Abducted: Alien Mate Index Book 1: (Alien Warrior BBW Science Fiction Paranormal Romance) (The Alien Mate Index) (31 page)

“Here! Over here, you big bastard!” I shouted, running forward and swiping at it again with the laser beam. It shook its black, shaggy mane and screamed at me—a shattering sound that echoed unbearably from the rounded metal ceiling. Despite the horrible noise, I could still hear Zoe floundering around in the water. Well, at least she was still alive—if I could just finish off this damn
chudd’x
I could hopefully keep her that way.

“Here!” I shouted again, running recklessly right at it, my boots thudding on the metal deck around the reservoir.

I saw it crouch for a spring and dropped to the ground just in time, sliding on the slick metal floor. As the
chudd’x’s
momentum carried it over my head, I flipped over on my back and sliced with the laser set on maximum collimation, as precisely as a surgeon making the first cut.

There are some wounds too big to cauterize and this was one of them.

The deadly beam of light sliced it open from neck to groin and suddenly a rain of hot
chudd’x
guts was falling on my head. Including a glob of something wet and slimy that somehow made its way directly into my mouth, nearly choking me.

The huge creature screamed again but when it fell, with a final sounding
thud
that seemed to shake the entire room, it didn’t stir again. Apparently being eviscerated didn’t agree with it.

Something
was
stirring though—or
someone.
I could hear Zoe still splashing in the water below me, could hear her ever-weakening cries for help.

Grimly, I spat out the gob of
chudd’x
offal and dove headfirst into the freezing water.

Zoe

“It’s okay. It’s okay—I’ve got you,” I heard Sarden saying in my ear. And then a strong arm was coming around my waist to help me keep my head above the water. Which was good, because the
nib-nibs
were still up there chattering with fear and indignation at the impromptu bath they’d been forced to take.

I was feeling pretty indignant myself—well, in between being scared to death and having awful flashbacks of my past. God,
why
did I keep ending up in the water when it was the very
last
place I ever wanted to be? Was the universe trying to tell me I needed to learn to swim?

If so, the universe could go screw itself.

It was exactly what my old therapist, Dr. Wainwright, was always trying to get me to do. “If you can just get over your fear of the water, Zoe,” she’d say. “You can start moving away from your past.” She wanted me to take swimming lessons, which was why I’d gone and stood, shivering , at the side of the indoor swimming pool every day for two months straight before giving up.

Now I kind of wished I’d sucked up the courage to get in and at least learn how to dog paddle.

“Sarden,” I gasped, though chattering teeth. “Help!”

“I’m here.” His deep voice was warm and steady, making me feel better even though I was up to my neck in icy death-liquid. “We’re going to get out of here.”

“How?” I tried to keep my chin up as the chilly water lapped against my cheeks. God, it felt like all of me was going numb—I could barely feel my arms and legs anymore.

“This way,” he said. “Towards the lip of the reservoir.”

“What way? I can’t see in the dark!” I reminded him tartly.

“Here—hold on to me and I’ll get us there.”

He had me hold on to his neck and though I tried not to choke him, I was pretty panicked so I probably squeezed tighter than I should have. Sarden didn’t complain though. He just kept swimming with long, slow, even strokes until I felt him come to a stop, as though he’d bumped into something.

“Here’s the wall,” he said, his low voice echoing softly in the darkness. “Reach up your arms—can you grab the edge?”

I didn’t want to let go of him but I knew we had to get out of here somehow. Keeping one hand tightly gripped on his broad shoulder, I reached my left arm up as far as I could. But all I could feel was the slick, ice-cold metal wall with no edge anywhere.

Sarden must have been watching my efforts because he made a disgusted-sounding grunt.

“All right, I see the problem—your arms are too short. Why are you Earthlings such puny creatures?”

“Just because we’re n-not all as t-tall as professional basketball p-players—” I began with chattering teeth, but he cut me off.

“Look,
I
can reach the lip just fine. So I’ll hang on and you’ll have to crawl up on my shoulders and get to the edge that way.”

