Barbarian's Touch: A SciFi Alien Romance (Ice Planet Barbarians Book 8) (3 page)

And perhaps my action has made things worse.

Casually, I glance back at the bowl I left. It is gone, and so is my skin.

That is something, at least.

“Maybe I should bring more food over,” Kira says in a soft, worried voice.

I pull a bone cup out of my bag and offer it to her.

She gives me a grateful look and gets to her feet, then dips it into the stew pouch. “We’ll give them tonight to adjust. I can’t imagine how terrifying this is. When Nora and Stacy and the others came out of their pods, they had a bunch of humans to help them acclimate. Right now it’s just me, and I feel inadequate.” She sighs and then taps her temple, near her eyes. “This isn’t helping, either.”

“The khui?” Aehako guesses.

She nods. “We look different. Probably scary. And I think one of the girls can’t hear.”

Bek crosses his arms. “A khui will fix that. We need to find a sa-kohtsk to hunt before the females get too weak.” Taushen and Hassen nod.

Aehako glances over at Haeden and Raahosh. “I am sure a hunt will be soon.”

“It needs to be very soon,” Bek continues. “The females will not last long if they shiver inside the warmth of the cave. There are metlaks and sky-claws to think of, as well. This place is dangerous. We must get them khuis and get them to safety.”

“You just want them given khuis because you want them to resonate,” Aehako muses. “Do not disguise it as your concern for their comfort.”

Aehako and Bek start to argue loudly, Aehako with his hand on his mate’s shoulder protectively. At my side, Kira sighs and gives me a frustrated look. “I’m thinking it might have been smarter to bring mated hunters along on this trip.”

“They are needed by their families,” I tell her. My brother’s mate’s face is drawn and unhappy. “We will get them back safely. That is all that matters.”

“Yes, and until then, everyone’s going to bicker over the girls until they resonate.” She sighs again and gathers her blankets, then gets up from the fire to go visit the females.

As she gets up, Hassen glances over at the spot she’s vacated. He tosses a bit of bone into the fire. “You have been silent, Rokan. What does your knowing tell you? Will the females resonate?”

“I sense nothing about the females,” I tell him honestly. “Perhaps because they have no khui.”

He nods slowly, and then fixes his gaze on me. “It does not matter to me about the yellow-haired one. But the soft one? She is mine.” A possessive look glitters in his eyes.

My jaw clenches and I fight back my anger at his bold statement. “Resonance decides, not you.”

He narrows his eyes at me and then shrugs his shoulders. “Then you will watch me resonate to her. One way or another, she is mine.” He gets to his feet. “And I do not need a ‘knowing’ sense to realize this.”

He leaves to go to the front entrance of the cave, and I am left stewing in my own anger. Why does the thought of him claiming the ‘soft one’ fill me with such rage? She is soft, and gentle, this is true. Someone as bold and blunt as Hassen will storm all over her. Is that why I am angry at the thought?

Or because I want her for myself? I force the idea out of my mind. It is wrong to be possessive of the females. Resonance chooses a mate, not me. I have waited many, many seasons to take a female to my furs, because I am waiting for resonance. I am not like Bek, who had Claire as his pleasure-mate before she resonated to Ereven. I want resonance, and resonance only. When I take a female into my arms, I want it to be for forever.

It might be one of these females. It might not. Warrek is three times my age and has never resonated. Maybe I will never have a mate.

But that does not mean that I cannot be a friend to these females.

The soft one? She is mine.

The deadly words repeat in my mind, and my jaw clenches every time.

S
o apparently a lot
happened while Maddie and I were unconscious. It seems that we were kidnapped by one kind of alien, who also kidnapped the human woman here. Then the ship crashed and we’ve been asleep in some sort of stasis for over a year and a half, until another human found the remains of the crashed ship and realized we were still in hibernation in the wall.

It’s all a little muddy to me. The aliens here that look like demons? According to Kira’s story, they’re not the bad guys. She even shows us the frozen corpses in the front half of the crashed ship to back up the ‘there’s more than one kind of alien’ story. And even though it’s completely crazy, we don’t have a choice but to believe her. When she says the part about how she and her friends were taken and examined, and one girl even was given an abortion because the alien captors didn’t want her pregnant? I think of my missing cochlear implants and realize it’s probably all true.

I’m more than a little horrified by all of it. To think that aliens kidnapped me and examined me and operated on me, all while I was unaware. To think that we’ve flown halfway across the galaxy and crash-landed, all unaware.

To think that if it hadn’t have been for a stranger randomly finding the remains of the ship, we might have slept for a lot longer than a year and a half. What if…what if no one
ever
came to find us? The thought makes my gurgling stomach even more ill at ease.

