His watch beeped, reminding him that he had preparations to make for the night. “If you are amenable, I would take you off this planet.”

  Lis froze, looking just past his left ear. “Just like that?” she asked.

  Was it so complicated? Even if she were not his denya, he hoped he would be a good enough man to rescue her from this hostile place. Seeing as she was his, the matter had never been in question. “Just like that,” he confirmed.

  Her mouth opened and closed and she gripped the edge of the beach chair. “That’s… what…”

  Ru wanted to reach out and comfort her. If she couldn’t take a simple kindness, one he was certain that he had been angling for, he knew that she must have endured something truly terrible. The humans he knew had never been unkind, but there had always been rumors of an unbearable harshness for some of their people.

  Humans endured, no matter what. To do so, they could be both the most kind-hearted and the most cruel people in the entire universe. And if she had been subjected to the cruel, he feared what he thought he would demand of her.

  Ru held up a hand in peace. “I have only one request. And one demand,” he added after a moment.

  She raised up her brows. “Yes?”

  “For the demand, until we leave Polai, do not leave the ship without my company. It is dangerous and I’ve no way to track you.” He would not budge on that.

  Lis considered it for a moment and then nodded, “That seems reasonable.” She didn’t need to be told of the danger again. “And the request?”

  This was where he could go completely wrong. She’d reacted so poorly to merely the mention of mating that he knew he shouldn’t push his luck. And yet Ru could not help himself. She was a smart, snarly, beautiful woman who would be perfect with him if only she gave them a chance.

  The fact that she would save his life barely rated.

  But Ru needed to ask it. He could not let her go and he had no wish for subterfuge. So he spoke slowly and with great care. “My assignment is a matter of some urgency. And because of that, I would ask that you agree to accompany me until its end. That may take a little more than a month. And in that time,” he took a deep breath and said a silent prayer, “I would like to… get to know you. And for you to get to know me. And for you to perhaps consider…”

  “Are you asking me to sleep with you? Because it’s taken me less time to fuck guys than for you to ask.” Sarcasm laced through her tone, but there was a hint of curiosity there as well. It gave Ru hope.

  He would have expected jealousy at the thought of her past lovers, but instead, a smug sense of superiority invaded him. He would bring her pleasure that they could not dream of. If her old lovers finished in the space of a sentence, they’d never been good enough for her.

  “Pleasure, such as it is, should be savored,” he said. “But while you are the most beautiful woman I’ve had the pleasure to lay eyes on,” and that sentiment grew truer by the second, “That is not what I ask.” Though he’d be dreaming of her until the moment she let him into her bed.

  “Then what do you want?” The playfulness had leaked out, leaving her voice flat. Not from lack of emotion, but almost like she was trying to keep it in.

  “Merely that you consider me. Both as a friend, and that you’ll allow something more to grow, if it will.” It would, he knew. How could the bond do anything but? But she needed to be ready to accept it and him.

  Lis pulled her legs in and rested her head on her knees, hugging her ankles. “Yeah,” she said, voice faint and muffled by her skin, “I can consider you.”

  Ru smiled. That was a step in the right direction.

  Chapter Seven

  As if he realized that he'd given Lis a lot to think about, Ru left her alone in the holoroom after giving her quick instructions on how to change the settings on the holoplayer. All she had to do was turn the dial and she could be just about anywhere in the universe.

  She stayed on the beach.

  She wasn't sure how the tech worked, but it really felt like she was sitting on a cotton lined chair on an utterly alien beach. She'd never seen naturally occurring red sand before.

  One day with Ru and he was opening up her horizons in ways she hadn't thought possible. Back home on Earth there weren't many opportunities for an orphaned gutter rat from the Wastes. She'd been tough and as lucky as they came. But she'd had to fight for every single scrap she’d ever made.

  There hadn't been time or space to imagine red beaches or sexy aliens that kissed like the devil.

  Already, the plan she'd formed to get off Polai was falling apart. She'd expected that she'd need to barter things that she’d rather not sell. Instead he simply offered to take her away with nothing to gain.

  Could a person truly be so genuine? So kind?

  For the last month or more, she'd been subjected to inexplicable cruelty at the hands of strangers, but her entire life had seemed to lead to it on an indifferent path. Her last two lovers, the only two who'd ever bothered to stay around for longer than a few weeks, had both cheated on her. Garth, who'd seemed like exactly the kind of guy who could save a girl from sorrow, had even tried to steal a job out from under her.

  No one she knew back home, not even her closest friend, would offer to save her without payment. Garth and Brody would probably both demand sex and forgiveness. Her boss, Kim, would want her to do jobs as payment. The bad kind of jobs that she normally refused to take.

  And Lis would have paid those prices, no question. She already hated her exes, so a little casual… whatever… couldn't make that worse. As for Kim, at least she was fair about it. She’d never demand payment beyond what she was owed.

  Lis had been certain she'd need to play Ru to get away. Whatever that mate thing he was talking about sounded like a whole bunch of nonsense to get into her pants. And if that had been his price, she would have paid it as well. She would have hated him for it, and herself as well.

