Page 27 of I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy

“Hello?” the lion asked.

I brought my knees up to my chest and held my hands to my ears. “This isn’t real. I’m clearly still tripping. Come on, Blair, just snap out of it and when you open your eyes, you’ll be back on Earth in your little apartment, with your phone blowing up with five hundred messages from Jackie’s needy ass because we haven’t spoken in more than two hours.”

I took several deep, calming breaths. When I opened my eyes, the lion was still there, sitting patiently a few feet away.

“I am not Jackie,” said the lion.

Sighing, I let my head fall to my knees. “Yeah. I caught that.”

The lion stretched like an oversized housecat, then moved closer to rub his head on my side as he lay down. “I’m Toto,” he offered.

“Of course you are.” I laughed breathlessly.

Curious amber eyes studied my face. “Do you know why the ugly one wants me to kill you?”

Goosebumps rose along my arm. “The who wants what now?”

“The ugly one.” Toto nodded toward the door. “The ugly scarred one outside. He wouldn’t let me lick his face to give him the talking magic, but even the greenest lions recognize bloodlust when they smell it. Why else would he drag me in your cage instead of the others, or with my girl?”

I lifted my head to inspect the cage beside us. In it lay a dark-gray alien and a redheaded woman wearing a gold halter top and bell-bottoms. On closer inspection, I realized it was the same woman I saw running around on the spaceship a few days ago.

Funny, so many strange things have happened since then I somehow completely forgot about the woman and her lion. Though, if I had known the lion could talk, it might have stuck with me better. Thousands of questions ran through my mind, yet my brain was still foggy from the aftermath of my trip. Settling on the first question that came to mind, I asked, “Is there a reason you haven’t eaten me?”

“I’m saving my appetite for the other gray men. They may have ambushed me, but I’ll have the last laugh while I’m licking the marrow from their bones.”

“I like you.”

With a haughty lift of his chin, he said, “Most people do.”

Toto shoved more of his weight on top of me, as if the lion were trying to climb into my lap for a proper snuggle. Bright sunlight nearly blinded me as the door opened. Osid stepped inside, holding a steaming bowl in his hands. Which promptly fell to the floor and shattered when he caught sight of Toto and me. In an instant, he was at the door of my cage, all but tearing the latch off while barking gibberish words I had no way of understanding.

It didn’t matter. With a click, the latch unlocked, and the door wasn’t even fully open before I cocked back and swung. Pain shot up my arm thanks to his stupid rock-hard face, but the satisfaction of seeing his head snap back before he threw my ass to the ground was worth it.

Several guards flooded the room as the door to my cage flew open. Toto and I were torn apart as Osid dragged me out. The lion roared and slashed at the alien, but his claws were all but useless against his armor. Still, the big cat shoved his way free of the cage and damn near tore the throat out of the scarred alien that had laughed at my plight only moments before.

I tried shoving away from Osid, ready to clock him right in the throat. He pinned my wrists in one of his hands and ran his other along the cuts on my legs. Smoke billowed as I was forced into a separate cage from the lion, kicking and screaming. The door to my new prison shut, and Osid whirled around and kicked the scarred alien in the chest. Lots of intangible yelling ensued, then the door to the redheaded woman’s cage opened, and the unconscious alien beside her was dragged off.

I slumped against the bars of the cage. “What is even going on?”

Toto laid down in his new cage. “Do you ever just wanna bite somebody?”

Chapter 15

Blair

“Is that when you punched your mate in his face?” asked the registration clerk. Black talons typed furiously away on the floating screen in front of her. A 3-D image of yours truly spun slowly inside of a box on the left side of the screen. Unrecognizable letters flashed next to different parts of my body.

I answered her question with one of my own. “Why can I understand you when we never kissed?”

The way Dory had explained it to me in the cages, the symbiote couldn’t transfer without mouth-to-mouth contact. As nasty as it was. The useful little parasite sure did make communication easier, but I wish I didn’t have to French kiss a lion to get it.

Such was life.

Or, I guess I should say, second life. From what she said, the Biwban had gone through great lengths to only take women who were already about to die for their little breeding experiment. My eyes glazed over when Intern tried to explain the ins and outs of the time manipulation devices they used, but it was something about respecting the delicate balance of Earth’s ecosystem or other such nonsense. As if they didn’t have to fly past a sea of space debris and Elon’s stupid fucking red car to get here.

The Biwban had done more than just steal us away. They’d done something to modify us while we were in stasis so we’d be able to breed with the Sankado. Who knew what else they’d already done and decided to omit from us.

My stomach clenched.