Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (35 page)

“See?” Araimeer said, and Allie looked up to see that his
eyes were a striking yellow-gold—and curiously moving, as though the pigment
were alive. “We look a little less human now.”

 Viseer stood up and helped Allie to her feet, and she tried
not to stare too hard at his eyes, which were orange-red, like campfire. His
expression was grim, but he seemed a lot more willing to be friendly with her
now that he didn’t have to hide part of himself from her. “More dangerous, too.
So let us handle the jellyfish when it comes.”

Allie laughed, and she was shocked to find that her voice
sounded different to her ears—stronger, rougher. “Why would I try to jump in?”
she felt curiosity well up inside her, but it was squashed when she saw
something moving toward the dome. She gasped. “The jelly fish!”

The two men turned and ran toward the largest hole in the
ship, watching the mutant jellyfish swim toward them, its fang-filled mouth
gaping wide open. Allie felt oddly without fear, and she wondered if it had
anything to do with the electricity surging through her veins.

“Do you see it?” Viseer was asking.

Araimeer nodded. “Yeah, right below its mouth. It’s glowing
so bright I can see it right through the skin.”

“Think the dome is strong enough to kill it?”

“Probably just stun it,” Araimeer answered. It was one
hundred feet away now, and they both sank into crouched positions, readying
their bodies for the fight. “It’ll thrash a little bit. Then just phase out,
stab through its back—“

Allie’s eyes zeroed in on the jellyfish and the small spot
of gold where the artifact had been embedded in its body, just below its mouth.
She felt compelled to drift forward toward the two men, standing just behind
their crouched forms and gazing at the monster as it came closer.

“Okay,” Viseer said, grim determination threading his voice.
“Ten seconds. It’s almost as big as this damn ship. Maybe we can—“

 Viseer’s voice was cut short as a low note filled the dome,
like a huge gong had been struck. Allie felt her hands rise into the air, but
she wasn’t moving them—
what’s moving them?
The low note intensified,
vibrating every cell and fiber in her body, and the air thickened and started
to heat up until it wasn’t breathable any longer. The two aliens turned to
Allie, their eyes and mouths wide open with shock.

“Her eyes,” Araimeer said, his voice soft with awe and fear.
“Her eyes are glowing.”

Allie felt something shift inside her, like a heavy switch
being thrown, and there was a violent
pop
ping sound; there was a long,
guttural scream, and Viseer and Araimeer turned forward in time to see a chunk
of golden material burst forward from the mutant’s mouth when it was mere feet
away from the dome. It hung suspended in the air for a moment, and Allie could
see the vibrations of the note shaking the stone clean of jellyfish’s
innards—then it sailed through the barrier to land right in Allie’s hands.

As soon as her hands closed around the stone, the humming
stopped and the air returned to normal—but the scene outside the dome was far
less peaceful. Allie collapsed to her knees and fell to her side as the huge
creature exploded, sending clear, slimy liquid and a viscous slew of organs
raining over the dome. Viseer and Araimeer crowded around Allie again,
murmuring in hushed, panicked tones as they piled a robe underneath her head.
All she could hear was the steady sound of their voices; none of the words were
clearly audible at all.

It took a few minutes for her hearing to return, but when it
did, Viseer and Araimeer were considerably calmer.

“Okay, her eyes are opening.”

She looked up to see Viseer and Araimeer peering straight
down at her, the sky above them littered with starfish organs. Araimeer smiled
beatifically, but Viseer looked upset.

“Why did you do that? We told you to stay back!”

Araimeer shot a withering look at Viseer. “Viseer, she
obviously didn’t do it on purpose. She had no idea what was going on, couldn’t
you tell?”

Allie tried to sit up, and the two men each helped her with
a hand on her lower back. “What happened?”

 Viseer laughed abruptly. “
You
happened. I knew you
weren’t just human.”

And icy wave of fear washed over Allie. “What?”

Araimeer pointed to the glow in her hands. “Allie, you’re
not supposed to do that. You’re not supposed to be able to take all of our
energy and hold it in you. It’s supposed to pass through you, almost like gas.”

“Pass through me?” She repeated, looking down at her naked
body. “So…what’s going on? Why am I like this?”

 Viseer shrugged. “You’re a conduit. I thought you might be
when we picked you up. I didn’t want to believe it, but you’re clearly not
dying from the electricity we poured into you, and you didn’t even pass out.”

“You suspected she was a conduit?” Araimeer asked, his
cheeks reddening as he spoke. “And you didn’t mention it to me?”

