Chapter 2
Vera
I woke up to the sight of a monster hovering right above me.
Fangs, scaly skin, and glowing azure eyes.
This was a creature straight out of my nightmares, alien and monstrous.
Of course I screamed. I yelled my head off because this was so not what I expected to see first thing after dying. I was dead, right?
Pinching my arm with my fingers, I yelped when that hurt.
So alive, no wait… Wasn’t the arm-pinching thing for when you thought you were dreaming?
What did someone even do to check if they were dead or alive?
No, I was definitely alive, my panicking brain told me.
There were electrodes stuck to my chest that I could brush off; I was in a stasis pod of some kind.
The monster above me flinched back when I started screaming, clutching clawed hands over ear openings in the sides of its head.
His head, because that was a very masculine face, with a sharp jaw with two pointed little horns sticking from it.
And whew… that chest… It was one rippling, carved slab of muscle.
It was also very blue, with a silvery pattern across the scales that was very pretty and delicate.
When I stopped screaming, he leaned back in a little, tilting his head this way and that while he looked at me.
Bright blue hair clung in strands around his face, the rest secured in a knot on top of his head.
His mouth opened to display sharp fangs and a split tongue that flicked out and tasted the air.
I shivered, my body heating with a sharp burst of arousal that had no time or place for this situation.
Definitely not related to that agile tongue.
I was unsure exactly what had happened, except for the fact that I’d been put in stasis.
A quick look around showed me several more stasis pods and the mangled remains of a small spaceship.
A UAR vessel from the looks of it, its acronym stamped on several hatches and bulkheads.
Son of a bitch, they’d executed me, only to transport me somewhere else, and for God knows what purpose.
I had a feeling it would have been nothing good.
My eyes fell on the male hovering above me, staring at me with intense curiosity.
I should continue to be terrified of him, he looked so incredibly alien, but I felt rather calm in his presence.
When he reached out a clawed hand towards me, I paused to look at the smooth inside of his palm, before I grabbed it and allowed him to pull me from the stasis pod.
I went a little faint in the legs, staring in shock at the fact that this male didn’t have any himself.
He had a snake tail; the entire lower half of his body and then some was a long thickly muscled, scaly tail in the same beautiful light blue and silver as his upper body.
The entire front of him, like his belly, was a lighter shade than the back part.
My feet were standing right between two thick coils of his long body. I gaped at those coils, trying to wrap my mind around such a creature. Ahaha, wrap… Like a snake. I was going nuts, what kind of alien planet had the UAR stranded me on?
The male made a soft hissing noise, rumbling from deep in his chest. It sounded soothing like he was trying to calm me.
Tilting my head up, I met his bright look, an inquisitive gaze on his features.
“I’m sorry, my translator doesn’t appear to have your language in its database,” rolled off my tongue, surprising myself.
Why the hell would I even say that when he couldn’t understand a word I was saying?
Alien that he was, he didn’t blink at me in any normal kind of fashion, eyelids sliding shut over his eyes for a short moment from the inside of his eyes.
Sliding horizontally across to the outer corners.
What? I stared at his eyes, the bright azure briefly glowing through the pale, milky white lids.
With a loud groaning sound and an earsplitting shriek, metal tore, and the mildly tilted floor of the ship we stood in slid and shook.
It was so sudden and unexpected that I tumbled forward, right against the alien snake-man’s chest. My palms flattened against his scaly pectorals, my entire body following suit, and then his arms came around me, steadying me.
“We need to get out of here, now! This whole vessel is about to slide into the water,” a male voice urged.
It wasn’t the guy holding me that was speaking, his chest was silent, though all the pretty silver lines along his body had lit up and started glowing.
My body flushed with heat while I tilted my head and caught sight of a second snake-man creature hovering near the exit.
This one was a little smaller, leaner, and paler in color.
“Correct, we should leave,” a deeper, more resonant voice answered.
My skin broke out in goosebumps, my nipples going hard, rubbing against the rougher texture of his scales through the thin shirt I was wearing.
This time I knew it was the male holding me who spoke, I could even sort of tell that he was still speaking a foreign language, I could just suddenly understand it perfectly.
“No!” I said, shaking my head as I looked at the other pods, “We have to get the others out!” I pushed myself off that rock-hard chest, stumbling over a thick coil of his tail, and managed to stay upright by grabbing onto the stasis pod I’d just vacated.
“Hurry!” I urged the males, unsure if they could understand me or not.
I dashed to the nearest pod and ran my fingers over the wake-up sequence, muttering under my breath at the pod to get it to hurry up.
There was a brief, startled silence, and then I heard a whole volley of hissing, growling language exchanged between the two males. The pod I was trying to start was just sliding open when I spotted the long coil of midnight blue scales that curled around the next one.
Oh shit, there was a third of these guys? Yeah, there he was, a huge brute of a male, his dark skin making him blend into the darkened interior of the ship. He was curled over another stasis pod, his face almost pressed against the glass. My skin prickled with unease, why was he so fascinated?
“Where am I?” a frightened female voice asked me.
My eyes slipped from the big male down to the woman I’d just managed to wake up.
“No time to talk. We’re on a crashed ship and it’s about to sink into the water.
Help me wake the others and get out of here.
” My words were clearly distressing the young woman but she bravely bit her lip and struggled out of the pod, her eyes huge as she scanned her surroundings.
I hadn’t heard him approach, he was incredibly quiet as he slithered along the floor between the pods and the debris.
He was just suddenly there, right behind me.
Right in time too because the ship heaved and bucked with another loud groan as it slid a few more feet.
I lost my balance again, stumbling on still weak legs, but this male had his arms back around me immediately, steadying me.
“Easy there, easy,” he rumbled in my ear, again, perfectly understandable.
This time my back was to his front, one of his arms curled around my middle, the other braced on the edge of the stasis pod.
The girl that I’d just woken hadn’t been so lucky, she’d gone down on the other side, quietly sobbing as she struggled back to her feet.
Her eyes were wide and terrified as she noticed the scaly males surrounding us.
“Can you understand me?” I asked the guy holding me, I wanted to help the woman, but it seemed more prudent to get out of this broken, sinking ship first. For that, I’d probably need the help of these aliens.
He made a low hissing sound that was close to a moan, his hand on my belly pressing me more tightly to him.
“Yes, I can. We must hurry if we’re to free all your people. ”
I agreed, my skin breaking out in goosebumps from his mouth, so close to my ear while he spoke. Why was I having such a potent reaction to him? Was it adrenaline fueling me? This was making no sense at all. When he let go of me, I hurried away, trying not to look back as I rushed for the next pod.
It was confusing that when he spoke next, I couldn’t understand a single thing he was saying, but now the smaller of the three males sprung into action.
Messing with the panel of a stasis pod to try and open another stasis pod, while the female I’d woken was leaning against another one.
“Are they safe? Can you understand them?” she asked, voice trembling.
I nodded, “I seem to understand them sometimes, they’re our best bet right now.
We’ll figure the rest out later, okay? Just get these people out before we all sink.
” She took a deep, rallying breath and gave me a nod.
I was glad to see that she was putting her fear aside and getting to work on opening the pod she was next.
There were six pods in all, and only two of us were out yet.
Heading for the next one myself, the huge dark blue male suddenly threw himself in my path.
His huge body rose up high before me, towering over me, while he hissed words at me I couldn’t understand.
I yelped, cringing back, and was immediately curled protectively into the arms of the male who had woken me.
One thick arm bent around me, tucking me into his side, the other brandishing a sharp, curved sword in the face of the other male.