Chapter Four

Alayna felt her mind instantly hit the gutter—because that was her very first thought—sex. It was unfortunate that the effect it had on her wasn’t what it should have been, because she got the distinct impression that he somehow sensed the statement had aroused her.

Just as he had seemed to before when he’d been rubbing her feet and legs.

She felt her face turn slowly redder and redder at the look in his eyes—a mixture of heat and amusement.

She narrowed her eyes at him and stabbed her chest with her finger. “Free woman!” she growled.

His expression hardened. He studied her for a long moment and stalked toward her.

She didn’t flinch—or move an inch.

Which was her mistake, because his intention wasn’t what she’d thought it was.

He snatched her against his length, tangled his fingers in her hair and tilted her head back so that she was looking up at him, her lips parted from the angle. Then he planted his mouth over hers very deliberately and kissed her until her brain went Chernobyl and her entire body turned into the consistency of pudding. “Mine,” he said with a rumbling growl when he broke from her lips and lifted his head to study her for a moment.

Then he let her go and stalked out.

Left the habitat completely.

Alayna had to lock her knees to keep from puddling on the floor.

She wobbled to the couch and collapsed when he’d gone. “Neanderthal!” she muttered, then added, “Ish.”

Just because he’d taken her she was his?

There was some macho primitive bullshit!

And here she’d just begun to think they were way advanced people!

No doubt he thought she was just dying to get poked by him!

Ok, so he did appeal to her. She could admit that.

But that didn’t mean she was ready to lay down and spread her damned legs!

There were plenty of men she found attractive that she didn’t want to screw!

Well, some, not plenty. And maybe she would be interested in screwing a fraction of those.

A really small fraction.

But, just because she found him surprisingly attractive—for an alien—it didn’t follow that she wanted to do him. Or let him do her.

And besides, they were different species of humanoid. She doubted his thoughts of mating would produce any fruit.

Which would be great for her until he realized he couldn’t produce with her, and then she’d get dumped—very likely—and possibly in a really ugly way.

She stewed over it for a while until it dawned on her it might actually be a good thing for her.

It could solve the very scary dilemma she’d found herself in with no place to go and danger everywhere.

Well, it didn’t follow that there would be no danger involved in going with the flow and letting him think he’d bowled her over and she was now putty in his hands.

But there might be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

She would have shelter and food.

Safety from the other natives, she supposed.

If he was talking mate, he probably meant more than bed mate—or even producing rugrats. He probably meant cleaning and cooking and all that domestic shit she hated. But it was a small price, she thought, for time.

And maybe the sex part wouldn’t be just horrible.

At least she thought he was physically attractive.

If he didn’t have a really weird wonder worm or do really weird shit, she thought she could tolerate it—for a while, anyway. And then they would, surely, let their guard down about her and that would make it easier to take off? Plus she’d have a chance to actually prepare herself—which she hadn’t when she’d had to make a run for it.

Those thoughts made her realize she’d already accepted there would be no going back and no going home.

There wasn’t even enough components to finish the gateway after Leah and or whoever had taken so much before it was blown up. There sure as hell wasn’t enough things laying around to build one from scratch—even saying there was anyone around with the knowhow to do that.

And that meant waiting for a ship—which would be a minimum of five years, she thought. Maybe twice that—even if one could be sent from the closest base.

Nobody was going home—maybe ever. And as long as they thought she had anything to do with that, she would probably be killed on sight.

So …. Maybe Zorn was a consolation prize and maybe not, but it looked like her chances were better with him.

He absolutely looked alien, but he wasn’t hard on the eyes.

He seemed pretty laid back.

Of course, she hadn’t really crossed him yet, so she supposed she’d have to reserve judgment on his temper.

She was going to have a problem with his he-man attitude, but she could bite her tongue and put up with it for a while, she thought.

Despite her efforts at a pep talk she’d long since given up the possibility of any kind of confrontation by the time he returned. She’d gotten hungry enough to search the kitchen for anything that looked like ‘fast food’. Discovering the remains of the bread from the day before and the cheese, she found a knife and shaved a little sliver off of both to hold her over—hoping he wouldn’t notice she’d helped herself in case she’d misunderstood the situation.

When he did come back, he studied her for a long moment, his hands on his hips, and then motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen.

Once there, he showed her around—where everything was kept and how the range worked—using some kind of solid fuel—dung from the smell of it. Or maybe peat. Whatever it was, it heated up the range quickly because it was ready to cook by the time he’d shown her where the meat and veggies were kept—in a building just beyond the kitchen door that appeared to be cooled by the soil—it was built like a cellar—and by a spring that was cold enough to make her feel like she had frost bite when she dipped her hand into it.