  But she was a survivor, not a saint.

  Would it really be so bad to give him a shot like he asked? She'd agreed without truly considering it. In the grand scheme of things, a few weeks was nothing.

  And things would be good between them. There was no question about sexual compatibility. She'd felt just about all of him during their kiss and all those parts would fit. When he grew tired of her after he learned exactly what she was and how she'd lived, it might actually hurt. She didn't question her certainty that things would end.

  Ru was a kind, generous man. Sure, he hunted bounties. But he despised slavers and rescued damsels.

  This had to be Stockholm Syndrome. Lis never realized that it could strike so quickly.

  But no, this wasn't anything quite so simple. She liked Ru. Not just in the sex way. Back home she'd needed to learn to judge people quickly from a young age. Dangerous or safe. Scammer or mark. Abuser or not.

  The crowds she ran with and worked for would never tolerate an honest man, nor a good one. But in those very, very rare instances when they showed up, she could sense that bright strain of something pure within.

  And it shone bright in Ru. She didn't get it, and yet, she was so thankful that she wanted to repay him even though he hadn't asked for anything.

  Well, nothing besides a chance.

  When he asked for that, he'd looked at her like he truly saw her. And it left Lis feeling strangely exposed and vulnerable. Not physically, but like her soul sat open for anyone to stomp on. She didn't want him to see that; she didn't know what he could discern when those fiery red eyes turned on her.

  But he still wanted her.

  She wasn't even sure what
that meant. It wasn't sex. That was clear. A relationship? Marriage? Mating? He'd used that word, but she had no idea what he meant by it. Wolves mated for life and all that crap, but humans didn't.

  And yet… the more she thought about it, the more acceptable it sounded. Sitting beside Ru and talking logistics had felt so damn right that she was terrified of it. He'd just fit, like he was a strange and vital piece of her life that she hadn't known had been missing.

  But she didn't know him! And she was sort of, kind of his prisoner at the moment. Though she wasn't sure that he would stop her if she really wanted to leave. He might force her off Polai, if she was crazy enough to try to stay, but she doubted he'd lock her up beyond that.

  It was scary to consider giving him a real chance to… win her? Was that the right term? Maybe date her. But it was the good kind of scary, like sky diving. Not the bad kind of scary, like jumping out of a burning plane with no parachute.

  She knew both from experience.

  Lis didn't need to make her final decision now. But she decided to be open to it, to him. Whatever that meant. And if all she got was a very fun story, then at least she'd have that.

  She stood up from her beach chair and did a little stretch. She'd been sitting for so long lost in thought that her muscles had begun to stiffen up.

  The dial on the wall was barely visible beyond the holo projection, but Lis reached for it and turned blindly. It flashed through several scenes, from waterfalls running in reverse to planets made entirely of diamond.

  But Lis remembered the stricken look that had flashed across Ru's face right before the beach. She turned the dial back until she returned to the dense forest that he hadn't wanted to show her.

  Ru had said she could check out any of the scenes. She was almost certain that this one would show her more about Ruwen the Detyen than any other option at her fingertips.

  ***

  The forest around her was giant, dense with broad trunked trees as far as her eyes could see. Unlike the beach, this forest could have been on Earth, but somehow she knew she was looking at a planet she’d never seen before.

  The wide green leaves rustled as a gust of wind blew through. It even ruffled Lis’s hair. And she breathed in the scent of green and old wood.

  Two Detyens walked in front of her. One had greenish-yellow skin similar to Ru’s, but the other was red with markings in dark lines and squares all around his neck. Both wore dark clothing and carried heavy packs on their backs.

  The yellow one said something, but even with her translator Lis couldn’t understand it. She didn’t know if it was because of the holo-projection or something else.

  The red Detyen scoffed and replied dismissively to whatever his companion had said.

  The first Detyen didn’t like it. His voice got low and intense, eyes narrowed as he enunciated every word, each as much a mystery to Lis as the last.

  Their argument was cut short by a yellow Detyen woman running up behind them. She started yelling and waving her arms around, trying to get their attention. At first, neither of the Detyens seemed to pay her any mind, but as she got closer, they both turned to her, curious.

  The woman quickly overtook them, running for her life from an unseen foe. She briefly glanced over her shoulder and urged the other Detyens on, but she didn’t wait for them to catch up.

  Lis felt the heat warm against her face before she saw it. It crept up on her, and then with a surprising swiftness, she was engulfed, the forest a hell of red and orange flame that ate everything in its path. It sucked up all the air, burning her lungs, the taste acrid. Even through the thick, dark smoke, Lis could still see the woman. She ran after her, afraid that the flames would somehow come to life and take her with them through the holoplayer.

  The woman dived into a waiting ship at the edge of the woods. As Lis ran in behind her, she watched the woman wait in the doorway, lips tight as she watched the fire grow and grow. Lis could tell she was waiting to see if the two men had made it. But second by precious second ticked by, and they didn’t emerge from the flickering flames.

