Hunted: BBW Alien Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 4) (7 page)

“Yes.” His voice was thick with emotion, leaving her in no doubt as to what would happen when they arrived at their destination.

He throttled the cruiser forward and they took off, heading back the way they had come. Settling back in her chair, she watched the scenery outside of her window, the grassland, with bright coloured birds lifting up and taking flight as they approached. In the distance she could see tall trees, pockets of them, and then in the distance a large mountain rose up to reach up to the violet sky.

If anything told her they were on an alien planet, it was the sky.

“Your planet is beautiful,” she said softly.

“Thank you.” He turned to the left, taking them across the grassy plain, and in the distance she saw another large building, but also small houses, dotted here and there with no real rhyme or reason.

“Are these houses where people live?” she asked.

“Yes.” He made it sound as if she were asking a really stupid question.

“No roads? Not towns?”

“There are some towns, well, what you would call villages, by the ocean. But here we are more spread out. The sim knows where every house is, and so they show on the screen here.” He flipped a switch and sure enough, a map appeared. “Program in where you want to go and the sim gives you directions. Or you can use the auto pilot.”

He took his hands off the wheel as he flicked another switch and the vehicle drove itself. Which freaked her out a little.

“Neat trick.” They drove in silence; so many questions in her head, but she wasn’t sure how to voice them.

“We will stay here for the remainder of the day. I will take you to see Darl and we can get some salve for your skin.” She held her hands out, seeing the redness. “Is my face that bad too?”

“It is red, but it does not hide your beauty.” The words were not meant to flatter, but said as a truth, which made her blush furiously.

“Thank you, Garth. But you know I’m a sure thing, right?” she half joked.

“A sure thing?” he asked, confused.

“You know I came here for you to breed with me, so you don’t have to try to chat me up.”

“Chat you up?”

“Say nice things to get me into your bed.”

“Oh yes, I know. You already agreed to be in my bed.” He said it so matter-of-factly that she giggled, breaking the tension. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing. I think it’s just the culture shock, you know. I’m used to men trying to chat women up to get them to sleep with them. You don’t have to, because, well, like you said, I already agreed to it, without me having to even set eyes on you first. So it’s nice you are big with the compliments anyway.”

“Big with the compliments.” He repeated the phrase, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to comprehend what she was saying. “I can see sex isn’t the only thing we will be doing in deep space. You will have to teach me your strange language too.”

Tamzin swallowed the lump that had filled her throat. Did he really plan for them to travel the universe, having sex to pass the time? She glanced sideways at him, stealing her eyes away from the vibrant life outside the vehicle, and concentrated on Garth instead. Would it be so bad?

That depends on whether he actually fitted inside her. A thought that made her mouth go dry.

“We have arrived,” he said as they drove through big wooden gates into a courtyard. “This is the breeding house.”

“The what?” she squeaked, wondering why they would call a building such a name.

“It is the base for the deep space missions now. But before, the last mothers, my mother, was kept captive here.”

“And bred with?” she asked, her voice a whisper, filled with awe and anguish. “They were prisoners?”

“Yes.” He looked at her, seeing her troubled face. “We are trying to do things differently this time, Tamzin.”

“I hope so.” A feeling of oppression covered her, dampening her spirits. She was being naive, thinking of this alien sat next to her as a charming man, but he wasn’t, because he wasn’t a man at all.

He parked his vehicle and stood up, stretching, testing her resolve, because he sure was in good shape. “Let’s get your bag, and then we can go and see Darl. He’s bound to have something to fix you up.”

With Garth leading the way, they went to the cargo hold, and she picked up her bag, noting how empty it felt without the stuff she had given to her friends. As he opened the ramp and they departed, she dearly hoped that one day she would see them again, and that she could find the new planet they all so desperately needed.

“Oh, wow.” She breathed in the air, letting it fill her lungs, enjoying not having the familiar heaviness there.

“Next to Earth, it is good, yes?” Garth stood and watched her and then took another breath of his own.

“It certainly is. I never realised just how little oxygen there was in the air. Here, it reenergises me, makes me feel like I could run for miles and never get tired.”

