Alien Romance: The Alien's Pregnant Mate: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 2) (4 page)

Erena slammed the blue button again to shut the hum off before anything else could dissolve off of her. She tried a pink one more hopefully, and a basin slid out of the floor.

A little experimenting led her to conclude she'd found a toilet, or something very like it, which was a relief if not the one she was looking for. Further buttons produced other basins, tubs, and depressions with attachments she didn't dare consider too thoroughly.

One button filled the room with a blue smoke that made her eyes water and her head spin. At last, an orange button near the bottom of the panel produced a wide showerhead, which began pouring something very similar to the liquid water she was used to.

Quietly hoping it wouldn't kill her, Erena stepped under it. It was cooler than she'd have preferred, and it made her skin tingle like peppermint, but it didn't seem immediately harmful, so she decided to take what she could get, beginning to scrub herself off.

She was just beginning to relax when the door suddenly slid open. She squeaked in surprise, jumping to the far wall, but Shang only sidled inside anyway, ignoring her as he pulled on his suit, dragging it off over his head.

"You're not done yet?" he scolded.

"You said I could take my time!" Erena protested, startled.

"You took too much," he snapped back, dropping his suit on the floor where it dissolved like Erena's had.

"You wash with liquid?" he asked, wrinkling his nose up at the showerhead, "Weird."

He stepped under it anyway, sighing as the water soaked his long hair. He was even more covered in blue blood than before, and it ran off of him in cerulean rivers, cascading down the muscular curves of his body. Erena watched from where she was still huddling against the wall as he adjusted the settings, making the water warmer.

After a moment, annoyed at the interruption but not done showering yet, Erena stepped in behind him, glad the shower head was so big. She tried to wash herself quickly without thinking about the man next to her, but her eyes kept wandering to his sculpted body, all the more gorgeous with water running over his curves. His eyes still seemed distant, his movements distracted.

"You... You missed some," Erena worked up her courage to point out. He looked back at her, frowning in confusion, and Erena, her heart racing, reached up to scrub the blood he'd missed from his cheek herself. He held still, just staring down at her with those piercing dark eyes as she helped him clean.

"You saved my life," she said quietly, running her thumb over his cheek to smudge the blood that had dried there, "More than my life. I don't know what he was planning to do."

"Lay eggs in you, probably," Shang answered frankly. Erena shuddered.

"Thank you," she finished awkwardly, taking her hands from his face, "I owe you a lot."

He caught her hands as she withdrew them, bringing them to his chest with surprising gentleness. Erena blushed, her hands shaking, as he leaned closer to her, tilting his head to kiss her. She turned her head away at the last second, heart pounding, her hands splayed on his chest to hold him back.

He hesitated, and for a moment she could tell he was considering kissing her anyway. Instead, he took a deep breath, shifted to kiss the top of her head instead, and pulled away. He turned his back to her then, returning to washing.

"I'm glad you're alright," he said, his voice gruff.

Erena let the silence linger a little longer while her heart slowed back to its normal speed.

"I'm glad you're alright too," she said after a moment. He didn't respond, but his movements seemed more purposeful now.

When they'd finished, Shang pressed a button that filled the room with a warm breeze which dried them both in moments. They stepped back out into the living area together and Shang went to get new clothes for them both.

As he dug through his cabinets, Erena couldn't help staring at the pool of blue blood in the center of the room. There were drag marks on the floor now, leading to the balcony.

"Did you just..." Erena bit her lip, trying to think of an alternative, "Toss him out?"

"Yes."

Shang didn't even look up from putting on his suit, tossing Erena hers over his shoulder.

"Won't you get in trouble for that?"

"No."

Erena couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

"Hurry up and get dressed," he said as he turned back around, "We're leaving."

"What?" Erena's eyes widened and she scrambled to pull on the black garment, "Right now?"

"You said you wanted to leave the apartment, right?" Shang was cutting a jacket out of his suit and making pockets, "So it's time for a night on the town. Wear something nice."

Erena still didn't have a complete grip on how the material worked, deciding to just leave it as a tight bodysuit.

