Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

VYA

A sickening pull in my stomach woke me, and I groaned. My head hurt, and my mouth was drier than a desert. I must have had one hell of a night because I couldn't remember a thing. Warm and too sick to move, I kept my eyes closed and tugged my thin blanket higher.

I frowned. It was too thin for my blanket.

Memories hit me like a Mack truck a few seconds later. The bathhouse. The handjobs. Mila dying and me being shocked so many times I couldn't even see anymore.

Tentatively, I reached for my face. A bandage covered my eyes, confirming that the things I remembered happening to me weren't some horrible nightmare. It was all real.

A small sound of despair escaped me.

The bed shifted, and a warm hand stroked down the length of my arm.

Panic squeezed my chest, and my heart started to hammer. Mila was dead. No one was left to sleep next to me…except for the giant bug things.

I wanted to bolt away but knew better than to try.

So I lay there in a complete state of near hyperventilation and waited.

I heard a sigh beside me, followed by a low rumble. It took a moment to understand that I was hearing words.

Not growls but words.

Words that didn't make a lick of sense.

The rest of my memories shuffled into place. I wasn't in the bathhouse anymore. Something had taken me from that hell, and I was ninety-nine percent sure it was a new type of alien. It had rubbed something into my skin that had taken some of the pain away before I'd fallen asleep. That, in addition to the exam table and stinging shots, led me to believe it was trying to heal me.

The possible reasons why still terrified me.

When it didn't move or speak again, I cautiously lifted a hand even though my heart continued trying to bang its way out of my chest.

Fingers touched mine. The touch was light and undemanding.

After a moment, I took a risk and changed the contact so I could explore the hand. It felt like mine but much bigger. A dusting of hair covered the back of each finger near the base, which wasn't very unusual for humans. In fact, everything felt pretty normal until I hit a weird bone on the outside of his wrist. Hidden by his sleeve, the small protrusion was pointy, but not overly sharp.

I knew I'd lingered too long on the oddity when he plucked at my fingers and nudged my touch farther up his bare arm. I didn't want this little "touch me" session to go where it was inevitably headed, but I also didn't want another beating. Everything still hurt. Maybe not as much, but enough to remind me what treatment disobedient captives received.

Shuddering at its implied command to keep going, I forced myself to sit up. With the thin blanket pinned under my arms, I tentatively used both hands to trace my way over his skin while I tried to find the silver lining. Maybe knowing what type of alien I was dealing with would help me in some way. Or maybe he'd just get down to business when I found his happy place.

A fresh wave of tears started to well behind the bandage, and I tried harder to focus on learning.

The guess that he was huge hadn't been underestimated. His forearm diameter rivaled the size of my calf.

This was definitely not an alien to be trifled with.

He didn't move as my trembling fingers skimmed over his shoulders, down his sides, and up across his chest. Everything I touched was skin-clad muscle. And I meant hard muscle like he was flexing. Only, I didn't think he was because nothing ever tensed or relaxed.

His abs were unusually abby. I wasn't sure how many a human had, but I counted twelve distinct ridges that disappeared into the waist of his pants. I quickly retreated from that boundary, and he let me.

He had two arms and a chiseled chest with no nipples. None. I checked twice before continuing upward. His corded, thick neck met with an angular jaw and a square chin.

I paused, unsure how far up he wanted me to go. Or how far I wanted to go. What if he had a tentacle on his face or something? Another shudder ripped through me.

He took my hand, talking to me in his low, growling voice, and placed my fingertips on his lips.

My pulse jumped, and my stomach dipped. I desperately wanted to believe he didn't intend to hurt me, but nothing about this was giving me any vibe that things would end well for me.

He released my hand with a silent nudge for me to continue. I did so reluctantly. His lips were firm and smooth, and his nose wide and slightly flat.

I reached farther up.

My blanket fell.

I scrambled to grab it, but he was faster, catching my hands half a second after I removed them and planting them on his cheeks.

Heart hammering, I debated removing one hand to grab the blanket. Hesitation was why I'd been shocked blind. I over-thought things and froze in indecision. It was my biggest downfall. Acknowledging that motivated me to move my hands over his brows and along the long wiry hair that outlined his forehead as my heart pounded in my chest.

Cooperation showed obedience. Obedient captives didn't get shocked to death.

When I was done, I slowly withdrew my hands. However, he didn't let me go far. He caught my wrists and gently tugged me to my feet. The blanket completely fell off of me, and I trembled.

In the bathhouse, I'd had clothes. The things that kept me then hadn't cared what I'd looked like, only that I kept my hands busy.

Now, I wasn't sure what was worse. Giving happy-ending baths to abusive aliens or standing naked in front of one I knew nothing about. If I knew it wasn't going to demand a happy ending or hurt me, I'd walk around naked in front of him all day if he wanted.

Caught up in my thoughts, I was startled when he placed his hand on my back. A moment later, I was in his arms. Bare skin brushed against my bare skin as he walked.

My panic climbed. Where was he taking me? And for what purpose?

