Across from her, Hail was standing, also naked, with a frown on his sharp features.
“Where are we?” he growled. “What is this place?”
“I…I think we’re still somewhere on their ship.” Isobel put an arm over her breasts and a hand between her legs, trying to shield herself modestly. She wondered what the little gray men had done with her clothing and if there was any chance of ever getting them back…or getting home to Earth for that matter.
Brandon, she thought. Oh please, let me get back to him! I have to get back somehow!
“The female is correct,” said the whispery voice in her mind. Isobel could tell by the way Hail cocked his head to one side that he was hearing it too, though it was still speaking inside their minds instead of out loud. “The two of you are here to participate in a study of the mating habits of your species. We will record your actions and study them later at our leisure.”
Mating habits? Isobel felt like her stomach was suddenly filled with butterflies. Oh my God, are they serious?
“We’re not performing any fucking mating habits for you,” Hail growled and Isobel shivered at the anger in his deep voice.
She couldn’t help remembering what he’d said about the “beast” that lived inside him. It was a good thing for the little gray men that they were nowhere to be seen or she was certain they wouldn’t have lasted long.
“You will,” the voice replied implacably. “You simply have to be given sufficient motivation. Now…the two of you need to get closer together to begin with. How can you mate when you are not even touching?”
Isobel bit her lip, uncertain whether she ought to comply or not. The idea of being “close” with the huge Kindred warrior now that both of them were stark naked was a scary one. Not that she thought Hail would try anything but just because she was embarrassed being nude with him.
She longed for her straight black pencil skirt which had hidden some of her “junk in the trunk” as Kat called it. Her hips and behind were much too large to be just hanging out like this. Unfortunately, she only had two hands to cover up with and those were busy hiding her breasts and sex so her overly-luscious booty would just have to keep swinging free.
Hail was standing his ground, not getting any closer to her. He had flipped his oculars down and Isobel saw that he was scanning the perfectly round walls, as though searching for a weakness. Suddenly, she remembered Brandon saying that the big warrior could see through walls with the high-tech vision-enhancers.
“What do you see?” she asked anxiously. “Are they out there?”
Hail gave a low, frustrated growl.
“They are watching us from a command area composed completely of titano-steel alloy,” he said. “This room is composed of the same—it is completely unbreakable.”
As he spoke, he strode across the room and punched one of the walls with one massive fist. There was a hollow clanging sound but nothing happened.
“Now, warrior,” came the voice of one of the little gray men. “You know your actions are illogical. You said yourself that the alloy the study room is made of is completely impenetrable.”
“Why do you continue to try and reason with them, Fsst?” the voice of Grrn asked. “If they will not get closer together voluntarily, we must force them to do so.”
Suddenly, Isobel was standing in the middle of a blizzard. Freezing winds howled around her, whipping her long hair across her face. Stinging needles of icy snow pricked her body all over.
She gasped with shock and the wind found its way down her throat like a cruel, cold sword, making her cough and choke. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself, huddling into a ball to try and keep warm. Dimly, she wondered how quickly someone could freeze to death. If this didn’t stop, she had a feeling she was going to find out the hard way.
“Here—come here, Isobel.” Suddenly Hail was right beside her, putting his arms around her.
“H-hail?” she gasped, her teeth chattering so hard she could barely say his name.
“I need to hold you—for your own protection,” he said, drawing her close to his broad chest. “You’re too small—you’ll lose all your body heat if I don’t.”
Isobel wanted to protest being pressed naked against the huge warrior but she was too cold to care much for modestly at the moment. Gratefully she accepted the heat of his much larger body as Hail tightened his arms around her, bringing her even closer.
“There, see? Now they are in close proximity.” Grrn sounded extremely smug and pleased with himself.
“Yes, but they have only drawn close for survival purposes—not the purpose of mating.” Fsst sounded impatient with the other alien. “You cannot force such encounters. If you make the climate of the study chamber temperate once more, they will draw apart. Watch.”
Abruptly, the blizzard ceased and all the snow which had begun accumulating in icy drifts across the white floor vanished. There wasn’t even a puddle left behind—everything just went back to normal with no warning.
Isobel became suddenly aware that she was huddled naked against Hail who was hugging her to his broad chest and rubbing her back and shoulders to keep her warm. For a moment she wanted to stay there. He was so muscular and his skin had that same spicy, masculine scent she’d noticed when he bent over to buckle her safety straps in the shuttle.
Then she became aware of something hot and hard branding her lower belly. Looking down, she saw the massive Kindred’s equipment most definitely matched his size.
Oh my God, it’s huge! Kat had always told her that Kindred were hung like Clydesdales but this was the first time Isobel had ever had a chance to confirm it. Not that she’d ever actually wanted to.
Suddenly she realized she was just standing there, staring down at Hail’s hard shaft which was pressed right up against her belly. She felt hypnotized, like a bunny staring at a snake. A trouser snake, that is, whispered a sarcastic little voice in her head. Ha-ha.
Hail seemed to see where she was looking.
“Forgive me,” he rumbled, his deep voice strained. “I…cannot seem to help myself. My body…reacts to yours.”
