“Sadie,” his tone a warning, “step back. Don’t touch my spine while I release my spikes.”
No fear. Inhaling, Sadie found a sliver of composure and tried not to faint. Cream-colored cartilage began to emerge from the center of each circle. Sadie’s stomach churned, twisting with revulsion. No blood or gore, only the skin stretched similarly to a woman giving birth minus the screaming.
“When you held Norese, she relaxed, which if you’re not experienced, can release your spikes, hurting someone and destroying your clothes. Norese’s tore her favorite dress.”
Sadie muted the sound of her sigh by closing her hands over her mouth.
That’s huge for a little girl to have her favorite anything destroyed.
“Norese’s karuntee instincts aren’t as sharp compared to other children. She’s afraid of the sensation.”
“Captain, that’s because her situation is unique. No matter where she goes, she’s a minority and the captain’s daughter. I’m confident they stare at her when you take her out among the other karuntee.”
“No karuntee would dare treat her with disrespect.”
“Good.” She didn’t bother telling him he lived in a dream world thinking the others didn’t stare. Swamped by guilt knowing Norese would grow up confused, Sadie held back tears of regret. “I would never hurt a child, Captain. It’s not who I am.” She hesitated, voice gone thick and shot him a dirty look. “You claim you know and respect the way I handled Timothy, yet you threaten my life when you’re the one that let me walk into this situation blind. I know nothing of your anatomy.” If she weren't terrified, she’d have a hand on her hip to go along with her lecture. “What purpose do the spikes hold?”
“I like that you search for answers, and not shy away from the truth.” There was that intense stare that made her uncomfortable. “They’re weapons. I hope you never get to see me use them. It’s violent, and I terrify you, Sadie.”
She was when she first arrived. Rightly justified, and now she needed answers.
“You often fight with your spikes, Captain?” She dropped her arms to the crooks of his elbows, her fingers tracing the outline of his tattoos. Only motorcycle gang members or ex-cons wore this many tats.
“Markings of a karuntee captain, Sadie. I’ve earned them through the years. And to answer your question”—he flexed his forearms the muscles swelling under her hands—“I fought often enough, since humans arrived on our station after we signed the treaty.”
“Captain,” she said, putting some distance between those muscles and her hands, “How old are you?”
“Seventy-eight,” he replied blowing her assumptions of thirty-six out of the realm. “We age slower up here.”
This gave new meaning to the slang, “My old man, back home.” “I would have guessed thirty younger.”
The ribbed tank snug over her breasts betrayed her attempt to appear unaffected by his presence. The old tight gym shorts she never left the house in, showed more leg and ass than she cared for him to see. She folded her arms over her breasts. “May I check on Norese and see if she’s okay? She needs to know nothing she did caused me to drop her on the floor.”
His gaze darkened.
“Please, Captain. I don’t want her afraid of me.”
One thick burgundy brow raised above a black and burgundy eye. “The way you’re scared of me now, Sadie?” he said in a questioning tone she let roll around in her head for a minute.
He couldn’t understand her need to verify Norese’s comfort. “My fear of you appears to be your goal above the happiness of your daughter. Keep me scared of what you’re capable of doing to me.” She hesitated as his eyes began to glow, but she was already upset. “No matter how you feel about it, Captain, I won’t tolerate Norese’s fear of me. A child must see the adults around her as her safety, not her enemy. Now, either I talk to her or forget her ever trusting another adult.”
He didn’t move, studying her, his gaze traveling from her head, to her toes, back to her face. A glint of humor sparkled in the corner of his eyes. Did her sparring with him give him pleasure? “You’d challenge me to help Norese?”
Her mother had taken in any child needing aid or a clean shirt for school. It never mattered whom she had to approach, that child wouldn’t fight alone. “Yes!” she answered, her voice shaky knowing a child sat upset because of her fear. “For however long you keep me here, she needs to know I’m her friend. If I had my way, I’d be on Earth, not here.”
