Craved by an Alien Page 3

  Still breathing heavily, he rumbles, “If I’m to be judged solely on my performance, we must do this properly. In a bed.”

  He slides an arm behind my shoulders, bands another at my lower back, and exerting no effort, he lifts me into a front-carry and stands.

  Shite on a pike! I knew he was strong, but he’s STRONG. I gape at him. “Damn, Rein, you’re incredible.”

  His eyes go lazy as his grin gets even cockier. He leans in until our noses are nearly brushing, until I can taste his hot breath. “I look forward to hearing you whimper that in my ear as I fuck you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Half a Solar Later...

  DOHREIN

  The care and feeding of humans is not a simple affair. After conducting extensive interviews with every Earthen on the preserve, the results were conclusive: human females require chocolate to survive.

  They also lack for a nutrient found in a bean called coffee.

  Precisely how the lack affects their systems is unclear. None of the women seem to have medical knowledge about this aspect of their biology.

  Curious.

  Their increasing desires for the cocoa and coffee beans necessary for their survival have grown to such a pitch that here we stand, on a blue planet these females once called home.

  Our mission: retrieve human younglings that were separated from an abducted female named Tara, and amass a hoard of the nutrients and supplies needed to keep our Earthen females healthy and happy.

  And beautiful. I voice this last thought aloud, and Gracie rubs her hand down the placket of my suitpants with a sultry, “Flattery will get you laid everywhere. Go on.”

  My wing twitches, the desire to hug her to me so strong and so ingrained it nearly overwhelms my excitement to investigate this planet. Unfortunately, if I wingmark her, at best we’ll be delayed. At worst, we’d attract attention, and this we must avoid at all costs.

  I settle for dropping my nose to her neck, my lips curving into a smile against her skin. “Ever generous, female. Thank you for granting permission to proceed.”

  She leans against me, fitting her back against my chest—and her posterior into my pelvic cradle.

  She turns her head enough to catch my eye, and snickers, “Just warms your hearts, doesn’t it?”

  I squeeze her hip. “That’s not all it’s warming.” I’m grateful she’s teasing me, providing distraction. I haven’t voiced it, but I find myself uneasy, struggling to come to terms with the fact that neither Gracie’s skin nor her clothing currently bears my wingmarkings.

  Unlike Gryfala, human females make casual body contact almost constantly. Therefore, the concern lies in the threat of Earth’s alien-oblivious humans negligently brushing up against her, ignorant of my wingpowder’s effect—it would set off a reaction we would be improperly prepared for.

  Human women, like my own species’ females, the Gryfala, react with arousal in the extreme when they come into contact with hob wingpowder.

  The compulsion to cover Gracie with wingdust, re-mark her even as she worked to scrub every trace from her skin this morning in her drybath…

  It was unbearable. As were her looks of apology. I forced myself to leave her before I clasped her up and damned the teveking consequences.

  Beth, one of the human women who’s formed her own party for this excursion, interrupts our moment when she breaks from her Na’rith’s huddle, and hurries to Gracie. “Here’s cash, and here—” she motions to one of her husbands trailing her, and the baby strapped to her chest gurgles at him happily, “is a camera. You’re going to need a big, strong, hot guy to carry it. It’s heavy.”

  The women concurred that humans won’t immediately identify any of us as alien, especially if we disguise ourselves as costumed and ‘special effects’-coated humans who specialize in recording each other for the entertainment of the masses.

  It would seem a strange practice if our own people weren’t enthralled by the very same thing: Homo sapiens. This species is so fascinating, no matter how mundane their activity, we can’t help but observe them—it’s not difficult to fathom why even they aren’t exempt from their own pull.

  “Will one big, strong, hot guy please stand up?” Gracie asks, which is mildly confusing given that we’re all already standing.

  Beth turns to her husbands. “It’s a song reference.”

  I wouldn’t have guessed that Na’riths would find the human culture as interesting as the Gryfala do, yet they soak up every additional morsel Beth can feed them.

