Authors: Maree Dry
“I should not allow you such disrespect.”
His rough tongue licked and played with her and her thighs clamped down on him. “How will you stop me?” she could only manage to moan the words. Julia fisted hands in the blankets beneath her, her hips trying to lift of the bed. She shattered, heard herself scream, and still he didn’t stop. She climaxed until her body could only twitch.
He lifted his head, baring his teeth in that way that would have had her running for the door, if she wasn’t still twitching with aftershocks from her orgasm.
“I am a deviant Zyrgin that enjoys your disrespect in the sleeping chamber.”
“You’re a Zyrgin who is dangerously good at sex. You need to stop reading those manuals or I might expire from pleasure.”
“I will pleasure you now.”
Her body still pulsed with pleasure. She reached up and kissed his cheek. No way was she kissing his mouth after it’d just been down south. Some women didn’t mind that but she just couldn’t stand it. “Give me a few minutes to recuperate.”
He ignored her plea and, again, kissed and caressed every inch of her until she clamped her legs around his waist as far as they could reach. “Please Zurian, come inside me. I need you.”
He leaned down and nipping her neck carefully, he entered her and set a slow deliberate pace until she was ready to commit murder to have him move faster. “Please.”
He looked down at her, flashes of red disappearing into black, and kept the pace steady.
Her whole body tightened, her world shattered, and she clung to Zurian, the only solid thing in her life. This time, her climax was almost painful. She was vaguely aware of him tightening and going deep and then her world spun out of control.
Julia opened her eyes to find him leaning over her.
“You are pleasing to me,” he said very seriously, while he arranged her hair on the cushion.
“Thank you. In bed, you please me very much.” She took a deep breath and said what had to be said. “You have to understand, as much as I enjoy doing this with you, I cannot accept a man who kills in cold blood.”
“This is not for a breeder to talk about.”
“You won’t stop me from talking about it. I might be too sated and tired to tackle it now, but you need to know this changes nothing for me.”
He lay down next to her and--with his hand on her stomach, almost as if he wanted to ensure she did not leave the bed without him knowing--they fell asleep.
***
A few days later, she was tinkering with the silver gadget, surprised he hadn’t tried to stop her from trying to get it open yet.
“Your cousin is calling you,” he said from behind her.
Julia screamed and clutched her chest. “Make some noise when you creep up on a person.”
“You do not have to talk to him.”
“I see.” Her headache suddenly throbbed unbearably. “How come he could get through? I thought you had a block on the TC.” She was surprised Jack was still alive but wisely kept that thought to herself.
She had to concentrate not to rub her head. He insisted she lie down and rest when she admitted to having a headache. She made that mistake only once. Although she was convinced it was caused by the alien technology in her head, sometimes she thought it was from her futile arguments about him killing people.
“That is warrior business.”
She couldn’t see anything and his voice faded away. His towering figure appeared and disappeared before her. And then nothing.
***
She lay on something soft. Someone argued really loud. She clutched her head. “Please stop shouting,” she moaned and the noise stopped. She had her eyes open, but everything was black. She frantically blinked her eyes and the blackness faded into blurs.
“Julia, are you functional?”
Just being asked that made her head hurt worse. “No, my eyes, my head is--”
When she came to again, she could see the doctor hover over her through a hazy fog. He held something silver over her and moved it up and down her body.
“You’re wasting your time. The problem’s the alien technology in my head.” Behind the doctor, she saw Zurian. His figure blurred, but she’d recognize that wide-legged stance even if she saw only shadows. “What happened?”
“Your implant malfunctioned,” Zurian said.
She groaned and clutched her head with both hands. “The pain is going to drive me crazy.” She glared at them through her all-over-the-place-hair. “Take it out. I told you not to mess with my brain. Take it out right now.”
She wanted to shout at him but couldn’t speak above much more than a whisper.
She moved restlessly. Her whole body ached and, any time now, her head would burst apart and put her out of her misery in an act of mercy.
