Page 4 of Argurma Monster

“A02,” she murmured in greeting, her mouth trembling as she spoke his file designation aloud for the first time in a great many years.

As if to reply in the affirmative, long spidery legs unfolded from around him and his mandibles clicked softly. He appeared every inch a looming monster closing in to devour her. His lips parted, revealing his sharp teeth.

“Talech,” he corrected in a hiss of sound that made her tremble.

“Talech,” she echoed. “You may not remember me, but I am Beverly.”

Her eyes widened as her mouth snapped shut in horror. What was wrong with her? Had she suddenly become suicidal? Or maybe the morphine had made her tongue far too loose. The last thing he needed to know was that she was responsible in part for the pain he experienced toward the end.

To her surprise, he shook his head, his eyes narrowing on her face.

“I am not?” She gave him a befuddled look, wondering just how badly the drugs were impacting her.

“You are only one thing,” he rumbled.

“Which is?”

“Mine.”

Her lips parted as she exhaled sharply in disbelief. She wished she could laugh and claim that it was not true, but a grimness had settled onto his features making them appear colder than ever, daring her to contradict him. Was this some sort of justice distributed by the universe for what she had been party to? He had once been hers... But now the tables had turned, and he was letting her know irrefutably that it was her life now in another’s hands. His.

Chapter 4

Talech frowned at his irritable mate, his vibrissae puffing up around him in vexation. She was reluctant to take proper nutrition from him despite the wounded condition of her body. She had tolerated it well enough when she was under the influence of the drugs that kept her pain receptors dull—something that Argurmas only required once during their first series of neural implants, which came with pain response dampeners that could be activated to manage pain or even go as far as turn off pain receptors temporarily if necessary. Humans, it seemed, had not yet bothered to develop something so fundamental for their own species. He was not surprised and therefore surmised that he must know, buried somewhere in the recesses of his fragmented systems, such practices were not common among other species—as foolhardy as it seemed.

Even now, watching his mate struggle, he wished he had the ability to shut her pain receptors down so that she could at minimum sleep at night in complete relief instead of suffering as she was. Not only did he dislike seeing her suffer, but her pain made her temperament unpleasant and did nothing to temper her stubbornness.

His mandibles clicked unhappily, and the vibrissae embedded around them sent a disconcerting shock of information through him as they skimmed the air. He snapped them closed in frustration so that they were cushioned against the sides of his face, the vibrissae withdrawing into the pocket of flesh on the inner side of the mandible’s root, cutting off the sudden rush of input. He growled a curse beneath his breath, drawing Beverly’s attention to him, her head snapping to direct a glare at him as she hobbled to her chair, her hand resting against the tender flesh that had been devastated.

He was becoming accustomed to glares and scowls. He was not certain if he would even know how to react or if he would even recognize her within his processors if she did something as foreign as bare her teeth in her strange human smile at him. As strange as it was, he still wanted it and coveted it.

“I should help,” he grumbled, but her hand snapped up in warning. He narrowed his eyes as he considering violating her order to assist her. “You need help.”

“I will be just fine,” she replied in a thin, weak voice. “You just stay over there where I can keep an eye on you.”

He deflated. Why did she not want his help? “You do not trust me.”

“Bingo, Captain Obvious.”

“Why?” He did not understand her words, but he gathered the intended meaning from the scorn in her tone. It upset him.

“Why?” she echoed with an expression he calculated to be disbelief. “You chased us down and tried to kill us.”

“I was not interested in killing you. I was attempting to kill the predator your people unwisely set loose on this island.”

An uncomfortable look settled on her face. “Yeah... developing that experiment probably wasn’t one of our better moments,” she agreed. She shifted in place and squinted at him. “Are you really trying to tell me that you were helping us?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Thought so.” She sighed and blew a fringe of hair out of her eyes. “I never was that lucky. Escaping an alien kill list wouldn’t be how my cards played out.”

His mouth downturned at her confusing speech. Cards? He shook his head, his vibrissae puffing out in exasperation. “I wished to helpyou,” he reiterated. “I did not care about the Argurma or the other human female. I only desired to saveyou.”

“Because I am yours?” she commented dryly.

“Because you are mine,” he affirmed.

She gave him a doubtful look but shook her head wearily. “Look, Talech, I am tired and in a lot of pain because that asshole Richards who was responsible for restocking this place apparently didn’t believe in painkillers—or didn’t make it a high enough priority on their to do list to get in here before he kicked the bucket. So why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

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