Alien Shield, page 5
“Told you,” Jocelyn said in a sing-song voice. “That bloke’s got the hots for you big time.”
I didn’t answer her. I was too preoccupied with the surprising way Xyan’s sight stars had met mine across the distance between us.
And the way I could still feel them, even now, boring into my back.
CHAPTER SIX
Serena
Jocelyn and I spent a lot of the afternoon together as she cleaned up and got some food, catching up on everything that had happened while she’d been gone. She smiled at her lone little fallink sprout in the garden, nodding to herself. After that, we went together to check on Theresa (doing well) and Cece (doing not so well, but holding up).
“I’m going to hang out here for a bit,” Jocelyn said in Cece’s tent. “I’ll mix up some more of the grix drinks for everybody.”
“That would be awesome,” I said with a grateful nod. Even after straining the batch I’d made, it hadn’t been quite right. Too much grix, but steeped for too short a time, which apparently made the flavour bitter and overwhelming. Cece also made a sound of gratitude from where she was lying on top of her hides.
“I’m good here. You should go, I don’t know... Talk to a certain big, brawny, stoic warrior whose name rhymes with cayenne,” Jocelyn said with a sly look. I pursed my lips, wanting to squirm under her gaze. God, I was 33 years old! I should not have been feeling this fucking goofy!
“You know what? I will,” I announced, standing up. I was a grown-ass woman. There was no reason for me to be all silly and embarrassed. If Xyan was attracted to me, then so what? That didn’t mean I would have to hide away from him like a schoolgirl. And it’s not like I was... unaffected by his appearance either. Maybe talking to him more will be good. Get to know him a little better and I won’t feel so off-kilter around him.
I strode out of the tent, not bothering to pull up my hood or put on my sunglasses. Dusk was creeping up the sky with velvety paws, and the faint glimmer of stars followed close behind. The asteroid band that encircled this planet like Saturn’s rings was rising, too, a curving line of misshapen-looking moons turning the copper and gold of the desert and cliffs to shades of indigo and merlot with silvered highlights.
For a moment, before I got all in a tizzy looking for a certain someone, I paused, looking upwards. It was a sky so different from the one I’d been used to back home. Different, but achingly beautiful in its own way. Its stars sharper, its shadows deeper. There were times I wanted to go home so badly I could feel the strangling fist of it around my heart. But when I stopped among the constant action and stress of our new lives here, took a deep breath, and just took in the beauty of everything, it almost felt OK.
“I often wonder what you see looking up at those stars, knowing you have come from beyond them.”
A deep, gravelly voice directly behind me made my heart leap into my throat.
“Jumpin’ Jesus,” I breathed in English, the old slang rising instinctively at the shock. My hand on my pounding chest, I turned to find Xyan behind me.
I’d been speaking of the beauty of the night sky, but Lord thunderin’, it paled compared to the man before me. In the darkness of dusk, everything about him was deeper, more shaded, more intense. His copper sight stars gleamed with ochre smoke, shadows pooling beneath his hard cheekbones and between the defined curves of his muscles. I was overcome with an absolutely visceral urge to ask him to strip. Not in a pervy way, but so that I could study and eventually draw that insanely impressive anatomy. It had been such a huge part of my work back home, and it would be a wonderful challenge and an opportunity like no other – to make note of alien biology never before studied on Earth. But as my eyes stroked down the carved lines of his meaty pectorals and his hard abs, lingering on his loincloth before wrenching back up to meet his gaze once more, I had to admit that maybe, just maybe, my desires weren’t solely academic in nature.
So, OK, yeah. A little bit pervy after all.
Though you’d never get me to bloomin’ admit it to anyone else, that was for damn sure.
I cleared my throat, realizing the silence had stretched between us for a long moment. Xyan seemed totally unphased, not feeling a milligram of the awkwardness I felt. He stood still and patient. I realized he was waiting for a response.