  In our own party, shoulders crowd against each other, every male—save myself—clamoring to be selected.

  Gracie makes a fist and holds it over her other hand. “Okay, real quick, we’re going to teach you Rock, Paper, Scissors. You guys will get a kick out of this.”

  Hobs and Rakhii go still, tilting their heads at yet another new, strange Earthen custom.

  She attempts to explain the process, and is definitely amused as she fields our questions about the nature of wrapping paper around stones. I find it rather intriguing; I wonder how this method of selection was put into practice.

  “How big is the rock?” one of our group asks. “It would need to be substantial to crush a Rakhii tail blade.”

  “Scissors… are blades, I’ll give you that…” Gracie says thoughtfully. “Chalk this up to a translation snag, all right? On three…”

  “Why three?”

  “Do we evaluate each other’s hands during a match?”

  Gracie shakes her head as the questions continue to be posed.

  Beth fields a question from her mates, before she leans into Gracie and murmurs, “Wait ‘til we show them the Lizard-Spock version.”

  Gracie laughs. “Fuck no, we’ll be here all damn day.” She turns to the closest hob, Wirav. “You,” she declares, dropping her hand after indicating he’s the winner of this odd tournament.

  Beth’s males assist in fitting him with the necessary equipment, and our journey begins.

  We cloaked the ship in a glen not far from a human village. The first signs of life are not humans or beasts, but signage. When we peer curiously at the colorful but worn board, Gracie reads it aloud. “The Wildest Pumpkin Patch Petting Zoo.” Her mouth curls in a diabolical grin. “There’s a ginger joke in there, I feel like I’ve almost got it.”

  I offer our group a factoid that Laura shared with me. She has extensive knowledge of Earthen greenery, called flora in a mostly defunct universal human tongue. “Ginger is a type of root that grows on Earth and it’s used to season dishes.”

  “Also a color for hair,” Gracie adds.

  “Like a mane? What is the connection between a root and manes?” Xarshish, a hob, wonders.

  “What is a pumpkin?” another asks.

  A Rakhii by the name of Hotahn appears dubious. “If it isn’t tamed, why are they advertising for visitors to pet it?”

  “Dunno on the lot if it, but let me try. The connection between ‘mane’ and ginger is in the similarity in color, as far as I know. A pumpkin is a… vegetable, I guess—although I’ve heard some people are calling it a fruit now, so who knows. And it’s true that it can’t be tamed more than any plant but I think the petting part is for their zoo of animals.” Gracie rubs a spot between her brows. “I feel like I’m traveling with a classroom of kids, not men,” she mutters lightly, and I can read from her tone that she isn’t averse to her role as governess as much as she is humored by it.

  We converge down a travelway for pedestrian traffic, and Gracie reaches for my shoulder out of habit, only to stop short of her goal.

  My wings are bound by my cloak.

  She will not be able to hold my talon, as is our pattern of affectionate gestures.

  (It is also one of her self-reassuring gestures, though she’s never said so aloud.)

  Nor will she be able to tease the elasticity of my wing’s patagium—the nearly diaphanous membrane. She likes to stretch and bounce it, somewhat absentmindedly.

  I like t
hat she touches me—that she doesn’t seem inclined to stop touching me. Even when her mind’s focused on unrelated matters, she doesn’t exclude or forget me.

  Gracie’s playful. Outwardly, one might not see her rabble-rousing for what it is, but I deeply enjoy bearing witness to it each time she exhibits her mischievousness.

  “Here we go,” Gracie mutters. “Let the Hot Parade begin.”

  I gaze down at her, and the urge to wrap her in my wings is clamoring so fiercely that their inner membranes ache.

  As if sensing my need for her, Gracie tips her head back, and sends me a commiserating smile. I catch her hand and note that we’re passing the edge of what the humans call a ‘parking lot,’ where they keep their ground transporters stored.

  Next to this lot is a strip of cracked tarmac that’s being traversed by occupied ground transporters. They seem to speed along—that is, until they reach our vicinity, whereupon they slow nearly to a crawl.

