Protected By The Alien Bodyguard by Ella Maven

Four

Bloom

She was going to shoot him. This human, who was one of me. And yet she wasn’t scared or trembling or weak. She stood strong and proud, arms corded with muscle and a stomach that had has many ridges as Cravus’s.

But she was going to shoot him.

“No.” The word whimpered from my throat on a weak squeak.

“It’s okay.” The woman’s jaw was tight, but I saw the slightest tremble in her lips. “I’m Zuri. And he can’t hurt you anymore. He’s not the first to try and won’t be the last. But I always win.”

“No.” I tried again, panic rising in my chest as I sought to breathe. Cravus hadn’t moved, standing still as stone at my side, his gaze never leaving Zuri’s hand. “Please, he’s not… doesn’t hurt… me.” I had been getting better at speaking, but now I couldn’t seem to put the right words together.

“Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, honey, and I’ll explain it all once this big fucker fucks off.”

I was crying now, hot tears spilling over my bottom lashes. “Please.”

Zuri stepped closer, her gun still on Cravus, and reached for me. “Come on.” Her finger snagged my cloak and tugged. “Come here. You’re safe now.”

But as soon as I let out a cry of distress, Cravus moved. Or more like… he didn’t move. He just disappeared. Poof. Vanished. Out of thin air.

“Fuck!” Zuri screeched and tossed me behind her. “Forgot about these invisible fucks.” Skags fell from my cloak with a squawk just as a table moved and Zuri fired off a shot. I heard a roar, unmistakably Cravus’s voice just as his form flickered until he stood in front of us, his arm leaking black blood, his expression a mask of fury.

“Gotcha,” Zuri sneered before aiming the gun again.

“No!” I screamed, surging out from behind her to throw myself in front of Cravus. “Don’t shoot him, please!”

“Bloom, hut!” he barked in his language followed by a few more gargled commands.

“I won’t shoot her, just you,” Zuri spat in response to him. “I’m a great shot, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

I went to my knees in front of Cravus, trembling so badly that my teeth chattered. “Please don’t hurt him. He saved me. Then I saved him. And we’ll keep saving each other.”

Confusion flickered over Zuri’s face for a brief second before she aimed again. “That’s nonsense. None of these assholes give a shit—”

“Please,” I stood up slowly, directly in front of Cravus who panted behind me, probably with pain and anger. “I don’t know why we’re here because I don’t understand his language, but I think it has something to do with me. Please just hear him out. Let him talk.” Skags raced over to cling to my leg. “We both need him. And want him.”

Her brows dipped, and her top teeth came out to chew at the corner of her lower lip. “He doesn’t hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “If he did, I would have let you shoot him.”

“He’s not holding something over you? Family? Another pet?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have anyone.”

Her eyes narrowed for a brief moment before she finally lowered the laser gun. Her gaze shifted to Cravus behind me. “So, what are you here for?”

He spoke a few words through gritted teeth, which I figured was more about being pissed off than in pain.

Zuri cursed softly under her breath and shook her head. “You’re right. It has to do with you. He wants you to have a translator implant. So you two can communicate.”

That was not what I expected. “What? Really? Do you have one?”

She studied both of us a moment before sighing heavily. “Yeah, I have one. Needs a little tweaking, so sit down. Take a load off.” She squinted at him. “You want something for your wound?”

He muttered a few things that sounded a lot like, “Fuck off.” In the end, he sat down on a chair and rummaged through his supplies before dabbing an ointment on his injury.

“Will he be okay?” I asked her as she dug through a pile of what looked like junk.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Just a graze. I meant to warn him, not kill him.”

Cravus remained silent, but his glare signified that he would have liked to give her a warning too. I sat down at his feet, where he handed me the canteen quietly and urged me to drink. When I handed it back to him, he declined.

I insisted, and he finally gave in, taking a few gulps before dribbling a bit in Skags’s mouth. When I turned, Zuri was watching us out of the corner of her eye, but she quickly looked away. “So, what’s your name?”

“Bloom. This is Cravus, and this is Skags.”

“Bloom?”

“Well, it was Mouse, but I don’t think Cravus liked it, so he calls me Bloom.”

“Mouse? Who named you Mouse?”

“My captors.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, drawing out the word. “What was your name on Earth?”

