Alien-Under-Cover (22 page)

He relaxed his grip and, as she watched, black tendrils supplanted the red in his eyes. Desperate to keep that passion, even if it was a vestige of anger, she pulled him down and kissed him. He kissed her back, divesting her of her clothes with quick efficient motions. He settled between her legs. “I should pleasure you for a few hours but I want you now.”

She smiled up at him, pulled his head down to her breasts. “I’m sure we could find a way to speed things along.” She sucked in a breath when he nuzzled her breasts and then sucked her nipple into his mouth. “Oh yes.”

Later she lay next to him, lazily tracing his scars. He held absolutely still, as if he didn’t know what to think about her actions. She had the very strong sense that the Zyrgins knew sex, but cuddling and affection outside of bed? That she doubted.

“You are a good fucker, Zurian.” But was he a good man?

***

The next morning Zurian fed his breeder breakfast but didn’t like the way she hid her eyes from him. He’d given her many hours of sex making. Wanted to give her even more, but he’d stopped when she asked him to.

She would never understand the danger of him losing control. To her, his control was not protection but some slight he did not understand. He liked when she talked to him, asked him questions. Even when she argued with him. As improper as that was, he would prefer that to her silence.

He was relieved when Zacar summoned him.

“I have to go. You will stay here.”

She glared at him but stayed silent. He would bet his sword when he returned she would’ve gotten into his equipment. He truly was a deviant Zyrgin because the thought did not anger him.

Zurian walked to the cave and squared his shoulders. He would make her glad to stay with him. When he presented his breeder with her friend, it would show her that he was a good provider. Then she would be happy and not demand the impossible of him.

He entered the cave and nodded to Zacar.

“We need to track this agent that contacted your woman,” Zacar said and speared Azagor with a look. “It could be the human we couldn’t trace in town.”

They’d had a number of equipment break downs in the last year. If not for Azagor, they would’ve been in trouble by the time the supply ship managed to reach them. All of them could do the basics, but Azagor was a genius with equipment.

Azagor immediately got busy with the probes. Zurian knew he’d been unable to locate where the agent called from. Being outsmarted by a primitive human was a blow to their pride. Azagor insisted their equipment malfunctioning was due to faulty supplies from the first ship. The length of time it was taking Julia’s implant to kick in made Zurian very uneasy.

“I have the number,” Azagor said.

“I will ask my breeder to call him when I return to her.” Zurian stood a bit taller. He never thought he would ever be able to say that. “I want to know why he is calling my breeder.”

“You can ask her now. She is about to enter our cave,” Zacar said, his voice very dry.

Zurian turned to see Julia hovering in the entrance, looking closely at the door they’d installed at the opening of the cave, unaware that several alarms had gone off the moment she approached. She must have realized the force field wouldn’t hurt her even if it was not shut off. Zacar had instructed Azagor to calibrate it so that it would not harm their breeders.

“She is dangerously clever with devices,” Zurian told Zacar.

Julia walked deeper into the cave, rubbing her temples. She’d done that a lot these last few weeks.

“Why do you touch your head?”

She stopped and, with her hands on her hips, her toe tapping, glared at him. He did not like her doing that in front of the other warriors. She was particularly good looking when she did that and they had no need to see it.

“
Why
? Let me tell you why. I have the grandfather of all headaches and it’s because you messed with my brain.”

He did not want to alarm her but would get the doctor to look at it anyway. It should have been working already. “Our translator cannot hurt you.”

“I don’t want that flame happy alien anywhere near me.”

Zurian breathed and forced the madness back inside him. To the dark place in his mind where he buried all his rage.

Having a human of your own could be trying. “You are to call the agent again,” Zurian told her.

“His TC address was blocked out. But if you give me more access to some of your equipment I could probably trace it.”

Her casual tone did not deceive him. He could see the interest in her eyes. “We have it. Do you have the physical address yet?” he asked Azagor in the old language.

“No, but as soon as we make contact, I will.”

Zurian turned to Julia. “We are calling. Talk to him and try and find out why he contacted you. How he knew you.”

