Alien Touch Read online

  “No. It’s not home,” she said slowly. “We were going to build a colony there. Are. They already started sending supplies.”

  “I didn’t understand a word of that,” Serge said plaintively. “But I like the sound. It is almost as if she is singing. I have not heard the voice of a woman in … a very long time.”

  Alaric was frowning fiercely, struggling to translate. Finally, he shrugged. “I have only a few words. I did not understand either. But I think she said that wasn’t her home.”

  “I am sure of it,” Luki said confidently.

  Alaric glanced at him irritably. “You are saying that you have understood more than either Serge or me?”

  He could see Luki was considering claiming just that. Apparently he thought better of it. “She said ‘no’. I understood that.”

  Alaric thought that over and realized he could recall the negative word and had understood that it was a negative word.

  He relaxed fractionally and considered the situation. “I think she may just like looking at it. She seemed pleased and she says it is not home.”

  “I got that impression, as well,” Serge agreed.

  Luki considered saying something snide about Serge’s penchant for agreeing with Alaric on most every point, but he decided against it.

  Serge could not help that he was so damned agreeable.

  And, in any case, they had to have a member of the triad that was a peacemaker. Serge had been born to the role. “It sounds likely,” Luki mumbled after a few moments, reluctant to agree with Alaric, but with no ammunition for an argument. He had also caught the emotion of happy excitement. He could not think of another interpretation for that if it was not her home.

  And he was certain of that much.

  He frowned, thoughtful. “So do you think she recognized it? Or just that she thought it was pretty?”

  “I do not know. I think we will have to wait until we understand her better to question her about her home. I do not see any possibility of getting anything useful at this point.”

  Luki nodded, hesitated, and then decided to voice his thoughts. “She could pass for a Furian woman, I think. I was so stunned when she took that thing off I am not sure that I have all my wits about me even now.”

  Alaric had thought just that himself. In point of fact, he had thought of nothing else since she had taken that thing off of her head and he had seen her for the first time.

  Well, truthfully, he had thought of many things since he had first set eyes upon her true appearance, but he was certainly not going to share with his triad the thoughts that had preoccupied his mind.

  He still did not understand why she was wearing that thing and it irritated him that she had confused him, but he had found it difficult to get very angry in the face of something so wondrous.

  A female!

  A beautiful one at that!

  And she was so like the women he remembered that he ached with nostalgia.

  And lust.

  He wanted her so bad he could taste it.

  Like bile in his throat.

  It was only the absolute terror of giving her a distaste for him that had kept him in firm control of his mating urges.

  Because he had desperately wanted to yield to them and romance her with every part of his body instantly and repeatedly.

  He did not know how Luki and Serge had managed to contain themselves.

  It was certainly a very good thing for them that they had, however.

  Because he had been fully prepared to beat them unconscious if they so much as looked at her wrong.

  It was a relief to know that was not her home and he could, with a clear conscience, take her back to their new world.

  That gave them some time to figure out how they could woo her and convince her to be their mate.

  Because he had an inkling that none of the customs of his people would be the least bit familiar or acceptable to her.

  She was not Furian, regardless of how similar she seemed in appearance.

  Beyond that, the customs of his people required that they apply to the family of their chosen and he had a bad feeling the family of their chosen would fiercely reject them. So that didn’t appeal to him at all.

  They would have to make new customs if they could not figure out what her mating customs were or if it transpired that those customs just did not ‘fit’ them … or excluded them as potential mates.

  Of course, the objective of mating was … not fucking, which was all he had been able to think about, but rather reproduction. And he had no idea if she was close enough to a Furian woman that that was possible. But he did not care if it was not!

  It would certainly be nice to have a family, but just as certainly he would not allow the lack of a possibility to stand in his way.

  He had not thought about a woman since …. That horrible day when their world was destroyed.

  He had left with his clan to make coup in the absolute certainty that he would choose a mate upon his return, but there had been no one to return to and his grief had overshadowed his needs for a very long time.

  And then he had seen no point in allowing himself to think about something he could do nothing about.

  She changed everything. Everything!

  Now he had something to look forward to, a possibility of a future.

  He had told himself that he looked forward to wiping out the Basinini, but that was a lie. He had never looked forward to it. He had taken his revenge because he felt he owed it to the people and because he could not help himself.

  There was no joy in it.

  Satisfaction, of a sort, yes.

  But that was not the sort of thing that brought happiness.

  She could give them that.

  If they could convince her that they were worthy of it.

  * * * *

  They looked like they were thinking about eating her, Amber thought uneasily, wondering even as the thought occurred to her where it had come from.

  Experience.

  She was using the experience she had with men and applying it to man-looking aliens who probably had zero interest in her as a female.

  Unless, of course, this form was their true form?

  It if was, then she must look as similar as their females to them as they did to Earth men.

  Maybe.

