Hunted By The Alien Assassin by Ella Maven
Five
Karina
The fiery burn of liquor slid down my throat and I sought more of that delicious cinnamon whisky. I moaned, drinking deep, drunk off the taste, and heat swirling in my stomach. I rubbed my legs together as moisture gathered there. Since when had alcohol made me this hot for sex?
I opened my eyes, blinking at the familiar surroundings of my college bar, which I hadn’t seen in… ten, fifteen years? But The Roost was the same—the banged-up road signs on the wall, a scratched pool table in the corner, and college students grinding against each other on the beer-slick dance floor to 2000s hip-hop.
I moved my hips as the rhythm took over. Wait, where was Carter? I looked around for my college boyfriend, but suddenly the faces of the dancers changed. They were all women, all staring blankly at me wearing torn and dirty clothes.
“What the hell?” I muttered to myself, backing away. The crowd parted and standing in the middle of the dance floor, staring right at me, was a bronzed god with fluorescent blue eyes.
“Karina,” he said in an accented voice. “Come to me.”
I shook my head as I took another step back, but my feet wouldn’t move. I stared at the floor as the wood warped beneath my feet, morphing into hands that grasped at my ankles. I screamed as the fingers dug into my skin and kicked at the hands to dislodge their grip.
A spiked bat sliced the air, slamming into the hands with a sickening crunch. They fell away immediately. The bronzed god stood in front of me, holding the bat dripping with blood. Hauling me into his arms, he pressed a kiss to my lips and the cinnamon whisky flavor was back. “Stay with me, Karina,” he whispered there. “Stay with me.”
* * *
“Karina!”
I jerked awake, only to find those same fluorescent blue eyes staring straight at me. I screamed and flailed, but I didn’t get far as bronze-scaled arms held me tight. “You’re okay,” he said tightly. “Everything is okay.”
I gasped for air, my chest heaving. Everything was okay? How was everything okay? I wasn’t on Earth. I was in a strange galaxy trapped with an alien assassin with allegiance only to himself.
I tried to cast my memory back to the dream. What had happened? I squeezed my eyes shut as frustrated tears leaked out of the corners. Fragments returned—my college bar. Grasping hands. And Bosa. I’d never had dreams like that. Not ever. I’d never been a big dreamer. I didn’t remember them at all when I woke, and this one had been like a weird mix of memories and … premonitions?
He gripped my chin and forced me to face him. “What was in your visuls?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “What did you see in your visuls?”
“What are visuls?”
His breathing was quick and sharp. What was making his so anxious? “The scenes you saw in your sleep.”
“My dreams? How did you know I was dreaming?”
He hesitated a moment. “Dreams?”
“Yes, that’s what we call… scenes you see in your sleep.”
“Have you always dreamed?”
I didn’t understand this line of questioning. “I never dreamed a lot, no. But humans dream. Or have nightmares.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Nightmares are scary.”
“You screamed. Was this a nightmare?”
“Why are you asking so many questions about this?”
His arms shook me slightly, and his eyes bored into mine. “What did you see, Karina?”
I tried to jerk out of his grip, but he only squeezed tighter and then threw a massive thigh over my legs to keep me in place. I didn’t bother wasting my energy trying to get away, but my skin broke out in goosebumps at being trapped.
“You,” I muttered.
His nostrils flared. “What about me?”
I squirmed. “I told you to fuck off and you actually fucked off.” I shouted at him. “It was great.”
“Tell me—”
“Why?” I demanded as I continued to wriggle in his iron grip. “I don’t want your platitudes about how everything is fine. Everything is not fine! You could decide to kill me on a whim, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. You even admitted that you liked destroying things.”
Suddenly his giant body was over mine. With one hand, he gripped my wrists over my head, and with the other he held my throat tightly. I could feel the chain from my necklace digging into my skin. “Get off me,” I hissed at him.
He didn’t move. “You think I’d rescue you from Frenz to kill you myself?”
I let out a roar of anger. “I don’t know you!”
His fingers squeezed my neck, and I forced down a swallow even though my mouth was dry. “Listen, human. I don’t make promises to many, but I can promise you one thing. I won’t kill you, and I’d cut off my own arm before I hurt you.”
“You’re hurting me now,” I whispered weakly.
His eyes flashed, and a second later, he rolled off me and loosened his grip on my throat and wrist. I took the opportunity to escape from the bed pallet, but I didn’t get far, as I found myself hauled back down with my back pressed against his chest. His chin rested on the top of my head as his strong arms held me tightly. “Am I hurting you now?” He asked the question with a tinge of worry that gave me pause.
I should have told him he was hurting me again, so he’d let me go, but instead I opened my mouth and said, “No.”
His chin moved across the top of my head, almost in a caress, and my heart pounded. What was happening right now?
“Tell me about your dream, kotche,” he said in a soft voice that seemed utterly foreign coming from him.
“What’s kotche, mean?”
His hands flexed. “Tell me about your dream.”
I let out a huff and tried my best to verbally recall my dream. When I got to the part about the hands trying to pull me underground, his whole body went tense. “Were you hurt?”
“No. I was fighting them off and yelling, but then you smashed them with Babe and...”
Stay with me, Karina.
The words came back to me like a bucket of ice water, and I was momentarily speechless. Just the memory made my skin hot and my heart pound. His demand had been like beckoning fingers, and in the dream, I’d been eager to comply. I’d clung to him, in fact. I could remember the feel the cool edges of his scales beneath my fingers. There’d been more to the dream than him saving me. There’d been an undercurrent of lust. The realization dawned on me with a mixture of horror and despair.
