The Alien’s Stowaway Read online

  "Sorry," he whispered. "You had a bit of soap."

  His gaze captured mine in the dim light, those golden eyes still bright. Before I knew what I was doing, I turned and slapped my hands onto his chest. It was only then that I realized it was bare. He must've removed his shirt to keep from getting it wet. I slowly moved my eyes up from his chest to his handsome face. His breath hitched as our eyes met again, and his mouth dropped open like he was going to say something.

  Instead, he closed the distance, wrapping his wet hands around my naked waist. Jarix's mouth crashed against my lips, and he gasped softly as I melted into him. The abandon in his kiss, the desperation... It made me want to climb him. I settled for stepping out of the tub and pressing my chest against his, begging for more.

  Jarix did not hesitate to do just that. He pulled me even closer, pushing my breasts against his chest and digging his fingers into my skin. It was my turn to gasp as he lowered slightly, moving his arms down to cup my ass, then lifting me up to bring my mouth closer to his. I dragged my own arms up until they were wrapped around his neck, deepening our kiss until our tongues wrestled together. Oh fuck, the taste of him was so much better than I imagined.

  Jarix sank into our kiss, seeming to put every tense moment, both sexual and not, from the last few days into it. I could taste the raw need he felt, mirrored in my own wild exploration of him. His erection pushed against his pants, and I could feel it twitching against my leg. The size of it, even through his pants, made my breath catch.

  After a few moments where we both completely indulged in finally being able to touch each other, Jarix lowered me down slowly. "Jarix." I whispered his name repeatedly as he bent over and sucked one nipple into his mouth. Fuuuuck. I clutched his shoulders and moaned, my legs going limp. I hadn't had attention like this since I was young and on Hydronia. Then, it had been clumsy and awkward. This felt perfect. Like we'd been leading up to this from the beginning.

  Jarix suddenly straightened and pressed a kiss to my lips. "Why are you stopping?" I whispered, pulling my hands through that incredible hair. It was exactly as good as I had imagined. Better, maybe.

  "Didn't you hear that? You're usually gone by the time I hear it."

  "What?" I asked in confusion. I hadn’t heard anything.

  "Maybe my hearing is sharper than humans," he mused. "It's a distant whistle I've heard every evening, a little while after you leave."

  I gasped and lunged for my clothes. "Oh, no. I've got to hurry!"

  He helped me dress, even if he did slow me down slightly by planting kisses on my mouth whenever it came close to his. I smiled, despite my terror, kissing him back gently. Finally, I was completely clothed and armed with one bag of water. I lingered before I turned, heartbroken to be interrupting where we had obviously been heading.

  I wanted so badly to fuck him, to stay and continue getting to know him. As he smiled at me softly, gold eyes piercing, I thought for a wild moment that I might do it anyway. That I might just let the camp think I was a runaway. Tearing my gaze from him, I sprinted away. I didn’t have time to turn back, I just ran.

  10

  Evvie

  As I ran over the sandy hill, I saw them strike the first blow. The guards used those awful clubs I was well-familiar with on Alice. Out in the sun beside the barracks. In front of everyone.

  As soon as I'd run out of the cave, my body begging me to return to Jarix’s arms, I knew it was too early in the day for the night shift bell. Something else had happened. I’d crossed the stretch of desert as quickly as I could, completely undoing all the excellent work the bath had done. When the crowd of both day workers and guards came into view, I knew why. Alice's white hair shone across the sand as she fell to her knees.

  "Stop!" I screamed, dashing forward despite my fatigue. They had to have rung the bell because of me, they'd discovered me missing. Which meant this particular act of violence was my fault. "I'm here!"

  By the time I got to the crowd my throat was parched, and blood pounded through my body. I tried to catch my breath as I pushed my way to the front. "Stop," I croaked. "I'm here!" I needed to fix this, stop the madness, but they didn't stop. They kept hitting her. A frail old woman. Throwing myself on top of her, I tucked my body around hers and tried to protect her with my skinny frame. It was all I could offer my dearest friend.