“Earth?”

She stared at me like I had three heads. “What name were you born with?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?” she nearly shrieked.

Cravus tensed next to me, but I placed a hand on his leg. He rasped out a few words to her that made her eyes go round. “I’m sorry, what? You were in a cage on the way to the Council?”

I explained to her all that I remembered, which wasn’t much. That I’d woken up in a cage, no memory of who or what I was. “Cravus told me I’m human.”

“Yeah, honey, you’re a human. And you speak American English like me. I’m from Philly. That ring any bells?”

I shook my head, and her expression darkened before she once again focused on the table in front of her. She had found a small disk and fiddled with it while holding a small gun-like object.

Finally, she announced that she was finished and dragged a chair over to where I sat on the floor. “You want a chair?” she asked.

I was pressed against Cravus’s massive thigh, which was where I felt safe. I shook my head.

Zuri’s hands went slack in her lap as she watched me. Her face finally softened, and she offered me a small smile. Something in me stirred. She was pretty; she had high cheekbones and a smooth forehead with big round eyes. Now that she wasn’t angry at me, I found her presence made me feel safe.

“This is going to hurt at first,” she said. “But just give it a moment, and the pain will go away. I promise. Okay?”

“Okay,” I murmured, not too nervous because I trusted her, and Cravus was here. His big palm settled on the back of my neck, warming the skin there. I smiled up at him, and he returned the smile, his eyes soft.

Zuri touched my ear, then my scalp, and I felt a cool metal touch the skin at the back of my ear. Suddenly, a sharp pain jabbed me, and I grimaced with a groan as something felt like it dug into my skull. But Zuri was right… as soon as the pain had come, it was gone, and while I felt a little dizzy, I was okay.

Zuri smiled at me. “All right?”

I nodded. “I’m all right.”

“Does it hurt?” Cravus’s deep voice filtered through the new device in my ear.

I lunged to my feet, hands immediately grasping the straps on his chest. “Cravus,” I gasped.

His eyes glowed fiercely as he nodded. “Bloom.”

“Talk,” I nearly shouted at him. “Say… words.”

His mouth opened, and for a moment, he seemed unable to say a word until he smiled and said, “I like your hair short.”

I couldn’t help myself. I burst into tears. Cravus immediately wrapped his arms around me and pressed me to his chest, where I sobbed. Being able to converse with someone—both Cravus and Zuri—made me feel like a person again. A, well, a human. “N-n-no one c-c-c-could under-understand me, and th-then you c-c-could, but I d-d-didn’t underst-stand y-you a-a-a-and—”

“Well, I could understand you,” he spoke into my hair. I could hear the humor in his voice. “Not so sure now with your face pressed against me while you’re crying.”

I laughed, which only made the tears come out faster until my face was a mess of tears and snot.

He swiped at them with his big thumbs. “It’s okay, Bloom. You can cry.”

The sobs of relief started again. It took a while for me to calm down, and Cravus held me through it while Zuri sat nearby, scratching Skags’s ears and watching us closely. When I had myself under control, I rubbed at my swollen eyes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Her face had lost all harshness, and now she only watched us with warmth. “I should apologize for shooting the big guy, but…” she shrugged. “You can’t be too sure here. And I would do it again if it meant making sure you were safe. I see now that I’m wrong.” She eyed Cravus. “You’re welcome for the warning shot instead of the kill shot.”

He seemed to have gotten over his anger. His posture was relaxed, and he ran a hand up and down my back where I was still perched in his lap. “You’re forgiven, and you did the right thing. You can’t be too sure.” He glanced around. “How’d you get here?”

Zuri tugged at the colorful band in her hair. “Eh, it’s a boring story.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “So, Bloom, do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

“From how I got here?”

“From home.”

“Sometimes smells remind me of things. When Cravus cooked meat the other day, I got a flashback to a time where I was in green grass, and a man was cooking. Everyone around me was happy. There was laughter. Drinks that made me warm.”

Zuri sighed. “You were probably remembering a party, and someone was grilling. Could have been anywhere in America. Anything else?”

“I dream a lot.” I bit my lip, not wanting to tell Cravus he appeared in them all the time, because that was weird. “There was a flame in one. I blew it out, like this.” I pursed my lips and huffed out a puff of breath. “There was something waxy on my hands.”

