Page 5

Zorn

The last few days have been interesting. We did as Annora suggested. We’ve cooked together and taught each other games.

She’s made no more pans of brownies though, much to both my relief and disappointment. Although she seemed to enjoy her arousing display when she ate them that first day, I think she might be embarrassed about both her response and mine.

She skillfully used the emotion of guilt to get her mother to provide the food I need, as well as some materials that allowed me to make rough versions of some of my favorite Draalian games.

“Zorn and I are getting along famously,” she gushes to her mother through her wrist-comm. “You should let us out. Trust me, we just want to hold hands and take a walk in the sunshine. If you’d done a whit of research, you’d know the poor guy needs to bask.”

“I may be pushing sixty, dear, but I’m not stupid,” is her mother’s reply.

“Zorn,” she raises her voice so I can hear her, “I do apologize about the basking rock. I ordered it the moment I won you in the auction. They said it would be here before you arrived. It’s electric, the best I can do other than real sunshine.

Did you like the buffalo meat I had delivered? ”

“That was the best Earth food yet, Ma’am.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear you two kids are getting along well.”

“Mom, I’ve done a deep dive on the Internet. He needs real sunshine to thrive.” She turns away from her comm and winks at me.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I chorus from the background as I shuffle the cards, waiting for Annora to get off the phone so I can beat her again at gin rummy.

“And real sunshine he shall have. On day thirty-one, one way or the other. I hope it’s when you two emerge from that cottage and announce your desire to have a mating ceremony. I can only hope.”

I get the impression Annora’s mother has no malice in her heart.

She probably went out of her comfort zone to obtain me on the black market hoping to obtain a loving mate for her daughter.

She’s provided food and is working on getting me a basking rock.

She’s certainly misguided, though. What good could possibly come from a beginning as disturbing as this?

“Bye you two. Oh, Annora, do you have enough brownie mix?”

Is that a coded method of asking her daughter if she’s stress-eating, or does she have hidden cameras placed around the house? Did she watch her daughter’s performance that first day? Did she see my response?

“A girl can never have too many brownie mixes in her pantry,” Annora blushes in a silent admission of guilt.

She terminates the comm, slumps in her chair, and blows out through her lips. “With a mom like her, it’s amazing I turned out so well-adjusted.”

I lift my browridge in a mocking response and she peels with laughter.

“Who knew you’d have a sense of humor?”

“Who knew you wouldn’t be able to discern between a sense of humor and biting sarcasm?” I respond. “Want me to make her swim with the fishes?” I ask in a funny accent like a vid we watched earlier.

“Yeah,” she says in the same accent. “We can put her in cement shoes and throw her in the river.”

As I joke with her, it strikes me that we’ve come to a nice truce. It was a good idea to try to have fun in our enforced isolation.

I rise and stand at the locked sliding door that opens to the backyard. Putting my hands and cheek directly on the glass, I try to capture the healing warmth of the sun. Annora may have thought she was joking, but I really do need to feel the rays of the sun on me in order to thrive.

Annora’s mother bought me a lot of clothes in various sizes since she didn’t know exactly what I’d need. I’m wearing most of them in layers. I’m reptilian and can’t regulate my body temperature.

“I’m sorry, Zorn. If I could get you out of here, I would. Mom disabled my comm’s ability to do anything but use the Internet and contact her. Otherwise, I would have reached the authorities and reported alien abuse. We both know what my mom is doing isn’t right.

“I love her but I don’t condone what she’s doing to you. She’s driven, kind of a control freak. I have to say she’s never done anything this outlandish in her life.”

She steps next to me and puts her hand on my lower back as she peers out the window. She must sense my body stiffening, because she moves back to the table where we were playing cards as she murmurs, “Sorry.”

It strikes me that I’ve never before been touched by a female who wasn’t a family member. My planet is in trouble. We’re too advanced for our own good. We’ve developed enough technology to improve our lives, and yet we’ve befouled our land, sea, and air.

It’s caused our climate to warm, which has affected our male to female gender ratio. All offspring in a clutch are always the same gender, which is determined by the temperature of the eggs. As the planet warms, each year a higher percentage of males are born.

At this point, only very rich or very powerful males can acquire a female mate.