She made a mental note of everything, wondering how much she would remember the first time she decided to test it. Then they went back into the kitchen and he threw together something that looked like a stew. Wondering how long it was going to take to cook on something as antiquated as he was using, she got herself a mug of water in the hope that it would quiet her stomach.

When he had the stew simmering, he took her to the bathroom and showed her how everything worked—instructing, she supposed, in his native tongue. She wasn’t sure of exactly why he thought she couldn’t figure it out—or needed to—but she decided he just figured everything she had before was different.

Which it was—but not that different.

He showed her a storage area where he apparently kept bathing supplies, pointing everything out and naming it, she finally realized, and then a smaller one for the backpack and her very limited wardrobe.

He took her up to the loft then and showed her where things were kept—bed coverings and pillows.

She very carefully kept her gaze away from the bed.

He noticed.

A mixture of amusement and irritation flickered in his eyes. “No like bed?”

Alyana felt her face heat up with discomfort. She managed an off-handed shrug. “It’s nice.”

He caught her hand when she would have slipped past him and drew her close, capturing her face with one hand and urging her to meet his gaze. “Make lub dere. Make babies. Hab babies—make life dere.”

Alayna felt a rise in heat, although she wasn’t sure if it was because of what he’d said or just being that close to him—or the heated thoughts that instantly sprung to life—and then a chill—and then something completely unidentifiable. Her heart couldn’t decide whether to race or stop.

She couldn’t think of a thing to say, any response. She couldn’t decide how she felt about anything he’d said.

Not horrified.

Not revolted.

Actually nothing negative at all.

Which was a surprise.

Uneasiness, she thought.

Maybe even a touch of wistfulness.

She studied him curiously. “Why?”

He frowned.

“I mean, why me?”

His gaze flickered over her face.

“You don’t even know me.”

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Will.”

She felt another blush rising to her cheeks as it occurred to her to wonder if he was thinking in the ‘biblical sense’.

“All ways,” he added almost as if he’d read her mind.

That sent an added burst of pulse pounding through her along with a wave of warmth.

It would’ve been nice if someone she’d known and thought of as special had felt that way about her.

How much did a person really know someone else, anyway, she wondered abruptly?

She’d known Leah for years—worked with her, basically lived with her throughout their military careers. Granted, she’d never been able to really warm up to her, but she’d trusted her.

And it turned out, or at least seemed, that her instincts had told her right off that she shouldn’t trust the woman.

So maybe she could trust her instincts with Zorn?

And maybe not.

He wasn’t human. Could she really trust the things he made her feel when he wasn’t?

She realized she wanted to.

That was the longing she felt and had never acknowledged beyond thinking she would produce some ‘rug-rats’ once she had the money to establish a homestead.

She’d never ‘belonged’ and she wanted to. She wanted a family if she had to make it herself.

And that was what he was offering—she thought.

But did she dare trust him—even a little?

Could she trust any of her instincts toward him when she knew she was compromised by a strong physical attraction? Especially when she didn’t know if it was actually a ‘normal’ reaction or something he was, somehow, doing to her?

Why would he not feel as hostile towards her as it seemed everyone else did? His people and hers.

But on the other hand, what would he have to gain by pretending he didn’t?

Maybe he thought she was someone important in the colony? Somebody he could get information from? Or that he could use to manipulate the colonists?

Ok, that last seemed farfetched if he’d seen them beating her down and dragging her off, but it didn’t rule out that he’d initially singled her out for that reason.

It did seem sort of romantic to consider the possibility that he’d been so attracted to her that he’d kept coming back and had seized the chance to take her.

Although he hadn’t actually said that.

It was a serious letdown when he released her without pursuing the intriguing comments further.

She told herself it wasn’t. That she just felt relieved that he’d let it at that and let her go. She didn’t want to feel like she’d been pushed into a corner.

But she had to admit his male arrogance hadn’t set her back up even a little.

Which was stupid and such a woman thing! She really hated it when she had a stupid woman reaction to something any female with any damned sense ought to take except to.

He wasn’t done with her … unfortunately. He hauled her back through his place and prodded her to tell him the names of everything he’d pointed out. She discovered she’d retained about one in ten—or maybe twenty. But they went round and round until she’d managed to memorize everything.

Thankfully, by that time, there was food because she was just about ready to drop.