  Each blow felt like the weight of invisible shackles around me. They were proving to me that, if I tried to leave, my friends would pay the price. Tears coursed down my cheeks as I absorbed the painful blows. As the crowd just watched in near silence, my mind flew to Jarix. If they killed me, he'd never know what happened, and Alice and I would never get off of this planet.

  Jarix probably wouldn't either, without me to guide him. I focused on him and protecting Alice as I continued to use my body as a shield. I could hear Alice breathing hard beneath me, coughing up a little blood. Anger welled in me and I lifted slightly, intending to catch the next bat, or kick the guard who swung it. Instead, someone's boot connected with my face, just beside my nose. He hadn't kicked at full force, but it still hurt enough to nearly make me pass out.

  Tightening my hold on Alice, I promised myself we'd get away if we survived this. We'd never be beaten like this again. I whispered it over and over until eventually, they stopped. Snot and tears soaked the back of Alice's shirt, and I was somehow dirtier than before I’d taken my bath.

  Before I could move, one of the guards grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet. It wasn't anything unusual for my hair to be damp, but he didn't know this was from a bath and not sweat. "Where have you been?" He held a knife I didn’t know he had to my throat, pressing in enough to hurt. "Went for a walk," I gasped.

  "The old woman said you were in the bathroom, but that was the first place we checked."

  "I couldn't sleep." He let the knife fall away from my throat. I shook while the guard still held onto my hair. "I went to the bathroom, then for a walk. I didn't mean to get so far away." Tears coursed down my cheeks, hopefully lending credibility to my story. "I don't want to die in the desert. I wasn't running away, I swear."

  He pushed me by my hair toward Alice. "Go for another walk and you'll end up on day shift." He leveled me with his glare, “And she,” he gestured to the still-crouching Alice, “won’t make it next time.” My knees hit the sand, and I put my arms under hers. The guard turned away with a snarl, "You two better be ready for your shift at nightfall."

  I nodded and helped Alice to her feet. "We will."

  "Everyone back to work," he roared. "You night shift get back in your bunk."

  Alice and I moved slowly, and we were the last ones shuffling toward the bunkhouse. We were dirty, bloody, and both of us had tear tracks down our face. I held her close, not daring to ask questions while so many people could hear us. Just as we were about to reach the bunkhouse, Clarissa stepped out and crossed her arms. "I'm the one that told them you were gone." She arched one eyebrow as if challenging me. Did she actually seem proud of her deed? Since when was snitching a thing to brag about?

  "I'm not surprised at all," I said in a wooden voice.

  "I'm going to figure out what you're up to." Her eyes were narrowed and she popped her hip out like some crazed Barbie bitch.

  I shook my head. "The only thing I'm up to is healing after that. I'm not stupid enough to think I could escape, Clarissa. Come on." She was right, of course, but she was also an idiot. It wouldn’t be hard to fool her. No one ever escaped.

  "I'll figure it out if only to expose you and see you ruined," she hissed. Clarissa flipped her hair and walked back into the barracks. I was too tired to again wonder why Clarissa hated me. Too tired to even move the final steps into the shade of the building, but I had to.

  "She's jealous of you." Alice spoke for the first time since I’d arrived. I looked down at her bent body, nearly crying again at the pain in her face. She shook her head, then put a hand on her cheek and winced. "How close are you to being done?"

  "Very,"
I whispered. "Days."

  "Then it's worth it. My life is over, Evvie. I'm old, but you're not. You’re strong and determined and brave. You can have a real life. You deserve a real life.” She gazed up at me, nothing but love for me in her expression. A tear did slide down my face at that. I didn’t know why, but this conversation somehow felt like a goodbye. She reached up, placing a wrinkled hand on my cheek this time, “Think about what you want in life and go after it." She dropped her hand and shuffled slowly inside. I didn’t argue, I just strengthened my resolve to see her out of this hell hole. I’d do anything for the woman who would take a literal beating for the headstrong girl she’d befriended so easily.