“The doctor will operate shortly.” The way he stood so rigid, spoke even more formally than usual, scared her. He’d acted confident about their equipment and what the doctor could do, but she sensed a tension in him that didn’t spell good things for her.
“Can’t he take it out without operating?” She tried glaring at their blurred figures again. “He put it in easily enough.”
“No.”
Something in his voice made her peer harder at his hazy form. If only she could see him, then she’d be able to read his eyes. “Is it dangerous?”
“You had seizures, Julia,” Natalie said.
Julia saw her friend and Zurian exchange looks. She just knew neither one of them were confident that the doctor could help her.
“Seizures? I could end up with brain damage if that happens regularly.” She would rather be dead than without her senses.
“Yes, that is why we have to risk the operation.” Zurian took her hand and held it, his grip painful. Julia didn’t complain, simply gripped him harder. “I would be with you the whole time,” he said.
“There’s a risk?” This was getting worse all the time.
“You may end up brain damaged from the operation,” Zurian said and his very lack of inflection told her how serious this was. He moved her hair out of her face, fiercely concentrating on the task.
“This can’t be happening.” Fear clutched her by the throat and did not let go. She always thought her family would get her, or she’d die of old age or even illness but not this. Not like this. “So I’m damned either way.”
“The doctor will be very careful with you.”
She couldn’t see how that would make a difference. No matter how careful the doctor was she might still end up a vegetable. Desperate to focus on anything else she asked, “I thought you were going to look for the agent.”
“Zacar and some of the other warriors are going. I will stay here with you.”
That scared her even more. It had to be serious if he was willing to give up the opportunity to fight. It was hard to miss how much they relished battle and any kind of challenges.
“She has to rest. Everyone should go,” the doctor said.
Zurian turned to glare at him. “I am staying.”
“Of course,” the doctor agreed, but he held out his hand to indicate the door.
Julia could see Natalie wanted to object and, although she appreciated her friend’s support, the talking tired her.
“I’ll be back, Julia,” Natalie said gently and left.
Zurian’s grip tightened until Julia thought he would snap her bones. “I will always call you breeder.” The solemn words, his desperate grip, all scared her more than the doctor and his flame. It was as if he’d already accepted she would end up with brain damage.
“Even if I end up a vegetable?” she tried to joke but couldn’t pull it off.
“Why would you become a vegetable? Such a thing is not possible.”
She laughed but tears streamed from her eyes. She wanted to be her. To laugh at the way he always took her words so literal. Fight with him about killing people. She didn’t want to be a body with no emotions or thoughts.
“It’s just a saying. It means--” She swallowed. “--it means I will be brain damaged.” She didn’t want to say it out loud. Didn’t want to give her fears power with words.
“Even then I will call you breeder.” He gently rubbed her tears away with his thumb. “No matter what happens, I will be your warrior.” His free hand closed over the silver gadget in his hand and crumpled it.
She’d never been this frightened before, but she had the urge to comfort him. He seemed calm and tried to reassure her, but red tendrils kept mixing with the black of his eyes in a rare display of emotion. She held onto his hand with every bit of her strength.
“You are a warrior with honor.”
“Thank you, my breeder. No matter what happens, you will always have my best care.”
“That’s good,” she said. Getting through the operation with her brain intact would be better. They were silent for a long time, her lying there while they held onto each other with silent fear.
“If it’s not successful--”
“It will be.”
She still had the urge to say I told you so but she could see how important it was to him that she be okay. She touched her head. “If it’s not, will you make sure my hair is combed if anyone comes to see me?”
“I will have to shave her head,” the doctor said.
Zurian turned and punched the doctor who stumbled back a few steps and fell.
As if he hadn’t just punched the doctor, Zurian turned back to her and held her hand. “I will comb your hair.”
“It would be best to braid it, otherwise it will be all over the place.”
“Yes.”
