Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The smell hit me first. I tried to move and discovered my body had opinions about that.
My limbs felt heavy, like I’d been poured into wet concrete and left to set.
A low groan escaped me before I could stop it, vibrating unpleasantly through my chest. My fingers twitched.
They were slow and uncooperative, but at least they responded. That felt like a win.
Okay. Conscious. Breathing. Not on fire.
That ruled out a few worst-case scenarios.
The smell grew stronger as my brain booted up properly. Sweet and rotten at the same time, cloying in the back of my throat. I swallowed, immediately regretted it, and gagged. My stomach clenched in a violent warning.
Oh.
Oh no.
I turned my head just in time and retched again, my body heaving with an enthusiasm I absolutely did not share. When it was over, I lay there panting, eyes squeezed shut, forehead damp and cooling too fast.
Classy. Kidnapped by aliens and I’d already ruined the local ecosystem.
I sniffed the air again, trying to place the sweetness battling with rancid. Oh. Right. My own vomit. I licked my lips, tasted sour spittle. Yep, I threw up. So gross. Even living in Vegas, I managed to avoid ever vomiting.
Where was I?
A hospital room, my brain supplied hopefully.
Or maybe the desert. Vegas had plenty of places that smelled weird and made strange noises if you wandered far enough off the Strip.
A nature preserve. An immersive art installation.
I would accept literally anything that did not involve extraterrestrials.
I listened harder, cataloging what I heard like I could logic my way out of this. Sounds flowed over and around me. Rhythmic chirping. Pulsating buzzing. Loud, resonant croaking.
None of it matched Earth.
My chest tightened as that last comforting theory collapsed.
The answer refused to come. My attempt to identify my location had failed.
This symphony of nature sounded beautiful, however. And even more confusing. The combination of soft and hard beneath me.
I was outside. My eyes struggled to open. I focused on my last memory. Walking home from the restaurant—
The hairs on my arms lifted all at once, a full-body shiver of instinctive alarm. I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t imagined the voice last night. Whatever—or whoever—had taken me was still here.
“You are awake,” the low, melodious voice washed over me.
Now my eyes snapped open as the memories from last night flooded my overloaded brain. A tightness in my chest when I bolted upright made me gasp for air. Kidnapped. Alien ship. Sexual interrogation. Prisoner. Crash landing.
I blinked rapidly, trying to calm my racing heart. A diffuse pain shot through my body. Carefully, oh so carefully, I turned my head this way and that. No immediate headache wracked me. Hopefully, that meant no head trauma.
My jaw dropped in absolute-fucking-awe. I was on an alien world!
The very air appeared filtered through a lilac prism, coloring the scenery in shades of purple.
The flora was like a tropical rain forest on steroids.
Huge flowering plants towered over us. Large flowers that looked like a cross between roses and hydrangeas sat atop deep violet trunks.
Something brushed my ankle.
I yelped and jerked my leg back, heart slamming painfully against my ribs. A thin, ribbon-like plant recoiled in response, its surface shimmering faintly before curling in on itself. Not aggressive. Curious.
Great. Even the plants were sentient-adjacent.
The air itself felt different—thicker somehow, like it carried weight along with scent.
Every breath filled my lungs too fully, leaving me faintly lightheaded, like I’d stood up too fast. If this planet had a gravity setting, it was close enough to Earth to lull me into forgetting I was very, very far from home.
Tiny white flowers on aqua stems created a vibrant carpet of color at my feet. Or, to be more accurate, my ass, since I remained sitting. Next to Cair, where his body heat chased away the chill I felt, maybe from the shock of the ship’s crash. Or maybe just from him.
I coughed to clear my throat. “We didn’t die.” Amazement dripped from every word.
“No, we did not,” Cair agreed. “We sustained relatively minor injuries, all things considered.” The melodious timbre of his voice was underlaid with … something. His gaze flicked over me, clinical but thorough. The attention made my skin prickle.
“Where are we?” I inhaled the intoxicating scent of the fragrant world around us.
“A planet called Novaelus.”
“Novaelus.” I rolled the name around in my mouth, testing it, enjoying it. Despite the insanity, this was by far the coolest thing to ever happen to me. If I died today—I cut off my meandering thought. Nope. No dying today. “We aren’t anywhere near Earth.”
“No,” Cair answered.
“Xelthar lied to me,” I said. Saying it out loud made something sharp twist under my ribs.
I’d wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him.
He’d spoken like Earth was a detour, not a lie, like helping me was incidental instead of transactional.
I hated that part most. That I’d been so desperate to get home I’d ignored the warning bells screaming in my head.
A musical laugh bubbled out from Cair.
“That’s funny?”
Cair didn’t answer immediately. He looked past me, scanning the tree line with a measured calm that suggested predators might not be hypothetical on this planet. The pause stretched long enough to set my nerves jangling.
When his attention returned to me, it felt like being weighed. And I’d been found lacking.