"Are you sure it's a good time for that?" she asked, fussing with the neckline, "Not that I mind but, doesn't this planet have police or something that are going to want to question you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Shang said flatly, pulling things out of his cabinets and shoving them into his coat pockets. He turned around, pausing when he saw her in the skin tight suit, which covered her wrist to ankle.

He stepped closer abruptly and drew a claw down her front, opening up a plunging neckline. Before she could stop him he'd sliced off the sleeves as well.

"Better."

He declared, and then strode past her.

"Not better!" Erena replied in frustration, blushing as she tried to close the deep, cleavage baring front and realized the fabric had already solidified, "How dare you?"

"You owe me a nice view, remember?" Shang replied without turning back to her, "Now pick up the pace. You need to stay close to me out there or something a lot worse than Rin'rokir will snatch you in a heartbeat. In fact-"

He paused in the entrance way and turned back to face her, snapping a collar around her throat in the same motion. It was the same she'd worn in the auction house and she blushed scarlet with shame and indignation as he attached a black bracelet to his wrist. Between it and the collar a cord made of golden light hung shimmering.

"Hey!" she tugged at the collar, offended, "Take this off immediately! I'm not going out there like this!"

"Oh yes you are," Shang replied with absolute certainty, and opened the door, tugging her after him. She dug in her heels to resist him, but the minute she did so a sharp electric zap flashed through her, surprising her so much she stumbled forward into his back.

He stopped long enough to let her get her feet under her, then kept going. The zap hadn't hurt, but it had surprised the hell out of her, and removed voluntary control of her muscles long enough for him to drag her forward. Clearly, pulling against it was pointless. Pursing her lips in irritation and crossing her arms over her bared cleavage, she sulked after him.

"So who was that guy anyway?" she asked as he pulled her into an elevator, "That Rin'rokir?"

"My boss," Shang replied briefly.

"And why was he breaking into your apartment?" Erena pressed for more.

"To kill me or steal you," Shang's words were terse and irritated, "Probably both."

"Why?" Erena, growing annoyed with his short answers, pushed harder, "I can't possibly be that valuable. He was going to eat me!"

"He wasn't going to eat you," Shang scowled, tugging on her leash to pull her closer as they left the elevator and headed down a plain hall, "You're the only known specimen of a brand new intelligent race with a currently undiscovered home world.

That doesn't mean he wasn't going to do plenty of very unpleasant things to you, or that other people less concerned with money wouldn't chew asteroid for the chance to eat a brand new species before anyone else, but Rin'rokir would not have eaten you."

"Then why did he want to stick around and kill you?"

"Because!" Shang snapped, stopping to turn around and bare his fangs at her, "Do you not understand that I own you? You have no rights and I can do what I like with you, so why don't you shut up and show me some respect?"

Erena, uncomfortably reminded of the way he'd looked when killing Rin'rokir, flinched and struck out without thinking, slapping him across the face. Shang's eyes widened in shock and surprised pain for a moment, then he snarled, yanking her leash closer.

Erena cowered, expecting violence, but they were interrupted by angry voices coming from the other end of the hall. Shang cursed in a language Erena didn't understand and hurried in the opposite direction, yanking her after him.

"Who is that?" Erena asked, wide eyed, as she ran after him.

"Shut up."

"Is that the police?"

"Shut up!"

"I'm going to start yelling as loudly as I can in a minute if-"

"Do you want to be vivisected?" he growled, throwing open a door and dragging her down a bare looking stare case, "Because that is what will happen if those people get you. And then they will track your DNA back to your home planet and turn it into a petri dish. So be quiet!"

That did manage to shut Erena up, for a minute at least as they reached the bottom of the staircase and burst into what looked to Erena like the weirdest parking garage she'd ever seen. The concrete walls and pillars were plastered with colorful, slow moving holographic ads.

The parked vehicles looked nothing like any car she'd ever seen. Some of them looked organic, dripping onto the pavement. Shang dragged her past them, deeper into the low ceilinged concrete structure.

The further they went, the bigger the vehicles became and the hair on Erena's neck began to stand up as they passed what she was increasingly certain were personal space craft.