  As I climbed into my bunk, carefully and slowly, I considered Alice’s words. What did I want? I thought I knew: I wanted to escape. But to what? True, Jarix would take me with him wherever he was going, but we hadn’t discussed that yet. I also wanted, no needed, to take Alice with me. We needed to work harder, and faster, if only to get Alice away from the camp that would surely kill her.

  That meant telling Jarix the truth. He wouldn’t understand why I was in such a hurry, and I owed it to him to tell him the truth. My mind went over and over the things we still needed to do, and kept returning to Alice holding my face that way. Like a mother.

  I fell asleep to images of me, Alice, and Jarix somewhere else. Anywhere else. As long as it was together.

  11

  Jarix

  She’d never gone four days in a row without coming before, but the sun was rising over the sand and Evvie hadn't been back since she’d run toward the sound of that bell. Every night when the sun was setting and she normally would've been walking across the sand back toward her town, I considered going after her. What if I'd simply scared her off by kissing her like that? In the heat of the moment, I’d been positive she wanted everything I was giving her. She had seemed eager and willing. Though, this unexplained absence could mean that I was wrong.

  Maybe she didn’t want to get tangled up with an alien she didn’t know very well. Maybe she was in danger. My gut tightened with worry. What if she was hurt? Or dead? This planet was well-equipped to kill humans, and I worried that the last thing I’d done was kiss her when she might not have wanted me to. Tonight, I'd decided to find out. I was sick of worrying and sick of not knowing what was going on. It was a danger, I risked exposing myself. She'd said an alien out here in the desert was unheard of, but if she was in some sort of trouble or hurt, I had to try to help her. She'd come and nursed me back to health. I also cared for her already. That kiss had been more than just physical attraction.

  She'd been telling me she worked for this corporation that ran this planet, but I had a hard time believing it. Yet she hadn't done anything to make me doubt her. She'd saved my life more than once, and had dutifully shown up regularly to help me repair the pod. Perhaps the TerraLink Program was not a kind employer, which could explain why she had to always be there for work on time. It could explain why she had missed these last four days.

  I dressed, tied my long hair back with a bit of rope, and took the blanket with me into the heat of the day. It was designed to hold in heat, but if I held it over my head it would give me shade. It was better than nothing. Right as I stepped out of the cave, Evvie slammed into me. Her tiny frame couldn’t move me, but it did make me drop the blanket. I threw my other supplies on the ground and wrapped my arms around her. "Where have you been?" I asked. "I was just coming to look for you." After hugging her tight, I pulled back and looked down at her.

  Her face was covered in half-healed bruises. Anger immediately coiled in my belly, making my muscles twitch, searching for a weapon. Whoever had harmed her would have the once in a lifetime experience of getting their ass kicked by me. It was once in a lifetime because, when I was through with the person that had harmed my human, they’d be dead. "What happened?" A growl rose in my throat and fury made my vision darken. "I will kill whoever did this to you." I brushed a finger across a particularly dark-looking bruise under her eye.

  She looked at me like she wanted to say everything. Like she wanted to tell me the truth. Hesitating, she broke our eye contact, shrugged, and walked around me into the cave. "Don't overreact. I got into a bar fight. I couldn't risk coming here until I healed a little." I guess I wasn’t to receive the truth just yet.

  "Come sit down." I followed her back into the coolness of the cave, then folded the recovered blanket for her to sit on. She lowered onto it wearily. The first thing I wanted when I got back to civilization was a real bed. I'd been sleeping on the rocky ground for over two weeks, and I could tell Evvie also could use a long sleep on a soft bed.

  Maybe a full meal first. I only had a few more days of rations, then I would need to get out of here or starve. I'd been eating half a ration per day for over a week to stretch out the food I had as much as possible, and my body complained from the lack of nutrients. Soon, I’d start to look like Evvie. She had been bringing me those nasty sausages, but they weren't much to sustain me all day, and I secretly wondered if she was going without her own sausages in order to share with me.