The mystery of our destination was answered when he set me on the same cool exam table from yesterday and placed a palm in the center of my chest to nudge me to lie back. His fingers almost touched one of my nipples. I told myself that, since he didn't have any, he probably didn't realize what he was doing. It took a lot of effort to believe that until the hand withdrew.

He carefully removed the bandage from my eyes, and I blinked at the light. It was brighter than it had been before. But when I looked around, I still couldn't pick out any distinguishable shapes. Certainly not any indication of my captor.

He spoke, and the tinny voice answered.

Lights flashed above me. The robotic vocalization after the lights ended was lengthy, and I ended up with a new bandage over my eyes and another stinging shot to the thigh.

The alien immediately stroked his fingers over the spot, soothing away the pain, before picking me up again. Cold from the table and shaking from fear—I hated not being able to see what was happening to me—I leaned into him a little as he moved. He didn't seem to mind.

The walk was shorter this time, and he sat me on a hard chair instead of a bed. Chairs were good. Much better than beds. Or steamy rooms with bathtubs.

He said something to me and patted my shoulder before walking away.

Tilting my head, I listened to some beeps and rustles of movement and realized the underwater effect that I had been hearing for days was gone. My eyes watered, and more hope built inside of me. My new keeper had taken me from hell, washed me, let me sleep undisturbed and unmolested, and seemed to be giving me medical treatments that were helping fix some of what I'd suffered.

And now, I was in a chair. Why?

I tentatively reached out my hands to feel what was around me. A table and another chair. My mouth started to water. For all I knew, I sat in front of an operating table, and my Pavlovian response was pointless. But based on everything that had happened so far, I didn't think so. And I really hoped I was right because I was starving and thirsty. So thirsty.

Fingers touched my arm, letting me know he was nearby.

I set my hands back in my lap, waiting for what would happen next but was completely unprepared for the way he plucked me off my chair and sat me sideways on his lap. Before I had a chance to panic over the new seating arrangement, he wrapped one of my hands around a cup and nudged it toward my mouth.

Rather than hesitate, I drank greedily. The sweet, slightly metallic water wet my parched throat and helped fill the empty cavern of my stomach.

He took the cup from me when I finished and set something else in my hand. A spoon. I stopped caring that I sat on his lap or that he was doing a lot of touching. I eagerly let him guide my hand to the bowl and dip the spoon. He held my hand steady as I brought it to my mouth. It smelled amazingly sweet.

I shoved the spoon in.

Something wiggled in my mouth.

I gagged, spat it out, and frantically wiped at my tongue. He just calmly wiped at my gag-reflex tears that had snuck past the bandage and stroked my arms. I decided then and there that he could shock me until I died. I wasn't eating anything that wiggled in my mouth.

It took a few minutes for me to stop shuddering and another minute before I'd hold the spoon. He never got angry through his steady persistence to get me to clasp the utensil.

Rather than let him feed me another pile of what I was sure was live candied worms, I felt the table with my free hand. He took my fingers and placed them on the edge of two bowls, then made me stretch to feel the edge of a third bowl, which was pushed very far away.

Calmer, I let him help me try again. The second dish didn't move in my mouth, which was good. But it tasted like how stagnant water smelled. I immediately gagged again, even as I tried to swallow. It wasn't going to happen.

He met my second spitting eruption with the same calm, reassuring touches as the first one. When I stopped gagging, he pushed that bowl aside and moved the final one in front of me.

If it proved just as bad as the first two, I'd need to find a way to choke the contents down, or I'd starve. I'd been eating mashed-up bugs for a month. Why was I being so picky now? That answer was easy. The bugs, while disgusting, had been better than the shocks I'd received when I'd refused to eat.

I realized that his care for me and the lack of shocks so far had led to a subconsciously perceived level of safety. Because of that, I'd allowed myself to react as if I had a choice in what I ate…and that was dangerous.

I prepared myself to swallow whatever was in the next bowl. No matter what.

He placed the spoon in my hand once more and helped me dip it into a bowl. If he noticed my hesitancy to bring it to my mouth, it didn't appear to bother him. He gently trailed a finger over my cheek, seemingly content to let me take my time.

When I finally did give the food a try, I moaned at the familiarity of it. It was the best damn oatmeal I'd ever eaten. And I didn't like oatmeal.

I hungrily shoveled another spoonful into my mouth, keeping my fingers on the bowl so I'd know where to aim.

My living chair made a rumbling sound and trailed his hand down my spine. I paused with the spoon right in front of my open mouth when his fingers danced over the cleft of my ass. He said something and nudged the spoon as his other hand returned to the top of my head to repeat the petting motion.

Was that what he was doing? Petting me?

He was feeding me, comforting me, and caring for me.

Was I his new puppy?

That wouldn't be the worst fate ever, as long as he was the type of owner who lavished affection on his pet and never scolded.

Following his suggestion, I continued to eat. And when the spoon hit the bottom of the bowl, I shamelessly used my fingers and tongue to clean out the rest.