“I was just admiring everything,” I stammered. Kind of a boring answer but I couldn’t think of a more interesting response. I’d always been an introvert, much more able to express my thoughts with drawing and writing than in conversation. Even teaching the undergrad courses back home was taxing for me. I much preferred holing up in my office than engaging in drawn-out conversations with most people.
But I realized as I looked at Xyan that I didn’t want this conversation, if you could even call it that, to end.
“I understand the desire to admire something, especially when it’s beautiful,” he said slowly, his sight stars lingering on my mouth before coming back up to meet my eyes.
“Well, the stars and asteroids are certainly that,” I stammered, feeling a right fool for some reason. Xyan cocked his head slightly, then took two steps forward, coming to a stop at my side and turning so that we were facing the same direction. I slid my eyes over to him, watching as he tipped his hard face up, his thick neck arching back to look at the sky.
“What are asteroids?” he asked.
“Oh. Right. The moons,” I said. “You can’t really tell from here, but those moons actually circle the entire world.”
He tipped his head down to look at me, frowning slightly.
“Circle?”
Right. It wasn’t like these guys had exactly studied astronomy or anything like that. Nor had they seen their own world from space, as I had.
“This planet, this world,” I said sweeping my hand in a cockeyed circle motion, “is a huge sphere. The moons aren’t just the line you see here. They’re a ring that goes around the whole thing.”
“A sphere...” Xyan said, still frowning, looking away from me, across the settlement, out onto the open sands. “I see no curve.”
The way he said it, it didn’t sound like he was challenging me, or that he was defensive about me challenging his worldview. It was a quiet and steady statement accompanied by an inward pulse of his sight stars, as if he were trying to see exactly what I was talking about.
“We can’t see it because the planet is so huge that the curve just looks flat to us,” I replied.
Xyan made a deep rumbling sound, then said, “You know much, Zerena who speaks of worlds. You know more of this place than even I, whose blood is of these lands.”
Oh, fuck me. Had I gone and stuck my foot in it? I didn’t mean to try to sound like I knew more about this place than the warrior who’d lived here his entire life.
“Oh, no, that’s not true,” I stammered, hoping I hadn’t offended Xyan. My ex had never liked it when I’d tried to teach him things or tried to correct him. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t come across like some know-it-all Nelly.”
“A... a what?” Xyan said, quirking a dark brow as he looked down at me once more.
“A know-it-all Nelly. Someone who tries to... To show off their knowledge,” I said. I could feel the hot flush of embarrassment in my cheeks, my neck. For some reason, I really, really didn’t want Xyan to think poorly of me.
But he looked surprised by my words and my dismay.
“I wish you would give me more of your knowledge. Your thoughts, your memories... all of it.”
My mouth fell open slightly and I slammed it closed again. He wasn’t getting irritated and calling me pedantic? What fresh hell was this?
“I know much of this place that you do not,” Xyan continued. I might have imagined it, but I thought he shifted slightly, creating the slightest brush of friction between his arm and the shoulder of my jacket. “And you know many things I hope you will share with me. Fate has brought our people together for a reason, Zerena. We can all learn from each other. This way, we are stronger. We are better.”
“I agree,” I said, smiling at his words. He was absolutely right. I may have known things like the shape of planets and the theory of gravity and how cells created energy, but he knew things that were just as valuable. How to forge blades that could protect your home. How to survive in the brutal wild heart of the desert.
How to make a poor Newfoundland girl all hot and squirmy.
“So, what are you up to this evening?” I said, linking my fingers together behind my back in a pose that was meant to look nonchalant. I noticed a sharp dip of Xyan’s sight stars down to my chest before, bless him, he snapped them right back up to my face.
“I am on my way to move my tent.”
“Oh!” I said, glancing at the settlement. Throughout the day, many of the male warriors had been moving their tents just outside of the settlement, creating a curved line of tents on the open sand. As we humans hadn’t needed to move our tent, I hadn’t been paying much attention, too preoccupied with other things. “Is that... safe?” I asked, biting down on my lip, suddenly worried for this massive man, sleeping alone out there.
