Abigail’s chest rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath. 

“Come on. We need to keep going,” he said as she doubled over with her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath.

“Give me a moment, please. The air . . . it’s different . . . here.” She wheezed as she tried to breathe the thick air. For the first time since she’d been on the planet, her lungs burned. They’d gone up a hill, so she thought maybe that was contributing to her inability to breathe.

He nodded knowingly and reached for something inside a leather satchel on his hip. “Here, this will help.” He pressed a button and a plastic shield unfolded from a silver sphere. It was about the size of a grapefruit.

Gently he pressed the mask to her face, holding it firmly in place. He then pressed a button and a puff of air hit her face, startling her at first. Suddenly, it was as if the hold on her lungs was lessened and she could breathe.

She drew in another greedy gulp before he pulled it away.

“Thank you,” she said.

He folded the mask and pressed another button on the sphere. A tiny compartment opened up and he put the mask back in place.

“Are you ready?”

“I guess. Why did you have that?" Abigail pointed at the little mask as he put it up.

"When we came here the air was hard for us to breathe, too. I always have it in case I run into someone else out here. You get used to it, but if you do too much physical activity it can make it harder.”

Taking her hand once more, they entered the bowels of the forest. “Stick close,” he whispered. “I’m not familiar with these woods.”

She didn’t have to be told twice as she tightened her grip on his hand. They walked in silence for what felt like hours. Only their footfalls could be heard over the barren ground, and even those sounded like gunshots in her ears.

They finally made it to a little clearing and stopped. “I think here is good,” he said as he turned and looked around them. To their left was a giant rock wall with a yawning black hole. “We can sleep in there tonight,” he said walking toward the cave’s opening.

When she didn’t move he looked back at her. He jerked his head, trying to get her to move forward. She stayed where she was, her legs refusing to move.

“In there?” She squeaked feeling her stomach starting to flip.

“I think it will be for the best. It’s not likely they followed us in here, but we shouldn’t take any chances. I will be easier to see in the night time.”

“Oh. Right,” she said lamely.

Feeling like she had no other choice, she nodded and clutched at the strap of her purse.

“Wait here,” he said as they reached the entrance of the cave.

She watched as he slowly walked into the entrance the glow of his unusual body filling the darkness. The light soon grew fainter and before long, she could no longer see him. Fear clawed at her insides as she waited. What if someone had followed them? What if they were watching them right now and just waiting for them to lower their guard to pounce?

Her imagination began to run wild as the sky overhead began to grow darker and darker. The picture of Cecelia's scary fangs flashed through her mind. The seconds turned into minutes and just as she was about panic, she saw a faint glow. Relief flooded her as he approached.. She never thought she’d be happy to see an oddly sexy yet glowing man.

Sexy? Wait. What?!  She tried to shake away the tiny voices in her head, and when he stopped in front of her, she felt her cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment.

“It’s a little cramped but I think it will work for the night. This is the only way in so we don’t have to worry about someone ambushing us.”

“But what if they come through the front? Won’t we be trapped?”

“Essentially, yes,” he said grimly. “I don’t think it will come to that, though. They can’t really track us. Come on. It’s getting dark and we need to get inside.”

Taking her by the hand, he pulled her into the dark cavern. Thankful for the walking flashlight, it wasn’t as intimidating as it seemed from the outside. The walls resembled cave walls from Earth. There was nothing remarkable about them.

Something close to the ceiling caught her attention, but she didn’t pay attention, figuring it was a spider or some type of bug. Since she wasn’t afraid of either, she dismissed it.

They rounded a corner where a small flame was burning gently. “It can’t get too big or someone might see,” he said as he removed a shirt from the pack at his hip and tugged it over his body. It doused a majority of his glowing skin, leaving only his face and hands.

“Sorry, there aren’t any blankets to sit on.”  He sat down by the fire and crossed his legs.

“It’s okay,” she said as she sat in front of him. “Does it get really cold here at night?”

“Yes, that’s why I built the fire. There’s about an hour where it will be really cold outside.”

Silence filled the space around them.

“Thank you,” she suddenly said, when the silence had become too much for her to bear.

He just stared at the fire. “You stole my boat,” he said gruffly.

She frowned. “I didn’t know what else to do. The people who took me, or aliens, they were chasing me. I didn't see any way over the water.”

He didn’t offer any answer, he just sat in silence.

“Why does your skin do that?” she blurted, feeling heat rise into her cheeks.

“Why does your skin do that?” he asked in turn.

She gave him a puzzled look. “My skin’s not doing anything.”

The corner of his mouth ticked up in a smile. Her heart fluttered and the muscles between her thighs tightened.

“Neither is mine,” he said with a wide smile.

She frowned. “You’re glowing.”

He looked down at his hands and turned them over and then back again. “To me, it is normal. However, I can see how it would be alarming to a human.”

“What are you?” she blurted again. She really needed to learn how to curb her curiosity. Especially while she was sitting directly across from a man with glowing skin and damn good looks. She sounded like a three-year-old and wondered why she'd suddenly become so awkward.

“I’m from a planet called Sarta. I’m known as Lingonian.”

“Oh.” That was all she could say because what else was there to say. She was on another planet. She was having a hard enough processing the spaceship, then throw in the fact that she was sitting in a cave on some awful hell planet. She thought it sounded kind of like he was Italian.

