Captured By her Alien Mate by Ava York
Kator
My every nerve hummed. An animalistic part of me demanded that I finish what I started and claim my mate. The need to at the very least kiss Riley made my heart pound.
When I had forced my arms down from where they trapped her against the wall, I made sure not to brush a single inch of her lithe body. It was truly a joke from the Ancestors that I’d surprised her in the middle of bathing. A test even, of my forbearance.
“Get dressed,” I said. My words came out shorter than I intended. It took considerable effort to refrain from devouring her curves with my eyes. Even the glimpses I’d gotten as she hurled things at me were imprinted on my mind forever.
“Thanks so much for that suggestion,” Riley retorted. “If you hadn’t barged in here unannounced, I wouldn’t be naked in the first place!” She crossed her arms under her breasts, which only served to accentuate them.
“Just put some clothes on,” I said, turning away. I willed my cock to subside. I needed to have a serious conversation with this woman, and that was going to be a lot harder if I was distracted by lust.
“Do I have to put on the same filthy clothes I wore in here, or do you happen to have something else I can wear?”
“Um, no. I will fetch you a fresh outfit,” I said. I quickly searched the wardrobe near the bathroom door, guessing her size. I grabbed pants and a shirt I hoped would fit and handed them behind me, trying not to look.
“Thanks. I can wash the other outfit later,” she said. I heard the rustling of fabric behind me for a few minutes. “Ok, I’m decent.” Riley began tapping her foot behind me. “Are you going to explain now why I got put in a guest room, but apparently with zero privacy? Didn’t anyone ever teach you a closed bathroom door means ‘Stay the fuck out’?”
“You’re still a prisoner.” I sat down, choosing the chair furthest from the bed. “Did you think the Aetamians went to all that trouble to capture you, and then changed their minds?”
“How am I supposed to know? You’re the only one who can understand me so it’s not like I can ask questions.”
“Please, do not start asking questions.” I groaned at the idea. “Look, I don’t think you understand the kind of danger you’re in here. The goal was to capture Isabella due to her technical skills.”
“Are you kidding me?” Riley doubled up laughing. “So, your crack team of guerrilla operatives was only going on “kidnap the yellow headed one”? Take it from a cop, that’s pathetic.”
“They weren’t my team,” I muttered, ignoring the unfamiliar word ‘cop.’
“Not to mention, Isabella and I look nothing alike!”
“Aetamians are unfamiliar with humans,” I pointed out. “Small details and differentiations between individuals are going to be hard for them to parse.”
“Whatever,” she said, tossing her head in defiance. “I’m glad you got me instead of Isabella. And let me tell you now, I’m useless with tech. So, you should probably just let me go. Or I guess try to ransom me.”
“You’re very naive if you think that’s what’s going to happen when they find out you aren’t Isabella.” My tone was somber. She glowered at me, but I wasn’t trying to insult her. I was trying to warn her.
“What, you think they’ll just kill me instead?”
“Yes,” I said, and the simplicity of my response shook her. I could see it. “Kill you as a waste of time or…worse.”
“You can’t scare me with vague threats like that.” Riley started to pace.
“Fine. If they don’t kill you, they’ll give you to some high ranking Aetamian who’d like a little mammal plaything to torture, or fuck, likely both. Does that scare you?”
I shouldn’t have lost my temper, even a little. Only, I had to make her understand. She must respect the stakes here, and accept me as an ally. It was more than my mother had had.
“Yeah, it scares the shit out of me,” she said. The acknowledgement startled me out of my silent fuming. “I’ve seen firsthand some things that are worse than death, and what you just said is definitely up there.”
I wanted to ask her how she’d been exposed to such horrors, but she continued to speak.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re trying to intimidate me.”
“I’m not trying to intimidate you,” I told her, cursing myself for my ham-handed way of going about this discussion. “I’m trying to help you, but you have to play along. Ok?”
“Play along with what?” Riley stopped pacing and crossed her arms again.
Thanks to her making that same gesture earlier, the image of her damp, heaving breasts invaded my mind. I wanted to smack myself in the head. Focus, Kator.
“You need to pretend to be valuable,” I said. “We have to figure out some kind of information that we can drip feed to the king. Maybe something true at first, to really convince him.”
