“Monsters,” she mouthed, playing with the faucet, testing ways to turn it on until clear water poured out of it.
She grabbed one of the little towels and wet it, making sure the liquid was indeed water by tasting it first—better her than Gnaw, at this point—and then rushed back to him.
First, she cleaned his wound and got his head to stop bleeding. She also adjusted his body until he looked more comfortable. Lastly, she grabbed more towels to fold under his head as a pillow of sorts. There was no way she’d be able to lift him up onto that exam bed. It had padding but was taller than any she’d ever seen before. Then again, the aliens with their tentacles were taller than most humans.
“We’re going to be okay,” she crooned to him. “Just open your eyes.”
Had they seriously hurt him? The small cut on his head had already stopped bleeding. The skin had split a little, but it wasn’t bad. He might need a stitch or two, but she had no way to do that. Her medical knowledge wasn’t vast. Having two brothers had necessitated basic first-aid lessons, though. Boys were always getting hurt.
She ran her fingers through the thick hair on the top of his head. One of his pointed ears twitched when the side of her thumb brushed it. She hesitated before gently exploring it. He had cartilage in his ear like a human, but it was as velvety-soft as his skin. Warm.
She studied his face. He wasn’t nearly as scary looking while sleeping, with his features relaxed. His lips were fuller than hers and his nose a bit longer. Even his eyelashes were thicker and fuller than a human’s. She stroked his cheek, liking the feel of his warm skin.
“I’m here, Gnaw. Please wake up.”
He slept on.
She kept touching him, hoping to rouse him from sleep by playing with his black hair and caressing his cheeks. Her thoughts frequently went to her sister. She hoped the aliens weren’t hurting Becky.
Depression and guilt came with that thought. She’d fled Radison to keep her little sister safe. Instead, she’d taken her away from one danger and right into another.
* * * * *
Gnaw woke but remained still. The last moments of his memory returned in a flash, and he strained all his senses.
Soft, small hands were on him, and he could hear light breathing that wasn’t his own. He inhaled through his nose, identifying the scent as that of the female human from the shuttle. Darla was still inside his cell.
Her fingers were buried in his hair above his ears, her tiny, dull claw tips gently massaging his scalp. It felt nice. Her other hand was near his jaw, rubbing against his skin lightly enough to almost tickle. He lay flat on his back, his head on something thin but softer than the rest of the surface under him. He inhaled again. The Elth scent lingered but it was faint.
“Where was I…?”
Darla’s low voice almost startled him, but he managed to control his body by not revealing himself to be awake yet.
“That’s why I got us fleet jobs. I had to get Becky off that dratted planet.”
“Where are they?” He tried not to move his mouth as he whispered.
She froze briefly, then resumed running her fingers through his hair. When she spoke, she whispered back. “We’re alone but I think I see cameras. Are you okay?”
He opened his eyes and sat up, staring around the room. They were still inside his cell. More like an exam room. He got to his feet, his chest and ribs aching from whatever they’d hit him with, but otherwise he felt fine. He also had a slight headache and he reached toward the source of the throbbing, feeling a tiny wound that had already sealed.
“You heal super-fast. It was bleeding. It’s where your head hit when you fell.”
He stared down at the female where she sat on the floor. She looked paler than before, scared, but she wore the same outfit. He didn’t see any damage to her visible delicate skin, but that wasn’t much. Her clothing covered most of her body. “Are you harmed?”
“No. They just knocked us out on the shuttle with that white smoke, and we woke inside an empty sealed room with a glass wall.”
He waited for more. She seemed to understand.
“Most of the women from the shuttle, that is. The aliens admitted to killing all the older women and men, except for you. They call themselves the Elth. Have you ever heard of them? I haven’t.”
He tore his gaze off her, studying the room again. The only weapon he could find was the tall standing structure he’d been strapped to. It was bolted to the floor, but he figured with enough strength, he might be able to rip it free and use it to bash through a wall. The exam bed looked too heavy and bulky to lift, and it was also secured to the floor with many more bolts. There was a small bathroom, but it only contained a seat for body waste.
“Gnaw? Do your people know the Elth?”
“Yes. They call themselves a scientifically motivated race. They live in what you call the eleventh quadrant. Some of our fighters have been hired to defend other planets against them. Elth are known to steal aliens to experiment on and train them to become slaves to do manual labor. They sometimes sell them to other aliens when they no longer have a use for their prisoners.” He walked over to the structure on the wall, taking in every inch of it. The restraints were solidly attached and looked difficult to remove. “What else have you learned, female?”
“My name is Darla,” she said. “The Elth plan to force us to breed. They want to get their hands on children with our mixed, um…blood. They think it will make a child easier to train if half of it is human. One of the women taken from the shuttle is a doctor on Defcon Red. She told them you can only breed with a mate. At first, they planned to make all of us have sex with you to get pregnant.”
Outrage filled Gnaw, and he turned his full attention on her.
She flinched. “Is what the doctor said true? You can only produce babies with a mate?”
It wasn’t exactly true, but he wasn’t about to admit it. They were capable of breeding without being mated; they simply didn’t. His people had purposely fed incomplete information when humans had demanded answers about their breeding habits, worried their grouping might impregnate human females on their fleet vessel by accident.
Most races weren’t nosey enough to ask. Veslors had never mated with other races or created a child with females other than their own. At least…they hadn’t, until one of their trading males had mated to a human female after rescuing her. They had been the first. “Veslors mate to have young. Go on.”
“We are supposed to, um, breed, and see if I’m your mate. Otherwise, they’ll kill me and bring in my sister to see if she’s a better choice for you.” Her voice lowered. “I took her from Radison to prevent her from being forced to have sex.”
He held her gaze, curious.
She glanced at his wrist, at him, back at his wrist, and then at him again. Her eyebrows rose. “Is there hope that it could happen?”
The female was smart, and it caused him to smile. She remembered what they’d discussed on the shuttle. She wanted to know if his grouping could still locate them.
He’d already tested his mental link from the implant in his head. The Elth would have assumed it was just his translator if they’d run scans. It was more. The connection was faint but active. Whatever had blocked it before wasn’t present anymore. His males would find him. He just didn’t know how long that would take. “We have hope.”