FIVE
Cara decided on two things in the shower.
One: she would do everything in her power to learn. To learn about him, his species, his ship, his skills. And she would try to learn where in the hell he was taking her and to whom.
Two: while learning about her alien captor, she would try to befriend him. In doing so, she would try to persuade him not to take her wherever the hell they were going and to take her back home, or to someone who could get her back home, instead. Far-fetched, perhaps, but certainly worth a try if she played her cards right. She could be charming and nice if she needed to be, right? She literally had nothing to lose anyways.
Cara spent more time washing in that strange shower tube than she’d ever spent on washing before. She washed her hair three times with the black particles that rained down from the ceiling and scrubbed her body down until her skin was tender and raw. When she finally swiped her palm over the shower screen to turn off the water, she squeaked in surprise when a blast of hot air hit her body, whipping her hair. A built-in body blow-dryer it seemed. It evaporated every drop of water from her skin and left her wind-swept hair hanging around her shoulders.
No need for a towel, I guess, she thought, avoiding the cloak on the floor like a plague when she eventually stepped out.
She poked her head through the door that led into the bedroom just in case her alien decided to stick around. Now that she was clean, she was slightly embarrassed that she’d begun to undress in front of him. But when a girl went without a shower for God-only-knows how long, her eagerness wasn’t a surprise.
He was nowhere to be seen and she stepped towards the bed, fully naked, quickly snatching up the clean shirt. She caressed it between her fingertips, feeling the lightness and softness. Carefully, she pulled it over her head and smoothed it into place. It was large on her body, falling to just above her knees, made to fit someone three times her size, like her alien captor. Was this his shirt? she wondered. Was this his room?
There were no undergarments and she felt bare and slightly vulnerable without them. Perhaps she could make some from a shirt, if he gave her another one. And if he trusted her enough with some sort of needle and thread. She’d be on her best behavior for underwear, she decided.
Next, wanting to start on her plans, she stood in front of the door. When it didn’t open, she touched it with her palm, her heart beginning to beat harder in her chest. Then she tapped the screen next to the door, waving her palm in front of it like she’d done with the shower. And still, nothing. Everything she tried…nothing.
He’d locked her in there.
Another cage, another captor. Had she truly thought that he’d be any different?
Panic clogged her throat. She told herself to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Just like always. One moment to the next.
She didn’t know how long she stood in front of the door, repeating her mantra over and over in her head, but eventually, he came to let her out.
Cara looked at him steadily. He didn’t seem startled to see her just on the other side, but he made no move away from the threshold and neither did she.
“I don’t like being locked away,” she said calmly, evenly, not matching the swarm of emotion inside her chest that settled only slightly at the sight of him. “I’ve been in a cage for too long. Will this be another one?”
The alien regarded her for a long time. She studied his face, trying to read his strange expressions, but it wasn’t like she understood his body language in a way she would immediately recognize a human’s.
Cara saw the corner of his mouth twitch down, a slight furrowing of his prominent brow bone that made him appear almost angry. He raked a hand over his horn, something she’d seen him do before. Did it mean he was frustrated? Annoyed? Uncomfortable? She didn’t know.
Besides all this, his voice was the softest she’d ever heard it when he said, “There are dangerous areas on the vessel. I did not want you wandering, only to harm yourself.”
“No, you’re afraid I’ll find a way to escape. Or mess up something on your ship that would delay us.”
His expression flattened. “We do not trust each other, female. For good reason.”
“I’m an honest person,” she told him, deciding to lay it all out for him. “I don’t like bullshit. I like it when someone tells me straight up what’s going on.” He frowned at her words, as if trying to understand her meaning. But she knew he understood perfectly well. “I’ll be honest with you if you’re honest with me.”
“There are some things I cannot tell you.”
“Then be honest with me about the things you can,” she said. “I don’t like being locked away. I don’t…do well. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise that I will not sabotage your ship in any way. Why would I when I’m on board myself?”
“You will try to escape?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. His impossibly high cheekbones caught the light, casting a deep shadow in the hollows of his cheeks.
“Not off the ship, no. I already know I wouldn’t survive. Where would I go?” she shrugged her shoulders. Her gaze sharpened on him. “It doesn’t mean I won’t try to figure out where you’re taking me, even if you cannot tell me. It doesn’t mean I won’t watch you every time you fiddle with something on your control panel upstairs. And it doesn’t mean that I won’t try to convince you to take me home instead.”
They stared at each other from across the threshold. His gaze flickered over her, catching on her legs, where the shirt end hit her thigh, before returning to her eyes. Sizing her up, no doubt. Trying to read her, to decide if she was telling the truth.
The scar that ran down the side of his face pulled slightly as he turned to the screen on the door, tapping something in with his long fingers.
When he looked back at her, he said, “The fuel quarters are restricted—the two doors at the end of this hallway.” Cara’s heart leapt in her chest. “You may go wherever else you please.”
Cara swallowed, trying not to sound too relieved. “Thank you.”
He stepped back from the door, allowing her the chance to exit. “Do not make me regret it, female.”
She stepped out, close enough that she could feel his heat. Again, she suppressed a shiver of awareness at their proximity and then stepped past.
“My name is Cara, not ‘female,’” she said. She watched his gaze flicker, his eyes flashing in the light. Fascinating. “What’s your name?”
That expression grew darker. “Do not concern yourself with what I am called. I am no one”
Cara didn’t want to dwell on the disappointment that swamped her at his answer. Why did she want to know his name so much anyways?
“I can’t just keep referring to you as ‘the alien’ in my head, now can I?” she returned, lightening her tone. “How about Captor then, with a capital ‘C’? Would you like me to call you that?”
He grunted, the surly male. And then turned to walk down the hallway, in the opposite direction of the elevator. “Call me what you wish.”
