Chapter 2 #2
“Watch it Iave! What the blasting sun is wrong with you?” he angrily demanded.
His voice a hissing growl that seemed to filter through my brain into crystal clear words.
The huge brute backed up, raising his palms, dipping his chin in deference.
While my protector had two sharp bone-white tusks sticking from his chin, this guy had only one with a broken jagged tip, he pressed that almost into his own throat.
“Please, tell her to open that coffin now!” the male rumbled, his arm swinging to the side to point at the stasis pod he’d been curled over a moment ago.
I looked at it and felt a shiver of apprehension, what was he going to do to its occupant?
He seemed completely obsessed with that pod.
There was no choice though, we had to open it if we wanted to save the person inside it, and I very much wanted to get everyone safely off this broken ship.
“Okay!” I said, but the arm around my middle was keeping me from going. And the brute was repeating his demand, more angrily this time. I tilted my head so I could look up at the guy holding me. Really, I appreciated the help and the defense, but seriously he didn’t need to keep manhandling me.
“Tell him I’ll do it,” I ordered, his sharp azure eyes flicking down to my face for a quick second before glaring at the other male again.
With a little shiver, I realized his eyes had narrow stripes as pupils, they were very, non-human-looking eyes, and the glare was intense.
Despite the size difference, I figured the midnight blue brute had to be sweating it by now.
“Move aside, she’ll open the pod,” he said with a hiss, lips curled up to display a long set of impressive fangs.
“Back off Iave! I’m warning you.” The midnight male curled his body backward, moving out of the way, but my guy wasn’t letting me walk off.
I was suddenly up in the air, cradled protectively against his wide chest while he slid his long body in two rapid curls toward the right pod.
When my feet touched the ground, he never moved away, his chest pressed close against my back.
“Back off buddy, haven’t you heard of personal space?
” I demanded, my fingers already flying across the stasis pod’s controls.
Inside the pod, I could see a young woman, she was very pretty.
She had dark skin and tight curls on top of her head, the sides shaved in a geometric pattern.
I really hoped she was made of sturdier stuff than the first girl I’d freed, she was going to need it if she had to deal with Mister Midnight over there.
He hadn’t approached, just hovered a little distance away, watching avidly as I worked on the pod.
“If I back off, you and I cannot speak,” the male at my back declared, drawing my attention back to my own problem.
It looked like Midnight wasn’t the only one who’d fixated on a female.
I wasn’t sure what to think of Azure-Eyes picking me, I wasn’t planning to be some alien’s pet or worse…
Of course, the thought of what this male might like to do to me seemed to turn my traitorous body on.
“Wait, we can only understand each other if we’re touching?” I asked, his words penetrating. So maybe it wasn’t the same kind of obsession as Midnight had for this woman. Maybe he was just being practical. Figures, nobody ever wanted me. Why would it be any different with an alien?
He didn’t answer, his attention suddenly snapping to the side, zeroing in on the crumbled front of the ship.
“Iave, Corin, I think there’s a person trapped in there.
Get her out, she’s probably injured,” his clawed hand pointed at a section of rubble.
Despite the standoff between Midnight, I think his name was Iave, and my guy only moments ago, he rushed to do his bidding now.
The two males hurried to shift debris with precision to get to whoever was trapped there.
As the pod opened in front of me, I hurriedly focused my attention on the woman.
She blinked awake, freezing while she took in her surroundings and the hulking shadow, glued to my back.
“It’s okay,” I started, hurrying to explain our dire situation, and that so far these males didn’t seem like a threat.
With a glare over my shoulder, I added, “We’ll figure that part out later. ”
The female was lithe and strong and with practiced moves she jumped from her pod. “I’m Kalani,” she declared, her dark eyes scanning the wreckage of the ship before settling with a fierce look on the male behind. “I will help get everyone out. Careful, they look dangerous.”
She made no fuss at all as she slunk between the pods on light feet and started urging the female I’d woken and the one other that had climbed out of their pod to the tear in the hull.
