Chapter 3
Felicia
My body ached, and my stomach roiled fiercely.
I was so close to vomiting that I was overpowered with the urge to rise.
I was up and hanging over the edge of the pod before I gave the conscious command to do so.
There wasn’t much in my stomach—I hadn’t really eaten the morning of the Future’s launch—but still, bitter bile rose and splattered on the floor.
I blinked bleary eyes that struggled to focus and, with growing horror, realized that no, that was not the floor I’d just puked all over.
It was a stretch of something with black scales that glittered with hints of gold and green.
A tail, a snake tail, but really big. My stomach was still rebelling, and I fought back another wave of heaving.
My eyes tracked the tail across the ground inside the dim interior of the Future.
That tail, it kept going, and going, coil after thick coil.
It had to belong to a creature that was gargantuan, and even knowing that, I was not prepared to discover who it belonged to.
My eyes climbed from tail to a fur-clad upper body.
The fur tunic, with long sleeves and a hood, was a confusing shade of lavender, edged with white and black decorative fringe at the hood and hem.
A belt weighed down with tools cinched around that tunic over narrow hips, but the shoulders rising above it were wide and impressive.
I didn’t think the thick fur was adding much to that, this… creature really was that big.
His face was what caught me by surprise: sharp cheekbones, a beautiful jawline that ended with a horn of pale ivory jutting from it.
That dark mouth was incredibly lush, the nose straight and ridged with scales, and his eyes…
glowing a beautiful gold, his pupils narrow, vertical slits.
This was definitely a he, although I was basing that solely on his extraordinary appearance and the impressive width of his shoulders.
Everything about him simply screamed man, barbaric, possessive, and very alien man.
“Fuck,” I swore, swallowing roughly as I clutched the edge of my stasis pod and stared.
“You’re an alien. Aliens are real! Aliens are fucking real!
” The mixture of feelings colliding in my chest was intense, and I struggled to breathe as the enormity of my discovery rushed through me.
The FTLdrive had worked! It had worked! I was beyond happy to discover that, even if I was now going to have to find my way back to Earth somehow to report back, and I obviously had no clue where I was.
I’d flown so far that I’d arrived somewhere where alien life existed, and that was the big one.
Now I had proof that our efforts to explore space were worth it, there really were others out there!
Others like him, the beautiful, and surprisingly humanoid-looking alien.
Oh… the alien whose tail I’d puked all over not long ago.
Horrified, I lowered my gaze to the evidence: pale yellow chunks splattered across the beautiful black scales of the segment of tail right next to my pod. Way to screw up first contact.
“I’m so sorry,” I said weakly. Maybe the shock of it all was getting to me, maybe it was the stint in stasis, but I felt extremely lethargic; exhausted.
It was cold in here too, though my flight suit protected me from some of it.
Not so cold that my breath misted in the air, but close.
I tried looking around to see what state my ship was in, but the stranger took up so much space inside it that it was hard to look at anything but him.
“I didn’t mean to throw up on you. That was an accident,” I continued.
My hand lifted to gesture at the mess on his tail, but it was a struggle to do that much at all.
The thought struck me that he might not be a friendly alien.
Just because I’d found one didn’t mean he wanted to be my friend, and after I’d puked on him?
Even less likely, was it? I gulped, because all he was doing was staring at me, and I couldn’t figure out if it was because he was mad or because he was as surprised by my appearance as I was by his.
In any case, he hadn’t even looked at the mess I’d made on his tail.
He leaned in a little closer, his upper body perched on that massive tail.
He was sort of at the foot of my stasis pod, but when he leaned in, it was a little too easy for comfort to approach.
I realized that massive tail allowed him to hover above me, his upper body—the human-looking part of him—perpendicular to my pod.
Then he reached out with his hand. I flinched back, falling into the padded stasis pod with a thump, but I could not avoid that touch.
His palm was gentle as it cupped my face, warm too, but also textured in a way a human hand never would be.
