“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually like this.”
Whoa… I could hear that he was not speaking English or Spanish, but somehow I could still understand him. This was wild.
I had vague memories of the alligator aliens injecting me with something, but I didn’t realize at the time that it had been a translator.
“I will take you back to your dekes. You may use my den for as long as you like.”
Dekes didn’t translate but I assumed he meant my people, aka the other women.
I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him my best glare. “Yes, I would like to go back.”
He solemnly nodded his head. “Come, I will show you the way.”
He turned and started walking and I nearly had to run to keep up with him and his long strides.
“Hey, wait up!” I chased after him.
The bear alien stopped and waited for me. “Sorry, I’m not feeling like myself tonight.”
This male looked genuinely concerned about his behavior and I was tempted to believe he might be as he nervously ran his hand through his hair and looked ashamed of what he’d done.
We’d only taken a few steps toward the den when I heard a low growl. I turned in the direction the noise had come from but I only saw darkness.
“What was that?” I whispered.
Mr. Bear, as I decided to call him, grew tense. “Ugnar, three of them,” he whispered back.
Three giant hyena creatures stepped out of the shadows with teeth bared. Shit. The odds of me getting eaten tonight had just gone back up.
“Stay behind me,” the alien instructed. “I will not let you come to harm.”
I did what I was told, and the irony of trusting my kidnapper for protection was not lost on me. It wasn’t like I had a lot of options at the moment, though.
As I moved behind my protector, one of the hyena’s snapped its teeth at me. I let out a whimper, which caused another to lick its lips.
“You and I will step toward each other at the same time.”
We both took one giant step toward each other, landing me squarely behind Mr. Bear and all three giant hyenas hissed at once. Then, out of the shadows, an even larger hyena stalked forward and growled.
“Mot!” He cursed, and the word roughly translated tofuckin English. “I’m going to have tograb you and run.”
“Again? I thought we were supposed to move slowly,” I countered.
“That was before their pack leader showed up; now we must run.”
Before I could protest he threw me over his shoulder and took off in another sprint.
I was getting real tired of this shit. It was starting to feel like everyone and everything was trying to kill me.
We whipped through the trees as the hyenas lashed out over and over again, trying to slash and bite us. Beyond the tree line I could see a rock face with a boulder sitting in front of it. Was that where we were heading? What was this guy’s plan after that? It was a steep wall. There was no way we could climb it.
“Ah!” I let out a yelp as the alien fell to the ground and I along with him. He quickly got back up but winced as he put weight on his leg, which now had a deep gash in it. He gritted his teeth and limped toward me. Surely he wasn’t going to pick me up again. But he did.
“You’re hurt!” I protested.
My words fell on deaf ears as he staggered as fast as he could toward the rock face. Once we reached the wall he put me down and pushed against a boulder.
“Ah!” He cried out as a hyena jumped on his back and sunk its teeth into his furry blue skin. Soon another hyena leapt onto him, clawing and biting its way to the male’s neck.