  The woman let out an anguished yell as the fire reached the last tree and jumped to the grass less than twenty feet from the ship. She slammed her hand down on a button and the door dropped shut with a resounding bang.

  There wasn’t much room in the ship, but it wasn’t real and the woman couldn’t care that Lis stood there watching her. With practiced swiftness, the Detyen strapped herself into the pilot’s seat and fired the rockets, launching from the quickly burning ground before her only escape could be destroyed.

  If Lis had really been there, she would have fallen flat to the floor as the ship leapt vertically, climbing through the air until it could break through the atmosphere. As it was, she wobbled for a second, but remained upright.

  Lis stepped up to the door and looked out the porthole window. The land glowed with the destruction of apocalypse. The forest had succumbed to the utter blackness of death, but as they got further and further away, Lis could see that it wasn’t only that one swath of land.

  The entire planet was dying. Fire and decay crawled over every inch that she could see.

  And then, as quickly as the fire had destroyed the forest, she was back in it, standing in front of the yellow and red Detyen men.

  She watched again in fascinated horror with the hollow certainty that these men had been swallowed in the flames she knew were coming but could not yet see. She studied the red one, looking for some sign that he could sense his impending doom. But as his argument started with his yellow companion, they were both oblivious to the danger.

  There was a noise behind her, but she ignored it until she saw the woman start running toward them once more.

  The video cut off, Ru standing beside the holoplayer control dial.

  Tears burned in Lis’s eyes as she looked at him. He bore little resemblance to the yellow man and woman from the vid, being both taller and leaner. But they had unquestionably been his people. And he looked hurt after only catching a few seconds of the show. Lis knew that Ru must have studied that footage over and over, taking what little scraps he could of a home world to which he could never return.

  “Why couldn’t I understand what they said?” she asked. The translator he’d given her should have been loaded with plenty of languages.

  Ru slowly lowered his hands and curled his fingers into a fist. His other hand cradled that fist, massaging it with practiced restraint.

  “They’re speaking Detyen,” he said. “There’s only about 20,000 or so of us left who speak it with any fluency. And we all speak IC anyway.” Unlike her, his eyes were dry, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t mourn.

  “What happened?” It looked like the planet had been destroyed in minutes. Not even a hundred nuclear bombs could do something like that.

  Ru shrugged. “War. Destruction. It was long before I was born.”

  That might have been true, but she knew that seeing part of that vid must have brought it all back. Lis crossed the room and pulled him close. The pain of the loss must have never been far from his mind. How could it? He was a man without a planet and with few people of his kind left.

  Ru stood frozen in her embrace, as if he was scared to move. But Lis didn’t let go. "I'm sorry," she whispered against his neck.

  Ru breathed deep and his arms came around her, holding her until she was flush up against him. He smelled hauntingly familiar and just right: a mix of something woodsy and spicy with just a hint of engine grease. It was the smell of his work mixed with the fundamental scent of him. Lis just wanted to roll around in it until she was covered in him.

  Her hands crept up and down his back, feeling the delicious pull of his taut muscles under her fingers. She felt little ridges flicking away from his spine, the skin gathered in hard lines that she could trace her fingers across.

  But that was not the only stiffness she felt. His cock was right there between them, hardening as she touched him.

  Lis dragged
her fingers over one of the denser lines on his back and heard Ru suck in a ragged breath, arousal thick in the air. She did it again, and this time, the air rushed out of him in a whoosh.

  So this was the power she could have over him, if she wanted to take it.

  His lips came down and brushed over the pulse of her neck, causing Lis to let out her own little gasp. She arched into him, chest heaving. This was no longer about comfort. Ru might have suffered from a generational sadness, but she knew that now his entire attention was focused on her.

  His teeth scraped her, not quite a bite, just giving her the slightest suggestion of menace. The fingers on one of her hands curled, digging into his flesh. His teeth felt sharper than a human’s, not quite fangs, but dangerous.

  It was the sexiest thing that Lis could ever remember feeling.

  She wanted to lay down and let him slide into her tight sheath and fuck him until they were both dazed and spent. She wanted to take his cock into her mouth and taste the most masculine part of him. She was on fire, her pussy wet and lips swollen with need, desperate to be filled.

  God, she wanted him more than she needed to breathe.

  Lis tapped on the brakes, the thought a step too far. Breathing was too important to ignore. And yeah, it might have been hyperbole, but that didn't mean that she couldn't take a step back.

  She stilled against him.

  Ru sensed the change in her and pulled away. He took half a step back, but he kept her in a loose embrace, his arms casually clasping her own. Lis didn't mind. It felt too good to be held by him to try and stop it.

  “I’ve prepared a meal,” he said, one thumb casually making circles on her bicep. “You’ve been in here for quite some time.”

  Lis realized that she was hungry. After days of starvation, it was hard to believe that she could sate her stomach when it was merely empty, not trying to devour itself from the inside. “I could really go for some food right now.”

  She followed him out of the holoroom on unsteady feet. Something undeniable had shifted between them. And Lis was terrified that if she let him truly get to her, then she wouldn’t know how to let go.