Sadie waited patiently as the captain relaxed his shoulders. Without a word or indication he trusted her, he pivoted on those biker boots he wore. Crossing the room, he poked his head out into the hallway to call Norese.
Tension in her chest relaxed, and she wanted to drop to the floor. This day’s events drained her of her usual feisty comebacks. Sadie set her attention on his spine where the muscles of his back worked and followed the line of his lean waist. If he weren’t an alien…she left off seeing Norese.
Bouncing burgundy curls covered Norese’s head when she came through the door. She stood at the captain’s back. Together they settled on the sofa in his office, and Sadie held her arms out for Norese. She waited patiently for a sign she hadn’t ruined the inkling of trust she experienced before. Then little fingers reached over, touching Sadie’s hand.
Thirty minutes later, Norese on her lap, Sadie found herself missing her time with Timothy. Her arms ached to pull Norese in for a hug until the little girl drifted off to sleep. Would she misunderstand it as an attack and lash out hurting Sadie somehow? The possibility held a fifty/fifty percent chance of happening.
Sadie opted for safety over emotional need at the moment. “How do I help her learn to control her spikes when she is relaxed, Captain?”
“Karuntee spines are sensitive and the weight of fully extended bones can be cumbersome. If possible, and there’s someone at home, we enjoy a firm massage to unknot the tension in our backs.”
As she raised her hand to rub Norese’s back, Sadie asked, “I bet Norese enjoys this every night. The little boy I watch on Earth is asleep within minutes of the first touch.”
He looked away, moving toward his desk to put it to rights after depositing her on it an hour ago now. Why wouldn’t he answer her question?
Two hours passed. Judging by Norese, asleep curled in her arms and the peaceful expression on her father’s face, Sadie made a significant impression on the captain.
“Captain,” she said looking around for a second door, “does she have a room down here? I can tuck her into bed and stay with her if you prefer.”
He extended a hand gesturing toward the doorway. “The last room at the end of the hall belongs to Norese. There’s a set of drawers under her replicator panel. You’ll find her clothes. Pack enough things for the both of you to last a month at the beach.”
Were they going back to Earth to meet up with aliens living among humans? “Captain, according to you we’re in outer space. There are no beaches and what I’m wearing is the extent of my wardrobe.”
He pushed to his formidable hulking seven feet. “Thirty minutes,” he said as if that were enough time to pack for herself and a toddler. Sadie grimaced. It took her hours to get Timothy Edwards ready to go on vacation. The little minx would be filthy by the time she’d packed his suitcase. She’d have to bathe him again. But Norese was a girl, and there were no mud puddles as far as she could see up here.
“There’s a replicator at the end of the hall. Come with me, and I’ll show you how to call down an appropriate wardrobe.”
“I’ll lose my job on earth, Captain.” Her words came out strained and pleading.
“We resolved any inquiry into your absence. We altered their memories.” He got to his feet and held a hand out to her, which she took, jostling Norese on her hip. “They’ll only remember you’ve taken the time off needing to get away for a while. It won’t hurt them.”
“Then what happens after a month and I’ve fulfilled my side of this arrangement?”
“You may not want to leave. Have you considered that option, Sadie?”
“No…” Why would she want to stay with aliens instead of going home to her family? What could he possibly offer?
“Go,” the captain commanded in a dark voice.
She hurried down the hall, peering over her shoulder to see if he’d followed her. Relieved he remained in the office, she relaxed.
In Norese’s room, Sadie jumped in the shower. After washing with the sweet smelling soap, she rinsed then dried off with the thick rose-colored towel—an influence of Norese’s mother no doubt. One she wrapped around her body and the other around her hair, quickly absorbing the water.
Sadie sat on Norese’s bed, under the round window overlooking space. Male voices wafted in through the partially open door. Crossing the room, she poked her head out into the hall.
“Is she cooperating?” a dark voice asked, the tone thick as the captain’s.