“Do not worry,” he said kindly, almost thickly. “I am a strong fighter, as are the other men who are moving out there.”
“How did they choose who will go?” I asked, tightening my stomach against the knot that had formed deep in my guts.
“Unmated men, those without families, will erect their tents out on the sands. This way the women and children are safer behind that line.”
“So that means you don’t have a mate then, right?” I asked, hoping I sounded at least somewhat cool and disinterested. I’d never seen a woman, human or alien, hanging around with him. And I was suddenly dying to confirm that he didn’t have one already.
Xyan’s mouth thinned into a tight line, his jaw clenching, before he finally said, “I do not yet have a mate who shares my tent.”
There was absolutely no reason for me to be feeling that giddy about his proclamation, but there I was. A smile exploded onto my face. I couldn’t help it. So he’s definitely single, then. Jocelyn’s poking and prodding from earlier jumped into my mind. He’s got the hots for you... He has for weeks...
“So, you’re moving your tent, then? Can I help?”
Xyan’s sight stars pulsed slightly in surprise.
“You need not trouble your soft hands helping me,” he said, as if shocked by my request.
I laughed.
“I’m stronger than I look,” I teased. “I grew up on a farm back home.”
He smiled softly. It made my insides curl in the most delicious way.
“There is no one here who could question your competence, I am sure. And if one did, that fool would have me to answer to.”
My fingers tightened into sweaty fists. The dusk air was cool, but my body was flaming. I unzipped my jacket, yanking it off and scrunching it into a crinkly ball, sticking it under my arm. I blew a few strands of hair out of my face and adjusted the bra strap that had slipped down my shoulder beneath the wider strap of my tank top. Unfortunately, when I’d been taken from home, they hadn’t allowed me to bring any of my decent, properly-fitting bras. I’d been snatched in a ratty old sports bra that had already fallen apart, and now I was stuck with the nondescript uniform ones we had on the ship. In a properly-fitted bra, I’d been a solid F-cup back home, so these flimsy things were always riding up or sliding down in the most annoying way possible. Never thought big boob problems would be so much at the forefront of my mind on a hostile alien planet. But as I tugged the thin strap back into place, it seemed that it wasn’t only at the forefront of my mind.
Xyan’s sight stars buzzed, his eyes wide as he stared at my face, as if every hardened milligram of his warrior’s will was required not to look down at my breasts without my jacket on. The adult Sea Sand women didn’t have breasts unless they were pregnant or nursing, so the whole boobs thing was kind of a novelty here. With that in mind, I couldn’t really blame the guy for any curiosity. Besides, Xyan wasn’t alone in his gobsmacked feeling of novelty and awe. I, too, had had my own share of holy shit would you look at that moments when taking in Xyan’s impressive form. I mean, I was a biologist, after all. And a straight woman with eyes.
But still, I appreciated the effort he was using to keep his gaze trained on my face.
“I have said that I do not require your assistance,” Xyan said. “But... would you like to see my tent?”
Before I even knew what I was agreeing to, I found myself nodding my head.
“You bet I would.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Xyan
Tension thrummed through every limb as I trudged back to my tent. My knuckles were so tight they cracked as I flexed them. Beautiful Zerena seemed oblivious to my inner turmoil as she walked beside me. I had to remind myself to slow my pace for her short legs. The energy in my body urged me to sprint for all I was worth.
Perhaps this was a bad idea...
Perhaps she should put that strange cloak of hers back on...
I’d never seen so much of her bare skin before. Plush arms that led up into gently sloping shoulders a feral part of me wanted to sink my fangs into. And her chest...
The round swell of her breasts made my cock thicken even as I gnashed my fangs, keeping my gaze straight ahead as I walked. I should not have asked her to come back here with me...
