Page 20 of Possessed By the Alien Guard
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The small animal wokeus both by tugging and nibbling on the end of Jillian’s braid.
“Billy!”She shoved partially upright, the movement pulling her hair from the goat-lope’s mouth.“That’s not food!”
He bleated and turned its attention to the dangling arm of her jumpsuit, lipping at the material.
“I suppose we had better provide breakfast while we still have clothing to put on,” I said.
A small laugh escaped her as she looked down at me with surprise.“You’re not saying he can eat that!”
“Undulates such as he have the ability to ingest a great range of items.It is one of the things that helps to ensure their survival.”
“Huh.”Her body shifted as she moved to roll from me, but I grabbed her close and stopped her.
Her smell saturated my being, setting my zural heart racing, pounding out a separate beat from my primary heart—my mate, my mate, my mate.My swollen hurvon longed to mark and claim her.
Jillian’s lips parted, and I captured them with my own for one sweet moment.As much as I wanted to lose myself in the promise of her body, another instinct drove me.If Jillian was my mate, then my mate was not safe.
We were still trapped with dwindling rations, and no means of signaling for rescue.
I released my grip on her back and softened the kiss, letting it slow.The copper of her eyes warmed as she looked at me and licked her lips.It was torture indeed to let her go.
Jillian pushed off my chest and slid to the ground beside me.Leaning over, she snagged her jumpsuit from Billy’s eager mouth.His small body spun about, following the movement of the fabric to come and press against her thigh.He headbutted her hand until she petted his back and scratched at his head.The small golden eyes closed with contentment.
We remained quiet as we used the back corner of the cavern as an improvised hygiene unit, got dressed, and made food.It was only once we had settled onto the ground again, all three of us eating, that I asked, “Why did you take the rations?”
She mumbled something, looking down into the mouth of the water bottle, a pink flush darkening her cheeks.
“What did you say?”
She met my gaze.“I was hungry.”
Pain pinched my chest.Did they not feed her?
As if she had read my thoughts, she continued.“We don’t have enough, any of us.Food production does everything it can, but the equipment’s always breaking, and no matter how hard they try, it’s never quite...”Her hand rose to clutch at the air before falling to her lap.“...enough.”
A frisson of shock ran through me.We had scanned all of the human ships and knew they were technologically inferior as well as dilapidated.
I had not known, however, how close to starvation her people were.
“It’s why we need Sagittarian One so badly.”She whispered, “We’ll die without it.”
“If that is the case, why does your admiral argue with King Storr?Let us make an agreement, and both our peoples can settle here.”
“We found it first!”A flash of ire sparked in her eyes.“We finally found a planet.And then you guys come along and try to take over.”
“The Varool know how to manage a planet better.Our home world was a paradise.You cannot claim the same for Earth.”They had left behind a toxic, dying world.They could not be allowed to do the same to Sagittarian One.
“Yeah.You’re probably right.”She drank the last of her stew.“But your ships go faster than light.Why didn’t you just go and find another one?”
I took the water bottle from her and began preparing my own breakfast.“When we lost Varool, we searched a vast area looking for a new world such as this, one that already had a living, compatible biosphere.We discovered several.”
Her eyes widened.
“Yet the Folri had found them first.The Swarm had devoured them down to the bedrock until there was little more left than simple microorganisms.Sagittarian One is the only living planet in this area of the galaxy.”
I finished heating my food with her blaster and gulped down the meaty stew, the herbs of the prokshu adding a fresh, green taste to the rations.Then I prepared more water and stood, reaching out to her.“Come, let us dig the rest of the way out.”