Kira and Maddie talk for hours, with Maddie passing along info to me. She’s doing her best to remember to sign, but sometimes the conversation gets away from her and I only get a few half-assed hand signals. It’s all right. It’s a lot to take in and it’s been ten years since Maddie had to be my interpreter. And sometimes I think I really don’t want to hear more of what they’re going to tell us.

Kira seems nice enough. She keeps the others at bay, even though she says one is her husband and she loves him. She says she has a half-alien baby back at ‘home’ and that the reason why her eyes glow is because she has something called a ‘symbiont’ - Maddie spells it out with her hands because there’s not an ASL sign for something like that. It’s something that lives inside the body and helps it adjust. She pauses in her explaining to build up a small fire near us for warmth, and her mate - one of the biggest of the aliens - brings over her blankets. It seems Kira is going to be staying with us tonight. I steal a glance over at the main fire. The alien men are there, and they’re all watching us. It’s really unnerving.

Maddie taps my arm, and I tear my gaze away from the fire Kira’s building.
What do you think?
She signs.

It sounds like a parasite to me
, I reply, worried.
A parasite and we’re the host.

Me too, but what can we do? She says we have to have one. They all have one. Did you see the part where she said there’s a poison in the air?
She sniffs dramatically, and I admit I take a deep breath myself. Tastes like normal air, if damn cold.

Do you think they’re lying?
I ask, hesitant.

Does it matter if they are? We’re outnumbered, we’re not dressed for the situation, and we don’t know what’s going on. Like, I would think it’s a prank except I got close enough and those guys aren’t wearing makeup.
Her hands fly as she signs, agitated. She doesn’t like this any more than I do, but like she says, we don’t have a choice.
Their eyes really are glowing, and there’s a lot of damn snow out there so we’re definitely not in Arizona anymore. And Kira says that there’s only twelve humans and thirty-something of the blue guys, not including babies. If this place is what she says it is - an ice planet - there’s no cities.

I feel tears threaten.
Well, fuck
, I sign back.
Why couldn’t we get stuck on a tropical planet?

Maddie throws her head back and laughs, and everyone turns in our direction again. This is how we deal with things - Maddie laughs, and I cry. I swipe at my cheeks, because it feels like if I do cry, the tears are going to freeze to my face. I’m so cold. This is awful. I hate all of this. I want to go home, back to my stupid desk job and all the stupid credit card bills I’m behind on. I want to go spend Friday night sitting at the hotel bar watching Maddie sling drinks and pointing out all the drunks. I want to curl up on the sofa and finish watching season two of
Game of Thrones
.

I want a freaking heating blanket.

I touch Maddie’s arm to break her out of her hysterical laughter.
I don’t like the way they watch us
, I sign to her.
The men.
I feel like a bird in a cage, or like a bird being hunted by a cat.

Just stay at my side
, she tells me.
I won’t let anything happen to you. Big Sis is on alert. Get some sleep for now.

I give her as much of a smile as I can muster.
All right.
Like that’s gonna be easy knowing we’re now in Parasite Planet? With a bunch of horny blue dudes that look like they want to eat me? Oh sure, I’ll just tuck into my frozen blankets and take a nice power nap.

Instead, I sip more of the water from the strange waterskin that the one guy gave us. I avoid the stew - it’s so spicy it makes my nose burn. I’m hungry, but I can’t bring myself to eat much of it, and Maddie says she doesn’t have much of an appetite. She jokes that she can live off her fat for a while, but I need to eat. Funny how I don’t feel like eating.

She and Kira start talking again and I gaze over to the other fire. The men there are still watching us. Good lord, they need a hobby. Since we’re hidden in the shadows and I’m snug next to my protective sister, I find the courage to look back at them. The men fall into two camps, I think. There are those like Kira’s husband and the two guards that look at us as if we’re slightly annoying. And then there are the ones that sit around the fire and look at us as if they want to eat us. Gee, and I wonder why I feel uneasy.

The one that left me the water glances over here, and I decide that I need a third category, just for him. Uninterested, Creepers, and him. I’m not sure what he is yet, but he’s not giving off the same vibes that the others are. Weirdly enough, I feel like he could be a friend if I was less scared.

* * *

M
addie
and I shiver all night despite the fire and the fur blankets. I’ve never felt so cold in my life, and it feels like no matter what I do, I can’t get warm.

“It’s colder this time of year than usual,” Kira says, and I read her lips in the firelight. She’s warming her hands at our fire. “And when you get your
coo-ee
it won’t be so bad.”

The
coo-ee
must be the parasite. At least, I think that’s the word. It’s hard to tell with lip-reading, and half the time I’m guessing what someone is saying. It’s not comforting, though. The thought of a parasite keeping me warm? I’d almost prefer to stay cold.

