Page 43 of Beauty and the Alien Beast
She’s beautiful and must have her choice of males back on Earth. And though she desires me, can I measure up to one of her earthling males? They know her language and culture better than I ever could.
She’s an amazing female from a planet I know so little about, aside from their genetic riches and the beauty of their females. How could I ever compete with a male of her nation? A male who comes to her offering everything I cannot?
My grip on her tightened slightly as we rode. She seemed to sense something was wrong because she stroked her right hand up and down my forearm, gently, reassuringly.
How will I find the right words, even with the aid of a translator, to tell her how I feel? And what would I give up to be by her side?
How do I tell her what becoming her mate has done for me? To me? I will never crave another female and will join the ranks of the old widowers if she goes back to Earth.
But how do I explain all of this—and everything else?
I had a lot to worry about once she finally got her translator and I, no doubt, had to answer her endless questions. I knew she had been brought here by force, and learning that the slavers were here operating legally and that they sold females to others for pleasure—including trying to sell earthlings to my people for mating—made me worry she would hate my world, its culture, and all of my Gladiator brethren for being so desperate that they wanted to do business with the Omers in hope of saving our race from extinction. But slavery was slavery, and that was not an act that I’d stand idly by and accept in my pack or any other.
But will she believe my stance against slavery? Or will she be so broken from her ill-treatment on my planet that she’d rather flee to Earth?
If that happened, it would break my heart to see her go, but her happiness and what she desired was my first and only priority.
Ella patted my hand again as she chatted enthusiastically about something I didn’t understand. I longed to tell her that just her mere presence filled me with joy. She was unlike any female I’d ever met. Her body and mine had communed on a level I’d never experienced, and even though we had only scraps of language in common, we understood each other in a meaningful way.
I could already tell, by watching her expressions and gestures and the language of her body, the basic meaning behind any words she spoke. As I learned to pick out specific words and confirmed them with her, I also tried to sort out how they were used together. Humans seemed fond of long, complicated sentences. Or maybe that was just Ella.
Right now, as we traveled, she was saying something about the road ahead. “Where” asked for a direction or location. “City” was a gathering place. The best I could manage in her language was “Battle City”—my sector. Close enough for now, and she nodded as I pointed straight ahead.
My sector had scouted half a day’s ride from the center of where the majority of my pack lived, watching the perimeter. They would radio in if the slavers got too close and would come out in force to resist any penetration of our airspace.
“Battle City… help us. We go.”
Maybe I should have been looking forward to having a translator unit for her instead of dreading it slightly. I could only have faith that she would be patient when the time came for me to explain.
The slavers could not legally pursue her to the limits of my sector, but slavers rarely paid attention to that, especially since they thought they were above Gladiator law.
The Omers had vast wealth and many females that most races, including mine, needed for survival and, yes, pleasure. Slavers selling alien females wasn’t new, but the earthling additions as hostesses were. Slavery was the shame of our nation—a planet ravaged by war and alien genetic weapons, altered by infertility and gender imbalance, and left distraught enough that many races would sacrifice their own honor and morals to bypass extinction. It was not in our nature as Gladiators to ever completely neglect our honor, so it angered me that some of the council had voted to buy hostesses to calm the needs of their pack, forgetting that their hopes to find their one true mate lay in the terror and violation of those very females they would one day claim to love.
But thinking about this dilemma only distracted me.
I need to focus.
In truth, I couldn’t fully, not with my head clouded with this unfamiliar, creeping dread. I would have gladly fought every one of the slavers alone, for her sake, but at least I had experience in that kind of long odds.
Ella could slay me with a few cold words.
I had to concentrate on getting us back safely. I could ask her if she could be happy here later, when we didn’t have a team of soulless, half-mechanical mercenaries hunting us.
I just wished I could get it out of my head for more than a minute at a time. But I disciplined myself and looked ahead, steering us around a nest of tentacle vines trailing, deceptively relaxed, across the path ahead.
Whatever else happens, no matter how much I must bleed to get you home safe, Ella, I will do so. And I will take pride in the fact that I did not buy my mate. But rather, I set her free.
I only pray she will spend her freedom at my side.
A few hours into our trek toward my sector, another downpour struck. This time, it was lighter, but it still cut visibility and sent winds whipping down through the leaves. We heard another crash just minutes later, and it was alarmingly close.
They’re catching up to us, despite the storm. The cyborg must be pushing them recklessly. Some won’t make it, but the rest are out here looking. If they overtake us, we may run into them when it clears up and be unable to get past them as easily.
And then there was the matter of the broadcasts I had listened in on earlier. Belland had sent more catchers to try to head off any escape to neighboring outposts that fell outside Gladiator control. I knew that included the perimeter of my sector, which meant if the blockade was too tight, we would have to go around or send a message through. Possibly both.
“Ella,” I said as we hung on to the bounding dog. “Bad men ahead. Maybe many bad men.”
She tried to answer in my language. “Machine man?”