It was extremely awkward and embarrassing—especially since I knew he could see in the dark and I was pretty sure I had lost all of my modesty patches in the icy water. But I was so ready to get out at that point, I didn’t even complain. I just climbed up, using his big body as a ladder and finally found the edge of that awful, dark pool.

I dragged myself out and then collapsed in a heap, all my energy spent. To my side, I heard a deep, effortful grunt. Though I couldn’t see it, I imagined Sarden pulling himself up with those impressive, muscular arms, his broad shoulders and tight abs working with the effort. Then he was beside me, breathing deeply in the darkness.

I lay on my side, shivering and gasping with the angry
nib-nibs
still chattering in my hair. I felt woozy and ill. Half-drowned and almost completely frozen. I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs anymore at all.

All I could think was that back home in Tampa, I had always wished I had enough money to go visit other countries. I wanted to backpack through Europe and hike the Himalayas and explore the Far East and have all kinds of exotic adventures—at least I
thought
I did. Now that I had been abducted by aliens and was actually living the dream I realized something.

Adventures suck. They really do.

“You okay?” I heard Sarden ask.

“Yes,” I wanted to say but somehow nothing came out. The cold started leaving my body and I felt toasty warm instead.

“Zoe?” he said again and I thought he sounded concerned. “Sweetheart? Talk to me!”

I wanted to but somehow I just couldn’t. My mouth didn’t want to work—
nothing
wanted to work. Not even my heart. I swear I felt it stop, although that ought to be impossible. But I did. The steady
thud-thud
that had been my own internal clock since birth went silent in my ears.

The room was dark all around me but I felt Sarden take me in his arms. He shook me and said something else, then pulled me to his chest. I couldn’t see him but I heard the panic in his voice. I felt bad about it but I couldn’t answer—couldn’t do anything now.

And then, I don’t want to say everything went dark because it was
already
dark. But I saw a pinpoint of white light in the blackness which slowly grew into a tunnel. A tunnel of light that seemed to be beckoning, just to me.

After that, I don’t remember any more.

Sarden

I held her in my arms—her frail, soft body, as cold as ice. I pressed my ear to her chest but I didn’t hear a heartbeat. Gods, what had I done? How had I let this happen?

Your fault,
a little voice whispered in my head.
Your fault, Sarden, you bastard! She’s beautiful and unique—a sheltered flower. And you took her. You plucked her from her home world and brought her out into the big, dirty universe to be hurt and abused and nearly drowned. And now she’s gone—gone beyond your reach forever.

“No!” I don’t think I realized I’d said the word out loud until I heard it echo back to me, bouncing off the metal walls of the reservoir. It sounded loud and anguished and hopeless. But I couldn’t lose hope—not now.

I held Zoe’s limp form close to me, trying to massage life back into her limbs. I needed to warm her up, but how? My own body was almost as chilled as hers. In fact, I was shivering as I held her to me. But before I thought about bringing up her body heat, I had to restore her heartbeat.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I told her, willing her to hear, willing her to come back to me. “Come on, my little Pure One, just breathe. Just live.
Please.”

I squeezed her tight and placed the heel of one palm on her chest, pressing hard and rhythmically, trying to massage life back into her.
Come on…come on…

I don’t know how long I did that—held her and massaged her. I think I prayed at one point—begged the Goddess of Mercy for help. I’m not a religious male but I knew that I couldn’t bear this—I couldn’t lose her.

“Please,”
I prayed.
“I’ll make things right—just don’t let her die. Don’t let her be gone forever. Please!”

But my prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears. Zoe stayed limp in my arms. Limp and cold and silent.

Gone. She was gone. I felt pain such as I hadn’t known existed and something seemed to tear inside me. How could she mean so much to me? I had known her such a short time and I never intended to keep her for myself. And yet somehow, knowing she was gone beyond my reach devastated me to the core.

I gripped her to me, too numb to cry out.

“Zoe,” I whispered, my voice a choked whisper. “I’m so damn sorry…”

And then I felt it—a single heartbeat. Just one faint flutter under my palm. And then another and another.