  She’d seen the leader change forms twice now. There was no telling what they really looked like, she realized.

  Was it logical, though, that they would take on the forms of Earth men when they had never seen one? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to mimic her?

  She didn’t know, but she discovered her head was swimming and that she felt as heavy and drained as if she’d spent hours in a pool and climbed out.

  She’d had one shock after another until she couldn’t make sense of anything anymore. She was exhausted from the extreme emotion, so tired she felt like she was on the verge of collapsing.

  And then she did.

  She thought she could make it back to the seat she’d abandoned but discovered she could barely drag one foot in front of the other. And then her knees buckled and darkness crowded in on her.

  Someone caught her, shifted their grip for a better hold and then lifted her up. Her head felt too heavy for her neck and she allowed it to fall against a hard shoulder.

  She was aware of the sensation of being carried, the sound of a door being opened and then she was lowered and felt the give of a bed.

  “Is she … alright?” Serge asked anxiously from the doorway.

  “I do not know,” Alaric responded grimly.

  “She will die,” Luki muttered glumly, “and then we will not have a woman again.”

  “I will punch you out, if you say anything like that again,” Alaric growled angrily.

  Luki glared at him, but held his tongue … for a handful of seconds. “It is not as if she would understand and be frightened or upset.”

&nb
sp; “We understand!” Serge snapped angrily. “Do you think we want to think like that? When we have only just found her and begun to think we might have a mate?”

  Alaric had been testing her throat for a pulse, but at that comment he whipped a glance around at his clansmen. “You are thinking about mating when we have only just discovered she is even similar to us?”

  “Yes!” Luki and Serge said at the exact same time.

  “I thought of it the very second I saw her face.”

  “I am not certain I thought anything at all when I first saw her face,” Serge responded carefully. “I think I was too stunned to think. But very quickly after I realized that she was so much like us.”

  “It is not as if we will find a female of our own people, or likely that we will find one closer,” Luki said, very reasonably for him. “And I had thought when I was young that I would certainly have a mate at some point.”

  Alaric had expected—they all had—that they would return triumphant from the test of manhood and choose a bride.

  The Basinini had taken that from them, everything, even the possibility of a future.

  But now, unwillingly and unwittingly, they had given them that one thing back—the possibility of a future.

  But how likely was it, he wondered, that she would accept them as mates? That she would be willing to forsake all those she had left behind and accept them and their people as hers?

  Even if she had no choice because they could not find her home world, it did not necessarily follow that she would have them when they were so different from her people.

  Chapter Five

  Amber had no idea of how long she slept, but she felt amazingly well rested when she woke and she thought that probably meant that she’d slept for a good long spell.

  In a sense, that wasn’t really surprising.

  The stress she’d been under because of the project hadn’t really helped her rest when she got the chance at it, and it was a very demanding job that actually didn’t leave a lot of down time anyway. Add to that the fact that they’d been trying to sleep at zero gravity and she knew she’d been badly in need of rest.

  That might explain why and how she managed to sleep so well under the ‘roof’ of aliens who may or may not have rescued her, who, in fact, might have taken her for purposes even more diabolical than the skinny bastards who’d captured her ship.

  She could be a war prize to their minds.

  They hadn’t made her feel like a captive, however.

  Well, except for chasing her down when she’d tried the moon run, but that might just as easily be explained by a determination to save her from herself.

  She might not have been able to figure it out if they’d had some way to actually communicate, but she was all at sea as things stood. She had body language to make an educated guess, but they were alien and she couldn’t count on that body language not being as alien as everything else about them.

  She supposed she’d been through enough that she’d just been physically drained and that accounted for her ability to sleep through things she shouldn’t have been able to.

  It certainly contributed, she was sure.

  But she didn’t just feel rested when she woke. She felt more in control, less on the verge of mental collapse—as if she’d lose her grip at any moment and disintegrate into complete madness.

  They hadn’t taken her home, she reminded herself—she supposed because it just didn’t occur to them that she was right next door to her home.

  Well, there was logic in that.

  She’d been pretty fucking stunned to discover what appeared to be an alien base on their back doorstep.

  And that could be why they hadn’t considered she was home or close to it.

  And maybe she should be glad they hadn’t, instead, instantly assumed she must be from a race that was allies of those aliens or they wouldn’t have built a base in her backyard.

  She could also be wrong in the interpretation she’d made when it seemed they were trying to communicate with her telepathically.

  Although she had no reason at all to jump to such a conclusion when humans weren’t telepathic and at least weren’t aware of any creature that was.

  She didn’t know why they would communicate that way, have evolved to, when they had mouths and the ability to change form and obviously had vocal chords, but she supposed it went with the ability to change forms. They could become stronger and have all sorts of abilities by changing, but they had to give up the ability to communicate through speech? And they needed that very important ability to make war? Protect their species?

  They couldn’t communicate very well with her, though.

