Page 4 of Kenan's Mate
I peer between my legs and gulp at the sight. My privates have been made completely bare. When I touch my pussy lips, even the stubble of roots is absent. In fact, my underarms and legs feel smoother than they had after I shaved the night before the attack.
My wavy hair still smells of smoke. I close my eyes again and wonder how long until someone comes to check on me. I hope it’s not the scary alien, but my gut whispers he’ll be the one to greet me. A shudder runs through me when I recall the furious gleam in his otherworldly purple eyes.
I steal another glance out the window. Maybe I’m not on Tallia, after all. Maybe I’ve been taken to another planet. My heart thunders in my chest, and my palms dampen.
Even if I manage to escape this cage and this house, how will I make it back to Earth? Hopeless scenarios weave through my mind. I wipe the tears trickling down my cheeks away with the back of my hand.
I try to encourage myself to be strong and not show weakness to my captor, or captors, but it’s difficult when I don’t know my location or anything about the aliens who attacked theStargazer. I mean, fuck. Before today, I didn’t even know aliens existed.
My pulse quickens and I shiver as the sun dims and the breeze turns cooler. In response to the light waning outside, the sconces illuminating the room glow brighter.
I gaze longingly at the blankets piled on the large bed, but I’m afraid to reach through the bars to grab one. The purple-eyed creature seemed like a force of nature, with huge muscles, and for all I know, a horribly violent temper. I hesitate to do anything without permission. If he wants me to have a blanket, there would be one in the cage.
At least the surface of the cage is soft and plush, and a huge pillow rests against the bars.
This isn’t merely a cage. It’s also a bed.
My bed.
Fighting the fresh tears that gather after this truth sinks in, I glance around the bedroom.
It’s not so dissimilar from any bedroom decorated by humans. Aside from the bed, there are tall dressers with small wooden carvings and seashells scattered on top, odd shimmering sculptures placed in corners, paintings and other artwork strewn about the walls, and a door I suspect leads to a bathroom. This could be a suite at the Tallia Grand, if not for the cage.
Heavy footsteps sound beyond the door. As the stomping grows closer, I start shaking and clutch my legs to my chest, trying to hide my nudity.
The door slides open and my gaze immediately locks with purple eyes.
It’shim.
The same creature who’d been carrying me earlier.
I gulp and shift to the back of my cage, terrified by the dark look he’s wearing. His nostrils keep flaring, and he gazes at me with a fierceness that leaves me ice cold.
I want to disappear. I want to turn invisible so he can’t look at me that way anymore.
Instead, I start crying. I sniffle and bite my lower lip, angry at myself for not holding it together. I wish I could be brave and demand clothing, or a blanket, or tell him to let me out of this fucking cage.
But he’s so much larger than me. Muscular. Over seven feet tall. Broad shouldered. His head has to be twice the size of mine. I glance at his hands and cringe.Oh my God. I count seven fingers on each massive hand. The boots he has on prevent me from counting his toes.
His black form-fitting clothing accentuates his brawny physique. The cut-off sleeves of his shirt, similar to a tank top, reveal his tanned, well-built arms. Or maybe not tanned. He has reddish skin, and as he moves further into the light, I realize his skin is indeed an inhuman shade of red.
He has no facial hair, but wavy black locks rest haphazardly upon his broad, tensed shoulders. The combination of his wild hair, high cheekbones, strong square jaw, and perfect sensual lips give him a savage but majestic appearance.
If he hadn’t put me in a cage, I would call him beautiful.
Tremors continue wreaking havoc on my senses, making my breaths come in shaky gasps as I stare through the top bars of my cage. I close my eyes as he steps closer, saying silent prayers for God to please turn back time and let me wake up on Earth, in my bedroom back in Florida.Please, God, please.
A memory suddenly flits into my conscious.
When I was fifteen, Theresa Peters, a college aged girl who lived next door, disappeared for several weeks. Her face was plastered on every road sign and telephone pole for miles and miles.
My father joined various search parties into the marshes in the days after she vanished. Fear and paranoia quickly swept through town. My mother bought me a can of jogger’s mace and insisted I keep it attached to my hand while walking the three blocks home from school on the days she couldn’t pick me up.
No trace of the girl was found, until an elderly woman outside of town reported screams coming from her neighbor’s house. Police moved in and found Theresa in the man’s basement. He’d been holding her captive and abusing her for eight long weeks.
The details that emerged were ghastly, and I’d always had nightmares of being taken in the same way, snatched off the street while coming home from a party or from school. As my mother had once lamented, “It could have been you, Laylah. My God, it could have been you.”
Now it is me.
