Peter awoke with a start, half-expecting to feel the cold metal of a pleasure collar around his neck.

But he was free.

He stretched his muscles and shook off the nightmare, only to remember he was on a stranded cruiser.

With the baby.

“Tchai,” he hissed, leaping up and landing in a crouch, ready to fight.

But little Tchai was sleeping soundly, bundled in his makeshift creche beside Peter’s own bedding. His little brow was furrowed as if he too were unsettled.

“Everything is fine, little one,” Peter crooned softly.

The little face smoothed, rosy lips pouting.

Peter sat back on his bedding, heart pounding, and cursed his dream memories for destroying the precious little rest allowed him by the growing baby.

Small humans were surprisingly restless. Peter attributed it to their being caged in just one form.

He sighed, watching Tchai’s tiny chest rise and fall.

All is well. You are safe.

Something about caring for the baby was healing his broken soul.

If only they weren’t so lonely. Children needed a community, full of good smells and happy noises, not this eery space-bound tomb.

Out of the profound silence, there came a sound.

It came from out in the corridor, soft and subtle. It was worse than a loud sound.

It was the sound of something trying not to make a sound.

This time Peter’s skin shivered with electricity and his heart pounded in response.

The Other was calling to him, and he chose to allow it to transform him.

Without conscious thought, his mind went to a story book from the ship’s library about an angry boy escaping his home for a wild place.

Instantly he felt himself swell taller, wider. Fur sprung from his body. Horns protruded from his forehead. His bare toes grew claws.

As his horns scraped the ceiling, a scent drifted toward him.

He froze in place, hypnotized by it.

In this Other form his thoughts were strange. It was hard to know what attracted him. It wasn’t meat, or the salt water of a traveling sea.

But something called to him, siren-like.

Peter stood stock still, torn.

That scent couldn’t have come from the evil thing that dwelled on the ship and pursued the baby. That thing was cold, devoid of scent, and vicious. It was effortlessly silent.

No, this was something softer, warmer…

And if it had made it this far, it had somehow circumvented the DNA lock, something the monster had never done.

Thoughts of the monster sent a wave of involuntary panic through his veins. Peter needed to find the owner of the delicious scent, before that monster did.

But he couldn’t abandon the child.

The sounds in the corridor grew closer.

He turned back to Tchai. The baby was sleeping comfortably.

However compelling it smelled, this thing might not be friendly. And if it were a danger, it might be better for him to face off with it far away from the child.

But the door to the suite where he and the baby hid was opening now, it was too late.

And the intriguing scent was washing over him like a dream, making it harder to focus his other senses.

With the last of his determination, he lunged out of the room he shared with the baby and into the antechamber to face the unknown intruder.