“All right.”

“He can’t hear us and, if you speak to me, he cannot hear it,” he told her.

“How do you manage that?”

“Superior Zyrgin technology.”

She looked up at the roof and shook her head. She did that a lot.

“What do you want? How did you get this number?” the tinny voice asked.

“It’s me, Julia. Please do you have news of Sarah?”

Something flashed across the screen.

Julia looked up at Zurian with desperate hope in her eyes. “He sent new coordinates.” She turned back to the TC. “Do you have any more useful information on Sarah?”

“They seem to be going underground but I’m fairly sure you friend is at the coordinates I just sent you.”

“Why did you call me and where do you get your information?” Julia asked.

The agent ignored Julia’s question. “The Raiders are surprisingly organized, considering they were almost wiped out not long ago.”

“Are you going to send in forces to rescue the people they hold captive?” Julia asked.

Zurian could have told her that her government hadn’t had forces for a while. If his suspicions were correct, the sudden reappearance of the Raiders was their last effort to take control.

“At the moment, we have no resources available to rescue your friend. If you want her safe, you will have to get your friends to help.”

“What friends?” Julia said with credible innocence.

Zurian did not know if he should feel proud of her or fear for her future.

“The friends who helped you take out the Raider camp last week.”

“I wish whoever did it were my friends, but I’m afraid you have it wrong.”

“I doubt it,” the tinny voice said.

Zurian cut the connection. She looked up at him.

“He seemed very interested in you,” he said. “Something was wrong with that whole conversation. “

“I don’t trust him. He steered us wrong before,” Julia said. “Is it even a man? It could just as well be a woman.”

Zurian looked at Zacar and saw his leader was surprised at this as well. “Women are allowed to be agents? To do such dangerous work? Our probes have not seen anything like this.”

Julia shook her head and frowned at Zurian. “Women do dangerous work and the probes probably didn’t pick up on it because very few women choose to work at that job.” She shrugged. “Very few men actually want to do it these days. Government pay is lousy.”

Zurian looked down at his woman. “Is it a woman?”

Julia shrugged. “I couldn’t tell. The agent disguised his voice. It sounded like a man and I just assumed it was.”

“The agent is trying to trap us,” Zurian said. “We will go to that the camp and interrogate the Raiders before we kill them all.”

“What? No. You just said it’s a trap. You could get killed.”

He knew this was normal behavior for human women but the slight in front of the other warriors grated on his honor. He curled his lip at her. “No human can trap me.”

“Do you think Sarah is really there?”

He wanted to reassure her but, about this, he would be honest. “No.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Julia leaned her head against his chest and clutched her arms around him. He liked her clinging to him. He did not approve of unseemly behavior in public, but this time he would make an exception.

“Is she? Dead, I mean?”

He had to answer her. “Yes, I believe she is dead.” He stroked her hair the way he knew she liked. He searched for something to say to make her feel better about what happened to Sarah. “I will kill all the Raiders and all government agents to avenge her.”

“Maybe not all government agents. Just this one if he betrayed us.”

His breeder was soft in the heart and he liked that. Zacar had already given the command for both agents to be observed.

They were fairly sure one of them, the one that called Julia, operated close by, even out of town. He was surprisingly elusive but the real danger came from the one in Washington.

“If she’s been in a Raider camp all this time, the things they do to women there...” She snuggled closer to him. “I don’t think she’ll ever be normal, even if she’s still alive.”

He knew of nothing to say. The lack of honor among humans frequently surprised the Zyrgins. Natalie blamed them for killing the weak, but the way humans turned on their weak was worse.

“I don’t know if she even would want to go to Charles. She can’t go back to town.”

He had no plans to allow that human male anywhere near the women. “We will give her shelter.”

She smiled at him and he rubbed her lips with his thumb. “It is strange.”

“What is strange?” she asked.

“Your odd smile makes a warrior’s day better.”

“My smile is odd. Never mind. As long as it makes your day better.”

He thought maybe that was sarcasm.

Natalie walked in. “Look, Julia, I found a file with Sarah’s picture. We can show it to the warriors so they’ll know who to look out for.”

