Page 2 of Resisting the Alien Rider

“Oh, where is that big bad rider of yours?” I moaned, twisting around to look for Garrek. I decided I was past dignity now and sucked in a big breath to shout his name.

Only for the breath to shudder right out of me when a pair of huge, strong hands clasped my waist. My saddle-battered bum throbbed as the pressure of sitting was relieved. Suddenly airborne, I was lifted as easily as a sac of… I don’t know. Whatever Zabrians had sacs of out here. Cowboy hats, maybe. Or shiny buckles.

Apparently, I was a sac full of things that made Garrek frown, because he was doing it fiercely at me now, his broad blue face stern, his hard jaw tight. He let go of me the moment my boots hit the ground.

“Bad rider?” His voice had a uniquely gravelled, nearly charred quality that in any other circumstances – circumstances that didn’t involve me being scowled at like I’d just taken a shit on his boots – I would have admired. More than admired, if I was being honest with myself.

I could have listened to a voice like that all day.

“Ah. You heard that then, did you?” I gave an awkward laugh.

I hadn’t meant it likebadbad. Not bad as inincompetent or unskilled, because even in the brief period I’d known Garrek so far, I could see that he’d been doing this cowboy shit for a long, long time. He was downright masterful at it.

I’d meant it like big bad. Big bad monster, big bad man, big bad wolf. Even now, there was something wolfish in his face, in his stance, in his very energy. Something untamed and capable, I was certain, of brutality.

It was then I remembered that the only reason he was here at all was because he’d killed someone in his youth.

I cleared my throat.

“Hey,” I said, “how come you only heard that bit and not when I was calling your name before?”

“I heard that, too.”

So he’d just decided to ignore it, then.

Lovely.

His mouth pulled on one side, his frown turning into more of a grimace. The brim of his hat was slung low over his brow, but there was no way to hide the white glow of his eyes.

“I started making my way back towards you the moment you said my name.”

“Oh,” I said softly, feeling a tiny bit guilty about my annoyance.

But that guilt only lasted for about two seconds, until he opened his mouth again.

“I didn’t realize you couldn’t do something as simple as getting out of the saddle on your own.”

Oh,hellno.

“Excuse me!” I cried, shocked, offended, and downrightappalledat the slicing barbs of his tone. “Have you seen the size of Shanti? Have you seen the size ofme?!”

I gestured towards Shanti with her marvellous alien stature, then at myself with my ever-so-slightly less impressive five-foot-one human frame.

With their bright white glow, it was easy to track the slow glide of Garrek’s eyes. From the top of my hat down to my boots and then back up. I swallowed, then froze when his gaze went straight to my throat in response.

For an absurd moment, I found myself wondering what Garrek thought of me. My looks, specifically. Did he think humans were attractive?

He hadn’t wanted a human bride.

So probably not.

“Besides,” I stammered, needing to say something,anything, that would distract me from the sudden need to know what was going on in Garrek’s big, blue head as he observed me. “I probably could have gotten down on my own if she hadn’t been getting so nervous. But she kept… wiggling.”

“Are you sure you weren’t the one who was wiggling?” His head took on a sardonic tilt, and I realized only then that I was bouncing on my feet, pressing my thighs together.

We’d eaten and drank on shulduback and hadn’t stopped all day. If we had stopped earlier, he would have known I needed help down from the saddle.

Only now becoming intensely aware of my full bladder, I blurted, “I have to pee!”

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