‘You put it in yourmouth?’ Vesper said. ‘Why?That’s disgusting.’
‘Well, where doyouput it?’ I sniped.
‘We don’t need liquid. We’re a higher life form,’ he said archly.
‘Not from where I’m sitting,’ I muttered.
He chuckled and looked up at the corner again. ‘I think you should have stolen a different human. This one is very mouthy.’
‘Who are you talking to?’
He pointed. ‘There are several recording devices in the corners. I don’t think they’re hooked up to the ship’s main security systems, because only two Roth have ever visited. If this cell was part of a proper incarceration block, there’d be a rotation of security personnel.’
‘Know a lot about jails, do you?’
‘Well, yes, it is one of my professional interests,’ he said modestly. ‘I make a point of knowing as much as I can about them, in order to never, ever see one up close.’
‘And how did that work out for you?’
Light flickered in the corner of my eye; I turned towards it, then screamed.
Where a wall of the cell had been, there was now glass, and behind it stood the horned male – theRoth– I’d seen on Earth.
‘You’re not very good at greetings, are you, Anna?’ Vesper said.
The Roth scowled, and held something out – a large bowl, filled with clear liquid. He gestured, and made a series of growling, snarling noises that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
‘He says they figured out you drink water,’ Vesper said. ‘He’s going to bring it in; he said try not to scream again, or he could spill it, and it took them an hour to get this much.’ He frowned at the Roth. ‘He says they’re going to harvest some ice for you. Well, that’s nice.’
A panel in the glass wall slid aside, and the Roth stepped in.
He was huge, at least six-foot-six, and his shoulders were almost as wide as the doorway. He was clad in an odd, sleeveless suit that looked to be a uniform, black in colour and tight to his pearlescent skin, highlighting his defined abs. Like his skin, the uniform shimmered as he moved, as if it were made from tiny scales, and there was a round pin on the right side of his chest.
Stop staring at his abs, stop staring at his abs, I chanted to myself, lifting my eyes to his shoulders.
Oh, that doesn’t help.
Something beneath my ribs pulled towards him, just as it had in the shadows when I’d first seen him. But I hadn’t seen his body properly then, and now it seemed I couldn’tstopseeing it.
‘Are all aliens cut?’ I blurted out.
Vesper wrinkled his nose. ‘What iscut?’
‘Never mind,’ I muttered, and forced my eyes up further.
His eyes were still the darkest black beneath straight, thick brows. His mouth was still lovely, even twisted. His silky-looking black hair was braided back from his face.
Exposing his horns.
They were as black as his eyes, but not smooth; when the dim light caught them, I could see that their surface was scale-like, too. My eyes caught on the side of his strong throat, and I realised that the pearlescence of his body was coming frombeneathhis skin, where more scales in shades of blues and purples and pearl-white waited.
I took a deep breath, panic threatening to overwhelm me once more. If I could somehow ignore the scales and horns, he could simply be a very tall, very well-muscled human who possibly needed a little more sun in their life.
And Idefinitelydidn’t think he was attractive.
‘Nope, Anna, absolutely not,’ I said to myself.
Vesper frowned at me. ‘Anna, are you going to leak again?’