“We can put that energy to good use later,” he teased. “Right now, your skin needs attention.”

She put her hand to her face. “That bad?” Flinching, her skin felt on fire when she touched it. It was that bad, and she wondered what she looked like, and whether he was also teasing when he had told her she was beautiful.

“Darl should be in his office.” Garth held the door open for her, watching as she looked around the building they had just entered. Everything fascinated her; she was like a child looking at the world for the first time.

“What is all this?” she asked.

They had gone in through the part of the breeding house that had been converted into a storage bay. It was filled with air purifiers, water systems, and emergency shelters. He had never thought about it before, but he could see that Okil was not going to give up until the new colony was made.

“I think Okil is one hundred percent certain one of us will find a new planet to colonise. This is his supply store.” Garth wandered through it, picking up things here and there and examining them. “The guy is rooting for Earth and humanity, you know.”

“He’s nice.” She looked up at Garth. “So he’s in charge?”

“Not exactly. But he is pulling some strings to get all this stuff together. He must have got the manufacturing plants to switch over to making surplus stock for him.” Garth kept her gaze. “But enough of this, let’s get you to Darl.”

“I don’t think I want to look in a mirror. Every time you look at me you decide I need to see a doctor, so I’m guessing it’s pretty bad.”

“Not bad, but the sooner you see the doctor, the sooner you will heal. I want you to be in good shape when we leave.”

“Lead the way.” She weaved in and out of the stores until she was by his side, and he wanted to kiss her lips, feel the heat of her passion. But he was scared if he touched her too much he would hurt her. She was right, it was a good job she couldn’t see her face in the mirror.

Out of the storage bay, he turned left and walked along a corridor, past the mess room and then up a small flight of stairs. There they headed to where Darl had set up a temporary clinic to check over the warriors and the ground crew. This is where they found Darl.

“Doctor.” Garth stood in front of Tamzin, not wanting Darl to react badly and make her even more self-conscious.

“Garth. Ah, is this Tamzin?” Darl tried to peer around Garth, but he moved to block him, earning a frown from Darl. “Is everything OK?”

“When we reached Tamzin, she was in a rain storm, and it burned her a little.”

Darl’s face changed; he looked concerned, and excited. “Did you use the decon’ to mend her skin?”

“No.” Garth shook his head. “It wasn’t that bad. I used the decon’ to remove the impurities in her system instead. A lot of sand.”

“Oh, I see. Let me take a look then.” Darl’s expression became normal and relaxed, and Garth moved out of the way to allow Darl to take his first look at Tamzin.

“Hi.” Tamzin waved briefly.

“Hello, Tamzin, you have been in the wars, haven’t you?”

“No, she was in the desert.” Garth frowned and then realisation spread across his face. “Okil said you liked to learn human sayings.”

“I do. I like watching a lot of your old movies. The late twentieth, early twenty-first century are my favourites.” He moved back towards an examination table. “Come and lie down, let me take a look at you.”

She hitched up her too-big overalls and went to sit on the table, while Darl dragged a tray of instruments towards him. Garth moved to stand by her side, resting a hand briefly on hers, trying to reassure her.

“Yes, don’t worry, Tamzin. We don’t do alien experiments.”

“You must have heard of the Roswell incident?” she asked.

Darl smiled. “You certainly like these alien conspiracies, don’t you? I imagine when we landed it was not exactly how you thought it would be.”

“No, we always went to war with them in the movies.”

“Indeed. Now I’m just going to scrape a sample of your skin. Then I’ll test it and we can get you the right salve. It should clear up in a day or two. Luckily, you haven’t done too much damage. Does it hurt?”

“No, it just feels a bit tight. You know, as if it’s wrinkled up.” She touched her face. “Is it bad?”

“Looks worse than it is.” Darl used a small knife and scraped it on the back of her hand, catching the flakes of skin and then scooting across the room on his chair to pour something on it from a small vial. “I’ve seen worse, sometimes the warriors come back from space with burns. Touched the wrong plant or something like that.”