“A candle,” Zuri said. She shook her head. “Those are kind of generic memories. I wish I could jog your memory somehow. You don’t know what happened that made you lose it?”

I shook my head as she stood up and studied my scalp. Her fingers brushed through my short hair, and it tickled. “I don’t see any injuries to your scalp…” she pulled at a lock of hair above my ear. “What happened to your hair, honey?”

“It was matted really badly, and too long. I hacked it off with his knife.”

She grimaced. “Well, first things first. I’m giving you a proper haircut.”

Armed with a pair of scissors and some electric thing that buzzed, she went to work on my head, singing to herself as she went. When she was done, strands of dark hair in varying length littered the floor and my shoulders. She stepped back, eyeing me before making a loud exclamation. “How could I forget? A mirror. You probably don’t even remember what you look like.”

She grabbed a flat board and held it up to my face. Reflecting back at me was… me. I had round green eyes, a small nose, and a small mouth. My skin had brown dots scattered across the bridge of my nose and my cheeks. My hair was now a few inches long with a small sweep across the top of my forehead.

A small scar marred the skin at the corner of my left eye. I prodded it, wondering how it got there, but no memories came back to me. It seemed smells were what knocked memories loose in my head. I couldn’t say I found myself familiar, but then I wasn’t a stranger either. I felt… a whole lot of nothing looking at my face. I dropped the mirror into my lap, disappointed but trying not to show it.

“Bloom?” Cravus asked, tensing a bit as he sensed my mood.

“I’m okay. I just… don’t feel anything when I look at myself.”

He took the mirror from my hand and gave it back to Zuri. “Do you have anything that reminds you of smells from Earth she could try?”

Zuri scrunched her lips and glanced around her tent with her brows furrowed. “I can’t think of anything right now.”

He nodded. “If you think of anything, let us know. Do you think Bloom can get some rest?”

How did he know I was so drained? After the journey here, and all that talking, I felt like I was going to pass out.

Zuri set me up in her bed, which rested in a hidden panel in her tent, protected with alarms. She said no one in the settlement knew she was human, and she used a voice altering device to sound male.

Cravus remained in the main area of the tent with Skags while she pulled a blanket up to my chin. When she turned to walk away, I grabbed her hand. She turned with a raised eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Thank you, Zuri,” I said, holding her warm gaze. “I just met you and you’ve already done so much. You would have killed him to rescue me, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded with a tight jaw. “In a heartbeat. I wish I could do more for those of us in this galaxy but…” she shook her head. “I do what I can from here. Get some rest now and we’ll talk more.” She smiled and squeezed my hand before letting it go. “I’m glad you’re here.”

* * *

Cravus

Zuri returned from her sleep area where Bloom was now out of sight.

“Is she resting?” I asked.

She nodded. “Passed out almost right away.” She sank down in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, watching me. “You got the bleeding to stop?”

I nodded. “We heal fast.”

She shook her head with a snort. “Of course you do.” Her gaze strayed to where Bloom slept. “What do you plan to do with her?”

“I live in Torin, she’d be safe there—”

Another snort. “You can’t be serious. First you have to get her to a dock safely, which… good luck with that. Then travel to your planet safely, which, again, good luck with that. Then you’re telling me that the rest of your people are going to accept her?”

I resisted snapping at her. She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have a solid plan on getting out of here. The shuttle arranged for me to return home was long gone. Still, I was a Kaluma, stubborn, and determined to protect the precious human at my side. I was confident I’d figure something out, even if I had to steal a cruiser and fly home myself. “You underestimate me.”

“Really? Because I could have killed you. And I’m a human. What if a load of Gattrix find you? Rogastix?”

I leveled her with a glare. “If you were anything but human, you would have been dead before you pulled the trigger.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched. I waited for her to argue, but instead she looked away with a sigh. “So that’s your plan then. To take her with you.”

That was my plan, but that was before Bloom had any sort of choice. Now… well, now she could choose to stay with one of her own kind, a human clearly capable of looking after both of them. Would she be happier here than with me? I did have one advantage, though. “We have another human female at our settlement.”

Zuri’s gaze shot to mine. “What?”

“One of our warriors found and saved a human female. They are mates.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Mates.” She spit out the word like it was bitter root.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, I don’t. Humans don’t have mates or soul mates, or any of that.”

