The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven

Chapter Six

Shit, shit, shit.

“Erin!” she called out, hysteria making her voice climb higher.

“I’m here,” the brunette panted. Her voice was farther away than it’d been before and Crystal worried that they would lose one another in the darkness. If Crystal had never feared darkness before, she probably would after this.

Because at that moment, nothing frightened her more than being alone in a place like this, lost, miles and miles away from the strange city that had been her temporary home. Alone in the wilds of Luxiria, an alien planet she knew next to nothing about.

The forest was suddenly echoing with more voices. Male voices.

There were more?

Dark thoughts rose. Dark fears rose, old memories with them. Her chest seized and she struggled to get enough breath down her throat, into her lungs.

Nothing but determined fear raced through her then. She pushed her body faster, though her hands were still bound tightly. It slowed her down, making her movements clumsy. She heard the crack of vines, heard the heavy footfalls behind her.

They were gaining on her.

With a cry, she tripped over a raised branch, sticking up from the moss, and she went tumbling hard onto the floor of the forest. Pain sizzled over her forehead when she cut her skin on something sharp, but she paid it no mind, not even when blood began to drip into her vision.

A roar sounded behind her and panic spurred her to fight to her knees, to push up from the mossy bed she’d sunk into, though her legs trembled.

But a sound close to her made her blood freeze. Erin yelled, several yards away, and she heard the rumbling voice of their captor as he captured her yet again.

“Erin!”

She hesitated, just like before in the desert of Luxiria, when Erin had yelled at her to run. Crystal couldn’t leave her behind!

And that moment of hesitation cost her.

Hecame racing towards her. The male with piercing blue eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. He was there. Right there.

Her breath lodged in her throat and she turned to bolt. She made it a few steps before a hard impact hit her from behind, like a boulder. The air whooshed from her lungs, caught up in his strong arms. He’d tackled her from behind, but turned at the last moment, absorbing the impact from the ground, cradling her to his chest.

Panic made her thrash once her breath returned. The male’s eyes flashed and in an instant, she was underneath him, her arms pinned.

“Let go of me!” she screamed in his face, trying to scratch and claw at him.

“Never run from me again, female. Not from me,” he growled. “Never from me.”

“Let go of me!” she screamed again, adrenaline pumping.

This male was even more insane than the last.

Not far, she heard Erin struggling against her own captor. It only made Crystal fight harder, but it was no use. Luxirians were strong. And this male seemed like the strongest of them all. He was unmoving, unflinching.

And she was underneath him.

That strength…he could easily overpower her.

She felt the length of his body against her, felt the hard press of his muscles. And the hard press of something else…

“No,” she breathed, useless tears filling her eyes. “No! Let me go! Don’t touch me!”

“Female,” he rasped, his brows drawing tight. “Cease. You are injured.”

She was? She didn’t remember. She didn’t care. All that mattered was getting away from him. All that mattered was finding Erin.

The strange, new voices grew louder in the forest, echoing around the strange white trees. The male hovering above her snapped his head to look over his shoulder and he cursed. He looked in the direction where Erin’s cries had come from and he cursed again.

“Jaxor’an!” the male roared. “Stop!”

Erin was yelling again, but her cries were becoming fainter and fainter. The male was taking her away, farther away.

“Vrax!”

The male was off her in a second, but a moment later, despite her struggles, he had her cradled against his chest. Crystal struck out her bound hands and connected with his jaw. She hissed, her fingers throbbing with hot pain at the contact.

The male simply ground his teeth, as if her attempted punch was nothing more than a flick, and started running in the direction that Erin had gone.

“Female, cease!” he growled, gripping her tighter when she tried to squirm from his hold. “Vrax.”

He pulled up short, his gaze intent on something in the darkness, focused on something. It was enough to make her still for a brief moment, wondering what he saw, who he saw.

In the next moment, he changed directions completely, going the opposite way from where the captor had taken Erin.

“No!” Crystal protested. “I need to find her!”

The male didn’t listen. As if she weighed nothing more than air, he sprinted away, deeper into the darkness of the forest.

“No!”

“I am not your enemy, female,” the male said, voice hushed, jaw clenched. “I am the opposite. I will protect you with my life.”

She sucked in a breath because she heard the absolute truth in those words. The heat of his body, his masculine, warm scent was just beginning to register. Ever since he’d entered the clearing where they were being held, ever since she’d first locked eyes with him…she’d tried to ignore the knowing panic in her gut. The growing and dreaded realization.

Because he was familiar to her. And she was scared what that meant.