Not that I had any doubts about my own self-control. Certainly not. I would never do anything Zerena did not wish for. But I was torturing myself like this. Bringing her back to my tent – the dark, confined space of it – with so little clothing and so much tension between us.
Earlier, when the Death Plains men had arrived, I’d planted myself before her to be her shield. Now, it almost seemed as if she needed a shield from me. Or at least from my gaze. A gaze that had become more fierce, more lusty, than I’d ever known it to be.
“Here is where I sleep,” I said, stopping and gesturing to my small tent. I watched her face closely, trying to get some impression of what she thought. Pride and doubt commingled.
“It’s small,” she said, seeming surprised. A muscle flickered in my jaw.
“Yes,” I agreed, unsure if she meant it in a positive or negative way. Or perhaps it was simply a neutral observation.
Cursed sands, I had never been so unsure of myself before. So dependent on the emotions and reactions of someone else. I’d always been sure of myself. But as my lovely mate stood before me, her face shining under the light of the moons that she called asteroids, I wondered what she saw when she looked at my modest abode.
And I wondered what she saw when she looked at me.
“Can I see inside?” Zerena asked, glancing at me from below. Her cheeks darkened. “Sorry, was that too forward? Was that rude? I don’t-”
“Yes,” I said swiftly, twitching my tail in acquiescence. “You may come inside.” It was a desire so deep it was almost filthy – the intensity with which I wanted her in my tent, my space. So she’d be alone with just the darkness and me. My cock twitched, lengthening further, and I growled internally at myself to focus. To keep everything in check.
I lifted the tent flap and gestured inside the darkened space with my tail. She dipped her head in an odd human way and smiled slightly as she brushed past me. A whiff of her scent slipped through my air, settling hot and sweet in my loins. With a tightness in my chest, I slipped in behind her, letting the tent flap fall closed. We were plunged into darkness. But even with so little light, I knew exactly where Zerena was. I could see her well enough. And my body was aware of every curve and shape of hers in the darkness. A breath shuddered out of me as I stepped up closer to her, a mere whisper away from her back. I sensed her stiffen at my nearness, and immediately I stepped away from her. Well done warrior. Now you’ve made her uncomfortable. I turned to the bone shelf next to me, grabbing a valok candle from its place and lighting it with two stones. Warm light rippled outwards, illuminating my tent and all my possessions.
Zerena looked around, her slim light brown brows raised slightly.
“It’s so tidy,” she said.
I looked around, too, trying to see what she saw. A single roll of hides meant for one man. Bone shelves with only the most essential items.
She bent and placed her crinkled-up cloak on the sand next to the bone shelves. It was the only thing out of place.
And because it was hers, it did not feel out of place at all.
A hammer of sensation slammed through me. The need to keep her here. To make my home hers. To fill the space with more of her.
“It need not always be so tidy,” I said, my voice sounding gruff and strange to my own ears. “There is room for much more. And I could easily expand the tent, should I ever have the need...”
I was dangerously close to going back on what I’d vowed to myself. The vow not to pressure her with the mate bond. I was within a claw’s width of it. In all my words about making room and expanding, there was an unspoken promise. A plea.
If you let me, I’d move everything else aside for you. You are the very centre of my life. The core of my world.
I thought back to what she’d said about the moons, the asteroids. That they were a ring encircling Zaphrinax. It felt like I, now, was circling her much in the same way. Tethered to her with some invisible force. I could move and circle and spin around her, but that tether remained intact. She was the pillar holding me, the whole world guiding me. Every path, every movement, every stroke of fate, led me back to her.
“Are you alright?”
Zerena’s words, sharper than usual, had me clearing my throat.
“Yes. Why?” I asked.
Her slim brows lowered, her eyes searching my face. The black sight stars at the centre of her eyes were much larger now. Almost swallowing up the little skies there.
“Your expression... You looked... Far away,” she said stiltedly, as if searching for each word.
