* * *
“Come with us.” The Hive held out the transport beacon and took a step toward me where I cowered in the restaurant’s booth. I pushed my back as far as possible against the cold, brick wall.
“No.” I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t let him touch me with that button. I knew what it did now. He wanted to take me somewhere, transport me somewhere evil. Somewhere they would torture and kill me. Put silver streaks in my skin.
I looked down at my body. Suddenly, I was naked, silver worms crawled all over me, burrowing into my flesh, creating stripes in my skin identical to Kai’s. I was being integrated, taken over. They were going to steal my mind and make me a drone, a robot. They wanted me to kill Kai.
No. No. No.
“You are one of us now.”
* * *
“No.” Speaking the word shocked me from the nightmare and I blinked at unfamiliar surroundings. The light gray wall was bare of decoration and completely smooth, like ceramic or polished metal. The bed under me was soft and comfortable, the dark green sheets smooth as melted butter against my skin.
Kai’s warm body curled around my back, his heavy arm wrapped around my waist. His opposite arm served as my pillow. The steady rise and fall of Kai’s chest, the sound of his breathing, helped calm me as I matched my breathing to his and tried to convince my heart to stop pounding.
I was safe. Kai was with me. The Hive was nowhere near me. I lost count of how many times I had to repeat the thoughts before my body stopped shaking.
What time was it? How long had I been out? By the time we did the transport thing—which burned like having my insides rubbed with jalapeño pepper juice—landed on the transport pad at The Colony, gave the waiting I.C. Commander—some stiff Prillon warrior named Helion—the flash drive, and made it to Kai’s private quarters for a five-minute tour, exhaustion made my vision blurry and I was about to vomit. I could go a day, maybe a day and a half, without sleep before I got to that point. Between work, the Hive attack, meeting Kai and tracking down Gramps and the flash drive, I’d been pushing two days with no sleep.
Even now, my brain fog and heavy limbs indicated I could use a few more hours of rest.
Unfortunately, my stupid brain wouldn’t shut the fuck up and let me relax.
I was on a different planet right now. My sister was here, somewhere. Was she truly all right? Did she even like Warlord Tazo? Was she happy or freaked out? She wanted to be a vet. What would she do here, on this planet? Did they have pets here? Not that I didn’t love my sister, but what the hell was I going to do on an alien world for the rest of my life? Did they have news? Articles? TV shows? Did reporters exist in space or was everything AI or computer generated? How did their system work?
Did I like Kai? Yes. I could admit that much. Was I in love with him? Did I want to spend the rest of my life with him? How was I supposed to know the answer to that when I’d known him less than a day? Having sex once did not mean he was in love with me. Was this how all of Atlan society worked? The beast chose the mate and Kai and I both had to learn to live with it? What if Kai, the man part of him, didn’t even like me?
I didn’t want to think about that.
Yes, I did. He seemed…wonderful. Kind. Protective. Obviously obsessed, his beast made sure I understood that much. I didn’t have to worry about him not wanting to have sex with me. And the sex was…fantastic. At least the one time his beast pushed me up against the wall in the shower and filled me to the brink of pain. His mouth had been amazing, as well. He devoured me like I was his favorite candy. I’d never had a man so intense and focused on me.
But Kai wasn’t a man, he was an Atlan. A warlord. An alien with a beast inside him that needed me, ME, to help him maintain control. What if I couldn’t do whatever his beast needed me to do? Was wearing the mating cuffs enough? Was it that simple? This didn’t seem real. I was nobody special. I wasn’t a stunning beauty or a rocket scientist. I wasn’t rich, famous or exceptional in any way. I was an average, boring girl just trying to get by and pay my bills.
He showed up, sexed me up, gave me mind blowing orgasms, and then what? What were we supposed to do now? Bake cookies? What if I hated it here?