“What’s your name?” she asked, feeling the deep seated need to know more about him.

He turned his eyes and stared at her as if he was sizing her up and trying to decide if she was worthy enough to know his name. “My name is Sca,” he finally said.

She said it slowly, trying to figure out how it felt in her mouth. “Well, Sca,” she finally said, “my name is Abigail.”

He inclined his head in her direction. “Nice to meet you, Abigail.” The slow way her name rolled off his lips sent shivers racing the length of her spine. Several long moments passed before she finally looked away.

“You should probably get some rest. You’ve been through a lot,” he said huskily. He cleared his throat and shifted his position until his back was leaning against the cave wall.

“Right.” She looked at the hard-packed ground around her. Either she was too tired to care about dirt, or she was delusional, but lying down was all too inviting.

With a tired yawn, she curled up on her side facing the fire. Before long, her eyes fell closed. Her last thought was how sexy this Lingonian man named Sca truly was.

Tick. Tick. Click. Click. Tick. Tick. Abigail’s eyes slowly lifted as the bizarre noise reached her ears. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she winced as her joints, muscles, and body resisted. The fire had all but gone out. The only light was coming from the soft glow of Sca’s face. It seemed to be softer and dimmer as he slept.

Slowly, she turned her head from left to right but saw no sign of the noise. As she was readjusting and trying to get comfortable, she heard the sound again. Tick. Tick. Click. Click. Tick. Tick.

Her eyes widened as she looked one way and then another. She opened her mouth to say his name but the walls started moving around them, slowly melting to the ground in front of them a sliding across the floor.

Abigail screamed and tried to move but it was too late, the black sludge was crawling over her legs. But the further it got the more she realized it wasn’t sludge. They were beetles, thousands upon thousands of beetles covering her ankles and legs.

The beetles split and began to cover Sca, dropping down on his shoulder and torso. “Sca!” Abigail screamed as she finally thrust herself to her feet and began to shake the bugs free.

Sca’s eyes sprang open and a look of sheer terror filled his face. Jumping to his feet so quickly, he slammed his head against the low-lying rock ceiling.  He yelped in pain and began manically brushing them off.  They hurried to the opening of the cave and when they looked behind them the bugs followed, rapidly gaining on them.

“They’re after something and if they don’t get it they will follow us everywhere!”

“They’re just beetles,” she said with a frown as the stepped out into the darkness.

“They’re after your bag. What is in there? Give it to me!” he barked as he thrust his hand at her.

She frowned and turned away from his grasp. “Uh, how about ‘no’!”

“Damn it, woman,” he said taking a menacing step forward. One of the beetles fell out of his hair and onto his shoulder. He shivered and flicked it away. He muttered something under his breath but she didn’t understand.

Finally, she rummaged through her purse, smiling when she came up with several pieces of bread. Without thinking, she tossed it into the trees and watched as the bugs did a U-turn and went in the opposite direction.

“Looks like we’re going the long way around,” he muttered as he began to walk opposite direction.

“What? Why?”

“Because if those things are around, you can bet there is something far worse the deeper we go. No thank you. I think we will go around.” He grunted as he marched through the brush.

“You’re scared of beetles.”

He spun around her, taking a step closer. He towered over her and for the first time, she noticed how big he truly was.

Lifting her chin defiantly, she dared him to say something further.

“I’m not scared of beetles; I just don’t care for them. What I do care for, though, is getting my ass and yours out of this safely.” He said it in such a tone that sounded as if he was obligated to save her.

“I didn’t ask you to save me,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

“And you didn’t turn it down,” he fired back as he took a step closer. His heat radiated through his shirt as he glared down at her. His eyes were steady on her face. When he didn’t look away or make a move her frown fell and she began to falter. Her heart began to skip a beat and her mouth went dry.

Her tongue darted out between her lips. His eyes moved down to her mouth and everything in his demeanor changed. The air around them began to sizzle. She sucked in a sharp breath when he made a low grumbling sound.

Closing the distance between them, he roughly pulled her against his body. His mouth slammed down over hers in a powerful kiss. Her eyes went wide, and then as the tip of his tongue began to massage her bottom lip, the urge to resist fading.

Her eyes drifted closed and then her body went lax against his, clinging to him for support. Deeper and deeper the kiss dove, and with each dip of his tongue, her core melted a little more.

Then, all of a sudden, she was thrust away, the cool air rushing over her as he moved his head around. “We need to keep moving. Make sure you keep up. I don’t want to have to rescue you again. We’ve passed the coldest part of the night, but it still isn’t going to be warm so we have to keep going.”

Without another word, he spun and began to stomp off through the darkness. Not wanting to be left in the woods alone and still seething in rage from his kiss-and-ire act, she marched after him. She was pissed, and while she attempted to clear her mind, her body--every fiber of her body--was begging for her to find release.

"I'm serious. Don't stray too far away from me."

She was growing tired of his commanding voice and remained silent for the rest of their trek through the trees. They walked for a long time before the woods opened up and revealed their destination. In the distance there were several houses. She was wary of going into another town but hoped she’d meet a different type of alien. She moved forward and felt a hand close around her arm, pulling her back.

Her blood boiled.  She was tired of him trying to control her. She jerked away from him and moved forwards towards the houses.