Page 13 of Alien's Challenge
Mentally, she listed her priorities: get water, get food, get clothes, and get home. She’d figure out a way to get Big to help her.
Still, something nagged at the edge of her memory, like she was forgetting an important fact. Her memory had gaps, like having to struggle to recall her mother’s name. Natalie, for the curious.
Vibrations from the motorcycle slowly drained her tension. The bike was big, and straddling the machine meant that the seat hit her in the fun zone. Add in the vibrations and she was turning into a big fan of riding bikes. She squirmed, aware that she pressed against Big. He grunted but didn’t complain.
When they stopped, she needed to do something about the ache growing in her core.
What was wrong with her? Could this be a side effect of whatever drugs Randevere and the gray aliens gave her?
Wait, gray? No, green.
She had fuzzy memories of green faces with big black eyes, then nothing.
Huh. Another gap in her memory.
Okay, abducted by little greenish-gray men.
Drugged or not, she knew that desire was a side effect of high -stress situations and adrenaline. Her body was attempting to cope, albeit in a sucky way. Craving alien wang wasn’t going to solve anything, even if that sounded like a really good idea.
The hoverbike lurched again. The tail tightened. Her lady parts throbbed.
A really, really good idea.
This was hell.
Faris
During the ride, Alice kept her head tucked down, presumably for warmth. He didn’t mind. He rather enjoyed the way she clutched at his back and pressed up against him. He enjoyed it too much. The more she rubbed up against him, the more she smelled likehis. Covering her in his outerwear was not enough. She needed to be his.
That was the fever talking.
They couldn’t reach Falsespire soon enough.
Faris didn’t need the complications that a female brought, especially a human female. When he wasn’t fighting off challengers to claim her, he’d be chasing his tail trying to appease her. Females needed things, comforts before food and shelter. Soft things, things Faris couldn’t provide.
Maybe once he knew how to be soft with a female, but that was a long time ago, when he had been Owenfaris, fourth child of the Eternal House. Now he was simply Faris.
To avoid detection, they traveled down a seldom -used dirt road. Calling the narrow track a road was generous, however. Trees pressed close, suggesting the road was about to be swallowed back up by the forest. Navigating in the snow took all his attention.
As evening approached, the trees thinned. The track widened into a proper road and then vanished into a gorge.
Once, a bridge had spanned the gorge that separated Falsespire from the rest of the world, but that bridge collapsed shortly after the prison administrators abandoned the planet. No one seemed motivated to rebuild when ferries worked well enough.
They idled at the foot of the vanished bridge. Wind stung his eyes. Snow fell in spurts, thick and heavy one moment, then nothing for a few seconds. Lights glowed from a town on the other side, tucked against the mountain. In the brief moments the snow lifted, the observatory and transmission antenna towering above the village became visible.
Alice pointed at the transmission tower with excitement.
“Do not be excited. It has not worked in years. If ever,” he said. “They call this Falsespire for a reason.”
More excited chattering. All he could see of his human was her eyes, peering out from between the hood and the scarf.
“It was a research outpost when the Overlords ran the planet,” he said, not entirely understanding the compulsion to explain this to her. “I guess they thought they were going to do research but gave that up. There’s more profit to be made in mining.”
Although he had heard rumors about the kind of research conducted in Falsespire, the kind prohibited on law -abiding planets.
She responded. Her tone carried enough attitude to convey a snarky reply.
He couldn’t help himself. The stump of his broken frills flexed. If he were not a battered male, his frills would ripple in mirth. As it was, the coat’s hood hid the remaining appendage. Just as well. No one needed to see a broken male embarrass himself flirting with a pretty female.