It felt oddly intimate sharing a table and a meal with him. She couldn’t recall a single time that she’d sat down to eat a meal with anyone that she’d felt so … cocooned from the rest of the world, that she’d felt so hyper aware of her companion.

It was so weird, but the longer she was around him the handsomer he seemed to her and she’d thought he was closer to drop dead gorgeous already than any man she’d ever met in person. It was like … she could see things she hadn’t noticed that were so very attractive.

Like he had dimples when he smiled.

And he had a really nice mouth—that felt very, very good when he’d kissed her.

She liked the strange color of his eyes—and the shaggy thatch of tawny hair that seemed to have cowlicks in three different directions and still made him look sexy—just a little rough to mellow out the ‘beautiful’ and make it more manly.

Was it even remotely possible that the females of his own kind weren’t as bowled over by him as she was?

She couldn’t imagine it.

So, she supposed that ruled out that she’d gotten him by default, but it still didn’t adequately explain why he’d decided he wanted her.

And the doubts made it difficult to accept any of it at face value.

But then Leah had so thoroughly fucked her over she was having trust issues.

Not Zorn—because he couldn’t speak English well enough to con her if he wanted to and she still hadn’t thought of a reasonable motive for him to try—so much as her own judgment.

And then, too, she was feeling way more vulnerable than she was accustomed to—in literally years. She’d been lost and very vulnerable right after she’d left the foster system, but she’d gained experience and knowledge in the military that had made her feel self-confident and made her self-reliant.

Now she was in a position where she couldn’t be reliant only on herself. She needed … someone else.

She was going to have to trust Zorn because she was fresh out of options, but could she still hold back enough to prevent herself from another catastrophic betrayal?

* * * *

Zorn was gone when Alayna woke the next day as he had been the past two days since she’d arrived in the village—so she couldn’t say it was a surprise when it was already an established habit.

She was mildly annoyed, though.

Because despite the light teasing, suggestive comments he’d made, he hadn’t touched her at all.

She told herself it was just impatience to ‘get it out of the way’ because the anticipation was starting to weigh on her, she was sure, more than the actual experience would. He’d made his intentions clear. There was going to be a mating.

She was ok with it, she assured herself—not especially eager—but she accepted it as part of the price for survival. She would still have the option of taking off if she discovered she couldn’t stand it and or it got to the point that she couldn’t tolerate him.

And, actually, she was convinced that cooperating now would make it easier to escape later—so that made it worthwhile in and of itself.

Very likely, she told herself, he was eager, but he was still suffering the effects of the wounds he’d sustained and he was forced to wait until he was well enough.

He had had a fever and although the medicine he’d gotten from wherever seemed to have knocked it out, there had been infection or there wouldn’t have been the fever.

So his wounds were probably bothering him—or least one—probably the worst one that she’d sealed for him.

She was a little more irritated when he didn’t show up for the mid-day meal because she’d put forth the effort to prepare something for him to eat and had expected brownie points for it.

Of course, he hadn’t indicated that he would and he had only returned mid-day one of the three days she’d been with him so she couldn’t really fault him for it, but …. Frankly, she was disappointed.

Because she was bored to death.

That vanished mid-afternoon when she discovered a group of women had approached the cottage.

Actually, it looked like it might be every woman in the village—from girls to grandmothers.

It scared the pure piss out of her, but she decided to reserve her energies for fighting her way out of a bad situation until she knew, positively, that it was a bad situation.

Because even though they seemed pretty serious in general, the younger females in the group seemed more inclined to think a party was in play.

Not that that necessarily meant it was safe to let her guard down, she reminded herself.

The bullies always seemed to think there was a party in progress when they were beating the hell out of the object of their ire.

Their expressions lightened when she joined them readily enough and they escorted her, in mass, out of the village.

By the time they’d completely cleared the village, it had occurred to Alayna that maybe the objective was to just get rid of her, give her the boot, and then she regretted that she’d joined them and left her pack at Zorn’s cottage.

Not that there was a hell of a lot in it that was terribly useful, but the clothing was always handy in a situation where exposure was dangerous.

Uneasiness crept in, as well, not unnaturally, because it occurred to her that they might not be content just to show her the way out. They might intend to see to it that she didn’t come back. Just about the time her nerves were wound so tightly, though, that she felt like she would explode if any of them made a wrong move toward her, she saw they’d reached a natural pool and that the women had begun to find places for themselves and to strip their clothing off.

Pool party, Alyana wondered a little blankly?