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Note to self: stay out of space. It’s a freaking scary place to be.
Kaelum walked me through into the new area and turned to wait. It was a decent-sized room, with what looked to me like lockers all along one wall, and multiple corridors branching out of it, the halls narrower than the ones we’d been in before, and it took a moment for my historian brain to connect the dots. A war ship. The ship we’d been on had been built for hauling cargo: us. This one was smaller and sleeker and faster. It was a war ship.
Were the human-toned aliens the warriors of the bunch? That was an odd thought, since they were shorter than the immense blue aliens. Maybe seven feet tall. Way the hell taller than me still, basically.
But these ones also had more tattoos than the alien who’d been feeding us, Crux.
They were the same silvered, lacy patterns as the tattoo on Crux’s shoulder, but each of them had more than the one I’d seen on the dark blue alien. Kaelum had three that I could see, and the warrior with the creepy—no, self, not creepy, just alien—eyes had been so covered with marks I couldn’t have hoped to count them.
I’d have assumed they were some sign of status, but Kaelum seemed to be in charge, and the others with him had more than he did.
Without thinking, I reached out and brushed my fingertips against the one on Kaelum’s shoulder. It was warm, like he’d been sitting outside on a sunny day, and after a second of contact, my fingertips tingled with... well heck, I didn’t know what.
Then, of course, Kaelum looked down at me, meeting my eye, and I realized I was touching the man without his permission. Shit.
I yanked my hand back and tucked it into a pocket. “Sorry. My dad always said I was too curious for my own good.” I jerked my chin in the direction of his shoulder. “Just, you know, your, um. Tattoos? They’re pretty. Interesting. Pretty interesting.”
One corner of his lips quirked up, so I was glad someone was enjoying themselves.
“Many find the star marks attractive,” he finally answered after a moment of the most awkward silence ever.
I looked back up into his eyes and found his pupils wide, intently focused on me, and, um. Wow. That was a little overwhelming. A lot of intense focus from a very big, very muscular, very... fuck me, he was good looking, too. Clean-shaven in a way that looked natural—no stubble at all, and with a sharp, angular jaw and cheekbones. On Earth, the guy would have been a model, no question.
“Seriously, Lucas?” Ree’s voice cut through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter. “We leave you alone with the giant alien for twenty seconds, and you start making eyes at him? We were only trapped on the ship for a couple weeks, you can’t be that hard-up.”
I scowled over at her, and she gave me a wink. I got it. Genevieve was trembling next to me, Beau looked shaken from when he’d hit the wall, and Kenosi kept looking from one person to the next, missing the language cues the rest of us were picking up. Everyone was terrified, and she was using my ogling the pretty alien to cut the tension.
Well, I could do that.
Finally I shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “You forget my boyfriend left me, and I’ve been too damn busy working to get any. I’m pretty damn hard up, if you must know. Plus these dudes are, like, freaking model-gorgeous.”
Beau blushed bright red and whispered, “I doubt the aliens are gay, Lucas.”
“Well why the hell wouldn’t they be gay? I am. You are. Pretty sure Wes is.” I gestured wildly as I spoke, flinging my arm at everyone as I referenced them, except Wes, who hadn’t gotten there yet.
“And... me,” Kenosi added, speaking the words softly, slowly, like he was worried he was saying them wrong, but he gave Beau a reassuring smile as he did so.
“They’re aliens,” Wesley said as he rounded the corner and entered the room, the other three aliens following after him. At first I thought maybe he’d hit his head because duh, but then he continued, “Who knows how they deal with sexuality? They could have a thousand genders and sexes and infinite combinations of sexual attraction.”
“One,” the, um, alien-eyed alien said, following Wes and turning to hit the button that shut the metal portal behind us. “Thorzi are all as one.”
“Like a hive mind?” Wes asked, and cringed away a little when the alien turned to glare at him. Or maybe that was just the way he looked at people. Who could tell?
One of the other aliens glared back at the alien-eyed guy, stepping up behind Wes and putting a hand on his shoulder, then barking a few words. The alien-eyed guy sneered back and opened his mouth to retort, but—
That was when shit got real.
Crux marched in, with another big blue alien at his side, and alien-eyed guy instantly crossed the room to stand beside him. Crux ignored him, but waved a dismissive hand at Kaelum and reached for Ree’s shoulder, starting to speak in their alien tongue rapidly.
Ree wrenched herself away with some difficulty, shaking her head. “Oh fuck no. Lucas’s pretty boy over here said he’d protect us. We’re with him. We’re not going tothe lab, or wherever you wanna take us to and cut us up.”
It was the first time any of us had spoken the fear aloud, and more than one person stepped away from Crux at the thought. Hell, one of the new aliens took a step back, recognizable shock written on his features. It was the first time I’d seen an emotion on one of them that I completely recognized, and that made sense to me.
Crux made a gesture with his head and shoulders that wasn’t quite, but reminded me of rolling his eyes, vaguely disgusted and annoyed, and took another step toward her.
Kaelum stepped in his path, a foot shorter as he was, his jaw clenched and golden-brown eyes burning. He spat out something in their own tongue, and Crux responded in kind. For long, tense moments, they argued.
Finally, Kaelum turned away, disgust painted on his features, and he shook his head. He met my eye, then looked around at the others, taking us in. Then he turned back to Crux, and switched to English.
