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“We’re not going to make it,” I tell him. “We’re not going to fucking make it.”
His talons dig into my hip, and I clamp my mouth shut as he rattles off something in a seriously irritated voice. The dinosaurs are gaining on us, their black eyes glittering through the steady pelt of rain that seems to be the de facto weather on this planet.
The closest T-Rex suddenly pauses, cocking its head so severely that my own neck aches to see it.
“Oh my God,” I breathe.
The snake my alien shook off is nothing compared to the massive thing now entangled around the T-Rex’s powerful legs.
“What the hell? Has that thing been there the whole time? Does everything on this planet take steroids? Why is it so big?!” I’m squealing with the shock of the thing, the primordial part of my brain screaming to run.
Which is ridiculous, because I’m already moving much faster on the alien’s back than I could run on my own. I grip his hips harder, and he makes a low noise in his throat.
The huge snake rears its head, and I’m caught between horror and fascination as it plunges thick fangs into the neck of the T-Rex. The other dinosaur roars, heading away from us to attack the gargantuan snake.
“I’m going to have nightmares the rest of my life,” I say. “Oh well. It’ll be a nice change up from all the Roth invasion ones, I guess. Just throw a fucking snake and dinosaur in, mix it up a little!” My laugh trickles out again, my mind wheeling.
The alien strokes a hand down my thigh, making a soothing noise.
Talons screech against stone, gunk sliding from my arm and plopping against the moss-covered steps.
“We made it.”
The alien grunts, setting me down on my feet and tugging me inside the dark maw of the cave. My eyes widen as I register the stone statues flanking the entrance.
This isn’t a cave, or a house.
This is some kind of alien ruin.
A chill goes down my spine. I hesitate, staring at the sightless eyes, the roots scrambling the features of one humanoid statue.
My alien tugs at my hand, and when the dinosaur screams again, I swallow hard and follow him inside. I blink, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dim light.
“Wow,” I say, staring around.
A tree, roots bulbous and huge, grows from the wall of the ruin, the hole where it’s burst through the stone roof allowing a modicum of light in.
Outside, one of the dinosaurs roars again, the sound sending my heart rattling against my ribs.
The alien puts his arm around me, a stern expression on his face as he checks me over. His forehead furrows, his diamond-shaped pupils expanding as his gaze rakes across my skin.
No one’s looked at me like that in a very, very long time.
Like they care.
He reaches out a taloned hand, and for a split-second, I think he’s going to touch my cheek. Stepping closer, his hand closes around my ponytail, and my heart speeds up for an entirely different reason than the dinosaurs rampaging outside.
Sharp claws dig through my ponytail, and the alien grins at me, showing long fang-like canines, as he draws them away.
An enormous leech is in his fingers.
“That was in my hair?” I ask, and another rasping laugh trickles out. “Awesome. This place gets better and better.”
He grins at me, too, then hurls the leech out the entrance.
“Thanks,” I tell him, and I mean it. “You saved my life. And for getting the leech off me, too. That would have been… unpleasant.” It’s not the first time I’ve thanked him, despite the fact he’s a
It’s like the near-death experience has kicked my ungrateful ass, trying to show me how much worse it could get. Like it’s this planet’s way of reminding me that I need to stop bitching and make the best of this.
His smile deepens, and I study him. He’s beautiful, if not strange, but beautiful all the same. The massive tail and green scales are a little freaky, sure, and his bone structure is too severe to be human, but it’s symmetrical and strong and a little bit breath-taking.
And that’s not even touching on the muscled work of art the rest of him is.
I’ve been awful to this alien.
I know I have been. I need to make it right. As much as he laughs at me, the dude’s kept my silly, stubborn human ass alive for a week and a half.
I slump against a hunk of jagged rock that, judging from the overhead hole, must have fallen from the ceiling.
“You can understand me, right?”
He nods slowly, his tail twitching behind him.
I clear my throat, my mouth twisting to the side as I force the words out. They’ve never come easy before, but it turns out that nearly getting eaten by a dinosaur has an effect on a person.
“I owe you an apology, dude.” My nose wrinkles. “I’ve been mean to you. And you didn’t deserve that.”
He steps closer, and my eyes widen a little at the size of him. It’s one thing to be suspended and carried around by the guy, and it’s quite another to have all that shirtless muscle staring me in the face.
“And I also owe you a thank you,” I say. “Several hundred of them, probably.”
He shakes his head, squatting next to where I sit on the slab, so that we’re eye-to-eye.
“You didn’t have to save me, or take care of me, or lug me around, but you did, and as a
His stare is intent and focused, and when he blinks, it’s slow enough I can make out his third eyelid. It should be weird, but I’ve spent too much time with him now to be anything but used to it.
The alien shakes his head, so close I can feel his warm breath on my face. His long blue-black hair’s pulled up tight in a bun, and a strand falls over one cheek, giving him a rakish air. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not, but his gaze is heated as it travels over my face.
Tentatively, he reaches out one clawed finger, tracing it down my cheekbone.
My breath catches. Is he going to kiss me? Do aliens kiss?
It hits me like a brick, then.
I don’t even know his name. I am such a terrible person.
“I’m Gen,” I tell him, pointing to my chest. “Genevieve. But everyone calls me Gen.” I point to him. “What’s your name?”
He grins at me, and something tells me he already knew that. Did I tell him at the welcoming ceremony? My mouth twists to the side as I try to remember. The whole thing is a blur—getting off the ship, him bizarrely feeding me, the translator being dumped in, the ship exploding…
I shake my head, trying to clear it, trying to remember, but the memories are fuzzy in the same way all my memories of the Roth invasion are—like I’m underwater and can’t make them out, can’t quite see or hear. Sometimes, though, I’ll hear loud noises and a crystal sharp memory will surface, leaving me shaken and raw, the vision of the Roth in my mind’s eye terrifying and larger than life.
And then, of course, there’s the nightmares, which I can’t ever seem to remember other than a deep-seated feeling of dread, of panic and the knowledge I’m going to die, dragging me from sleep as I choke on nothing at all.
The alien grips my chin, his fingers gentle as his eyes lock on mine.
“Gen,” he says slowly, like he’s savoring the word. He breaks into a grin.
I must be dehydrated, because I nearly swoon.
“Kanuz,” he says, removing his hand to point at himself. Satisfaction plays across his face.
“Ka-nuz?” I repeat slowly, the middle consonant somehow harsher, more guttural, than what I can say.
He laughs. “Kanuz.”
“Right,” I say, slightly breathless from his proximity. Or dehydration. Yeah. That’s it. “Kanuz.”
His fingers grip my cheeks, and he repeats his name again, eyebrows raised.
“Kanuz,” I manage, his fingers squeezing in on my mouth as I hit the second syllable. When I say it this time, he growls his approval, his strange eyes flashing as his tail swishes behind him.