Alien Touch Read online

  “Then shut the fuck up,” Alaric snarled.

  Luki clamped his lips together and fumed for a little while, but the more he thought about it the more certain he was that they were on the wrong track and that it would not help them at all to stay on it because Alaric was pissed off. They needed to adjust their campaign to better fit the situation.

  “Traditionally,” he said when he thought Alaric had had time to recover his temper, “the gifts would be for her family to prove to them that we could provide.”

  Alaric sent him a narrow eyed glare—which should have set off alarms but Luki missed because he was focused on his own thoughts. “I am certain that that is why she ignored our attempts to capture her interest. We must find her family in order to find acceptance.”

  “Take her to her home world, you mean?” Alaric asked in a fake pleasant tone that set off alarm bells, but also set up Luki’s back since he detected the comment was heavily laced with sarcasm.

  “Exactly! I know she is not Furian and that the customs will not be the same, but, as you pointed out, the principle is the same everywhere and they cannot be that much different!”

  “And what if they just decide to kill us on sight? Had you thought of that?”

  Luki gaped at him. “For trying to court her?” he demanded indignantly. “It is not an insult!”

  “They may think so, though—if they even allowed us to get that far! You have forgotten that the Basinini had taken her? She had no clue of who they were. Her people will not know if we are the ones who took her or not!”

  “Well! I am not going to stand there like a fool and allow them to blow holes in me!” Luki snapped.

  “You would run?”

  Luki gaped at him. “Certainly not! I am a Furian warrior!”

  “So … you would kill them before they could kill you?”

  Luki blinked at him several times as that, and the ramifications, sank in. “She would not be happy if we killed her people,” he said slowly, unwilling to give up his theory entirely but unable to see a way around the little hiccough Alaric had pointed out.

  “And then there is the little problem that this plan completely violates our own customs,” Serge, who’d finally decided to join them, contributed helpfully. “I have a very bad feeling that they won’t see it from our perspective at all that we did not call a gathering and allow them the chance to decide if they want to accept alien women into our clans. Well, our alien woman.”

  He discovered that both Alaric and Luki were staring at him with varying degrees of anger and hostility and shrugged uneasily. “Just saying.”

  He’d hardly said his piece when they heard a summoning.

  They were telepathic and that had always been their way of communicating over distances. It wasn’t until they had attained the ability to leave their own world and explore others that they discovered this method was not particularly reliable over the distances of space. They could ‘hear’ one another, but not well enough to put across anything particularly challenging that required a great deal of explanation.

  Their inability to convey complex ideas over a great distance with others of their kind not blood linked or tied by blood closely enough to make that possible had led the Furians to develop a long range alert system. Naturally enough, since the Furians were inclined to be a warrior race, most of them were references to war—come quickly, we’re under attack—and so forth. But they had also found it necessary to gather the clans for important events and decisions that might affect the entire Empire and they had one call that related specifically to that and nothing else—the call for a gathering.

  They froze for many moments, listening intently, but the voices of the summoning had scarcely faded when it dawned on Alaric that it was damned coincidental that Serge had brought up the subject of a summoning to call a meeting for a vote and then they had received one. Before those thoughts had even completely connected in his brain, he’d seized Serge by the throat, intent on choking the life out of him.

  “You called the clans for a gathering?” he snarled furiously, struggling with the sense of doom threatening to overwhelm him when he realized they wouldn’t have time for anything approaching a ‘normal’ courtship—now.

  They might not convince her at all.

  They’d been summoned.

  Nothing shy of death prevented any clans from responding as quickly as possible to a summoning.

  Serge’s eyeballs bulged. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but Alaric’s grip on his throat prevented actual speech and his focus on trying to get air prevented any attempt at a mind meld.

  “Amber gets upset when she sees us fighting,” Luki said, grasping Alaric’s wrist warningly.

  Alaric turned to look at him, struggling to switch gears, but he knew the moment he saw Luki’s expression. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  Alaric had to command his hand to release Serge’s throat. And then he had to steady Serge to prevent him from crumpling to the floor. He gritted his teeth, shook him slightly to get his attention and then slowly withdrew his hand and glanced around at Amber, struggling to think of something to say in her language that would be an innocent explanation that she could understand. “Serge fall down,” he managed finally. “I help up.”

  Amber blinked at him, too shocked to feel much of anything despite the fact that she’d already seen enough to know the guys—the Furians—tended to be pretty rough around the edges. “By the throat?”

  Alaric shrugged uneasily. “Catch dat dere.”

  Amber had come to show off and see what their reaction would be to seeing her in actual clothing.

  Because she just felt a need to see if they would show any sign at all of admiration.

  Now she was inclined to think she’d happened upon something she shouldn’t have interrupted and that a retreat would be the smartest move she could make.