  "What happened, really?" I asked once she was settled. I yanked my shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor. It was too hot on this goddamn planet, and I took note of Evvie’s eyes following my movements.

  "Really," she said with a chuckle. "I got in a fight. You should see the other guy."

  Her confident grin soothed some of my questions about the validity of her story, and I decided to accept it for now. I could believe the story that she had gotten into a fight. She sure was something. "I'm proud that you won," I said. "On my planet you would've been celebrated."

  "Yeah," she said. "I was. People gathered to watch."

  As was her right, as a warrior. "You are a fierce Earth woman." I stated matter of factly. I admired Evvie’s strength and resilience, traits my own people valued highly. I wondered if human females did the same.

  "I'm too tired to work on the ship today," she said after a moment, lying back on the blanket. "I still had to work these last few nights, even with the injuries. I’m sorry, but the trip here wore me out too."

  "It's okay," I said. "You are the one that insisted injury did not equate weakness."

  She patted my ankle, which was closest to her face. "Thanks."

  "I was about to come looking for you. I worried I'd scared you off with my advances." I gulped. This was the moment I would learn if she felt for me as I did for her. I lowered until I was crouching in front of her. She lifted herself up onto her elbows to get a better look at me.

  "No," she said, meeting my gaze. "I'm not frightened. One kiss couldn’t scare me away, and especially not from someone I’ve grown to care about." She said the words confidently, never taking her eyes from my own. My heart leapt into my throat. Could she really have said that she cared for me? I’m sure my face gave my emotions away, so I schooled it back to neutrality. It was unmanly to show too much emotion, even if the emotion was elation.

  Evvie cocked her head at me, waiting for my response. I lowered myself completely so I could sit next to her. I smiled, inviting her closer. She scooted over a bit and placed her head in my lap. I was able to lean back against one of the walls, and I immediately plunged my hands into her hair. I loved this wild hair, though why it was dirty and unkept again so soon after a bath was strange. I laughed internally. This is my wild woman.

  She sighed beneath my hands, closing her eyes. “Are you going to say anything?” She didn’t open them, and I almost didn’t hear her quiet voice.

  “What is there to say? You obviously are aware of how I care for you, and now you have admitted you feel the same, so there is nothing left to say. You are tired, so rest.”

  Evvie opened her eyes at my words, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “You’re a weird guy, Jarix. But I like you.” Again, my face threatened to burst into light from my joy, but I stayed still, just toying with her strands.

  Evvie closed her eyes agai
n and got more comfortable on my lap. After a moment, she said, "I've been on my own for most of my life. I haven’t really known what it’s like to actually worry about someone, or to have anyone worry about me. I have someone back in town that I care about very much, which is new for me. Her name is Alice, she's been looking out for me since I came back from Hydronia. But other than her, I can't remember a time someone cared. Even my parents didn’t last long." The glimpse into her life alarmed me. She had never known what it was to have a relationship of mutual affection and loyalty? I appreciated this Alice person for watching over my tiny human, but I was heartbroken by her other information. She deserved better.

  "I care," I said softly. "I didn't realize I did until you didn't come back." Evvie placed a hand on my thigh softly, and I watched a tear trail down one of her sun kissed cheeks. I wanted to wipe it away. Banish it into the heat of the desert, and make it so no other tears would fall from her eyes again. My reaction to her sadness surprised me, but as we sat there in the dark, just being near each other, I knew it was real. I cared for this human who had saved my life, and with the knowledge that she felt the same, I knew I’d do anything for her.

  “Evvie, do you want to come with me when I leave this planet?” My voice was tentative, like I was asking a Prixxa mother to allow me to pet her Prixxets. I coughed.

  Evvie turned on my lap so she was looking directly at me. “I thought you knew that already.”

  I nodded. I did know, but that wasn’t what I was asking. “I mean, do you want to accompany me off of this planet?”

  She blinked. “To where?”