  One of my wing’s talons catches on the fabric of the cloak concealing them. It’s an irritation, not unlike attempting to fit a glove over your fingers, only to snag a digit on an inner thread. As unobtrusively as possible, I lift it and reach over my shoulder to unhook it.

  The Rakhii standing to the side of me, Tepkik, brings up his tail blade to scratch at the base of his horn.

  A ground transporter passing us shimmies as if it’s shaking off surprise, and the rotating mechanisms it rides on squeal painfully loud against the tarmac. A sharp honk of sound emits from the transporter directly behind it. This pattern is repeated in rapid succession by the transporters following them.

  Gracie casts a wide-eyed look over us, as if she feels the need to check to ensure we weren’t the cause of the mayhem.

  Mildly insulting.

  The Rakhii nearest me must think so too, because his long ears flick.

  Another sharp honk and more squeals as a second wave of conveyance vehicles appear to lose control of themselves and fall into bedlam.

  The fabric finally springs off the tip of my talon. Ahh, freed. I relax, able to devote my attention to Gracie, sharing my thoughts. “Thus far, Earth transportation appears to be somewhat chaotic.”

  Gracie balefully eyes the scene. “They’re rubbernecking! They’re going to get into an accident.” She casts a considering glance over us and smirks. “Shoulda brought paper bags for your heads.”

  “Why bags of paper?” a hob by the name of Jonohkada asks.

  “To cover up your pretty, pretty faces. You’re going to cause a pileup if we don’t get you out of the sight of traffic.” She addresses another hob. “You’re Kio, right?”

  He starts to bow but her hand shoots out and claps against his shoulder to prevent the move of respect. Just as brusquely, she releases him, saying, “Could your clothes be any tighter? Especially that shirt. Good Lord man, you look like a stripper.” She glances at the road, sighing before she instructs, “Whatever you do, don’t flex your arms. Don’t do anything that will make those abdominals ripple. And turn that smile off,” she finishes, wearing a scowl to rival my own.

  Kio is a cheerful sort, and he either takes absolutely no offense, or he believes she’s jesting, because he can barely contain his playful grin.

  The rest of the males are all staring at her, clearly at a loss attempting to determine whether her words are playful or true orders, which causes her to shake her head in defeat. “At least this’ll be interesting.”

  Laura appears, Crispin beside her, and they approach Gracie with an odd sort of caution. Laura sends a darting glance at me before settling back on Gracie.

  Laura makes a quarter turn of her body so that she’s more facing Gracie than she is me. It appears almost deliberate, as if she’s attempting to block me out, but I can think of nothing that would prompt such a behavior.

  I glance down at Gracie in askance only to watch as her face seems to… shutter.

  I’m mystified.

  “We’re splitting off,” Laura informs us. I note that she makes an indecipherable widening of her eyes. It lends a meaningful weight as she gazes at Gracie.

  I ruminate over precisely what it could mean.

  Laura’s voice seems oddly strangled. “We’ve got the life-giving beans covered, don’t worry.”

  As I ponder the pair, Gracie performs a salute.

  I grapple for my tablet; I’ve never witnessed this particular behavior.

  When I glance up again, it’s to see the two females shaking their heads at me.

  Gracie returns her attention to Laura. “We’ve got the supplies covered. Go. Have fun. Be safe out there.”

  Laura’s brows pinch in, as if she wasn’t expecting this well-wish.

  I look to Crispin.

  He’s watching me, his dark eyes fathomless, waiting for me to finish human-gazing. My wing softly punches the top of my cloak, lifting to tap his wings for quest luck out of sheer habit.

  His eyes go dull as they catch the movement.

  There will be no more good-natured wingtaps for him.

  Adopting a scowl, I force my tone into an air of disbelief. “Walking everywhere like a Rakhii,” I hold out my fingertips, “tapping out your farewells like a Rakhii—my friend, the next thing you know, you’ll be licking everything.”

  Arokh moves in beside us, smirking as he tightens his hand affectionately around Angie’s. “Your female won’t complain.”

