Page 13 of Gravel and Grit

My mating gland!

9

ZAEK

Asmile started to stretch Zaek’s mouth as he stared down at the human without really seeing her. He’d thought his gland was defective. He’d been approaching his four hundredth year when he left on the exploratory mission that ended with a crash landing on Earth. In all that time, he hadn’t found hisHondassa. He’d begun to think he never would, regardless of the teachings that said everyone had one.

Reality intruded on his elation when he refocused on the human he was pressed almost chest to face with—the one gaping up at him with a look of such fear it was as if she were just waiting for him to murder her or eat her alive like some rabid animal.

Or monster.

“No. It cannot be,” he whispered, eyes widening in disbelief, but it came out garbled and unintelligible since his tongue was pushed up against the roof of his mouth by the dirty, lying, painfully swollen gland.

He stood there frozen, his heart thundering in his ears as he tried to reason out what was happening, not believing this human was what caused his gland to fill, especially to such an extensive degree that it hurt.

Maybe it is just a reaction. What do the Earthians call it?

“An allergy!” he blurted, answering his own question and startling the female so badly she yelped.

I am allergic to her. Yes. Yes. That is obviously what is happening here.

“It is just a fluke. No need to panic. My malfunctioning mating gland is

just swollen with allergies. Yes. Calm down, little human,” he babbled, blindly patting her on the head as if she were the one about to melt down into hysterics.

If he paused for a second to pet the soft, silky curls of her hair, he was sure it was unnoticeable and easily dismissed as his claws getting caught.

A sound in the distance of running footsteps and low, masculine voices snapped him out of his stupor.

“There! See? Now we do not have time to think about this…

development. We have to escape the men with guns. Problem solved!” he crowed happily to the white-faced, terrified female.

“What?” she exclaimed, whipping an alarmed look at the open door he hadn’t thought to look for when he arrived.

“Hmm?” he voiced absentmindedly as he reached around her and picked up the beacon, yanking it free of the various wires in the process. “Oh. No, not you. Me. You will be fine.”

He hadn’t taken more than a step back to the door he’d entered through before a dozen men burst into the room. They didn’t call out for him to stop, nor did they scream and run in the opposite direction.

They spotted him and immediately opened fire.

Reacting instantly, Zaek turned his skin and wings to stone then wrapped his wings around his front to protect the beacon.

Unfortunately, the female had no such protection, and it didn’t take more than a split second to see the soldiers were perfectly willing to shoot through her to get to him.

Allergy or not, he was disinclined to let her die because of him. Even if he was such a dishonorable male, his body gave him no choice. He was moving before he made the conscious decision to do so.

Almost faster than their human eyes could track, Zaek sprang forward, lifted her off her feet, and pulled her to him. Spinning on his heels, he turned his back to the soldiers, letting his armored suit and stone skin deflect their bullets.

With a sweep of his tail, he knocked a few of them off their feet as he lifted and tucked his wings tightly against the front of his body. That forced the female to curl into a ball and created a pocket of sorts across his middle, from his hips to his underarms, just big enough to fit her small form and the beacon. Supporting her with his left arm inside the pouch, he kept his right free and unholstered his tranq gun.

Zaek got a completely unwanted, first-hand experience as to what being a pregnant female might feel like as he ran from the room under a hail of automatic gunfire.

He glanced back just before rounding the doorway and had time to fire off two darts, taking down the two men in the lead and slowing the ones behind them, giving him a much-needed head start.

Normally, he was faster than most any Earthians, even as big as he was.

But, for the first few feet, he was forced into a lumbering waddle-run that lacked both speed and anything resembling his usual litheness. Carrying the beacon, and the woman against his stomach huddled into a ball and confined in the pouch he’d made of his wings, threw off his balance. Zaek compensated for the extra weight by leaning back, but that forced him to run in an awkwardly upright position.

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