Page 14 of The Stolen Tribute
SIX
KYLIE
My ears were ringing.
All I remembered was everything going to hell. One moment, Dal, my mate, was looking at me with the most intense lust I had ever seen, then I was grabbed and teleported to … where was I?
I was running.
“Come on,” The Zexian maintenance guy said.
We were running through a filthy narrow corridor towards an airlock.
“Damn it, I knew my battery wasn’t strong enough to get us back to the ship. Your extra matter.” He glanced at me. “No offense. Just a fact.”
“What? Extra matter?” I asked.Was he calling me fat?
The Zexian plugged a number into the keypad, and the airlock whooshed open. “We don’t have time now.”
“Hey! Let me go!” I gasped as he pushed me into the airlock.
I tumbled into a starfighter jet, or at least what I would describe as one. The cockpit was small. Maybe big enough for a crew of four. Everything was old and sort of discolored, like the beige plastic of antique computers.
I hit the floor hard, unable to do anything but watch as the Zexian uncoupled the old fighter from the mothership. His fingers clicked back and forth on the computer keys expertly.
There was a shudder, and then a boom as the starfighter took off from under the mothership, blasting in the opposite direction as fast as possible. The entire vehicle trembled under the force, and for a moment, I thought I might die right then and there.
The Zexian was panting hard through his respirator. He stripped the coveralls off to the waist, tying the arms around his navel. He was sweating. His skin was made of tiny purple scales, but jagged scars wrapped around his arms. He had tattoos to try and cover the worst of it.
The alien looked over his shoulder at me. “What?” He asked.
“What?” I shrieked. Was he serious right now? “What do you mean, what?” I looked around, but I had nothing to focus on. We were hurtling through space in a starship that shook more than a bumper car.
“You kidnapped me!” I pointed at the seven-foot-tall purple guy.
“I didn’t kidnap you. You hit the teleporter on my belt,” He said, gesturing to his waist.
I blinked, remembering the chaos that I had been caught in the middle of. The way Dal, my Tribute mate, had stared at me. Leered at me. Then it all went crazy when this guy pulled a laser blaster. I must have run into him somehow.
I glanced at the belt. “Oh, shit.”
“Yes, as you Earthlings say, shit.” The alien let out a long sigh. He quickly continued stripping down until he wore only tight black leggings that left little to the imagination.
Was that his dick or a third leg?I looked away quickly as he suited back up in what I could only assume was his normal clothing and shoved his disguise in a box.
After several minutes of tense silence, the alien looked down at me. “So, are you just going to stay on the floor?”
I blushed furiously and scrambled up to a seat. My dress was ripped up the sideseam, leaving half of my hip jutting out in a not-so-flattering way. The starship’s compressed air was cold on my exposed skin.
“Take me back,” I said.
“Sorry, can’t do that,” The Zexian said.
I growled. “Why not?”
“Because your mate will try to kill me.”
“Dal?” I asked. “You’re the one who tried to kill him!”