“Vaxa’an sent me to find you. To find you both and return you to the Golden City,” he murmured. She’d stopped struggling in his arms and he kept her tucked so firmly that her body barely jolted with every sprinting step he took. He didn’t even sound winded.

“How can I trust you?” she asked. “I don’t even know you. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“But you know me, female. Inside. You know I speak the truth. You know who I am.”

She ignored his not too subtle implication. “We need to find, Erin. If you truly have come to save us, then we cannot go back without her. That male…”

She feared what he would do if he was alone with Erin. She saw the way he looked at her.

“He will keep her safe from them. For now,” the male said, those his tone sounded tense. “We need to find shelter until morning.”

She didn’t want to trust him. She didn’t want to be near him, not right then. But Crystal had no choice. She had to rely on him, she had to trust that he would find Erin and bring them both back to safety.

The voices were falling further and further behind them. Despite his bulk, the Luxirian male was strangely quiet, as if he’d practiced all his life how to make the least amount of noise possible.

“Who else is following us?” she asked, looking over her shoulder, past his own into the blackness behind him. How could he see anything? The Luxirians must have great night vision, she decided.

“They are called the Mevirax,” was all he said in reply.

“Are they dangerous?”

“Tev.”

A part of her was glad he didn’t lie to her. An honest male. How refreshing, she thought with a bitter twist of her lips.

She waited until they were even further away from them until she said, “Put me down. I can run on my own.”

“You will slow us down,” he said and she tried not to let that sting. This male didn’t beat around the bush. “I have better senses than most. It is easier this way. I want to tend to your injury as quickly as possible.”

Injury.

Right.

She brought a hand up to the gash on her forehead. She still didn’t know what she’d cut it on. A rock? A branch? Her fingers came away bloody and she didn’t miss the way he scowled.

As if the blood spurred him on, he pushed his body even faster, darting through the forest at an impossible pace, putting more and more distance between them and whoever pursued them.

It felt like ages before he finally stopped. They were still inside the thick overgrowth of the forest, but Crystal thought she spied large boulders interspersed. Was the landscape beginning to change?

He stood still, with her still clutched in his warm arms, and cocked his head, listening. He didn’t even breathe as he peered deep into the darkness.

Finally, he relaxed a little. He caught her gaze and asked quietly, “If I put you down, are you going to run?”

Crystal’s breath hitched a little, remembering his words to her when he’d caught her.

Never run from me again, female.

Never from me, he’d said, his voice sounding anguished, as though he was the person she should be running towards.

She shook her head slightly, trying to clear her muddled thoughts.

When she realized he was still expecting an answer, she felt her shoulders sag and she said, “No.”

It didn’t mean she trusted him. It didn’t mean anything. It just meant that she wouldn’t run from him, or try to get away, that night. Because she didn’t know what else was out there. She had no idea where Erin was, or how she would find her again.

That was all the male seemed to need as he let her slide down his body. She stiffened when her hip made contact with something in his pants and she pushed away from him on trembling legs, trying to put distance between them.

The male was tensed, watching her warily, his body prepared to catch her if she tried anything. She gave him a dark look but then asked, “What now?”

“There,” he pointed into the darkness, as if she could see what he was pointing to. “We can make shelter for the night behind the stones.”

She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. He was still a male. And judging from what she’d felt in his pants…she needed to keep an eye on him closely. Because there was nothing more frightening than a sexually aroused, dangerous male who could easily make her do anything.

Crystal wasn’t a fool. She wasn’t naive. The cards were seriously stacked against her and the only thing she was relying on was that this male would keep his word. That he would protect her, even if it was from himself.

“Your dagger,” she said then, suddenly. “I want it.”

“Rebax?” he asked quietly, stilling.

“I don’t know you,” she said, keeping him an arm’s length distance away. “I don’t know what you intend. But I don’t want to be without options.”

Even though it was too dark to make out his face clearly, she could sense his mind working, could sense the way he looked at her.

“You think I will let anything hurt you? You think I cannot protect you?” he asked, his voice quiet and low, as if she’d gravely insulted him.

“Right now, I’m more worried about you,” she confessed, softly.

His body jerked, as if she’d slapped him.

Then he said the words that brought back the feelings of dread that had pulsed through her since the first moment she’d seen him.

“You are my female,” he murmured lowly, stepping closer so that she could see his face clearly as he spoke. “You are my mate. I would rather cut off my own hand than lay a finger on you in anger.”

Crystal closed her eyes, feeling on the verge of tears. She took in a deep breath, pushing away the panic that surfaced.

“I don’t know you,” she repeated. She held out her hand. “I don’t trust you. So I’d like your dagger until I do.”