Chapter Six
Roxie
…
Where am I? And what the hell is going on here?
One minute I was strolling, lost and thirsty, too far from the resort I planned on making my temporary home until I figured out where to go for the rest of my life … yeah, OK, so I was probably lost … and the next minute, what?
I’m here.
On a military fighter ship. No, not just that. An alien military ship.
I’ve been literally abducted by aliens, and there is no one on my home planet who will care.
I had an interesting upbringing. Passed around foster families, I never really had a home. I never really had a family. I had dozens, and some were fine -- but some really weren’t fine. I have had great experiences and I’ve had awful experiences, but one thing I’ve never had was that sense of a home and something to return to when times got tough.
So there were friends from work -- I was a singer in a professional choir and I did gigs in the local bars for extra cash -- and there was my neighbor, who I used to cat sit for, but I didn’t have anyone I felt would really miss me.
When I was faced with the choice of death or enter the Mahdfel lottery and risk having to live my life outside of my own terms, I almost literally chose death. I threw away my career -- not that it was anything super special anyway -- and all connections I had with my old life, because I so badly didn’t want to live in space with a growly, meathead warrior alien.
And now, what? Some purple dude thinks he can toss me over his shoulder and zoom me a million miles away from Earth anyway?
Hell no! I did not spend my life savings and risk my life to start again for this.
By the time the alien returns to the empty white room he left me in, I am shaking with pure, unfiltered rage. I am really seeing red.
And purple.
He is so huge and he takes up so much of my eyeline. I try to wrench my eyes away and ignore him, deep in a sulk, but I actually find that I can’t. There is something all-consuming about the way that this alien warrior looks. Something that takes up most of my consciousness and my attention.
I narrow my eyes at him, unwilling to allow my thoughts to drift to anything positive.
“What the hell am I doing here?” I demand.
The alien sits on the cot opposite mine, his prisonwear-covered legs spread wide, and he regards me with glittering golden eyes. He has the eyes of a lion, and the body of a goddamn Adonis, and I have to fold my arms across my bikini top so he can’t see that my nipples have hardened under the thin waterproof material.
I’m clearly so angry it’s circled around and I’m aroused.
It … works like that, right?
I wrench my gaze away from his crisscrossed pecs and set my jaw while his eyes drink me in. Slowly. I have never felt so on display before.
Before he says anything, the alien sweeps across to me and bends over so that we’re eye to eye. Suddenly I feel overwhelmed by the palpable heat radiating from his thick, shirtless frame, as well as the earthy, masculine scent he exudes. I shiver, turning even further away.
“Get away from me,” I mumble.
A guttural string of impossible, frighteningly loud syllables passes between his lips and I wince before I can help it, turning back to glare at him. What threat is he barking in his alien tongue? His hand whips to my ear and slides something in and I shout out and wrench my body away, hands rising to the sides of my head.
“What did you do? What did you do to me?” I demand.
“Relax,” he snaps, and I freeze when I realize I am able to understand that word. “I just put a translator in your ear. I knew humans were jumpy but you need to try to control yourself.”
I am about to stand and really start yelling at him -- though I have no idea where I would even start -- but before I can move a stunned muscle he smirks and stands, letting me know it was sort of a joke. He moves back to his seat on the cot at the opposite end of the room, giving me some space to breathe that isn’t filled with his warm, consuming scent.
“Now we can have a conversation,” he says, resting his palms on his knees.
“What?” I cry. “You … you kidnapped me. For conversation?” My fists clench and fall away from my breasts, and immediately his gaze drops and his tight smile fades as he takes in my upper body. I fling my arms back around my torso and scowl.
“You are taking me literally,” he says, his words precise and deliberate. I can’t help but stare at the way his mouth moves. At his lips.
What is happening to me? Early onset Stockholm Syndrome? I should be livid, and I am, but why can’t I stop noticing every interesting detail in the way he looks? Every muscle and contour and subtle upturn in his features when he looks at me?
“I believe that you know what I want,” he adds. “What if I were to mention … the Ferathorns?”
He looks triumphant as he searches my face for a reaction. When I give him my honest one -- bewilderment -- his face falls into one of matching confusion.
“The planet Fera?” he tries. I blink. “The Oracle?” Nothing. My look of bewilderment twitches into one of anger.
“You not only kidnapped me, but you stole the wrong woman!” I say, standing up. “I demand you take me back to Earth. This minute!”
“No!” he growls, standing up to remind us both that he towers over me by more than a little. He is standing just a few inches in front of me but somehow it feels as though he engulfs me. “I made no mistake. The coordinates are burned into my brain, and you were the only human, let alone female, in range. I made no mistake!”
His voice is so loud I can just about hear the bass tone of his anger vibrating in my core. I tighten my hug around my own chest and deepen my scowl.
“Well, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I’m not going to be of any help.”
“You’re lying,” he says finally, and though he tries his hardest to look as though he believes his own words, I can hear the shift in his tone. Uncertainty, plain and simple.
“And you’re a gigantic moron,” I bite back. “Do your research next time you steal someone.” I place my palms on his pecs and push him forcefully away. But I just end up taking a step back myself as he resists effortlessly. Not put off, I continue. “And bring me something to wear for our journey back to Earth. I’m tired of seeing you look at me like that.”
I don’t know what possessed me to say that … why draw any attention to the alien’s gaze surreptitiously raking over my body? Why would I want to get under his skin at all?
For some reason that I just can’t explain, though, I do. I want to get into his head. I want him to remember the mistake he made in abducting me -- forever.
To my surprise, his lips turn up at the corner, though his eyes remain dark.
“There is some reason the Oracle told me to fetch you,” he says, his words careful and low. “Until I find out what part you had to play in the genocide, I will not be letting you leave.”
He gets up to leave me in my room -- my cell -- again. I stand up and shout to his back. “You aren’t even going to bring me something more modest to wear?”
The alien tosses a smirk over his shoulder. “You are not my guest, you are my prisoner. Maybe I would prefer you stay red and flustered like that.”
Hatred, or something equally as intense, courses through me as the oval door clicks shut, and it’s like it was never there, it blends in so seamlessly with the curved white walls.
I quickly throw myself onto the space it had been, hammering my fists and forearms against the blank space, and roaring for him to return until my throat begins to hurt. Then I flop onto the cot and press my fingers against my face.
It might sound ridiculous, but I think I may regret faking my own death and running away from everything I’ve ever known. Who’d have thought?