“I see.” Riley looked thoughtful, so I pressed my advantage.
“As long as they think you can provide something the Aetamians can use, you’ll be kept alive and relatively comfortable. The moment your status as an informant is lost, your future will be a bleak one.”
“I have to say, this is one of the clumsiest approaches to an interrogation I’ve ever heard.” Riley leaned against the wall, projecting uncaring cool.
“What?” I looked at her in confusion. I’d lied to Mofat and told him I would interrogate her. How had she caught wind of that?
“I can tell what you’re doing,” she said. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve been part of interrogation teams before. You act like you’re on my side and tell me about all the horrible things that will happen to me without your protection. Then, you get me to share everything I know, just barf it all out for you easy peasy.”
I paused. When she put it like that, this didn’t look too good.
“I am on your side in this,” I said. I was all she had, and froze momentarily as the truth, and weight, of this settled over my shoulders. If I didn’t want this woman to end up like my mother—or worse—then I was her only hope. Perversely, knowing this only increased my drive to fully uncover the truth of my mother’s imprisonment.
“Oh? If you’re the only one who can understand me, you’re really gonna tell me you’re not my interrogator?”
“That’s not why I can understand you,” I began, then slammed my mouth shut.
“Then why?” Riley looked at me, giving me a chance to convince her.
I wanted to tell her who I really was. I could admit that I worked for the D’Tali, and as proof explain that Vokar had me undergo the translation process. Then she would have to trust me. Yet if I told her I was a spy, and then she was handed over to the inquisitors despite my best efforts…
That wasn’t a risk I could afford to take. To save her and succeed at my own multi-year search for vengeance for my victimized mother, I couldn’t jeopardize either my D’Tali allies. I would have to endure her mistrust for a little while longer, ignore my body telling me she was my mate.
“Well, that clinches it,” said Riley, and I realized I’d been quiet for too long. “You couldn’t even be bothered to come up with an alternate explanation for being able to understand me? I’m not sure if this is the job for you.”
“I’m not trying to interrogate you.” Annoyance burst from me, too loud. I lowered my voice. “I’m posing as an interrogator to try to save your life, for the Ancestors’ sake! I know in your position it’s difficult to believe me, but I haven’t done a thing to hurt you.”
“Not yet, you haven’t.” Riley’s expression was suddenly dead serious. “I’ll never trust an Aetamian monster. Not after what I know you did at the banquet, murdering all those D’Tali in cold blood. I know what you truly are.”
Her face was so cold. I hadn’t seen her like this before, and it hit a nerve. I still wished I’d known about the massacre, been able to prevent it. That was the first time I’d let the D’Tali down in a major way. I didn’t want Riley to be the second.
“If you know what the Aetamians did at that banquet, then you know what lies in store for you if you don’t cooperate with me,” I growled.
“And we’re back to threats.” Riley levered herself up off the wall and stalked over to me. She put both hands on either arm of my chair. “I will not cooperate with you. I will not give up even a tiny piece of information about the D’Tali to the tribe that butchers them at every opportunity.”
I knew as well as anyone what she was talking about. I was the walking proof that the current Aetamian regime brutalized the D’Tali in every way they could.
The way Riley’s eyes were flashing, that didn’t seem likely. It would probably come across as another tactic. Even if she believed me, she might just think I was a traitor to my mother’s people.
“All right,” I said and stood, startling her. She let go of the chair and backed away.
“What does all right mean?” she asked.
“It means I’m not going to force you to do anything.”
“Do you want me to say thank you?”
Gazing into her eyes, I saw a tinge of fear despite the bravado. It was odd, but it hurt me to see her scared of me and what I represented.
“No,” I told her. “Please just think about what I’ve said. We don’t even have to give the king real information. We can make it up together.”
Riley was silent, her expression shuttered, thoughts completely closed to me.
“Good night,” I said softly, then left, closing the door behind me.
Once in the hall, I let out a heavy sigh. Mofat seemed eager to get results, but if Riley believed I was an ‘Aetamian monster’, then my plan to keep her safe was going to take some time. I would have to give up some of the information I had gleaned from various other contacts and carefully hoarded.
At least until I could convince her to cooperate.