“You can’t deny the linyx bond that Karina and Bosa share.”

“Oh yeah?” She settled in for a fight. I could tell by the fire in her brown eyes. “Tell me more about this bond.”

“She has visuls of him.”

“Visuls?”

“Dreams.”

She fluttered her lips. “He appears in her dreams. Amazing. Incredible.” Her words were a direct contradiction to her flat tone. “That means nothing to me.”

“She can—”

A cry split the air, coming from Bloom’s sleeping area. We both leapt from our chairs, but I was quicker. Surging into the back of the tent, I found Bloom on the ground, twisted up in blankets, her face damp with sweat and her eyes squeezed shut. “Fight,” she whimpered. “You have to fight.”

I swept her stiff body into my arms, and with a gasp, her eyes shot open. Pupils blown wide, she seemed unable to focus until she blinked a few times and let out a shuddering breath. “Cravus,” she whispered, her muscles going lax. She rubbed at her eyes while I sat on the bed pallet with her on my lap. “What happened? Why are you in here?”

“You were yelling in your sleep,” Zuri said. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Bloom shook her head. “I was…” her gaze shifted to me, and she studied my face for a moment. “I was dreaming.”

My breath left my lungs in a rush. I asked my next question with a slight tremble in my voice. “What did you dream about?”

Bloom’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “You.”

Zuri sighed. “Oh jeez, that’s not—”

“What about me?” I ignored the non-believer next to me. “What was I doing?”

Bloom swallowed, and I watched the muscles in her throat work. “I don’t really understand. We were surrounded by these shadowy figures. All I knew was I had to fight.” Her chest heaved, and her eyes went unfocused again, like she was remembering the panic.

I ran my palm over short hair. “It’s okay. It’s not real.” Which was a lie and a truth all at the same time. Karina had said her first visuls with Bosa were mixed with the past, present, and future. It wasn’t until they confirmed their bond that her visuls were clearer.

“It felt…” She stood up and reached for the canteen to drink. After taking a few gulps, she shook her head. “It felt so real. I don’t remember dreaming like that…”

I shot Zuri a look, and she curled a lip at me.

A soft rumble filled the small space, and Bloom’s hand went to her stomach. Laughing softly, she said, “Sorry, that was my stomach.”

“I’m hungry too,” Zuri backed up. “Give me a minute and I’ll get us something to eat.”

“Thank you,” Bloom said as Zuri disappeared to the front of the tent.

Bloom was silent for a moment, and I let her think. Finally, she turned to me. “What happened right before she shot you?”

I tilted my head. “What?”

“Right before Zuri shot you. You just… disappeared.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that she wasn’t aware of my abilities. “I can blank.”

“Blank?”

“My scales, they flip and camouflage me.”

Her brows rose into her hairline. “Really? But then why…why didn’t you stay, uh, blanked when Zuri shot you?”

“Blanking takes a lot of energy. If I get injured, I often cannot hold the blank. And with Zuri, I felt it was best to show myself.”

Her fingers fluttered lightly across my chest, and I had to force myself not to react to her touch. “Can you show me now?”

I blanked, which took mere moments, and the clicking of my scales filled the small space. With large eyes, Bloom reached out again, touching my arm. “So, you’re still there, just… impossible to see.” She squinted. “I think I can make out a blurry outline, but I wouldn’t notice it at all unless I knew you were sitting there.” She leaned back and released a long breath. “Wow, okay, please come back. I like when I can see you.”

With a chuckle, I returned to my visible form, and she smiled. “That’s better.”

I leaned forward. “Bloom, we need to talk about where we go from here.”

Skags jumped up onto the bed pallet and nuzzled under her arm. She scratched his ears. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you have options.” Even saying the word made my skin itch. I didn’t want to give her options at all. I wanted to scoop her up and bury her against me until we were home safe on Torin. I swallowed around the argument in my throat. “You can stay here with Zuri, or you can come home with me.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek as she scratched Skags’s ears. “What do you want me to do?”

The tent flap snapped, and Zuri marched in holding several platters. “It’s not about what he wants,” she said as she sat down next to Bloom and began to place heaping amounts of food on her plate. “It’s what you want. What do you want, Bloom?”