“The way you were mooning over her, I assumed you’d figured
it out,” Viseer said, frowning. “Why else would we both be so drawn to her? Why
else would the transpo-spheres pick her up? We were scavenging for parts that we
could use for the transporter as well as conduits. She got picked up, so she
must be a conduit. Just a bigger, more fleshy conduit than we’re used to.”

Araimeer and Viseer glared at each other, and Allie wondered
if they were about to fight. Then she cleared her throat, bringing their
attention back to her. “Sorry, but what’s a conduit?”

Araimeer looked at her sheepishly. “It means you can handle
large amounts of energy in much the same way we can. It’s rare for someone
outside our species to be able to do it.”

“Other members of your species are like this?” Viseer and
Araimeer exchanged another look, and something stirred in her mind. “Wait…
all
of you aren’t electric gods? Can some of you do other stuff?”

Araimeer looked surprised. “Well, yeah, somebody’s gotta be
average, so not everyone has abilities. And some of us have other elements we
can control—fire, minerals, water. Water would have been real handy.”

“But maybe not as handy as you. You summoned the stone,”
Viseer said. “You’re stronger than we thought. I never thought we’d find a
human this strong.”

“I never thought we’d find a human so calm,” Araimeer said,
looking at Allie closely. “How do you feel? Your color is returning, and your
eyes are back to normal.”

Allie took a deep breath, wondering how to answer the
question. She felt better than she’d felt in years, but she didn’t want to
admit what this meant for her. The entire ship probably knew about the attack
by now, and would be sending submarines down to look for the wreckage. When her
body wasn’t found, she would be presumed dead.
Poor Collin,
she thought.
Then:
Poor Carter.

Then something stirred in her mind. “You said you guys are
travelers?”

 Viseer look startled. “Yes, but you didn’t answer our—“

“And I’m a conduit. So I’m stronger than other humans?”

Araimeer smiled. “Yes, but—“

“Okay.” Allie said. “What if I tag along with you guys?”

 Viseer shook his head at once. “Absolutely not. It’s too
dangerous. Do you even know the first thing about space? What about your
health? What about your ship?”

“Her ship thinks she’s dead,” Araimeer reminded Viseer
gently. The other alien fell silent, looking embarrassed. “And it’s our fault
in the first place. You wanted to play with that jellyfish, and I let you.
You’re fascination with Earth creatures finally got us in trouble, and it
nearly cost us a human life. What would the council say?”

 Viseer’s cheeks blushed a brilliant red. “Fine,” he spat.
“She can stay with us. For a while!” he added, as Araimeer and Allie cheered.
“A trial run. In the meantime, we can think about contacting someone on your
ship at some point, doing damage control if it’s an option. Now we have to get
back to base, though. Is that okay with you, Allie?”

“That’s fine,” Allie responded gleefully. She and Araimeer
grinned at each other while Viseer grumbled to himself and began to slip the
lightening stone into it a soft pouch before stowing deep in the transporter’s
engine. Her heart was pounding, and not from fear, but from the dizzying
excitement of finding a new adventure at last. Araimeer slipped his cloak back
on pulled out a fresh one for Allie; it fit her snugly, almost like it had been
made for her in advance.

Araimeer turned to her and put one arm around her shoulder
while Viseer finished packing up their surroundings. “So, you never did tell us
how you feel now. How do you feel?”

Allie looked at the old wooden ship above them, with its
dome of light protecting it from the crushing waters around them. Viseer
flipped a switch on the transporter; after a moment, a beam of light flickered
on and a shimmering doorway appeared out of thin air just behind it—she could
see shifting dunes made of vibrantly colored sand, rounded matte-finished
buildings in pastel shades, and disc-like vehicles zipping around in midair. 
Viseer had called it their base—was it their home planet? Whatever it was, it
meant they were ready to report back, and Allie would need to be on her toes
while she learned all she could on their next adventure.
I’ll call Carter,
tell him I’m alive and I’m doing my own thing for a while. It’s going to be
hard, but he’ll understand,
she decided as she gazed at the teleporter;
then she laughed, imagining herself bursting out of his dorm room closet to
deliver the news instead.

She raised her eyes to Araimeer’, taking his hand in hers as
they followed Viseer toward the teleporter’s doorway. “I’ve never felt so
alive.”

THE END

Joran felt the buzz of the comm
unit on his wrist as he strode through the human train station; for the moment
he ignored it. His superiors on the ship could wait for his progress report—he
had more interesting things directly in front of him.