Very fine scales covered his flesh, and I felt them like soft, dry bumps.
It was kind of pleasant, actually. Maybe he was very barbaric; his society might not have gained any significant technological advancements yet.
He wore leather and fur, after all, and what was on his belt was all in crude pouches.
Perhaps I’d ended up on a world that hadn’t advanced past the Stone Age yet.
The touch lingered, warm, still gentle; a caress.
I didn’t realize how significant that moment was until I saw his eyes grow huge in his alien, but shockingly handsome, face.
He was right above me, his strange body allowing him to be on top of my prone form without actually touching me anywhere.
A soft light was beginning to glow inside the narrow interior of the Future.
That light felt a bit like warmth too, or perhaps that was just the heat radiating down from him onto me.
Whatever it was, the slight tremor in my body began to ease.
“You can, uh, move. I’m not going to puke on you a second time, I promise.
” I couldn’t actually promise that; my stomach was still a mess.
I’d rather puke all over myself than puke on him again, though, as disgusting as that would be.
I was just a little scared that if he stayed above me like this, I’d end up throwing up in his face.
His head cocked to the side, listening, and long strands of black hair fell out from his pale fur hood.
They surrounded my face, a curtain that enclosed us in a tiny, intimate cocoon.
“If you must be sick, you may be sick on me if that pleases you, sweet mate,” he said.
His voice was gruff, with hints of a hiss in it, but his tone was so full of awe that I could only stare up at him in shock.
What? Wait, how was it possible that he spoke my language?
His hand remained against the side of my face, but he shifted, and I heard a soft whispering noise that could possibly indicate his tail was sliding along the floor.
Now he wasn’t hovering right above me, but at the side of the pod.
Still close, still touching me, but not invading my space so much that I felt pinned.
I wasn’t worried he was hostile anymore; now I was just worried he was a freak.
I could throw up on him if that pleased me?
Who the fuck said that? Not anyone normal, that was certain, but…
I kind of really liked the way he was looking at me.
Like I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on.
The awe in his green gaze made me feel a million bucks, not like death warmed over.
“Oh, uh, no, that doesn’t please me. I’d much prefer not throwing up at all, you know?
” Holly Hannah, why was the first-ever conversation I was having with a real, honest-to-God alien about freaking puke, of all things?
This was so embarrassing and weird. It was really weird, and I wanted to change the topic so bad, except my roiling stomach really made it a struggle to think of much else.
“I see, sweet mate,” he said agreeably. His voice had this really sexy rumble to it; it was very distracting. Why did he call me mate, sweet mate, at that? I’d never had a guy call me that, not even when we were dating. You’d think he was Australian, but that made very little sense…
“Allow me to heal you,” he asked next. I nodded before I could think better of it, my hand going up to my face to cover my mouth.
I really was very close to puking again, and I had to fight to keep the rising bile down.
This was terrible, absolutely terrible. My fingers brushed against the hand he still had cupped against my face, and his scales felt so warm and solid, so real. I focused on that, but it was hard.
He lowered his free hand to a pouch hanging from his belt, but then he grimaced when he discovered he couldn’t get what he needed from it.
He had to use his second hand, and it slid from my face with obvious reluctance, fingers stroking my temple, my cheek, the bridge of my nose.
I tingled—absolutely tingled—all over. The feeling of being sick faded to the back of my mind for a moment.
He freed a glittering silver-and-gold object from his pouch and slid it over his right hand with practiced ease. What was it? Heal me? It only just began to register how odd a request it was. How could he heal me? With that thing? Maybe it was some kind of primitive ritual he thought would help me.
Something touched my face again, and I screamed in fright, all my Air Force training flying right out the window.
I was weak, tired, exhausted, and feeling very sick; I’d never felt so low.
It still was no excuse. All it was was the tip of his tail, narrow but agile, sliding against my temple and touching my throat.
Not gripping, just a gentle pressure. It was still creepy.