“How about Scar?” she asked, following behind him. She planned to stick to him like white on rice. “That would be a pretty bad ass name, right?”
He cast her a sideways look when she struggled to keep up with his long strides. “You speak too much, female.”
“Can you blame me? I’ve had no one to talk to,” she murmured. Then she shut off her mind from going back there. “How did you get it anyways? Your scar?”
Again, he took his sweet time answering. The hallway was longer than she’d expected, curving around, following the shape of the oval ship.
“It was a gift from my blood brother,” he finally said.
Surprise that he’d actually answered and about what he’d revealed rocked her. “Your brother? Why would he do—”
He cut her off, flipping around towards her, so suddenly that she bumped into his rock-hard chest before stepping back.
“Any reason for this interrogation?” he asked, his neck craned down, his eyes dark enough that they looked black. Cara was reminded that he might be her best option at the moment, but that he could still be unpredictable and violent. She needed to remember that before she poked him too much.
But she wouldn’t let him intimidate her. Her spine straightened and she never broke his gaze. “I want to learn more about you.”
“Part of your plan?” he said, voice deep but just mocking enough that it made her bristle. “Then you do not know who you are dealing with. I have been interrogated by much more fearsome creatures than you, female. I have been beaten and tortured during them and I have not broken once. What makes you believe you can get me to break?”
Her breathing went short, the flash of sympathy she felt at his words taking her by surprise. Cara was aware of how close they were standing. She barely had to reach forward and she’d be touching his chest.
His scent hit her for the first time. Something clean and all male that made her eyes widen in response.
Her voice sounded like a wisp of sandpaper when she said, “Perhaps you need softness instead of steel to break you.”
His eyes flashed again, the irises darkening even more. His horns lifted slightly from the crown of his skull. She watched his nostrils flare, but she wasn’t threatened.
Quite the opposite actually.
Because when she saw his muscles shift under his shirt, she became aware of the warmth between her thighs and the tingling in her belly.
His scent, she thought, dazed. It must be his scent, making her react like this. Some kind of crazy alien pheromone.
A rough purr rose in his throat, completely unexpected, but the sound was like velvet caressing her ears. Cara’s eyes fluttered shut for a brief moment, but then he growled, stumbling back, cutting off the sound abruptly.
She blinked, trying to clear the fog that had just swarmed her mind. When she blinked at him, lips parted, wondering what in the hell had just happened, he was leaning next to a door against the matte black hallway. His muscles were bunched, his chest heaving, horns lifted.
“I…” Cara started, but then trailed off, not knowing what to say. She had no excuse for her reaction.
The door he was leaning next to swished open with his touch. He straightened, seeming to compose himself more quickly than she could. He seemed angry, but whether it was at himself or at her, she couldn’t tell.
“I need to train,” he said, voice unreadable, the same sterile, monotonous tone he’d used on her before. “You have your freedom. Take advantage.”
Then he disappeared into the dark room to ‘train,’ whatever that meant. She thought she caught a glimpse of a blade hanging on the wall before the door closed firmly behind him.
Cara let out the deep breath she’d been holding, his words finally hitting her.
Take advantage, you say, Scar? she thought.
Straightening her spine, brushing off the strange encounter with him like dust off her shoulder, she turned heel and intended to do just what he’d suggested.
* * *
Cara’s nosiness didn’t yield much, however. She’d poked her head into every door she came across, except for the ‘fuel quarters.’ She figured he’d probably know if she went in there and she didn’t want to risk her roaming pass on the ship.
The other rooms on the second level, however, were just that. Rooms. Sleeping quarters for a crew that didn’t exist. There was her room but the one directly across from her own, interestingly enough, seemed like Scar’s, as she’d taken to calling him in her own mind.
The moment she’d stepped inside, she’d been hit by his clean, recognizable scent. His room was almost identical to her own, except he had a large, floor-to-ceiling window revealing dark space and bright stars. It had awed her at first and she’d spent the majority of her time in his room, simply staring out, still unable to comprehend what she was seeing, what she was experiencing.
His bed had been neatly made, but he had no knick-knacks, no framed picture of family or lovers, no personal possessions that she could find. And oh, did she shamelessly look. She didn’t know what to expect, but the alien male was still a mystery to her.
Down the hallway, nearer to the elevator was a kitchen of some kind, which sent her heart racing in excitement. It was bare bones, however, and the existing equipment was nothing that Cara felt qualified to use. Perhaps Scar would show her how. All males liked food, didn’t they? Cara considered him fortunate that he’d been saddled with one of the ‘Top 30 Under 30’ rising chefs in the United States.
But after rummaging through the hidden cabinets, her excitement dwindled. There were no fresh ingredients on board, at least none that she recognized. She found more ‘travel rations’ in a silver container, but they looked slightly shriveled and grey so Cara thought better against eating another flake.
After she’d thoroughly explored the second level, her curiosity about the door Scar had disappeared into piqued. She wanted to know what he’d meant by training. And he had told her that the only restricted doors were to the fuel quarters, not the training room, so she felt no guilt as she approached it.
With a deep breath, she waved her hand in front of the screen, the way she’d see him do it, and it slid silently open.
Cara stepped over the threshold and when she fully took in the room, took in him, she sucked in a sharp breath.
It was a training room, that much was clear. A combat training room. The room was dimly lit, casting shadows over the multitude of weapons lining three of the four walls. Swords, blades, spiked hammers, throwing spears, vials filled with a green liquid, silver arrows, and much, much more. Her lips parted as she stared.
The room was mostly empty, spacious like a dance studio, but with unyielding metal floors. And in the very center was her alien. Striking out with all his power at a hologram.
Her very shirtless, very ripped alien.
Oh my God.