Behind them she heard voices again, and the swing of flashlight beams danced across the ships behind them. Shang cursed quietly and pulled Erena closer to grab her hand.

"Just a little further," he muttered, dragging Erena faster between the rows of ships. Erena was tempted to call out to the people chasing them. After all, she didn't know she could trust Shang's words. He'd saved her from Rin'rokir, but he'd also bought her at an auction like an object.

She wasn't certain she could ever forgive that. But, better the devil she knew, she supposed, glancing back over her shoulder warily. Shang hadn't hurt her and didn't seem interested in taking advantage of her. That seemed like the best she could hope for in this situation.

"Finally," Shang hissed in relief as they emerged from the rows of ships in front of a large, sleek black craft that reminded Erena of a particularly dangerous looking yacht, "Why do I always have to park so damn far away?"

Grumbling, Shang hit a few buttons on a holographic panel that appeared above his sleeve with a flick of the wrist and the ship began powering up, its bay door opening. The voices behind them grew louder and more frantic.

"Hurry," Shang snapped, and Erena stumbled as he dragged her up the ramp into the ship. It closed quickly behind them as he pulled her up to the cockpit, shoving her into the copilot’s seat.

"Strap in," he ordered, "This isn't going to be my most graceful takeoff."

Erena for once didn't hesitate to obey. Flying in a personal craft might be different from what she knew of space travel, but she still didn't want to try it without buckling up first.

The ship hummed to life and began rolling forward on some kind of magnetized landing gear, taxing out of its parking space and into the aisle. Erena could see a cluster of uniformed aliens rushing towards them between the other ships.

"Can they stop us if they catch up to us?" Erena asked.

"Yes," Shang replied, urging the ship to roll faster, "Localized EMP weapons. They just have to touch us."

"Then you really might want to go faster."

Shang let out a string of curses and slammed a button. The ship rocketed forward as its engines suddenly cut on, destroying any ships or people unfortunate enough to be behind it.

Erena screamed in surprise at the sudden acceleration as Shang fought to keep the ship going straight, the confined area making it veer and wobble unpredictably. But the side of the parking structure was already in view, the city glittering beyond it, and Shang didn't hesitate, gunning the engines as they shot out directly into the open night sky.

Erena screamed again, and Shang was shouting a string of curses in a language she didn't know as they crashed through laundry and power lines, fighting to the ship's nose up before its rockets powered them directly into the ground.

With a victorious howl, Shang righted the ship just in time to turn it, narrowly dodging between two high buildings, knocking the ramshackle plywood and corrugated metal walk ways between them flying. The second he reached a space clear enough, he turned the nose up and they shot off towards the sky.

Erena, her heart racing, stared up at the rapidly approaching stars and remembered how only a few months ago she'd been looking at this same view as she left earth. The stars here were so different...

She woke a little while later still strapped to the copilot’s seat. She must have passed out, she realized. It wasn't uncommon for astronauts to faint while leaving atmosphere, even in a situation they were completely prepared for. This had been unusually stressful even by scientific standards.

She shifted and something slid down her shoulder. Blinking, she realized Shang had draped his jacket over her. She held it close, surprised by the gesture, as she turned to look at the alien.

He was still in the pilot's seat, his eyes serious as he scanned a holographic star chart floating in front of him. He was handsome when he focused like that, she realized, his dark, intense eyes focused on his work, his jaw set in concentration. She blushed, shaking that thought off quickly. This was no time for such thoughts.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked, sitting up.

He glanced up from his work, frowning, and then waved her towards a circular door in the floor behind her, turning back to his work.

"For you? Go down that hatch there into the bunk and go to bed. I don't need you getting in the way."

"Yeah, nice try," Erena didn't move a muscle, "I'm not so dumb that I can't recognize running from the authorities when I see. You just murdered a guy and fled the planet. I think I deserve to know what our fugitive plan is."

"Maybe I'm still working on it," Shang rubbed his eyes, irritated, "Ever think of that?"

"Well then I'll help," Erena offered, "What are our options?"