  Laura leans against Crispin, her hand moving from his ribs to his pectoral as she sighs happily. “I sure don’t.”

  The possessive, affectionate action has Crispin grinning and wrapping an arm around her, and though I’m still discombobulated about this next phase (wherein we part ways), his apparent acceptance of his situation—particularly, his lack of distress—does partially assist in easing my concerns.

  I strongly opposed the plan to divide us despite the fact that within the framework of our limitations, breaking down tasks to be tackled by preset groupings made the most sense.

  It’s simply that Crispin and I are about to part company for the first time since we were introduced as fledglings. We’re on an alien planet; anything could happen, a fact Crispin well knows. The evening he found Laura was the night pirates took over our ship—right before they tortured and mutilated him.

  Anxiety freezes me, locking up my movements as well as my processes for speech. That is, until Gracie’s hand lands on my hindquarter and squeezes.

  Crispin snorts.

  It serves as a reminder that I might be perilously close to hovering, which is what Crispin pointed out when this plan was first broached.

  He attempts to reassure me. “It’ll be fine, Rein.”

  I believe what he means is ‘I will be fine.’

  My relief is instant. This entire trip has been good for his morale, and the fact that all of the hobs are now essentially as wingless as he is, everyone equally earthbound and no longer giving him looks of pity… well, it’s the lightest he’s appeared in some time.

  Moreover, facing an entire planet of beings who have no wings has made him seem (outwardly at least) positively eager to begin their adventure.

  Further still: he has Laura.

  Laura, who distracts him from any pain he might have been reliving just now when she rests her head against his arm, and rubs his side with her hand, asking, “Ready?”

  This isn’t the first time she’s done this. It’s fascinating, observing how simply she manages to divert moments that could turn morose or unpleasant. He smiles down at her, his teeth bright white in contrast to his skin.

  Gracie bumps her hip into my leg. Instantly, she has my focus. “Yes, princess?”

  The title slipped out of habit. I normally reserve it for moments when I need to point out that her behavior requires an adjustment, because she finds it amusing.

  This was certainly not the case the first time I called her princess.

  The first time, I’d been entirely sincere in my application of the endearment.

  Instantly
, Gracie was hissing so threateningly, so authentically, I questioned if she wasn’t somehow a Gryfala hybrid.

  “Trust me,” she’d snarled. “I know it’s supposed to be a term of respect. I’m from a land where we still have royalty.”

  I’d rested my chin on my knuckles, contemplating her predicament. “You’ve developed an aversion to the word?”

  Her derisive snort was as good as an answer.

  “What if you embrace it? From here on, consider it a pejorative, and the next time you want to tell me I’m being a ‘dick,’ tell me I’m being a princess instead.”

  To my relief, she’d burst out laughing. She’d adopted my recommendation and now we’ve applied the term widely enough that now it’s circled around to a questionable form of fond insult. Most of the time.

  Her lips curve up, causing my hearts to accelerate in rhythm. “We’d better get going too. We’ve got s’more-making supplies to pick up.”

  I feign a dark expression, and am rewarded with her unbridled laughter.

  Our farewells extended, we fracture our groups and Gracie declares us her posse as she guides us down quiet streets that she warns will grow clogged once residents exit businesses during ‘the lunch rush.’

  I secretly hope we can witness this. Humans rushing for a predetermined lunching schedule sounds mysterious. Do they form queues and remain ordered? Where do they go? What foods do they consume? The human females have been notoriously difficult to feed. What—

  “Welcome to a supercenter,” she explains when she ushers us into a large dwelling that houses produce and sundry supplies. Doors rush open at our approach, and once through, all of the hobs in our party pause in the entryway to gaze upward.

  As expected, rafters are above us, but they don’t appear comfortable for perching. I suppose flightless humans wouldn’t concern themselves with a design they found unnecessary, but it still seems an odd thing. Nearly every planet’s businesses provide decent roosting areas for the various winged species. Those who don’t have always been considered uncouth.