“He is a criminal,” Cair explained, not-quite-patiently. “Of course, he lied to you. That is why you should not have helped him.” His eyes darkened at that last sentence.
“Helped him?” I spluttered. “All I did was bring him to the bridge because he said he could fly your ship back to Earth.”
Cair shook his head at my protestations.
“You don’t believe me?”
A single eyebrow rose above a yellow eye.
I almost laughed at the humanlike expression. Almost.
“I do not believe you.”
“That hurts, Cair. Really.”
“I saw you in your intimate embrace.”
“Intimate?”
“Then you tripped me to facilitate his escape to here.”
“Tripped you?” My mind swirled. “He left me on the ship to die in the crash with you.”
“You were no longer useful to him.” Cair stared impassively at me. “That does not negate your earlier help to him. It just makes you foolish.”
“Foolish?” Okay, I needed to stop echoing him like an idiot. “Well, Cair, let me educate you on your multiple misunderstandings.”
He remained silent.
“First off, he made a pass at me. It was not an intimate embrace. He thought he’d get a little something while waiting for his friends.”
“What friends?” Cair interrupted my explanation, his voice sharpened.
“I don’t believe he intended to go to the planet’s surface,” I said, losing track of my thoughts.
“He sent our position to someone who was supposed to pick him up here. Did you see another ship before we started falling?” I swallowed thickly at the immediate vertigo I experienced, as if falling anew.
“I did not.”
“Then I assume he’s here somewhere, biding his time until they arrive.” Hope blossomed. “They’ll have a ship. Maybe we can work out a bargain so they’ll take us with them?”
Another melodic laugh that sounded sarcastic somehow. “Do you know why I was attempting to apprehend Xelthar Zarnoth on Earth?”
“Of course not.”
“The Brakians are a very physical species. Combined with their tendency to be unemotional, they are active in combat sports around the known universe. Xelthar Zarnoth has been—what is the English word?—rigging fights on multiple planets.”
“Ohh. Yeah, that’s not good.”
“No, it is not. Especially when you cost Vadhea a significant amount of currency.”
“You weren’t going to kill him, like he claimed?” I asked, a flush of embarrassment warming my neck.
A pregnant pause.
“You weren’t, right?” I lifted an eyebrow at his reticence.
“It is not for me to predict what Vadhea will do to punish someone.”
I belly laughed. “That’s rich. He was right. Someone was probably going to kill him.”
“I am an enforcer for the Syndicate.”
What the fuck did that even mean? Though I had watched enough television and movies to feel familiar with Earth’s mafias.
I got the gist. Syndicate wasn’t law. It wasn’t justice.
It was power wrapped in structure, violence with paperwork.
On Earth, organizations like that didn’t ask questions unless the answers benefited them.
“That’s … not comforting.” My mouth felt dry.
“Now I understand why you were suspicious of me.”
“Then you helped him escape.”
I sighed. “We’re back on that? I explained that the intimate embrace you saw was an unwanted advance, and I freed him from his shackles because he said he’d return me home.” My voice rose to a shout by the last word.
“That does not explain why you tripped me.”
“Tripped…” I repeated, before remembering he’d accused me of that before. “That was just a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes. I was trying to help you—”
“You were?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “By then, I knew he had lied about taking me to Earth.”
“Go on.”
“When I realized you were trying to trip him, I attempted to put myself behind him so my body could act as a fulcrum and he’d fall over me.
” I shrugged. “Except while I was moving, you guys were too. And I tripped you instead. I’m sorry,” I said, my apology woefully inadequate given the outcome.
I placed my hand on his arm. His eyes dropped to it, and I snatched my hand back.
“I understand your story.”
“Story?” I debated whether to push that point. “Regardless,” I said, choosing to refocus on what was more important. Rescue. “We need to convince whoever is coming to get him to take us with them.”
Cair shook his head, iridescent hair and skin catching the lilac light. “There is no need.”
“No?”
“I was able to send my own message to the Syndicate from the brig before going to the bridge.” He tilted his head, yellow eyes narrowing. “Did you truly think it took me that long to recover from your assault?”
“Well.” I stopped, uncertain what to say. A frisson of fear sent wavelike tingling across my skin. “What happens to me when the Syndicate arrives?”
“That will depend on what I tell them.”
“I just explained how everything was a misunderstanding or mistake,” I said with false bravado.
“You did have explanations.”
That was not the ringing endorsement I’d hoped for. “Please. Let me prove I wasn’t involved with him.”
Cair gave a curt nod, his lips thinning into a line as he considered my entreaty.
I opened my mouth to beg. The ground beneath me suddenly felt less solid, like at any moment it might open up and swallow me whole.
Interrogation implied a process, but not mercy.
And definitely not trust. I’d survived the abduction.
The crash. An alien fistfight. And somehow, this felt like the most dangerous moment yet, while I waited for his decision.
“I will finish my interrogation.”