Page 66 of Holiday with the Aliens

Arest was still grinning and he waved her inside. “Safe,” he said. “See.”

She absently noted that he’d added a third word to his vocabulary, but she was scared to step over the threshold. What if this was a trap? What if there was another monster just biding his time? Well, she looked over her shoulder at the one that Arest had already killed. If there was another monster, she was safer with her beastly alien than without.

She stepped over the threshold and Arest reached over and pushed a button on a brightly lit panel, closing the door behind her.

Her personal space evaporated and Arest didn’t step back. She was caught between him and the door, between cold metal and hot, hard,nakedmuscle that she wanted to reach out and lay her fingers over.

She knew she shouldn’t. She knew it was wrong. Arest wasn’t human, and he didn’t seem to be all there. But his blue eyes pinned her in place and the heat coming off his body enveloped her like a blanket. Without consciously making the decision, Stella reached out and flattened her palm against the heat of his pecs. The short, almost invisible hair surprised her and her fingers curled, digging in further.

Arest groaned and planted a hand on the door, trapping her on three sides. So why didn’t she feel trapped?

When the door closed, faint lights illuminated, buried in the floor along the walls. She could see her beast perfectly, even more clearly than when they’d been in the halls. His eyes drooped half closed and one half of his mouth tugged up in an absent smile. He was so damnbigthat she might as well have been in a tiny hole rather than a cavernous room.

But she didn’t want to move.

She flexed her hand out, taking in the feel of hard muscle and the pulse of his heart, right where a human’s would be. Arest’s free hand came up and covered hers, holding it in place, and she was caught in the inferno of his heat. If he hadn’t been walking around and fighting at top form, she’d have thought him feverish. But there was nothing sick about this man.

Stella tore her gaze from their joined hands and looked up to see him studying her like some lazy jungle cat. He could pounce and end her at any moment, but for now he seemed to want to play. To want to protect.

“Safe?” she asked. She had no idea if she was talking about the room or him.

Arest leaned in close and brushed his lips against her forehead, sending her heart back into that racing rhythm that had just settled. “Safe,” he promised.

He pulled her away from the door, cradling her shoulders and not letting go of her hand. When he bent to his knees along one of the walls, he took her with him, and Stella’s mind went wild with where this might go.

But he simply laid down and wedged her to his side, placing her close to the wall and protected from the room and the door behind them. His bag acted as his own pillow and he acted as hers. His breathing evened and he fell into sleep, leaving her confused and on the verge of frustration, wondering what the hell she was going to do with him.

Arest dreamed of blood and grit. He looked through a cloudy haze of mist and darkness and struggled against the bonds that chained him to the hot metal at his back.

He wasn’t alone in the darkness. At the edge of his vision the whip snaked along on the ground, drawing designs in the dirt and sending up dust with every flick of the end. The man holding the handle was a mystery of leather and shadow. A mask covered his face, the nose a harsh point and a swath of red where his eyes should have been.

When he caught Arest staring, he jerked the whip back and flicked it toward him, coming within a hand span of Arest’s eyes and making him flinch.

The trainers didn’t always miss. If they did, there would be no reason to fear.

Somewhere beyond, outside the dark misery of this putrid room, a crowd roared. He was under the arena, a pawn waiting to be placed into the game of blood that these hostile aliens played.

This was never the life that Arest wanted, but a man had to pay his debts.

Blood and ash and lasers.

The memory flashed before him, deeper than this one. Something from long before. He stepped into the cold stone of this arena and submitted himself to the whims of the rich.

He had a mission.

BEAST

The whip snapped again, and this time Arest didn’t flinch. He jerked against his chains and snapped his teeth at the trainer, growling out something guttural and ancient, something no translator could decipher because there was no need. Some language was universal.

Words came through the space beyond the trainer, though the shadows obstructed any view. Arest didn’t know whether he sat in a room or a hallway or a hole. “The ambassador cannot use these tunnels,” came a gruff, tired voice.

A lofty man replied with scorn. “The other paths are blocked. I’m certain your trainers can do their jobs.”

Awareness flickered to life in the back of Arest’s mind. He strained once more, but as footsteps grew closer, he slumped, letting his body go completely limp and releasing a pained moan.

The whip struck him on the arm and he didn’t flinch, he couldn’t. This trainer was nothing compared to the ones who owned him.

With a curse, the trainer threw down his whip and approached with caution. He checked for a pulse with a jab of green fingers, but he missed the right spot and pressed thecolumn of Arest’s throat instead of finding the vein. The trainer cursed again and muttered something about cost if the prized fighter died.

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