  She was convinced they’d tried and succeeded after a fashion, but her mind just wasn’t wired for telepathy, she supposed.

  Or maybe it was just because she was so alien in every way to them?

  She didn’t know, but she realized she just couldn’t accept that and give up on the possibility of communications. Somehow, she had to figure out a way to tell them where home was and beg them to take her there.

  They certainly had that ability.

  And that still boggled her mind.

  But that reminder of their technological capabilities encouraged her to get off the bed and look for them.

  She found the facilities first—not the door out of the cabin.

  Lucky girl!

  It took her a few minutes to figure out the alien technology, but it was designed for waste removal after all, not particularly complicated when it had the same function as any other bathroom.

  The hard part was getting the damned suit off, but she decided it was worth the struggle.

  Twenty minutes later, she’d worked up a sweat and was beginning to question whether it was worth it or not, but she had managed to get her gauntlets and boots off and lower the bottom half of the suit.

  She debated afterward whether or not she actually wanted to dive back in when she had the luxury of traveling in a craft so advanced it not only had a real bathroom, but real gravity.

  She decided, though, that she just didn’t feel that safe.

  She put her suit and boots back on and tucked the gauntlets into a pocket on the legs of the suit. She wasn’t wearing her helmet. She thought if an emergency arose she could get the helmet and gloves on fairly quickly.

  They were talking when she opened the door to the cabin, but that ceased the moment she grasped the handle.

  A little unnerved by that Amber hesitated, but she’d already started to leave the cabin and enter that part of the ship and it seemed less suspicious to continue.

  Besides, she wanted to see what she might see from the viewing ports.

  She doubted any of the other planets were aligned on the path they were taking, but if she could even pass close enough to recognize one it would be the thrill of a lifetime for her.

  Another thrill of a lifetime.

  It was almost as terrifying, she discovered, as it was awe-inspiring to get an up close view of Neptune—for a lot of reasons.

  Her first thought when she spotted the planet was that the aliens had figured out where she was from after all and had turned around, but even as she raced up to a window to stare out at the blue marble in the velvet black and diamond sky, she knew it wasn’t Earth. She stared hard, but, try as she might to pick out something besides the color to make it Earth, there was nothing but a few streaks of pale clouds here and there.

  It wasn’t Earth.

  And the only other blue planet in the solar system was Neptune.

  A mixture of emotions flooded her. Disappointment was uppermost, at first, but once it finally dawned on her that it must be Neptune—well, a mixture of different emotions filled her.

  It couldn’t be Neptune.

  She wasn’t out that long!

  It took anything from Earth years to even get close to Neptune!

  And that was traveling at the best speed th
ey could manage.

  She knew she’d correctly identified it, though, deep down, and that caused mixed feelings, as well.

  She was exhilarated that she could see it with her own eyes.

  And terrified because she knew what that meant.

  They were rapidly approaching the edge of the known universe—for humans—their solar system.

  Not that she had firsthand knowledge of anything she’d seen since she’d gotten into the ship with the aliens, but Earth people had made a lot of progress in exploring their solar system with probes—and beyond it with telescopes.

  They were proud of what they’d accomplished—justifiably so.

  But she could see, feel it to the depths of her soul, that these beings had firsthand knowledge of and experience with things humans might never discover at all—and certainly not in her lifetime.

  The certainty that she was poised to discover things no human had or could or would was as terrifying as it was exhilarating, but there was no way to deny that she was as thrilled as she was frightened.

  * * * *

  “Her home world is here,” Serge said flatly. “It is as clear as bell to me that she is home … here.”

  Alaric was glaring at his controls, thinking. “You may be right—but we cannot know for certain when we cannot ask and she cannot say.”

  “We would know for certain if we turned around and went back,” Luki said pointedly.

  “This is what you want?” Alaric snarled before he thought better of it and flicked a quick look at the woman to see if she had noticed his flare of temper.

  “Of course not!” Luki retorted, angry himself at having his hopes dashed. “But we are not going to attach her affections by ignoring the truth!”

  “And we will not have her affections if we take her back straight away!” Alaric responded. “We would have no chance to woo her at all!”

  “We do not know that,” Luki pointed out.

  Alaric glanced at Serge. “What do you think?”

  Surprised pleasure flickered across Serge’s features. He wasn’t accustomed to having anyone ask his opinion on any subject, especially Alaric, and that made him struggle with a response. He wanted to be helpful, but he also wanted to support Alaric. He frowned thoughtfully. “We told her that we would find her home and take her there,” he said slowly. “But we did not say that we would take her straightaway because we are not sure of where it is.” He considered that and decided to elaborate a little more. “It does not follow that we know where it is now. We think so, but we do not know. And I don’t see that she would blame us and hate us if we kept her until she was able to tell us where to find home.” He nodded, smiling. “And that will give us time to court her and convince her that she would happy with us.”