Moving slower than a snail so I wouldn’t wake Kai, I crawled out of bed. My head pounded as soon as I sat up. I reached up to feel the unfamiliar bump behind my ear where the alien doctor had implanted some kind of translator they called an NPU, or neural processing unit. The doctor claimed I would be able to understand any language spoken to me, by any alien, from any world the Coalition had contact with, including all Earth languages. That would be handy back home. Trouble was, unless the person I was talking to had one as well, I’d be able to understand their language, but they wouldn’t understand me.
I looked over my shoulder at Kai where he lay, tangled in the dark green sheets. He’d been speaking English since I met him, real English, because I didn’t have one of these fancy translator things. Had he learned the language just in case he met his mate? How quickly did the Atlans pick up new languages? Was that some kind of special skill? If I had to learn Atlan, or any other language, I’d have a hard time doing it in just a few months. I’d barely passed French in High School. Although that had been because my teacher gave too much homework. Tests, I was fine. Daily grind? Not so much.
I made my way out of the bedroom to the main living area. These were Kai’s private quarters. One bedroom, a large living area with a fluffy, cream-colored sofa and two comfortable looking green chairs, a long, gray coffee table accented by two tall, dark grey lamps. The room had additional lighting from thin strips imbedded in the base of the walls. My bare feet sank into plush, dark gray carpet. An entire wall transformed into a viewing screen for both work and entertainment. The kitchen area had a small table with two chairs and a small machine about the size of a microwave on one of the shelves that they used to make food or drinks if they didn’t want to go to the main dining hall. Not only would it give you clean water, it also created the cup to drink from. Kai called it an S-Gen machine. Spontaneous matter generator. There was another, larger one in the bedroom that Kai told me I could use to make anything I needed like clothes, a toothbrush—even though I brought mine—shoes, even jewelry.
I was still wrapping my head around the fact that I could tell the machine to make me a two-carat diamond wedding ring and poof, I’d have it.
No bills. No eating ramen or peanut-butter sandwiches the last few days before pay-day. Kai’s apartment was bigger than the one Lavender and I shared, even though it only had one bedroom. The bathroom, which I discovered was mainly for washing, was enormous, the shower more than big enough for three, even four people. The room did have an oddly shaped toilet, which I used quickly, before washing my hands and splashing cold water on my face.
The alien doctor told me I could have tiny transport nodes placed inside me that would eliminate waste from my body continuously and automatically. If I wanted that. I would never have to use the toilet again. The idea was so freaky, I hadn’t decided yet.
What other crazy technology did these aliens have? I brushed my teeth and then stared at myself in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes, wild, tangled hair, overly bright expression I knew reflected my near panicked state. I was on another planet with an alien I’d known less than a day. I was married to a stranger, a complete and total stranger. I didn’t know if he even liked me, and I couldn’t go home. Ever.
“What are you going to do now?” Mirror me stared back and didn’t answer. Useless wench.
Missing home, or maybe I just missed being surrounded by familiar things, I ordered a mug of coffee from the S-Gen machine, loaded with cream and sugar, and set my drink on the gray coffee table. My red suitcase was open on the floor, just inside the door. I’d unzipped it the moment Kai’s short tour was complete, grabbed my PJ’s and crawled into bed.
The tank-top and shorts pajama set I wore, along with my favorite bra and panty set, were the only clothes I’d packed. A good fitting bra was freaking impossible to find. Not leaving that. Now that I knew the wonders of the S-Gen machine, I could tell it to scan my undergarments and make a dozen sets in different colors. Nice. But I didn’t care about clothes. I missed home. No, not home. The memory of home, the life Lavender and I led before our mom died. Nothing had felt right since that day.
I bent down and lifted one of the four photo albums that filled most of the suitcase. The rest of the space was filled with a handful of old jewelry that Lavender and I inherited from our mother, the stuffed bear Lavender slept with since she was five, my camera equipment with extra lenses, a few rolls of film, and a framed photograph of me, Lavender and our mom at a summer picnic the year before we lost her.