I noticed that it was a guy, so we weren’t all girls, and only two pods remained to be opened.
I hurried to the nearest one, yanking myself out of Azure-Eyes’ grip to get there.
He seemed willing enough to let me go this time.
Bending over the pod I got to work, pressing the buttons to make its occupant wake up.
It was another female, but this pod had taken some dents and scratches from fallen debris so the glass was clouded.
I hoped she was all right in there, I needed to get her out fast because whatever it was the snake-men were doing at the front of the ship, it was causing more water to run inside. I could hear it burbling and swishing.
Something bumped into my ankle, causing me to stifle a scream, but it was only the light blue and silver tip of a tail.
It curled against the bare skin of my ankle, and I wondered if it was Azure-Eyes’ way of making contact without quite encroaching on my damn space so much.
When I cast a look his way, I saw that he was lifting a huge chunk of debris out of the way so that his smaller friend could slide in and lift out an injured woman.
Mr. Midnight was doing the same from the other side and the way their impressive muscles strained as they worked, it definitely had my eyes linger for a second longer than necessary.
The thunk of the cover of the pod opening had me turn to look at the pod’s occupant, the woman inside it small and frail-looking.
If I had to guess, I’d say she was not exactly healthy.
She struggled to open her eyes, her dark lashes feathering against the deep bruising beneath each eye.
“Woah,” she muttered, staring up at me in surprise, “Aren’t you Vera Clayborne? I thought you got executed.”
Taken aback by her statement I floundered a little for words.
“I am, and I thought I was executed but the UAR screwed us over a second time.” I updated her in a few short sentences about the situation while assisting her into sitting up, she ruefully eyed her legs as she started using her hands to pull them free of the pod.
They were thin, lacking any kind of muscle definition, and with some horror, I realized this girl probably couldn’t walk at all.
That had to be terrifying, to be that vulnerable in this situation.
“I’m Naomi,” she offered, sticking out her hand while she bravely started to slide out of the pod, balancing on the edge with what looked like a well-rehearsed move.
I shook her palm, “Not to be rude, but you probably aren’t going to be walking fast are you?
” Her eyes had a determined gleam to them as she declared that she’d keep up.
“Iave, pick her up and get her out of here,” I heard Azure-Eyes demand of his hulking friend.
I didn’t like the sound of that but the male swooped in almost immediately, startling me with his speed.
Naomi didn’t utter a sound as the huge, strange alien slung her into his arms, though I saw how wide her eyes had gone.
“It’s all right! So far they’ve been helping us,” I tried to reassure her.
I had absolutely no idea if that would continue to be the case or if they were going to sacrifice us to a volcano or eat us at a later point in time.
Right now, they seemed the be our best bet for safety, and my odd attraction to Azure-Eyes was making me recklessly desperate to just trust them.
Stupid idea, never let your damn ovaries do the leading.
I rushed for the last pod, catching sight from the periphery of my eyes of the smaller male slithering after Naomi and Midnight out of the wreckage.
He was cradling the injured female they’d dug out from the front carefully in his arms, a concerned expression on his face that warmed me.
Didn’t look to me like that one had thoughts of eating us in mind.
Right as I reached the last pod, close to the huge tear in the side of the ship.
The entire vessel lurched and shook, and a wave of black water washed up over my feet.
I grabbed for the pod but missed by a hair as the trembling of the ship got so bad that I went tumbling down into the murky depths filling up the wreckage.
A hard appendage curled around my midriff and yanked me upright, spluttering and spitting out water. I was disoriented for a moment because everything around me had shifted, only the band of scaly flesh around my middle remained the same. “Hang on, I’ve got you mate,” a deep voice rumbled.
I was hanging in his tail, azure eyes blinking at me from somewhere above me.
It was even darker than before but I could just make out that the entire vessel had tilted, now it was almost vertical in the water.
That tail had me dangling suspended above the surface and from the only source of light, I could just make out the shadowy shape of a pair of wide shoulders.
Then something fell from above, clunking me in the head, and everything went dark.