Page 25 of Stranded with the Alien

She sank to the ground, scarcely able to believe what had just happened. Why had she let the alien do… dothatto her? And why the fuck hadn’t she stopped him sooner?

She was a traitor. Not just to Earth, but to herself. She’d let him violate her with his filthy tentacle.

And she’d enjoyed it.

She dropped her head in her hands.

“Shit.”

Fifteen

The Vraxian regained consciousness slowly. He rubbed his face, the muzziness of his recent stupor persisting. Pulling himself to a sitting position, he checked his wounds. His body ached but seemed to be healing well.

His head, though, pounded like he’d been kicked by adankar.

He looked through the cave opening. Dawn outside. How long had he been out?

A sound from the other side of the cave made him turn. The human was sitting on the ledge pointing her pulse blaster straight at him.

His hand automatically went to find theyashakcontrol round his neck. He realized it was gone at the same time as he saw she was no longer wearing the collar. Kara tapped her throat triumphantly.

“Looking for something? Forget it. We’re playing by my rules now, snake-boy.”

The alien frowned. Anger was radiating off the small human in waves. Her body was stiff with fury, eyes dark with rage.

Inexplicably, he was hit by a sudden sense of shame. He didn’t understand why, but a bad feeling was creeping over him.

He’d done something. Something he shouldn’t have. But what?

He remembered tracking her across the desert. Fighting the feral desert creatures. And then...

A thought struck him.

How was he back in the cave? Had the human brought him here? Was she angry because she regretted helping him?

He started to stand.

“No!”

She gestured at him to stay down. Then, in case he was in any doubt that she was pissed, she hurled a string of insults at him.

He looked at the gun in her hand and thought how easy it would be to flick out one of his longserpetriand take it from her.

He frowned. Why did the thought of touching her with hisserpetrusevoke such inexplicable sensations in him? Part guilt and part... partjoy?

Now he was thoroughly confused.

She continued to yell at him in her crude Terran language. He focused on her lips as they spat out a barrage of words and an image wormed its way into his head.

The human. Naked. Pressed against him. And he was kissing her. His tongue in her mouth and his serpetrus in her…

The memory was fragmented, hazy. At first he thought it was a hallucination brought on by his recent infection. But the rage emanating off the human said otherwise.

He tried to piece together his fractured recollection. He’d been injured. Fighting infection. Then he’d smelled her scent. Her confoundingly magnetic scent. It made him feel whole and healed. So he’d picked her up and…

Drek.

He knew it wasn’t a dream, because Vraxians didn’t dream. What he saw in his mind’s eye could only have been real.

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