Page 9 of Seized by the Alien Space Warrior (Alien Romance #8)

Chapter Nine

A va held off as long as she could, but the throbbing in her back and Aekon’s shoulder in her mid-section was making her nauseous. She had nothing to bring up, but it didn’t meant her stomach didn’t twist with the urge to wretch.

She tapped Aekon’s lower back, unable to hold back any longer. “Please let me down.”

They’d been sprinting a while and Aekon had shown no indication of stopping, even while carrying her dead weight, but he came to a stop and gently lifted her off his shoulder. Dizziness overcame her. She clutched his arms while the world spun. To her horror, her knees buckled and gave way.

His strong arms banded around her, lifting her before settling her to the ground with a hard rock at her back. His low growl had her eyes flying wide open even as she blinked back clouds of black.

“You should have told me you were ill,” Aekon said.

She moved to get her feet beneath her, as rubbery as they were. “I just needed a break, but I’m okay now.”

Aekon’s fingers firmed on her shoulders and pushed her back down, not that he needed to try very hard. “Rest, female. We’ve gone far enough.”

She leaned back with a sigh. A rest sounded good. Just for a moment in any case. A rest and answers. In fact, she didn’t know how much more she had in her. Her body had taken so much abuse. She was physically exhausted. It was her mind that refused to quit.

“What are we going to do, Aekon?”

“We need to send a comm to my brothers to come and get us,” Aekon said.

“Your brothers?”

He nodded. “My fellow warriors, not my siblings. We are close and have been working together for many cycles, and I consider them the best friends a warrior like me can have. The three of us saw you on that stage.”

He seemed certain they could get here to save them. From what she gathered, this was a hostile planet. A planet full of Ixod.

She shivered as the cold desert air bit through her clothing. This planet was hostile and freezing as well. The horizon was changing from a deep blue to muted pinks and apart from a few jagged rocks that stood sentinel, there wasn’t much more to the flat terrain.

She wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed her biceps, clenching her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. “How can we message them?”

“We’ll have to get to the city. Find somewhere with a strong enough signal. Then, once the comm is sent, we’ll need to stay hidden until they get here. The best place to hide is in a city filled with beings. We’ll be able to find an abandoned building there.” He eyed her shaking body. “We can’t stay out here and survive. There, we can find food at least. Shelter. Clothing.”

She hoped so. At the mention of food, her stomach cramped so hard she nearly groaned out loud. She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d eaten. She’d been in the cryo-sleep for who knew how long and the Reptiles certainly hadn’t fed any of them. She’d vomited what was left in her stomach on the Ixod, not that she was the least concerned about that.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

The sooner they found somewhere safe to lay low, the sooner she could eat and rest and pretend in her dreams that everything that had happened to her was a nightmare. Truly, the worst nightmare she’d ever had.

She propped her legs under her, fighting muscular fatigue. Her mind automatically catalogued the many causes. If any of her clients shook like she did, she would have some pretty hard truths coming their way along the lines of looking after themselves properly, staying hydrated, and not exercising themselves to the point of exhaustion as it was counterproductive to the fitness level they wanted to achieve.

His firm fingers around her elbow were the props she needed to stand. The familiar tingle rose up her arm at his touch. It was so strange it happened every time he touched her. Like he had an electrical current circuiting his system that flowed right into her.

She went to move her arm but his grip firmed. She looked up at him and shivered for another reason as his gaze seemed to penetrate her.

“You are in no condition to walk. I will carry you.”

The way he peered at her made the butterflies in the pit of her stomach launch into a thousand wings. Inappropriate wings. She really shouldn’t be noticing anything about him other than the fact they were stranded together and had to rely on each other for survival. Certainly not the heat in his eyes, or the way she felt he wanted to say something important to her but held it in by sheer force of will. Things she really wanted to hear.

Carrying her sounded like heaven but her body already seemed to have an inadvisable mind of its own and the last thing she needed was to feel reliant on him any more than she already did. Helplessness didn’t sit well with her. She’d always been the type to rise to a challenge. She just had to consider walking to the city a challenge like any other.

That, and keeping her awareness firmly locked away where she didn’t interpret chivalry as anything more than his good nature. He obviously felt responsible for their predicament and she wasn’t going to use it against him. Besides, he still was an alien. An unknown being. For all she knew, being carried in his arms could be a mating ritual of some sort. She inwardly snorted. That would just about cap it all off.

An image of Aekon naked flashed through her mind. The skin-tight body suit did nothing to hide the power of his body. Her attention locked on his thick biceps and the way the muscles of his strong thighs bunched with each stride. He sported an eight pack that just about every one of her clients would kill for. Her gaze dropped lower, and stayed while her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth.

He growled low and her skin flushed with heat when she realised she’d been staring right at his manhood. Her gaze darted to his face. His scrutiny seared right through to her centre, penetrating and heated. She felt her cheeks flush and she gently removed her elbow from his grip.

Pull yourself together, Ava. This is not the time, and definitely not the place!

“Thank you, but I need to work out my muscles before they cramp.”

He made a disgruntled sound. Maybe he was a misogynistic alien. A male who thought the sum total of a woman’s life was to breed and cook food. He was an alien, for God’s sake, and she really had no idea what he expected of the female gender. Hell, she knew many men who had strange expectations of how they thought women should behave, all things they would never expect themselves to do. Of course, many of those men remained single for obvious reasons that they always seemed to be quite oblivious to.

Those startling little bumps dropped lower over his intense eyes. At the moment, they remained the same deep charcoal grey as his skin. She wondered why sometimes they flashed with colour and at other times, like now, they remained dormant. Lethal-looking, but dormant.

“But you are hurt,” he said.