He had spent the months of
transit to this planet in preparation for the assignment he and twenty other
scientists had been given; Joran smiled slightly to himself in memory of the
research. The planet they had come to was densely populated—much more so than
his home planet,
Khatanar (called
Tau Ceti e by Earthlings)
—with lower gravity and a refreshingly lower
normal temperature everywhere. The dominant life forms on the planet, the
humans, were more diverse genetically than the Khateen, Joran’s own species.
That genetic diversity was both the reason for the mission and the biggest
hurdle to the goal of the mission.

Joran watched as a human woman
paused at a ticket kiosk, glancing around furtively. She had been the focus of
his attention from the moment she stepped onto the train; while Joran had not
quite become accustomed to the various shapes, sizes, and traits of human females—and
he had not yet come around to find them precisely attractive in a sexual
sense—it was difficult for him not to stare from behind the dark-tinted glasses
that he had adopted as part of his costume.

She was of medium height for
human norms, and would have only reached Joran’s chest, standing in front of
him. Somehow, however, when she stepped onto the train, looking around quickly
to find a free seat, she seemed taller—an anomaly that Joran couldn’t quite
understand. Her clothing subtly emphasized her full, heavy-looking breasts, the
narrowing at her waist, and the flare of hips that suggested that she was
sexually mature—and that she would be a very viable option for reproduction.

Joran had felt a hot jolt of
something he couldn’t initially identify; keener than objective interest, more
potent than scientific curiosity. He had carefully avoided her notice even as
he stared at her, and even as he followed her off of the train and into the
station. It had been impossible not to see the sway of her hips as she walked
in front of him; he wondered why every male in the crowded train station wasn’t
responding to it. Joran had watched a great deal of educational material,
excerpts taken by his superiors and compiled in order to understand the
vagaries of human sexuality.

His comm unit buzzed at his
wrist again. Joran tapped the screen, sending an acknowledgement. He may have
found the subject he was sent to locate; the thought filled him with a mixture
of heady scientific interest and something much more intensely personal.

The mission Joran had signed on
for was to locate specimens of the human race—female, for the purposes of the
current mission, though there were some among the scientific community who
thought that a future mission should include males of the species—in order to
determine whether a hybrid race could be created. From what little
understanding the Khateen had of the human genetic code, it was more complex
than their own, far less stable, and prone to mutations. The humans themselves
did not seem to recognize the wealth that this trait had—their efforts at
genetic engineering were still in infancy, and information gleaned about common
opinions on the subject suggested that most were against the idea of tampering.

The question at hand was
whether scientists could somehow cross the inter-species barrier between the
two races, to either incorporate human genetics into their own code, or to
create a new race that combined the benefits of both. Joran and his colleagues
were each assigned the task of recruiting human females for experimentation;
and Joran thought to himself, watching the woman walking away from the kiosk,
looking around the station for the signs, that he may have found an excellent
subject indeed. Everything about her boasted reproductive viability; her
general shape, the look of good health, and something like vigor in the way she
moved told him that she was likely fertile. Joran felt another hot jolt work
through him as he surreptitiously moved closer to her, the better to take in
details.

The more he watched her, the
more Joran began to think of how he could persuade this woman to come with him.
He knew from his research that human females were highly alert to improper
advances; there was something he had read, a human essay, about a phenomenon
called “cat-calling,” which suggested that if he tried to make an overt
move—especially a loud or vocal one—she would reject him outright, feeling
threatened by his aggressiveness.

Joran tried to decide how best
to approach this female. On
Khatanar
,
it would be so much simpler; mating was decided by genetic index, with mates
chosen from a pool of candidates based on the need to unite and mingle families
rather than individuals. From what Joran had seen in his attentive watching of
human film art, this was not generally the case among their people. There was a
complex, often paradoxical dance that seemed to result in failure much more
frequently than success. And yet there were so many humans on the planet that
Joran’s superiors had thought for certain that none of the women they took for
the purposes of their testing would be missed. They would be less than a drop
in a barrel, as far as the population of the planet’s humans were concerned.

He contemplated how he would
perform the maneuver that he had seen called “breaking the ice” with this
female as he followed her towards the newly-arrived train, and Joran thought
that he would soon see just how well the various safeguards he had been told to
implement worked to disguise him as a human male. If nothing else, he thought
wryly, it would be a good test; but he knew that if he were not able to recruit
this woman, he would be very disappointed in himself.