She’d brought the whole TC instead of just the file. Primitive human, Zurian smirked. Unlike Zacar, Zurian, at least, had a human with above-average intelligence.

Natalie handed her TC to Zacar. “Here it is.”

A large picture with a tiny blonde woman hovered in the air.

He’d thought on it many times and had decided that Julia was the most beautiful woman in the world. It was a conclusion he’d come to, after logically comparing her features to many of the other Earth women on the TC.

“I never noticed before how sad she always was.”

He vaguely heard Julia speak.

“Me neither, but it’s there in her eyes,” Natalie said.

Both Zacar and Zurian stared at the picture with awe.

“She is the one,” Zacar whispered.

“The one what?” Natalie asked, clearly not happy with her warrior’s reaction to Sarah’s photograph.

“It has been foretold for centuries that a woman would come from a far planet and restore the leader’s honor,” Zacar said.

“And you think Sarah is this woman?” Natalie asked. “Which leader exactly are we talking about here?”

“The leader of all Zyrgin territories,” Zacar said, still staring at the image of Sarah.

Natalie visibly relaxed. She smiled at Julia. “Zacar’s father is the leader of their planet. They don’t make a lot of distinctions with their titles. Zacar is called a leader as well.”

Zacar spoke to Zurian in the old language. “We will not stop until we find her. If she is not walking this planet anymore, we will kill her murderers and their children’s children.”

“It will be done,” Zurian agreed.

“How can you be sure it’s her? Julia is blonde as well,” Natalie asked.

Zurian resisted the urge to bare his teeth at his leader’s breeder’s disrespect. “The mark on her neck.”

“So how exactly is she supposed to restore the leader’s honor?” Julia asked. She had her hands on her hips and her head dipped sideways. She was looking at him and Natalie strangely. Did she suspect?

Zurian looked at Zacar and knew his leader was just as glad as he was that humans could not read their faces.

“We do not exactly know how,” Zacar said.

Zurian was quite happy to stay silent and let Zacar do the lying. The humans called it plausible deniability and Zurian planned on using it when they found her friend. He was not a warrior stupid enough to think Julia would not find out the truth.

They returned to their dwelling.

When they were alone, he turned to her. “I will feed you now and make sure you do not become skinny. Then we fuck.”

“You can be so conservative and then turn crude. But we have to talk about your habit of killing people.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I can’t live with a cold-blooded murderer.”

“I am a warrior. I do not commit murder.” He did not understand why a murderer’s blood should be cold. Didn’t that describe her better than him?

“You killed John for his identity.”

“I followed orders and did my duty as a warrior.”

“Zacar ordered you to kill him?”

“He did not have to. This is not for you to know or discuss.”

Zurian realized this was one of those times he would have to cater to her like Zacar suggested. “I will give some thought to your concerns about killing.”

She had a strange look on her face and he thought it might be suspicion. He picked her up and placed her on the counter, moving between her legs.

Her strange brows went up. “Did your sex manual tell you to do this?”

“It said that it was important to have sex in strange places at odd times of the day to ensure a relationship retain spontaneity.”

She looked at him. Her lashes fluttered then she leaned her forehead against him and her shoulders shook.

“If it makes you cry, we do not have to be this spontaneous.”

Her shoulders shook harder. She threw back her head and her laughter peeled out. He cringed at the terrible sound but was relieved that she wasn’t crying.

She pulled him closer, tugged his head down, and kissed him. He clenched his hands. This was not proper but she enjoyed kissing him. He would give her this.

She kissed him and all the blood in his body rushed to his groin. It would please her if he responded. He allowed himself to experience the feeling of her soft lips, the texture of her tongue against his. He grabbed her knees and pulled her even closer to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her skin was cool. Humans ran at lower temperatures than Zyrgins. They’d speculated on this but it turned him on. Sometimes, he thought how it would be if he made her hot. Pleasured her until she exploded with heat. The evil inside him tried to burst free. Very carefully he forced it back, continued to kiss Julia with the appearance of strong emotions.