Chapter 2: Nikki

 

I gawked at the giant mauve-colored alien in the room, jaw dropping in awe. Up close, he was even bigger than I’d thought he was, and the dim starlight lit up the bulges of his bare pecs and shoulders, accentuating them. His horns were huge too, and looked like well-used weapons up close. I resisted the temptation to run out the door I’d come in.

They’d caught the Xarc’n hunter sneaking around the building a little while after Jason had dragged me back in after my badly thought-out escape with Meghan.

I’d gotten caught, and so had this hunter. Had he been here to help free the two new females the guys had brought back earlier today, and gotten stuck himself? I’d overheard that the new women had been living with a group that welcomed and fought alongside the alien hunters.

He wasn’t supposed to be in this room. But then again, neither was I. I hadn’t even seen him in the dark until he’d called me by name. How the hell did he know my name? Maybe he’d heard Jason screaming at me downstairs. The whole damn block had probably heard him.

Big Horns had gotten himself free of the zip ties. I’d watched as the guys used almost half a dozen of the heavy-duty plastic ties to secure his arms and legs. It hadn’t been enough. He was free and was now looking for his stuff in the storage room.

Damn it! I was going to get him caught again. I almost felt bad for him. What horrible luck!

“Nikki,” he said again, my name sounding like not much more than a growl.

He gestured to himself, and I couldn’t help but notice he was barely dressed. Aside from his loincloth and a few straps of leather, he was basically naked. Most of the Xarc’n hunters I’d seen on the news before the media had gone silent had been dressed similarly.

“Safe.”

That was unmistakably English. Was he safe? He hadn’t attacked me yet, and I didn’t believe a lot of the bullshit they spread about the Xarc’n hunters.

The hunters had arrived on Earth just weeks after the big alien bugs showed up. At the time, most of us didn’t even believe the bugs existed, having seen them only on the news and in online videos. Jason had thought the whole thing was a hoax, a big government plan to frighten and control the masses.

It had only taken a few more weeks for the giant space bugs to reach Franklin, and any doubts of their existence were blown to shreds.

The Xarc’n hunters had shown up, offering help, but Earth’s governments rejected them, claiming the purple alien warriors had sent the bugs on purpose. Big mistake if you asked me. We wouldn’t be here living in a bug-ravaged wasteland if we’d taken their olive branch.

The starlight from the window glinted off the alien’s yellow eyes, and I couldn’t look away. They were the eyes of a predator, but I saw kindness there. Was he offering me a similar olive branch now? I wasn’t going to reject this one. Not with Jason pounding at the door and the leader of the group pissed off as all get out.

“Safe,” he repeated.

He stepped toward me, but I didn’t feel the need to run. If he claimed he was safe, then I was going to take my chances with him. Staying in this hellhole was not an option.

He reached for me, and I found myself surrounded by mauve-y purple muscles. Strangely, my first thought was that he smelled good, a mix of man and the great outdoors. It reminded me of stepping outside after a rainstorm in the heat of summer. I hoped he didn’t notice me smelling him. That would be awkward.

My next thought was that I felt positively tiny in his arms—no small feat since I was a tall woman. I wasn’t a giantess or anything, but I was just tall enough for people to feel the need to tell me I was tall. Like, seriously: I knew. Life reminded me every time I tried to get into the backseat of a car.

The Xarc’n hunter growled again. Did that sound like, “Mine”?

A crash from the door had me looking back at the portal. The chair I’d wedged under the handle strained with the pressure as they rammed it from the other side.

I knew who was behind that door: Jason. And Nick. Jason used to be my husband, but I barely recognized him now. The man I’d married was long gone; his decency lost forever to the new world we lived in. Running with this group of thugs had never been my choice, but he’d insisted on joining them, dazzled by their firepower.

I’d gone along with it, despite the vulgar way they treated their women. It had gotten worse and worse over the winter. I’d kept my mouth shut in front of the group, but Jason and I had fought about it behind closed doors.

Sometime during the winter, after a particularly bad screaming match, he changed. He’d always been a bit of a manipulative ass, but things were different after that. It started with a trade for armor so he’d stay safe when they went for supply runs. Worried about his safety, I’d given in and gave his asshole friend, Nick, a hand job. Then it was for extra food, or vitamins, or something else.

Eventually, I’d lost track of the reasons and realized I was no longer his wife, and he was no longer my husband. I was a commodity he traded to get more for himself. The hard-core hate started then, but I was already stuck and unable to leave the group.

Until today. Today, they’d brought back the two new women. Like with all the women they brought in, they’d taken their shoes and kept them upstairs to be quarantined, in case they had the alien disease these men claimed was from being with the Xarc’n warriors—I didn’t believe in that bullshit.

