Page 18 of Beauty and the Alien Beast
At least I didn’t have to worry about their knowing I was a Gladiator. The slavers had no idea yet I’d set into motion a plan to gather information about their facility to shut them down. But I had fouled up part of my mission. I still hoped the council and elders would understand when I explained my reason for changing my errand.
There isn’t one among the Gladiators who doesn’t long for the chance to have a mate of his own. Perhaps I am selfish, and if so, I will atone for my actions. But could any warrior among us have resisted?
I honestly don’t think so.
But in retrospect, I had a bigger problem.
I’d found my mate at the slavers’ facility. Once I got back to my pack and word spread to the other alphas that Ella was my one true mate, there would be contention among the packs to seize as many earthlings as possible for their Gladiators.
Will the frenzy to hoard the females provoke another war among the packs? Or will cooler heads prevail, and can we deal with the earthling issue in an orderly fashion—and without war?
“We will have to keep ahead of the catchers,” I told Ella. “They are who the slavers will send after us.” I was under no illusion that she understood me, but right now, it was enough that I communicated with her and reassured her with my touch and tone.
I wanted to tell her more…That she is my mate and I will kill anyone who tries to hurt her.
I wished to explain that her mere presence lifted my heart, and for once in my life, I felt there was hope for happiness in my future. But I knew she would not understand the way of the Gladiators or the loneliness that consumed all of us—including me.
I sighed heavily just thinking about the fact that the Gladiator life had not changed all that much since we’d won our freedom from the Omers. Gladiators still took a binding oath to maintain our risky way of life until our deaths and trained for bloody combat. But instead of fighting for coins to make the Omers wealthier, most Gladiators went on missions for hire—on our planet and others—earning top compensation. And others enjoyed staying close to their packs, safeguarding the general good of our race and the protection of our expanding territory.
Those that chose to remain within the pack spent their time training tirelessly, but there was more to life than just making your body a finely tuned combat vessel. We needed the softness of a female. A mate to keep our hearts and souls alive.
There was only so long a warrior could bear the emotional isolation of not having a female to share his life with, and this was sometimes difficult for even the most disciplined mind to stave off. Which was why Ella and I simply had to survive long enough for us to get home and celebrate with the pack that the gods had gifted me with my long-awaited mate.
My thoughts snapped to the present when I heard the faint whine of hover vehicles swelling in the distance behind us, and I knew getting us back safely was going to be a difficult prospect—at least for a while.
14
Ella
“I don’t knowwhat the fuck you’re saying, big guy, but I’m sure you know what you’re doing.” This was my go-to response whenever Teken rumbled at me again.
His speech had a liquid inflection and tended to run together a lot more than English. I was trying to sort out its patterns, but it was challenging. I hadn’t expected an immersive crash course in alien linguistics to be part of my escape, but as problems went, a language barrier was a lot better to deal with than being locked up and waiting to be sold.
The ride through the woods on the back of a giant dog had taken some getting used to. The constant jostling left me sore and motion sick at first, but eventually, I got used to it enough that it just tired me out. The only thing that made the whole thing bearable was I was carefully held in Teken’s arms.
He never made a sexually inappropriate move. Despite his having four hands to keep track of, somehow, none of them wandered. He impressed me, though his control frustrated me, too, because oddly, I was attracted to him. Remembering the aching heat of the moment when I’d thrown myself into his arms, I wished I could replay the whole scene without the drugs or the language barrier. Or the horrible slaver facility, for that matter.
But my captors were in the past—I hoped—and I did my best to adjust to my current situation as the dog bounded us over or around every obstacle we came across. Giant trees, upright or fallen—no damn problem. Streams, rivers, lakes—the big dog handled that shit in a single bound. Huge flesh-eating masses of tentacles lunging at us out of nowhere—whoosh…just outrun it.
I didn’t understand why there was a dog here on this alien planet at all, let alone one that looked like a weaponized Newfoundland. I knew that parallel evolution was a thing and Earth dogs didn’t have shark teeth or the mass of an elephant. But everything about this creature’s behavior screamed “dog,” from its wagging tail to slobbery tongue to tremendous enthusiasm about everything.
It was strangely comforting that I was being safely whisked away. Just like the careful half embrace of the four-armed giant alien seated behind me. Of course, the dog didn’t leave me slightly hot and bothered with my hormones at a slow burn for hours of hard riding. And my current feelings didn’t have shit to do with the drug. I was sure of it now. It was him. He was a hulking stranger, but if I had thought he was hot when I’d first seen him from inside my cage, now that I understood he was a Wulfaen Gladiator with the desire to set me free instead of buying me as his sex slave, he was sizzling.
And then there was our conversation. We talked to each other without knowing the other’s language, and sometimes, we managed to teach each other a word or two. I stumbled around the pronunciation of some words, while his accent gave a lyrical tone to everything he said. Mostly, we communicated by tone, body language, and gestures. And by the time I felt his big body tense behind me for the first time since our escape, we had sorted out a few words between us.
The dog’s name was Brax. The word for “dog” seemed to beiemnon. I didn’t know what the wordtagahmeant when he spat it out immediately after stiffening, but it sounded like a curse.
“What is it?” I asked, and he scowled and shook his head slightly.
He said something to Brax, who immediately turned to bound into even deeper brush, flushing out a small swarm of what looked like enormous fuzzy moths from the bushes. Startled, I hung on, nestling back against Teken and shielding my face as branches slapped against us from both sides.
A few moments later, I heard a faint whine rising above sounds of crashing and rustling. The noise came closer and closer, and a chill went down my spine.Oh shit. That sounds like a vehicle.And it was coming from the direction of the compound he had just broken me out of.
We kept running. To my surprise, the big alien did not urge more speed from his mount, but instead seemed determined to keep us heading through the thickest sections of brush and trees. It would have been easier to follow one of the streams, but for some reason, he wanted us as far as possible from open sky.
I realized why a few minutes later when the whine rose to ear-stinging levels and was accompanied by a whooshing. Lights appeared over our heads. Something was flying above the tree line, bringing a hot wind with it. Trees tossed. Leaves blew. And suddenly, Teken’s choice of path made perfect sense. He shouted to Brax, and we slid to a stop in the depths of a thicket.
I struggled for breath as I clung to the dog, chest heaving in desperation for my next gulp of air. Brax was panting enthusiastically. But behind me, Teken sat silent, face tilted upward, watchful.