No, actually, scratch that. I’m so tired of being cold. I slept terribly last night, and everything I touched felt like ice. My toes are tingling with numbness and the thought of leaving the cocoon of furs that keeps me warm is a deal breaker. I don’t know how Kira can stand it. More than that, I don’t know how the big guys wander around in summery clothing. Two of them have bare chests and several others wear vests that look as if they wouldn’t keep a flea warm. Lots of muscles on display around here.

Today? I take everything they offer. When they offer me hot tea? I take it and drink it, not caring that it has a weird leafy taste to it. When they give me more stew? I eat it all and ignore the fact that my nose runs like a faucet. Last night, in the dreadful, freezing-cold hours that I was supposed to be sleeping, I came to a realization.

Maddie and I are alone here. We’re completely at the mercy of these strangers who decided to retrieve us and are now feeding and clothing us. We can try to escape, but how far are we going to get? Just the thought of stepping outside the safety of the wrecked ship and into the fiercely blowing winter winds is enough to make me want to vomit.

And me? I’m completely dependent on Maddie to communicate. I can talk, of course, but I can’t hear myself; I can’t tell if I’m loud enough or misunderstood. If they’re not facing me, I can’t see their response. And the aliens? Maddie says that Kira told her that they know our language, but I can’t read their lips. They have fangs and they enunciate different than I’m used to, so that’s a bust.

So we’re completely dependent on the aliens, and I’m completely dependent on Maddie.

This doesn’t make me happy. I’m not the most outgoing person, so I’m happy to let my exuberant sister take the lead. At the same time, I’m terrified. What if we get separated? What if something happens to Maddie? What am I going to do?

Everything just feels dangerous. Last night, as I shivered and clung to Maddie, trying to sleep, I came up with a plan: the Yes plan.

Do I want to eat this stew? Yes.

Do I want to wear all these nice furs they’re handing me? Yes.

Do I want to be friendly with all the new aliens? Yes, yes I do.

I’m not stupid. I know that the happier they are with me, the easier things will be. So right now? I’m going to be easygoing as heck and keep an eye on everything. I haven’t told Maddie my plan - mostly because the words ‘Maddie’ and ‘easygoing’ do not belong in the same sentence. But if she thinks I’m safe and protected with these strangers, she’ll come around.

Kira holds a boot out to me. “Shoe? Do you want this shoe?” She taps it. “We can adjust it to fit your foot.”

I nod at her, Yes Plan in effect.

* * *

H
ours later
, I’m dressed in warm cast-offs from one of the supply packs. Since the other human women knew Maddie and I were here in the pods, clothing was sent along for us and now Maddie and I are fitted into leather tunics, leather leggings, and warm, fleece-lined boots. I have big furry mittens that I wear even inside the cave, and I’ve had my fill of spicy stew. My nose is stuffed up and I suspect I’m coming down with a cold, but I manage to nap for most of the day. For some reason, most of the big blue dudes left the cave, leaving just Kira, her mate, and one of the others that remained guarding the entrance. It’s relaxing. I’m still anxious and my stomach is in knots, but without the hot, glowing eyes of the others, some of the tension eases.

I wake up when a hand touches my arm and shakes me awake. I sit up in the furs, rubbing my eyes. There, by the fire, the big blue guys have returned and are gesturing excitedly about something to the one that’s the leader. They point at us and pick up their packs, but the leader shakes his head and says something that makes one of the hot-eyed ones fling his bag down and go storming off. The others settle in but they don’t look pleased.

Maddie takes it all in and then comes and sits next to me in the furs. She pulls her knees up and leans closer to me, her hands moving in small motions. It’s almost like we’re whispering, not that it matters. They don’t understand sign language. But maybe Maddie doesn’t want them to know we’re talking.

The angry one is Hassen
, she tells me.
We need to keep an eye on him. He watches you a lot.

I know,
I sign back.
It worries me. What happened to make him angry?

They are looking for something. A sock? It sounds like sock, though I know that is not the right word. They want it for us. I think it carries the parasites. Hassen is angry that Haeden - that is the leader - won’t let them hunt tonight. Haeden says to wait for dawn, because we are too vulnerable. So Hassen is throwing a pissy-fit.

Hassen and Haeden? Gosh, their names sound the same. I don’t know how I’m going to keep it all straight in my head.
So they want to go hunt the sock?
I peek out to the front of the crashed ship, where the sky and the snow can be seen - it’s dark and the snow is falling heavily. My breath is fogging even in the warmth of the ship’s hold. If I leave the fire, it frosts.
I don’t want to go out,
I tell Maddie.
I agree with Haeden.