“And what?” he prodded. “What happened after that?”
“Nothing,” I answered, unable to admit I’d had some weird damsel in distress rescue scene with him—
“This isn’t a game, kotche.” His voice carried a heavy weight. “I need to know what else happened.”
“Fine,” I muttered. “You told me to stay with you. ‘Stay with me, Karina,’ you said. ‘Stay with me.’”
He exhaled so loudly my hair blew into my eyes. I shoved it back just as I heard him curse to himself, “Yerk me.”
“What?” I tried to turn around, but he continued to hold me fast. “Is everything okay?”
“I told you everything was fine, and I meant it,” he snapped at me.
I frowned. “You don’t have to get nasty.”
Finally, he released me and turned me easily in his arms before drawing me up his body until our faces were even. He grasped my cheeks in his massive hands and looked me square in the eye. “I need you to listen to dream me.”
“What?”
“What I say in your dreams. Listen to me. If I say anything outside of your dreams that contradicts what I say in your dreams, always listen to dream me.”
I winced. “Look, I’m pretty smart, but you’re being really confusing right now.”
“I know,” he said, with a patience I hadn’t thought he possessed. “Just … always listen to dream me.”
“Okay, well dream you said I’m supposed to stay with you.”
His lips parted and his thumb moved on my cheek, brushing the corner of my eye. His gaze strayed there. “Then listen to dream me. Stay with me.”
I swallowed. “For how long?”
His solemn gaze met mine. “Until dream me tells you otherwise.”
* * *
Bosa
The human had dreams. Nightmares. I’d never paid much attention to the humans I’d met before. They held little interest to me, so I had no idea whether those humans dreamed or not.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe these weren’t visuls caused by our meeting. But if they were? I’d be a fool to ignore them. They could mean the difference between life and death for us both.
I held Karina in my arms tightly. I should let her go, but her body had relaxed now. She didn’t seem so eager to get away. This little human had caused so much damage to Frenz, and I had to admit I respected that. She’d worked to dismantle his human trafficking enterprise at the risk of her own life.
“How long have you been in this galaxy?” I asked into the darkness, unsure if she was awake.
She took a long time to answer. “I’m not sure. I’ve been to several different planets, so I’ve lost track of the cycles around the sun but… maybe five cycles.”
“Who brought you here?”
“Frenz,” she said, her fingers absentmindedly running over the scales on the back of my hand. “I was on a cargo ship with probably two dozen women. Some died during the trip. A few couldn’t handle the atmosphere of Gorsich when we arrived and got stick. They were taken away and I never knew if they recovered or not. We were all tested and sorted based on what kind of service they thought we could best provide.”
“Where were you sorted?”
“I’m not sure. I escaped the next time they transported us. We were in a crowded marketplace and a fire had broken out at a vendor’s stand. I took the diversion as an opportunity and got away. But the other women… I thought about them every day. Every hour. I knew if I tried to save them all in that moment, none of us would get away. I tried to find them, but I had no luck so, I told myself I’d hurt Frenz where it hurt the most—his cargo ships. If I can cripple his ability to get to Earth, then I’d save more women from having their lives completely disrupted.” She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not making a difference, but I don’t know what else to do. I never expected to live this long, so I’m just trying to make the biggest impact I can before my risks catch up to me.”
“Your chances of living longer have improved since I’m helping you.”
She laughed, and the light sound made me wonder what her life had been like back on Earth. “Arrogant.”
“Confident.”
“Whatever.”
“You never tried to return to Earth?”
She was quiet for a long moment. “I thought about it, but I don’t think I want to go back. I’ll never be who I was. I’ll go back and babble about aliens and giant insects and bronzed gods with fluorescent blue eyes. They’ll lock me up.”
“Bronzed gods?”
She let out a cute, frustrated sound. “Anyway, no. I think my purpose is here, and that’s where I’ll stay until my time is up.” She paused. “Do you believe in fate?”
“What do you mean by fate?”
“A purpose or destiny that you are meant for.”
“I believe in me,” I said gruffly. I never put any faith in the idea that I had a destiny. I made my own luck. My own fate.
“Why does your answer not surprise me?” she muttered.
“If I get killed tomorrow, then it’s because I made a mistake. I didn’t swing Babe hard enough or I didn’t listen to my surroundings.”
“You can say what you want about why you rescued me, that it was a pride thing, but I think you have morals. A conscience. Do you only work for the council to apprehend criminals?”
“Yes, but that’s only because my pardux requested it.”
“What’s a pardux?”
“The leader of our Kaluma tribe. Sherif is also my friend and after everything that happened…” I didn’t want to tell her about the dark times. “I do this for him. For my fellow Kaluma. I take the jobs he wants me to take and the czens I earn go right back to helping us rebuild.”
She seemed to perk up. “Rebuild? Why are you rebuilding?”
“It’s time to sleep,” I unwrapped my arms from around her and rolled over.
For a moment she didn’t move, then I felt her shift in the pallet and press up against my back. “I hit a taboo topic?”
“Sleep,” I muttered.
She snorted and snuffled in closer.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m cold, and you’re warm. Deal with it.”
When I felt the corners of my mouth lift into a smile, I had a dawning sense of dread that I was in trouble. I was already growing too fond of this human, and that would only cloud my decisions.
