Page 46 of Alien Rescue

“How on earth can you eat that, it’s awful.” It was bitter and the texture was slimy on her tongue. She gagged again and rinsed her mouth. “Water,” she gasped.

He got up and brought her back a glass of water and cleaned up the stuff she’d spat all over him. “That is disgusting. How can you eat it?” She greedily swallowed the water.

He shrugged. “It’s field rations. It’s not supposed to taste good; it keeps up my strength.”

She shuddered and picked up the spoon he’d laid on the coffee table. Food was the last thing she wanted, but she needed to focus on something. She dipped the spoon she found next to the bowl into the soup. “Would you like some of my soup?”

His lip curled ever so slightly. “It will not give me the nutritional value I need.” And based on his reaction, wouldn’t taste good to him either.

Sometime during these last few days, she’d stopped thinking of him as an alien. His features didn’t differ much when he was human. But she’d gotten used to his Zyrgin features. Now the differences between them was hammered home again. She shrugged. “Your loss, it’s really good.”

“I have what I need.” He finished his pink stuff, and she suppressed a shudder at the remembered feel of it on her tongue. He sat back. “Some warriors feed their breeders.”

“Why?” He’d tried to feed her coffee, when she was still recovering.

“Our Parenadorz lost his first breeder because she refused to eat. He lost his honor.”

“She starved herself to death?” She couldn’t imagine anyone could do that. Their Parenadorz must be a monster.

“I know only rumors. But it is believed that she starved herself so that she would be weak enough to die when she killed herself.”

Rose frowned at him. “Why would she have to starve herself to be able to die? If she put a pistol to her head or cut an artery, she’d die anyway.”

“She...had a strong constitution. She could recover from almost anything.” There was something he wasn’t telling her here.

“That’s horrible. Was he bad to her? Did he hurt her?”

He looked around as if he expected his emperor to appear at any moment. “Never say such a thing again. The Parenadorz would never hurt a female. Definitely not his breeder.”

“I see.” She had her doubts about that, but she’d keep that little fact to herself. Why would that woman kill herself when there was so much to live for? Rose would give anything for the nanos in her blood to be gone. Every minute she could be alive would be a gift.

“How did you become one of Parnell’s agents?” Zanr asked.

Rose thought about it, but she couldn’t see the harm in telling him the truth. He knew most of it anyway. “Since you know where my family lives, I assume you know they own a pharmaceutical company?”

“Yes.”

“After the big medical crash six decades ago, many abandoned warehouses had drugs and supplies in them, and my grandfather seized many of the warehouses and their content and started a pharmaceutical company.” She smiled ruefully. “No one stopped him.”

“An enterprising human.”

“We became rich and powerful overnight.” Sometimes she wondered what her life would be like if they weren’t rich. If she’d be welcomed by her family. In her darkest moments she wondered if the grandmother, who’d left her a trust, had lived longer, if she still would’ve left Rose the money.

“From selling drugs.”

“Legal drugs, yes.” Though they sold a lot of the drugs and were invested in research, they didn’t make even close to the amount of money pharmaceuticals made in the Golden Age. Then, everyone had been entitled to medical aid and the companies selling the medication assured of their profits.

“When did your blood stop speaking to you?”

She frowned at him. “My blood? Oh, you mean my family. When I was eight, after I was kidnapped.” Rose bit her lip. Why did she say that? She never talked about those dark days, when very bad men had held her captive.

A low rumbling came from the alien. She could feel his big body become rock hard where he sat next to her. “These kidnappers have been caught and tortured?”

“No.” Lately, along with her doubts about Parnell, she’d been thinking about the kidnapping. She’d put together the pieces she remembered and looked at it with grown-up eyes, and the reason the kidnappers got away was disturbing.

“Why not?”

“They got away and disappeared, and the police seemed unable to find them.”

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