Warm her,
a voice seemed to whisper in my ear.
Warm her and she will be well.

Who was it? The Goddess in one of her many aspects? One of the Ancient Ones, looking down from on high? Or maybe just my own common sense telling me what had to be done?

Whatever or whoever it was, I knew I had to listen. I looked around again for a way to get my little Pure One warm and my eyes fell on the steaming hulk of the dead
chudd’x.

I knew what I had to do.

Part Three: Uninhibited (you figure it out)

Zoe

“Are you all right, Lady Zoe?” a familiar voice asked. It sounded like a butler only I don’t
have
a butler. I have a run-down, one-bedroom apartment in Ybor city, the historic and somewhat seedy part of Tampa, and half the time I worry about being able to make rent on
that
. So there’s no way I can afford a butler. Yet, one was talking in my ear right now, as though he knew me.

I pried open my eyelids which seemed to be glued shut somehow, and saw a lantern with a light like an eye hovering over me. It was attached to a long, snaky silver neck which was, in turn, attached to the ceiling.

For a minute I completely freaked out…and then I remembered everything.

“Al,” I said weakly, trying to sit up and failing. My chest was really sore for some reason. “What’s going on? How did I get back on board the ship?”

“I carried you here. But not before you almost died on me.”

The new voice came from the doorway. I looked over and saw Sarden leaning against the doorframe, frowning at me. His arms and chest were smeared with some kind of black goo and streaks of the same stuff stained his shirt and trousers.

“
Died
on you? What are you talking about?” I demanded, my voice coming out weaker than I wanted it to. “Died from what?”

“Hypothermia. The water in the reservoir was extremely cold—I don’t think you would have survived in it for much longer.”

“Well,
you’re
the one who told me to jump in,” I pointed out, tartly.

“It was either that or wind up in the belly of the
chudd’x,
guarding the water supply
.
Which, as it turns out, you did anyway.”

“What?” I wanted to sit up but when I tried, my body disagreed. So I just laid there and glared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling with the motion.

“Your heart had already stopped once and it was the only way to warm you up. I had already sliced it open so I put you inside its body cavity to bring your body temperature back up to normal.”

“
What
?” This time I
did
manage to sit up even though my body protested. Looking down at myself, I realized I was covered in black goo. Not just my arms and hands, either—I was completely coated in the stuff. When I reached up to touch my cheek, I found it was even on my face—no wonder my eyelids had felt glued shut!

Also, I smelled
horrendous.

“You heard me—I had to get you warmed up. This was the only way. You can say what you want about
chudd’xs
but at least they’re hot-blooded. That’s what’s all over you—its blood. All over me too.” He motioned at himself.

“Oh God, Sarden,” I moaned, looking down at the gooey black stuff that coated every inch of my skin. “Is there
any
scifi trope you’re
not
going to hit? First you pull out a lightsaber—”

“A what?” He frowned. “I used a
blast laser
to slice open the
chudd’x.
And a damn good thing I did too, or it would have eaten us both.
”

“And then you put me in its awful guts to warm me up,” I continued, ignoring him. “I mean, what’s next? Are you going to tell me you’re my father and cut off my hand?”

“What?”
He shook his head. “Zoe, are you sure you’re feeling all right? Maybe I should have left you inside the
chudd’x
a little longer to let your brain thaw—you’re not making any sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense,” I said grimly. “My point is, this sucks and I want a shower. A hot one.
Now
.”

He sighed. “You know the mister isn’t going to get this off. It’s the Cleansing Pool or nothing.”

I almost said, “nothing then” but I was coated—literally
coated—
from head to foot in alien monster guts. The blankets Al had laid over the silver beanbag bed would probably have to be burned, along with my clothes. “Fine,” I mumbled at last. “But…can you at least lower the uh, water level this time so it’s not over my head?”

“I am afraid the liquid level of the PPC is pre-set and we are quite unable to change it, even to suit your less than average stature, lady Zoe,” Al answered for him, sounding politely regretful.

“Great.” I looked down at my nasty, gooey hands. “But I still can’t swim.”