  This definitely wasn’t the distraction she’d had in mind when she’d donned one of the outfits she’d found in the box and set out to find the guys. It had seemed more like a costume than ‘regular’ clothing, but she liked the feel of the fabric and the flow of the gown/dress. It made her feel pretty and feminine—neither of which were things she’d felt in a long time because she’d been focused on being accepted as ‘one of the guys’ since she’d been in the astronaut program.

  She wasn’t certain of why she’d put it on now.

  Well, she was, actually. It just wasn’t something she really wanted to acknowledge.

  It wasn’t a slut dress, per se, but it was definitely the sort of thing a woman put on to get male attention.

  And she wanted to see if they thought she was pretty.

  She thought they were.

  Pretty damned amazing in just about every way—and gorgeous on top of that.

  It wasn’t as if she’d ‘forgotten’ that they were aliens. That just wasn’t possible after everything she’d seen. But it was damned easy to get used to them when they looked so human and behaved … well, so much like human men.

  Rednecks mostly.

  Not in the sense that they were rude and crude, but … uncomplicated, she supposed.

  They wouldn’t fit in the ‘metro’ sophisticated mold by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked that they seemed ‘down to Earth’ without being Earthlings and yet still behaved like they’d been taught good manners.

  It was a really appealing combination.

  Except for that gesture that she’d totally misconstrued, they hadn’t once made any sort of crude gesture or said anything nasty to her even though she was alone and at their mercy. It was a situation generally fraught with danger for pretty much any woman—even ugly women.

  But they hadn’t made her feel threatened—at all.

  Which, naturally enough, aroused her need for reassurance.

  She thought they at least seemed to think of her as a woman.

  So natural
ly she couldn’t stand not knowing if they did think of her that way and found her desirable.

  Now didn’t seem to be a good time for that discovery, though.

  “Oh—well, sorry I … uh … interrupted whatever it was you were doing in here. I just … uh … wanted to thank Serge for the clothing and show him it fits.”

  Alaric’s face darkened like a thundercloud and he swung an accusing glance at Serge.

  Uh oh.

  “Well, I mean—all of you! You’ve been so ….”

  She could see that Alaric was struggling to tamp his bad humor.

  Luki came to her rescue. Hurrying toward her, he turned her toward the door she’d entered through and escorted her out. “Dis good. Fin more. Be better.”

  Amber didn’t especially want to go on another treasure hunt, but she was relieved enough that Luki seemed to have averted disaster that she didn’t object and she was glad, later, that she didn’t.

  He took her back to the hanger where their smaller ship was parked and they’d left her capsule.

  She glanced at it a little longingly, more because she was thinking about home than nostalgic about the capsule itself, wondering how long it would take a radio signal to reach Earth from their current position.

  Probably a few hundred years, she thought glumly.

  Still, she’d recorded a couple of messages and tried to send them. She thought it might be possible they’d gone through when the capsule was towed away by Alaric’s ship.

  She might even have gotten a response!

  That possibility instantly diverted her from everything else.

  Excitement filled her.

  It was dashed in the next moment when she realized it would be nothing but a message if there was anything at all. It wouldn’t be ‘communications’ because she couldn’t respond … not and be heard.

  She still wanted to check to see, to hear it if anything had been sent, but the guys clearly didn’t want her anywhere near it.

  She supposed, with wry amusement, that they might think she could actually escape in it.

  Or was desperate enough to try.

  Upon further consideration, she realized they had to know the thing had very little range. It was, basically, nothing more than a guided bullet and she’d used up most of the maneuvering fuel trying to escape when the spider-like aliens had caught her.

  Alaric, arriving shortly behind them with Serge, seemed to bear up her suspicions. Even though she made every effort not to actually look at the ship it apparently made him uneasy enough he decided the hanger wasn’t the best place for the next search. He turned her around and herded her back toward the lift and up to the next level.

  She supposed, since she knew, or at least strongly suspected, they were telepathic, they might have ‘picked up’ something she’d thought.

  She’d convinced herself they couldn’t actually read her mind, but maybe it was only that they couldn’t understand her language and or reference points?

  They had picked up some words and she didn’t recall using all of the words she’d heard them use.

  She might have, though. She didn’t actually recall what she’d said and what she’d merely thought—because she hadn’t really had any significant conversation with them. She’d mostly just talked ‘at’ them.

  Because she was hoping they would begin to pick up English from listening and she would be able to explain to them that they needed to take her back to where they’d picked her up to take her home.

  She didn’t think she was afraid and she didn’t think she was actually homesick. She just wanted some reassurance that they really did mean to take her home eventually. If she had that reassurance she thought she could actually enjoy the ‘adventure’ she’d ended up having.

  Of course, she was never going to be able to share her experiences with anybody back home. They’d think she was koo-koo.

  But she didn’t need to share.

  It wasn’t as if she actually had anyone to share it with that would get it, even if they completely believed the story.

  Her colleagues, the other scientists/astronauts would be thrilled and amazed and envious—if they believed it had actually happened. But no one else that she knew.

