Page 65 of Holiday with the Aliens

There was something unnatural about these halls.

He turned a corner and stopped, but Stella took another step, crossing the threshold. Arest pulled her back, hugging her close to his chest, the press of her body soft against his naked skin. Her scent washed into his nostrils, hitting him low and setting a fire of desire burning bright.

As he was distracted by skin and scent, something growled loudly and sprang onto his back.

Chapter Four

Stella stumbled forward, suddenly pushed out of Arest’s too warm and too hungry embrace. Though she couldn’t tell if it was his hunger or her own. She should have let go of him a long time ago, but as they’d walked the tunnels for hours, she couldn’t step away. He was warm and safe andthereand she needed another human—well, person—who was something approaching safe.

When Arest fell forward after her, she thought he’d tripped, but the soul curdling growl that came from behind him told her otherwise.

They weren’t alone. Again.

The last fight had been interminable, with her huddled in the corner, trying not to draw any attention to herself. This time, it was already over by the time she even thought about getting out of the way. Arest crouched over another monster, its throat slashed and gushing putrid blood into the hallway around them.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and jerked his head back, telling her to get out of the room that she’d stumbled into. She was half over the threshold and stepped back, edging around the corner of the wall and trying to stay out of his way.

What if he went crazy on her? What if he tried to attack? He’d taken out the creature on the ground insecondsand it seemed to know how to attack. The most she’d ever done was taken a self-defense class offered for free through her civilian fleet training program.

But Arest wasn’t paying much attention to her. He hefted the creature up over his head and tossed it through the doorway into the room she’d almost been sitting in. All she saw of the monster was something vaguely humanoid with too much hair and rat-like claws tipping dirty fingers.

Arest seemed to be waiting for something. He held up a hand, but was too far away to hold her back. For that, Stella was thankful. His hand was black with nasty blood that she could smell from a few meters away.

He crouched low and she found herself mimicking his motion, bending her knees and placing a hand against the wall to steady herself. Arest looked around and Stella couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was like a machine, or one of those cyborgs she’d seen doing patrols of a space station far away from here. Of course, everyone said cyborgs were mostly human, or mostly whatever they were made from—Oscavian, Keie, or some other race. But she didn’t know what Arest was, and she was pretty sure he didn’t know either.

He walked like a human, but with a dancer’s—or fighter’s—grace. The gestures he gave her were human: nods, waves, hand holds. But space was a mixed up mass of people and so many gestures crossed cultures with ease. Despite the purple skin and claws, Stella couldn’t help but see something human about him. She’d met many aliens in her life, and none of them had acted like Arest.

No one she’d ever met had acted like Arest.

After a moment, he stood and she did as well. He took a deep breath and looked over at her, meeting her eyes while he flexed his fingers out, telling her to stay put. She nodded.

And then he walked into the room with the creature’s corpse.

It was on the tip of her tongue to call him back, to tell him to wait or to urge him down the road and away from that thing. But she bit her lip to keep from making a peep and watched him go. He’d made this decision, and she wasn’t his keeper.

But she took a step back, making sure she was completely clear of the entrance to the room in case the door closed. A moment later she scuttled back further and ducked as something came flying towards her. She thought they were under attack again, but as the thing landed with a meaty crash, she saw it was the body of the thing that Arest had defeated.

What the hell?

She looked between it and the shadowy door. The room beyond was too dark to make out, though she thought she saw Arest’s outline stalking around.

They needed to work on their communication. Maybe the guy couldn’t really talk, but there had to be some way to tell her that he was about to chuck a dead body her way. Just yell out ‘bad’! He could handle that, couldn’t he?

She was about to stalk into the room and give him a piece of her mind. Clearly there weren’t any other monsters in there. She’d hear him fighting. Or something. Adrenaline surged through her and she needed to move, to run. Who just threw a body? She took back all she’d thought about his humanity. Clearly he wasn’t from Earth or anywhere that humans lived. Not unless he’d been plucked out of some cave tens of thousands of years ago. And since time travel was impossible, she knew he had to be an alien. At least that made sense.

Arest’s outline got closer as he approached the door, and Stella stepped up to meet him, ready togo offon him. But beforeshe could cross the threshold, the door slammed shut, cutting her off from him and leaving her next to the rotting corpse of some tunnel monster.

She didn’t scream. Shecouldn’tscream. When she opened her mouth to cry out, it was like something grabbed onto her throat and squeezed, cutting off the sound before she could make it. Stella clutched at her neck, but nothing was there except the choking feeling of terror soaking into her.

Stella stumbled forward and dug at the metal, looking for a place she could try to pry the door open. She had no idea what the inside of that chamber looked like. What if Arest was trapped? Was there air? Were there more monsters? What if it filled up with water or something and he ended up drowning?

When nothing on the door itself seemed to work, she scrambled to the side and looked for a panel or a sensor, anything that would open the door for her. The stone was totally smooth on her end and the one crack she found couldn’t be budged. There was nothing but wall, no way to lift the door.

It opened back up.

At first she didn’t realize what she was looking at. But Arest stood right there, a bright smile on his face. He reached over to his left and the door slid shut again and then just as quickly, it was back open. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing from the first instance and sweat poured off her from the panic.

He’d found a control?

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