Our species continues to reproduce by using increasingly scientific interventions.

Even with that, female clutches are rare and smaller than the average male clutch.

Many believe we’ve passed the tipping point and will never return to the thriving race we once were.

Although I’ve been starved for warmth since I arrived on this planet, that doesn’t explain the reason the exact location of Annora’s handprint is burned into my flesh.

I close my eyes, trying to soak up the warmth of the sun on my face as I put all of my attention on that tiny swath of scales her hand grazed through five layers of cloth.

Initially, I thought I was immune to her. Maybe because I was furious, I found her plain at best, unattractive at worst. After watching her eat that brownie, I’ve been consumed with not only her feminine body, but her shiny brown hair, full pink lips, and intelligent green eyes.

And then I feel it. Zoriss!

The connection is faint. Closing my eyes, I press myself against the glass and close my thoughts to everything but the part of my brain that’s connected to him.

I reach out my thoughts almost like a person would stretch to reach their fingers toward something.

I try for long minutes, but the dim connection fades to nothing.

It’s unclear whether this is a factor of physical distance, or if something is wrong.

I’ve always had the stronger psychic ability, perhaps because I was the first to hatch.

He obviously didn’t know I was on the same pirate vessel or he would have never left without me.

I sense he’s ill or hurt. He would be trying to reach me if he didn’t believe I’m light years away back on Draal.

At least he’s alive. I’ve been worried his pod crashed since our captors said they’d removed the nav system.

Breathing in deeply, I reign in my anger. It’s not Annora’s fault. If I don’t control myself, I’ll take it out on her, and I don’t want to do that.

Annora

How many games of gin rummy can two people play? We’ve played games and watched vids and he’s observed me eat my six meals a day because at this point I can’t control my stress-eating.

We’re only a few days into a four-week ordeal.

At first, I couldn’t figure out why I’m so provocative when I eat.

Now I’ve narrowed it down to the fact that not only does his blatant interest zero out the shame I have around stress-eating, it also feels like flirtation.

Even though I may not be interested in the Draalian, it feels amazing that for once in my life a male is interested in me.

I tried to hide my shock when he ran to the bathroom that first day. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but I’m pretty sure he orgasmed in there.My insides quiver when I remember the deep groan he made. Perhaps my mom isn’t the only one in the family who has lost her mind.

It’s hard to reconcile his stiff, standoffish behavior with the fact that he also watches me like he’s an apex predator and I’m the prey.

You’d think after a lifetime of working with sexuality of all types I’d be confident in my assessment that half the time we’re together he has a hard-on—well, two hard-ons because Draalians are well-endowed in that area—but I’m not certain.

If I’m not mistaken, when he’s aroused his scales turn a bit darker blue. I have to admit the color looks amazing on him. It’s in stark contrast to what I see now. I’m no expert on big blue reptiles, but I think he’s turning gray.

Look at the poor guy, he’s far more miserable than I am. He hasn’t just been abducted and taken from his life, but I think he’s sick.

“Annora!” Mom calls me over my comm. “Annora, the basking rock has finally arrived. I need you two to stand back so they can get it into your house.”

When my eyes flash to Zorn, I see his interest. I doubt the excitement he shows when his eyes focus on the door is due solely to the rock itself.

This is his first opportunity to escape.

After taking only a few steps, though, he has to hold himself up with one hand on the back of the couch. He’s weak.

“I’d help you escape if I could, Zorn. On day thirty-one I’ll help you contact the authorities. They’ll get you back home.”

“Help me now,” he rasps.

Shit. He’s really not doing well.

“Okay,” I speak into my comm. “We’re in the bedroom,” I lie.

Zorn walks to the front door, ready to rush out, but when it opens, it’s not a delivery person. It’s two guards who have worked for my mom for decades. They both have stunners at their sides.

Zorn makes a move to overpower them, I’ve read his race is more than twice as strong as ours, but he’s slow and obviously weak.

“Back off!” one of them commands as she brandishes her weapon at him. He takes a step toward the door and she stuns him.

“Jackie! How could you?” I yell when Zorn drops to his knees, then falls to the floor.

At least she has the good sense not to meet my gaze as she and her partner set the rock on our side of the threshold and leave.