  Sooo—the adventure was just for her own gratification. Not something she could or ever would share with another human being.

  Chapter Eight

  Alaric was almost as pissed off with Luki by the time they got out of the hanger as he was with Serge.

  It almost seemed as if the bastards were going out of their way to sabotage their chances of mating with Amber.

  Serge swore on their ancestors that he hadn’t contacted the others about a gathering, but Alaric wasn’t convinced. It just seemed way too coincidental to be a coincidence.

  And then Luki drags her down to have a look at the thingy they’d found her in!

  Not that he’d actually completely grasped the thoughts running through her mind, but he damned well knew she’d been focused on it and had felt excitement and unhappiness and that spelled trouble to him!

  They were trying to get her to focus on mating, damn it!

  Not going home!

  At least he was.

  He didn’t know what the fuck Luki and Serge were thinking.

  Or even if they were thinking.

  They weren’t just screwing up their chances with Amber, though. They were screwing up his and he didn’t fucking appreciate it!

  He realized he should have just called it a day when she’d caught him trying to choke the life out of Serge—stayed put to nurse his anger and get past it and allowed Luki and Serge to finish fucking up their own chances with Amber. His nerves were frayed and his temper short and that was no way for a guy to feel when he was trying to woo a female, gods damn it!

  But he had worried that Luki and Serge really would fuck up their chances and decided he needed to just get a grip on his temper and try his best to recover the slip and move forward.

  Then Luki had taken them right down to her ship!

  Even as distracted as he was he’d seen right off that that was a major screw up!

  Now she was thinking about home and probably bad things about them for not taking her there and he doubted she was going to be receptive to being wooed in any way.

  Not in a time frame they could work with, at any rate.

  Not that he’d gotten the chance to spend a great deal of time around mating aged females, but, from what he’d seen, they didn’t get over things particularly fast. They brooded—sometimes for days.

  Sometimes longer.

  That thought made him downright nauseous—made him think wild thoughts like pretending they hadn’t gotten the summoning.

  They couldn’t just show up at a clan gathering with an unattached female that looked like Amber and expect the others to respect their squatter’s rights to her.

  It had to be a done deal when they arrived at the gathering, he realized.

  Unfortunately, that realization didn’t make a plan magically appear.

  He thought he was on the right track with his original plan, but that was not something that could be implemented and executed in a snap.

  It took time.

  Time he was afraid they didn’t have.

  * * * *

  Amber was actually relieved when they ended up back at her cabin.

  But that only lasted as long as it took to realize the guys had taken up where they’d left off before. They immediately headed toward the pile of things that still took up more than half the space in the room and began picking things out and examining them.

  She supposed she should have at least offered to help them clean—since that was what it looked like they were doing—but she didn’t know how they might react to that and Alaric seemed to still be in a pretty foul mood despite his heroic efforts to throw off his bad temper.

  She thought she would actually have preferred to go somewhere else while t
hey dug out things, looked them over, studied her thoughtfully for several moments and then disappeared out the door with it.

  Why did they keep looking at her?

  It was almost like they were … looking for approval.

  She just couldn’t figure out what she was supposed to approve.

  The removal?

  Or was she supposed to point out things she would like for them to leave?

  This was the sort of situation where it would have been really helpful to have some fairly advanced communications skills developed.

  Except they didn’t.

  That being the case, Amber opted to retreat to the bed in the corner.

  Not that she was especially comfortable with that—sprawling on the bed with a room full of men that might or might not get the wrong idea—but the only other option was standing, or maybe sitting on the floor.

  Naturally enough, the glances they kept sending her way began to feel more like speculation about sex than the approval/disapproval she’d felt like they were before she’d opted to sit on the foot of the bed.

  In self-defense, she willed herself to stop staring at the fascinating show of muscles they were displaying with everything they picked up lest they get the notion that was a huge turn on to her.

  It wasn’t.

  She just liked the way their muscles looked when they worked them.

  The tension she felt coiling in her belly was uneasiness not sexual awareness or arousal.

  She completely forgot her discomfort, though, when Alaric pulled something from the pile that seemed really familiar—as weird as it looked.

  He held it up.

  She stared at it—hard.

  It was about a foot to a foot and half tall and looked like it had some sort of nasty, gluttonous mess floating inside the glass.

  It also had a long, very narrow tail dangling from its base.

  She stared at that, followed it to the two prongs at the end and abruptly surged off the bed and dashed toward him. “OH MY GOD! I know what that is!”

  Alaric seemed disconcerted, to say the least, when she charged toward him, virtually dancing with excitement. “I’ve seen one before ….” She frowned, trying to snag the memory, but it eluded her. “It must have been in a movie or something. A prop. Man! I swear to god it looks like one of those things they called ….” She stopped again and frowned, struggling to unearth the memory dancing just beyond her reach. “Lava lamp!”