The two women, not yet beaten down by months of living with these degenerates, had bolted despite the lack of shoes and the threat of oversized alien bugs roaming outside. I’d been cooking dinner with Meghan at the time. All the men were distracted, and no one was looking at us, so we’d decided to run for it too. In hindsight, it was a stupid idea. It wasn’t even planned, just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I knew of a colony called New Franklin and had planned to find it.

We’d had a big swarm of bugs recently, and the days after a swarm were usually quiet. If the two of us were to have a chance at making it to the other colony, it would be now.

Meghan had gotten away, and I’d gotten caught.

The leader had demanded that Jason make an example out of me, so the other women would be afraid to run as Meghan and I had.

So now, I ran from my own husband. A husband I hated. A husband I’d lost a long time ago. I’d rather die fighting, just to show him how much I hated him. I didn’t want to endure another winter stuck with this group.

Having never physically fought me before—we used to scream at each other all the time—Jason had been caught off guard when I nicked him across the face with a knife I’d kept after prepping the food today.

I hoped the cut got infected. Without medical attention, infections could mean death. Good. I want him to die a million times and a million ways.

I made a snap judgment right there and then. Screw this place. And screw Jason. I knew how much he and this group hated these hunters, and guess what; I was jumping ship. Right freaking now! How much worse could it be?

I looked up at the massive alien warrior currently shielding me with his body. “Take me with you. Please.” I hoped he understood more English than he spoke.

He sent me a wide, toothy grin, his sharp fangs glinting in the wan light. “Mine.”

I heard the word clearly this time.

There’d been rumors that the Xarc’n warriors needed Earth women, as they didn’t have women of their own. No one had ever seen a female hunter. I’d heard of numerous abduction stories, though never from the source. All women were warned not to take food from the warriors. We were told they offered gifts of food to starving women, and taking it meant you agreed to go with them to be some sort of sex slave.

There was also that famous case where the lady showed up on her social media days after her family reported her missing. She’d been happy and completely over the moon in love with her new purple beau. Some, including her religious mother, had been convinced the alien had brainwashed her.

My lot wasn’t much better here, and, last I checked, they were running out of condoms. There was no way I’d be getting pregnant during the bugpocalypse with the child of either rat bastard degenerate.

So I asked the hunter to take me with him. I was willing to take my chances.

“Open up, you bitch!” Another crash came from the door, and the chair clanged to the floor. “You’re going to get it now.” Then Jason, rat bastard degenerate number one, stepped in with his lantern, the light showing the slash on his face. He looked pissed.

Yup, I was more than willing to take my chances with the horned and fanged alien. There was no way I was staying here with Selfish and Crazy.

Tall, Mauve, and Muscular pushed me behind his body as if protecting me and stood to his full height. A low menacing growl came from his throat.

“Holy fuck!” Jason backed away, his eyes round.

“Help!” Nick screamed from behind him. “The monster is loose!” Rat bastard degenerate number two looked like he was about to shit himself.

Help never had the time to arrive. The alien scooped me up into his arms and charged at the window. The glass shattered as I closed my eyes and braced for impact, but I felt nothing. The hunter had shielded me with his body, taking most of the damage.

Holy crap! He’d just jumped out of a closed second-floor window. I held onto him tightly.

Time seemed to slow as we sailed through the air. I looked down at the ground below, marveling at the shards of glass pinging off the concrete. They reflected the stars, and everything felt almost surreal, as if it were all a dream. The alien had leaped with enough force that we left the majority of the glass behind, and when he landed, reality filtered back, and time resumed.

He ran with me in his arms, my weight barely slowing him down. The pavement of the parking lot whizzed by. Then it was replaced by grass, grass, and more grass. I lifted my head to look back, but the building we’d been in was already disappearing into the distance. He was running fast.

Once inside some residential streets, he moved purposefully, taking turns here and there. He knew where he was going.

He didn’t stop until we were in front of a home. This one still had its front windows intact, a rare thing since most houses have been broken into already. He used the front door, and it opened readily. That explained the lack of broken windows.

The inside of the home was just as ransacked as all the others. No homes in the area had been left unlooted; that was how everyone fed themselves since the collapse.

Once inside, he locked the door, scooped me up into his arms again, and headed up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He deposited me next to the bed, looking over me with a concerned face as if searching for injuries.

“Nikki, hurt?”

Aside from the bruise starting on my cheekbone from when Jason had decked me when he caught me, I felt fine. “I don’t think so. You protected me from the glass.”

He turned me around and checked one more time. Then, finally satisfied, he put his hand on his chest. “Koriv’n.”

Then he held out his hand. Shocked at the very human-like gesture, I took it, expecting him to shake it. But instead, he took my hand to his mouth, and with his eyes never leaving mine, he kissed it like some chivalrous knight.

And me? Completely caught off guard, I tittered like a schoolgirl.