The words should’ve frightened her. They had, but Sadie recognized the dark voice she’d heard when they arrived.
Earlier, when the captain brought her here, she pretended to be sleep. A karuntee named Montage spoke to the captain while Sadie kept her eyes closed hoping they’d leave the room so she could look for a way home. From the way the captain addressed the male, he held a prominent position at the station. A commander if she heard correctly.
“Sadie’s not a female you convince or persuade to get what you want,” he said, a hint of self-awareness in his tone Sadie appreciated. “Present the facts then leave her to decide. There’s something pure about her nature I don’t see in many humans, I believe Norese would flourish under.”
Sadie rested her head on the doorjamb, hands braced on the wall. Relief filled her to hear him say he respected he couldn’t change her mind and wouldn’t try.
“And if she doesn’t comply?” the other man asked conspiratorially, as if he already had punishment lined up if she became a problem.
“Then she’s not the female I hoped to help raise my daughter and I’ll take her back to Earth. I’ll erase her memories; she’ll have no recollection of ever seeing our faces.”
The captain’s emotionless tone saddened Sadie, the pain surprising. She held a hand over her heart. Realization struck her hard. She didn’t want to go home.
The quiet now filling the air added to her discomfort. She drew away from the door. An overwhelming sense of loneliness weighed heavy on her soul, uncomfortable in her new surroundings away from everyone she knew. Her legs felt leaden, heavier with each step across to the window.
She stood before the window, arms folded tight around her body. With a shaky hand, she reached out and pressed the button on the wall, raising the shade to peer at the expanse outside.
The blackish-blue expanse dotted with stars and planets far in the distance brought home the truth. As dire as her situation appeared, who’s to say if the aliens roaming feet beyond the door of the station weren’t as much of a threat to the one holding her now?
Ready or not, she was on her adventure, waving goodbye to the ho-hum of everyday life. She lived with an alien.
She couldn’t have this taken away pretending it never happened. It was 1960, and she was a single black woman from Georgia facing a once in a lifetime opportunity to live in outer space. Nerves fluttering in her gut, she shakily flattened the palm of her hand on the glass, pretending to touch the shuttles as they passed on the landing strip around the station. Wondering what the outer hull felt like, Sadie pictured a foreign material lighter than steel, able to withstand whatever gasses surrounded it. From this distance, the illusion became palpable, almost sensing the unique material on her hand.
Hearing footsteps pounding on the floor in the hallway; Sadie whirled around to see the captain’s hulking form moving towards her in long strides. An unnatural fear coursed through her, and she placed one foot behind the other, retreating until she connected with the upholstered wall. He came around the metal casing of the door. The feral glint in his eyes made her heat up in all the right places. The cushioned surface under her hands brought an image of the captain slamming himself deep inside her body, her back bouncing off the fabric. She tore her attention away more to breathe than anything else.
Fear stared at her in the form of nerves pulsing in the corners of her eyes, sending spots skittering across her vision. Captain Farkus hovered inches from her face for an interminable moment, studying her labored breathing. Her heart would burst from her chest any minute.
He squat down, lifting her up onto the windowsill, the towel tucked tight between her bare breasts. He wedged his body between her knees, spreading her thighs wide. Air danced over her bare skin beneath the towel.
“Why aren’t you dressed? Eavesdropping on my conversations, I won’t tolerate.”
She swallowed. The smooth glass at her back slackened the quiver of her frantic nerves. And showing fear wasn’t her style. “This environment is new to me, Captain. If I hear a noise or voice I don’t know, I’m checking it out for my sense of safety. That’s not eavesdropping, but survival.”
Heat swamped her as his eyes trailed her bare shoulders. The dip at the base of her throat sucked in sharply with each intake of air. He raised both hands, moving them over her shoulders to her biceps. Aroc leaned closer, tilting his head when his fingers stroked the puckered skin of her inoculation on her shoulder.
“What happened here? Who hurt you?” Possession filled his words, giving Sadie a flutter in the pit of her stomach.