“I’m lucky, I guess. My friends back on Earth have nothing like this, they just have to wait for it to heal.” She looked sad, and Garth found himself putting his hand on hers again. She smiled up at him and he saw how red and taut her skin was.

“Well, next time there’s a transport down to Earth, I’ll send some of it to your friends.”

“You can do that? Or are you just saying that to make me happy—you know, to prove you aren’t the bad guys.”

Darl turned to her and laughed. “So the will to find aliens to be the bad guy still remains. I am so pleased. It’s one of the things I most enjoy about your movies. But to put your mind at ease, I can trace those you were with by their tags and find their location the same way.”

“And you would do that?” Tamzin asked.

“Certainly. We are not the bad guys.” Darl moved to another part of his office and began mixing some kind of salve, adding drops of another liquid and then mixing it around. “Here.”

She took the cream and sat up. “That’s it?”

“Yes. Use the salve, stay out of the suns, and you should be fit for take-off in two days’ time.”

“So I have to stay inside?” she asked.

“No, just avoid the suns.”

“I’ll have to take you out at night,” Garth said. “We can star-gaze.”

“Sure, and when I get back I can explore the planet.” Her voice was tinged with disappointment, but he liked the way she seemed so keen to make the best of everything.

“Yes, when you get back you can have Garth show you our wonderful Karal.” Darl smiled warmly. “I am sure you will like it here, Tamzin.”

“We just have to go into deep space and find another planet first.”

“Yes.”

“Thanks for the salve, doc.”

“Good journey.” He smiled, and watched them leave, winking at Garth when he turned at the door. “Have a very good evening, Garth.”

Garth raised his eyebrow in question. And Darl laughed.

“She will feel much better after you have rubbed the salve into her burns. And I am sure she wants to show you her gratitude.”

Now it was Garth’s turn to be embarrassed, and he went out of the office, pulling the door closed behind him, and feeling as if everyone knew what he was thinking as he led his mate to his rooms.

But he was sure they wouldn’t guess exactly what he was thinking, because none of the other males here had a female. And didn’t know the power they could have over even the toughest warrior.

“Nice,” she said as they entered his rooms, which were really three rooms, a kitchen diner, bed-sitting room, and a bathroom.

“It’s only temporary, my house is some way off, and I have to stay here so I’m close for the mission.” His words were defensive.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.” She opened the door to look in the bathroom. “You’re talking to a girl who has rarely had the pleasure of indoor plumbing.”

He frowned and asked, “Then where do you…?”

“Outside, a hole in the sand. Only in town do they have mod cons like this. And then more often than not the toilets don’t flush because of lack of water. The summers are the worst.” She smiled at his face. His nose was wrinkled up and she knew he was imagining the stench of hot sun on … well, that was all behind her now.

“I suppose we all do what we have to. To survive.” He came up behind her and she could feel the heat of his body against her skin. “We should put some of the doctor’s salve on your face … and the rest of you.”

She ducked her head, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and felt the blood leave her face. Putting her hand against her skin, she felt the rough red patches, and scowled. “I didn’t know it was so bad.”

“Let’s put this on it and then I will get you something to eat, you must be starving.” He backed away from her, leaving her shocked at the appearance of her hands and face. Only here in his small bathroom, which was painted white, with some kind of natural sunlight being filtered in to make it bright and airy, did she see just how red she was. “Very flattering,” she murmured.

“Tamzin.” He called her name, as if he was commanding another warrior.

She came back out of the bathroom, leaning against the door frame and said, “Is that the relationship we have?” He looked puzzled. “You order me to do things and I obey. Is that the cost of being free on Karal?”

His face creased into a frown. “I don’t know.” He stood silent for a moment looking at her, as if he was weighing up whether that was how he wanted her, to be his obedient servant. A woman to order into his bed.

Before she arrived, she might have been willing to be that. Now, in the stark reality of this world, she didn’t. This man was strong, and could bend her to his will by force if he had to, but she wanted the chance of something else, something more. She wanted the chance to be his equal.