"I could list planets for you, but you're not going to know the names anyway. Just go wait in the bunk."

"I don't want to. I want to help."

"I don't care! I don't need your help! You've been enough of a damn inconvenience to me already."

Erena reeled back, hurt and offended.

"Excuse me?" she gripped the sides of the seat so hard her fingers hurt, "I didn't ask to get sold at auction! I didn't ask for my crew to be murdered so I could be kidnapped and sold as some alien's pet! I didn't ask you to buy me!"

"And I didn't ask for some whiny, fluffy headed alien who doesn't even know how a shower works to get dropped in my lap! But here we are, and I just murdered one of the most dangerous pirates in this star system for you, so maybe show a little gratitude!"

"Pirate?" Erena repeated, too surprised to be offended, "Did that translate right?"

"If pirate means big mean bastards who fly around space attacking weaker ships and stealing things, then yes."

"Yeah, that's about right."

"The planet we just left is a major pirate port," Shang closed his star chart with wave of his hand and a sigh, then stood up, "One I'm now banned from most likely, thanks to you.

There's no weapons allowed on the surface specifically to prevent things like that from happening. The planetary government lets the pirates do what they like on the surface as long as they keep the violence to a minimum. So the pirate lords have some very severe consequences for people who mess that up."

"Well then, why did you throw him off the balcony?" Erena asked, unbuckling to follow him as he passed her chair, leash tugging at her, "I mean, wasn't there a better way to dispose of the body?"

"You're surprisingly casual about corpse disposal," Shang commented, stopping and reaching up to unhook the leash from her collar, though he left the collar itself on, "I thought that was frowned upon in most rural planets."

"He tried to eat me," Erena replied flatly, relieved to have the leash removed, "I'm not exactly sympathetic. But mostly I'm just curious."

Shang knelt to open the hatch on the floor, shrugging off her concern.

"He wasn't dead yet."

Beneath the hatch was a small bunk area hardly high enough to kneel in, just wide enough for a queen size mattress. The sheets and plethora of small pillows were in brightly colored warm jewel tones, and a strange decoration like a wind chime made of thin gold chain and colored glass hung in one corner.

Shang, still kneeling by the hatch, offered her a hand to step down. Distracted, she took it and started to step in before he held up his other hand.

"Wait. Shoes first."

"Oh, right."

The shoes were part of the fabric of the rest of her outfit, so she just stared for a minute, wondering what to do to take them off. Shang rolled his eyes and pulled out a small device, running it around her ankles.

"So he was still alive when you threw him off?" she asked while he peeled the black material away.

"Insectoids tend to be more resilient than you'd expect," Shang explained, "He was hurt, playing dead. But a fall like that is probably the only thing that would kill him. Probably."

"Only probably?"

"Insectoids are
very
resilient."

Once her shoes were gone, Erena took Shang's hand again and stepped down into the bunk, pausing as she realized something.

"Wait," she said, staring at him with a frown, her feet on the mattress and her head still above the hatch, "Does that mean you're a pirate too?"

"Yep."

Shang's reply was deadpan, and he followed it by shoving her head down and closing the hatch.

"Now go to sleep," he called through the door as Erena struggled to push the hatch back open, but despite all her shouting and banging, it remained shut.

Eventually she gave up and lay down, wishing he'd at least given her something to do. Through poking around in his bunk she found little to entertain her. Somehow she'd expected a diary or dirty magazines, but she supposed he kept those on his computer.

There was some kind of colorful puzzle toy, or at least she assumed that's what it was, but fiddling with its bright sliding tiles could only amuse her so long. She couldn't even stand up and pace in here. She flopped back onto the pillows with a sigh of irritated resignation, and looked up.

From this angle, the strange wind chime like decoration was not a random jumble of colored glass and gold chain. When she looked up at it from here, the pieces lined up into the shape of a tree, its branches filled with color. It was beautiful, the way the glass shifted like the leaves of the tree moving in the breeze, chiming softly in the quiet.

If she closed her eyes a little, she could almost see a second shape inside the tree, like a woman, almost as tall as the tree trunk, reaching up into the branches...