"What the frygg are you doing to my ship?" I demanded, taking large steps to stand in front of her. She wiped her teary eyes—the smoke must have gotten to her—and more black smudges appeared, making her look almost adorable.
Unfortunately for her, I was in no mood for adorable right now; I needed to see what she had done to my ship. I pushed her small frame out of the way. Going down, I stared at the opening underneath the food dispenser. Under no circumstances would I fit in there. Using my comm, I called a repair drone. So far, no alarms had gone off, so that was a good sign.
"You're going to blow us all up," a man, Tom, if I remembered correctly, snarled, getting into the female's space and waving a fist in front of her.
Instantly, I was on my feet, grabbing his fist and pushing him back. "This is not your concern."
"If she blows up the ship with me on it, it is," the man insisted. His face was turning red. I had no idea humans could do that.
He wasn't wrong; I had just thought the exact same thing, but strangely, it raised my ire coming from him. I tried to explain it by thinking it was because I didn't like seeing a female threatened, but it was more than that. My stomach, which had been in knots since I talked to Moddekdum, was on fire now, burning all those knots to ashes as illogical anger wiped away all rationality.
His hand reached around me, taking hold of the female's arm, and I lost it. One hard punch of my fist against his chin was all it took. He let go of her and tumbled to the ground.
"Oh my God, you killed him," another female cried and rushed forward.
"You," I turned on the female who had caused all this ruckus, "What the frygg were you doing?"
She was so short that she had to crane her neck to look at me. Her green eyes were large, slightly tilted, and mesmerizing. They were as green as one of the lakes I had seen in my dreams. I tried to refocus my anger toward her, but it didn't seem to work. All I could do was stare at her.
"I was only trying to see if that machine could produce something else besides unappetizing slime." She defended what she had done.
It took me a moment to make her words make sense in my brain. Mesmerized, I watched her lips move. Full, red lips, lips that did things to my cock they shouldn't. It took a moment for her words to penetrate my mind, because my blood was busy with my cock.
"Unappetizing slime?" I heard myself retort. I wondered why the hell I picked those words when I should have been yelling that she should be grateful to have something to eat. I should have asked her what the Cryons fed her. But none of those words left my mouth.
She crossed her arms over her chest, shifted her weight to her left leg, and doubled down, "Unappetizing slime."
Slowly, I became aware of the growing audience watching us and the hostile glances thrown toward the female. An irrational urge to talk to her alone overcame me. She was such a small little thing.
"Come," I turned, expecting her to follow me.
I was already by the entrance when I realized she was still standing where I had left her. With a huff, I went back, picked her up, and carried her under my arm like a bag of produce.
"Let me down," she squealed. "Right now." She squirmed, but she weighed hardly anything. With my arm firmly around her tiny waist, I carried her to my quarters.
ALICE
Out of fivehundred and eighty-three initial abductees, there were now two hundred and sixty-nine of us left. Of which two hundred and sixty-seven didn't seem to like me at all—Ava was still my one and only friend, which was fine with me. I liked being on the outer fringes much better than smack center like Josie or Tom, neither of whom ever missed a beat to put themselves into the limelight.
I was much happier in the role of a supporting character than being the heroine of a movie or book—all the bad stuff always happened to them. No, thank you. Whenever possible, I stayed in the background. The one and only interaction I had had with the big, hulking, silver alien so far had been enough for me to keep back whenever he was around. I would have done so during that first interaction as well, but the engineer in me wouldn't stay back while Xyrek was working on taking our collars off. Thankfully, he hadn't shown any interest in me that day or the days following—during which time I was more successful in blending into the shadows. But now, the big alien was carrying me down the hall, walking by my fellow passengers, who stared at me in bemusement, some concerned, some with glee. So far, he was nothing to me but an abstract—an alien who rescued us from the Cryons. I was grateful to him for it and for his promise to take us to a planet called Astrionis, where another alien, Lord Protector Garth, and hishumanwife, Silla, were building some kind of refugee camp for humans. But a small part of me was very much aware that when Xyrek appeared like an avenging angel on that awful planet and killed our captors, he was like one of those superheroes I'd always fantasized about—he even wore a cape! His silvery skin had looked otherworldly on the barren, red planet. At over six feet tall and impressively muscled, he towered over all of us; he truly was a damsel in distress's knight in shining armor.
His closeness to me was more than uncomfortable when he taught me how to use the tool on the collars; it was too unsettling for my peace of mind, which was why I did everything to avoid another run-in.
For the past week of our journey, I hadn't had any interaction with him. Every now and then, he appeared in the breakroom, or I caught a glimpse of him when he walked down the hall. That was it. I had no reason to approach him, and I wasn't like some of the other women who threw themselves at him, competing for his attention. As far as I was concerned, a low profile was the way to go. I was short enough at five one that most people overlooked me, and that was just fine by me.
But now I was hanging underneath his arm and being carried to his private quarters, and I had no one to blame but myself. Obviously, keeping a low profile was hard when you caused a minor meltdown. Oops.
Any regret I might have felt for my snafu disintegrated on the spot when he told me to follow him. It was rapidly replaced by indignity and then by anger as he pulled me under his arm like a ragdoll—or worse, like I had seen some people carry their dogs.
He put me back on my feet the moment the door closed behind us.
"What the hell?" I fumed, marching to the door and expecting it to open for me like it had for him. It didn't. I whirled around. "What do you want?"
He looked as surprised by what he had done as I was, but he recovered first. "Why were you trying to blow up my ship?"
"I wasn't trying to blow up your ship," I sighed. "I was simply trying to understand how that food dispenser works and see if it could produce more appetizing food." He didn't look like he believed me, so I added, "Look, one of the women is pregnant, and the food is making her sick. I just wanted to fix the damn machine."
That was the truth, as far as it went. All Ava had left was the baby growing inside her. It was all she had to live for. The unappetizing mush Xyrek served aboard his ship made her sick and caused her to throw up even more, so I tried to upgrade the damn machine to spitting something out that actually looked edible. I know that sounds incredibly noble, but that wasn't the only reason. My ingrained curiosity about how things worked had gotten the better of me. I was well aware that in order to carve some kind of life out for myself on Astrionis or in this universe, I needed to familiarize myself with the alien tech, and this seemed a perfect place to start.