“I’ve had worse injuries than this and I’ve never let them stop me before,” Ava said.

“You’ve had worse injuries?“ His voice was a growl that sunk right into her abdomen.

“In my job I had lots of sporting injuries,” she stammered.

His growl cut short although his eyes glinted dangerously. He crossed his arms over his chest and her mouth went dry at the sight of massive bulging biceps right in her line of sight. “A female should not be injured.”

Her eyes flicked back to his face. Her cheeks heated when she realised she’d been staring at his biceps. She should be used to seeing defined muscles. She perfected them, but there was something indefinable about his—about him —that lured her in.

“Oh, no you have the wrong idea. Nobody injured me. I injured myself. Usually pushing myself too much too often.”

But that was what she’d had to do to get to the top. Be the best. All of the time.

“You are a warrior?” He unfolded his arms, and an interested gleam entered his eyes.

“You mean a soldier?”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s what I meant. A few of the female humans refer to the occupation as such.”

“No. I’m not a soldier. I’m a PT. A physical trainer,” she said. At his confused expression she added, “I exercise. A lot. And I guide people how to get fit and take care of their bodies, as well as physically train for elite sports.”

Her voice trailed off. It all sounded so pointless. She didn’t save anyone. She wasn’t fit to help fight for a country or for people’s rights. She wasn’t a doctor who cared for people, or a social worker helping people who couldn’t do that for themselves. Looking at it now, stranded on an alien planet with the only being in the universe who was able to save her from a horrible future, her occupation seemed so…selfish. So…inconsequential.

She was startled when his finger tucked beneath her chin and he gently tipped her head back. She sucked in a quick breath as his nodes flashed gold, so fast she almost thought she’d imagined it, but then the light in his eyes blazed just as bright and she was lost in them. He seemed to not be bothered in the least by the flashing colour and she wondered if he’d even noticed.

“Any vocation chosen is to be honoured because it means that the being is trying to excel. To become more. To use their life instead of wasting it. You train others so they may be fit and live long, healthy lives. Any occupation means no less than the other. It takes many beings doing all different things to aid others wherever they may need help.”

Her mouth dropped. She felt every word he said, each syllable having weight to it. His thumb brushed her chin, sending an answering excited flutter through her stomach. She leaned into his touch. Just a little. His grip stilled, before his hand dropped away and the cool air washed away his warmth. His eyes blanked and the warmth faded to become as dark as the desert surrounding them.

His gaze moved behind her, taking the intensity of his attention away with it, even though she wished it remained on her.

“Why do they do that sometimes?” she asked.

His brows dropped. “What do you mean?”

“Those bumps. On your head. They glow sometimes. I thought maybe they might hurt when they did that...”

His gaze hardened before he dragged his attention away from her. “Let’s depart. We need to reach the town beneath the cover of darkness.”

So, he had totally ignored her question. It was probably none of her business and she’d just insulted her rescuer. The only being wherever the hell she was who was able to get her somewhere safe. Gods only knew she was completely out of her depth.

His voice was also steel, hardened enough to slam a wall between them. She was grateful one of them had the sense to do so, even if weights settled in her heart. She ignored the strange feeling and looked towards the distant buildings, rubbing at a sudden tightening in her chest.

God, she was such a mess.

The horizon was lightening and the city was still quite a distance away. There was no telling how long it would be before daylight broke and out here they were sitting ducks.

He strode towards the city and she walked at his side. He spoke no more, and she was surprised she missed the deep rumble of his voice. An empty hole grew in the middle of her chest. She rubbed her sternum, trying to warm that part of her but it didn’t seem to work. She sighed, forcing her hand down. This was just stupid. There was no hole and it was not cold.

She was losing her mind. Maybe she’d already lost it when the croc had scooped her out of the bullet-coffin. What she thought was reality were really the threads of her mind hoping for a better outcome. Maybe she really was stuck in that cold, dark room and the lion-yeti had done whatever he wanted to do to her and she’d sunk into a vegetative state. She had heard of people descending into their minds so far they believed the lies it conjured. It was an aspect of the fight or flight response. The mind’s way of protecting itself from terrible things.

But there was no way she could imagine the details of crashing onto an alien planet and being saved by a sexy alien version of Omari Hardwick with muscles beyond muscles and flashing golden nodes arranged in decorative patterns over his skull and disappearing beneath the collar of his skin-tight suit. She wondered where else those delectable nodes went. All over his body?

Mentally shaking her head, she concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. She forced her legs to move, forcing aside the wish that he was still carrying her. She was in worse shape than she let him believe and each step was a lesson in endurance. Endurance, though, she was good at.

She wasn’t going to ask Aekon to pick her up and carry her, and he’d withdrawn anyway. It was for the best. He’d deliver her to this Sanctuary and then be on his way.

He might have said pretty words, but men were put off by her career and her drive. Either they wanted to use her as a personal challenge for their manhood, or catalogued her as a bit of fluff who ran on a treadmill to look good until she had babies. They didn’t see the hard work and sheer determination she had to dredge up each and every day to get where she had when she had nothing left to give and when her body hurt to move. She had to remain focussed and be the best no matter what.

She liked the way Aekon had told her that her career had merits. That what she’d chosen to do had worth. He also seemed to have quickly weeded out her insecurity about it. Her most personal doubts she’d never even told her mother. She hadn’t wanted to burden anyone with them, and besides, as her career went from strength to strength she didn’t want to sound as though she was attention-seeking. Which she wasn’t. She considered herself to be a get-down-and-just-do-it type of girl. The woman with a one track mind and confident front nobody saw through.

So how had he known about her insecurities?

And then why did he shut down as soon as she’d asked about the bumps on his head?