9. THALIA

Now there was another awkward problem: sleeping.

The awkwardness was not helped by the previous awkwardness.

Awkwardness was cumulative.

And I was so exhausted that I was past the point of caring about any obstacles that stood between me and somewhere (anywhere) to sleep. I’d only been that tired once before.

After the initial horror of being abducted had worn off, I’d collapsed and slept for some unknown length of time. My handlers had allowed it and said it was common for Humans to engage a “survival mode” where we no longer perceived pain, hunger, stress, exhaustion. We stopped processing violence or abuse or dead bodies or destruction. Our brains just told all those sensations to take a number, your call will be answered in the order it was received. It was apparently one of the survival adaptations the Greys prized and wanted for their own genetic slop.

But the flip side was the instant your brain perceived you were “safe” (relatively speaking) you collapsed, and then you started processing those tickets in the queue.

I needed to be careful, because I was so tired nothing was going to matter soon.

I sagged onto the one small bed in the equally small room. I’d pulled back on my filthy clothes because I had nothing else to wear and bowed my head under the weight of my matted hair.

My wrists burned with Ahane’s hand removing them from his own body.

I inhaled a shuddering sob.

Nope. Not going to cry and make it weirder than it was.

I summoned the thought of Him feeling through my brain, and his not-voice whispering what does it feel like, does it hurt, are you enjoying it, intriguing, yes, like that, perplexing.

A surge of adrenaline shot through my system. Cheap vodka right to the emotions.

Ahane came into the small room. Wearing pants. No shirt. But he didn’t have a shirt. He had boots. I had the shirt. He paused in the doorway, but didn’t ask whatever question lingered on his scales.

There was just one bed, and not enough floor space. And one blanket. And one pillow.

One pillow? Fucking war crime.

“I will sleep in the diner.” He pointed towards the diner with his tail.

“In the diner? On that floor? Where everyone can peer in and look at you?”

“The grime on the windows makes that impossible.”

“I’m assuming we’re going to clean the grime off.”

Ahane raised one of his scale-covered brow ridges in a oh, really. “I made the bed. You should sleep.”

“I don’t want you to sleep on the floor.” He hadn’t left me to die, he’d bought me my own soap, and he’d made me a bath in a soup pot. And he hadn’t been creepy about it.

Nope, I’d been the creepy one.

He made a matter-of-fact observation. “You also do not want me to sleep with you.”

“I understand if you don’t want to sleep with me, considering everything that’s happened.”

His scales flushed—was he blushing? “Those were unintentional mishaps.”

“We’re stuck with each other, Ahane.”

He gave me a strange look, like what I’d just said triggered some memory in him. Damn. Had I insulted him? Had something gotten lost in translation?

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I was never very good at talking to people before I got taken, and the Greys can always suss out what you actually mean, so it doesn’t matter what you say.”

“Are you sure?”

“That I’m not good at talking to people? I’m sure.”

“I meant the bed.”

“Unless you’d rather sleep on the floor. I don’t know what 25XAs like to sleep on.”

He unbuttoned the top of his pants.

I turned around to sort the one blanket and one small pillow.

He turned down the lights to a soft shadowy dark. I tucked myself onto my side against the wall at the very edge of the small bed. This meant my ass would be to him, but given my options, that seemed best.

He moved in the shadows, surprisingly quiet for a guy that massive, and the bed creaked and dipped under his weight.

He lowered himself onto the bed, then laid down. His arm ran the length of my neck, down my spine, and along my ass. His bare scales sent shivers through me, and while my shirt was long enough to cover my ass, my bare thighs met his, the sensitive, bruised skin basking in the warmth of his touch.

I squeezed my eyes shut so hard lights danced and flickered across the back of my eyelids and I gulped down another strangled sob as emotions crashed through the dam in my head.

“I can go sleep elsewhere,” he said in the soft dark.

“No,” my voice was strangled. “Stay.”

He relaxed back beside me.

“Please stay,” I whispered.

He settled into the thin mattress.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.