She was vaguely aware of the doctor getting up and keeping his distance from Zurian. She ignored him and focused on the warrior holding her hand so securely. He could kill with no remorse, lived for battle. He was also driven by honor and, for the first time, she realized he was also driven by the need to care for her. He needed a purpose if things went wrong.
“And will you still feed me.”
“Every meal.”
“Will you bathe me and make sure I’m clean.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Every day.”
They sat in silence again. Julia wanted to talk to him, reassure him and herself, but fear crippled her brain, choked her throat.
“So now I won’t be able to speak your language and you can restrict me even more than you did before,” she meant it as a joke but it came out plaintively. She’d never been so scared.
“I will upload a program on your TC that will teach you.”
“I thought it was too difficult for a mere human to learn.”
“You can do it. You are very clever for a human.”
They were silent for a while. They both knew she might not be capable of learning anything after the operation.
There was so much she still wanted to do, to learn. “Thank you.”
Zacar walked in and Zurian turned to him. Zacar grated something and Zurian tensed even more, his body so taut, she thought he might snap any moment.
“The humans know about us,” Zurian said.
“How?” she asked.
“A news report.” Zurian grunted and the wall lit up with the TC news.
“…we repeat, aliens have landed. They have started terra forming Earth and plan to take over Earth and enslave humans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation have released a statement.”
The image changed, showed a man in a suit in front of a podium. Camera’s flashed while he spoke. “Our satellites detected a spaceship orbiting Earth. More ships are approaching Earth at great speed. We have to defend our country and Earth against these intruders.”
An image flashed behind him. The alien was captured standing against a grimy wall with no furniture to provide scale, but Julia could see he was enormous. Maybe even bigger than Zurian--and purple!
Both Zacar and Zurian hissed at the image.
“Any sightings of this creature should be reported to the following agencies.” Numbers flashed across the screen. “Report any information immediately.”
Zacar grunted then switched to English. “We received an anonymous message that the agent we seek is in Washington,” he growled and played the message for Zurian.
“This message did not come from a human,” Zurian said. “The wording sounded more like Zyrgins would write English than a human.”
“The purple alien,” Zacar said.
“Explorers,” Zurian hissed.
They encountered them every now and then on a new planet and, rarely did it go well for Zyrgin warriors. They’d never been able to find the explorers’ home planet, in spite of the numerous search parties the Zyrgins had sent out. The explorers were self-righteous, arrogant beings with the strength and technology to back it up.
When they’d rescued Natalie from Murdoch, she’d told them that Murdoch had bragged about capturing and killing an alien woman.
Zurian still could not understand why Murdoch would treat the woman in such a fashion. They hadn’t found any trace of the purple alien since, but it seemed he was ready to make his presence felt. The humans were very much mistaken if they thought they could kill the mate of an explorer without retribution.
“Even as rundown as it is, Washington is a big city,” Zurian pointed out. “How will we find the agent who set the trap for us?”
Zacar silently held up his handheld with the anonymous message. Coordinates flashed across the screen.
“This could be another trap,” Zurian argued.
“I doubt it.”
“If it is, we could kill a few more humans.” Zurian couldn’t see the use in allowing so many of them to live. They were like a plague on this planet. Spawning so many that they couldn’t even look after their own useless young. Zyrgins at least only bred enough warriors to rule a planet. When they reached the limit of population a planet could support, they moved on to conquer a new planet.
“The explorer must have realized the agent was involved with the Raiders.”
“The agent dies,” Zacar said.
Zurian was in complete agreement but for different reasons. He agreed with any plan that culled humans, while Zacar had sworn to kill each and every person related to Natalie’s capture.
“They see us as parasites. It could be a trap.”
“He might see us as parasites, but I am sure he wants to have revenge on the humans responsible for his woman’s death. I am surprised he did not wipe them all out.”
Zurian snorted. “The explorers like to think of themselves as civilized but if you cross them they show their true colors.”