His words seemed to break the trance Isobel was in. With a little cry, she jumped back from him, out of his embrace. Hail let her go with a regretful look on his face.
“I have never…there were no females on my home planet of Z4,” he explained haltingly. “And I have not had the privilege of being so close to one as beautiful as you before, Isobel.”
“I…um…th-that’s okay,” she managed to stammer out. She tried to keep her eyes away from his massive manhood but they kept jumping back to the hard shaft jutting out from between his muscular thighs.
“Do you see?” she heard Fsst say to Grrn. “The moment you remove the reason for them to be together, they part again.”
“We need to play upon the male’s sense of protectiveness for his female,” Grrn suggested. “If he feels protective and possessive of her, it will enhance his male hormone levels and cause both of them to react with lust.”
“I do not think—” Fsst began but just then a monstrous black shape materialized across the room from them.
It was nine feet tall at least—a creature that seemed to be made entirely of shiny, black spikes except for the burning red eyes that glared into Isobel’s own. Its huge hands were bigger than her head and it held a long, thorn-like sword in each of them.
“Oh my God!” Isobel gasped. “What…what is that thing?”
“I don’t know but it’s not going to touch you.” Immediately, Hail pushed her behind him. Though he was naked and had no weapons, he stood his ground, legs spread firmly, ready to fight.
But he doesn’t have anything to fight with and that…that thing has two swords! Plus it’s made out of spikes, Isobel thought helplessly. It’ll kill him with the first blow!
The spike-monster opened a burning red hole of a mouth and gave an ear-splitting roar that sounded like a cross between a train’s whistle and a lion’s snarl. It took
a step towards them and the ground beneath their feet seemed to tremble.
“Grrn, you will get the male killed before he can mate with his female!” Isobel heard Fsst protesting.
“No, I will only help to escalate his sex hormones.” Grrn sounded smugly sure of himself.
“You want an escalation?” Hail growled, clearing speaking to the little gray men hidden away behind the walls. “I’ll fucking give you one!”
Reaching to the back of his neck in what was becoming a very familiar gesture to Isobel, he adjusted the small, silver button implanted where his back met his neck.
“Come on!” Hail roared at the monster. “Try it! Let’s see if you like a taste of my beast!”
And just like that, he began to change. Somehow he seemed to grow bigger, his shoulders getting broader and his hair, which had been short and neat, became longer and wild. He crouched like an animal about to spring and roared back at the spike-monster.
If Isobel had thought the monster confronting them was scary, well, it had nothing on Hail. He was now every bit as big and massive as the creature made of spikes and though he had no weapon, she no longer thought it was going to kill him with the first blow of its swords.
His beast, Isobel thought with a shiver. This is what he was talking about—this is the creature that lives inside him that he’s afraid to let out. The one that only wants to fight and breed.
She became aware that she had backed up until her shoulders were pressed against the cold metal of the curving white wall on the far side of the room. But once she was there, she had no place else to go. She had to watch with wide eyes and a pounding heart as the two huge opponents circled each other.
The spike-monster swung first, it’s wickedly curved thorn-sword swooshing through the air just inches from Hail’s broad chest. Isobel gasped, her heart in her throat but to her surprise, Hail actually reached forward and caught the creature’s wrist in one massive hand as it completed the stroke.
The spike-monster roared angrily and tried to pull free of his grip but Hail wasn’t letting go. He squeezed, the tendons on his massive forearm standing out under his olive skin, until the creature loosened its grip on its sword.
Hail snatched it from the air before it could hit the floor and suddenly he was attacking, aiming a volley of expert blows at the spike-monster which bellowed in confusion and took a stumbling step back. It swiped out with its free hand and the spikes along its arm scored Hail’s chest.
Isobel bit her lip to see red gashes open on the tan skin of his chest and abs, which writhed and bunched as he lunged and moved, swinging the sword again. But the big Kindred appeared to be oblivious to the fact that he had been wounded—the pain didn’t seem to affect him at all.
The spike-monster lunged again and Hail parried with his sword, knocking aside what would have been a deadly blow. Blood dripped down his chest and abdomen but he fought on grimly—Isobel could tell he would fight with just as much determination and single-minded purpose until he either killed the monster or was killed himself.
But which would it be?
“Stop this! Stop it!” she heard Fsst exclaiming in obvious agitation. “You are breaking the rules, Grrn! No subject must be harmed in the search for knowledge and all must be humanely treated, no matter how beneath us they are in intelligence and comprehension.”
“Very well. The vor has already done it’s work anyway,” the other alien replied.
As suddenly as the spike-monster had appeared, it vanished. The sword Hail had taken from it disappeared too, Isobel noticed. But Hail himself was still there…and still huge.
Panting, he turned to face her and a low growl came from his throat. The deep, inhuman sound sent shivers all down her spine.
“I…I…” Isobel’s heart felt like it was trying to pound its way right out of her rib cage and run away. Her palms were sweaty and her breath was coming in short, terrified gasps. She was scarcely less frightened of this new, transformed Hail than she had been of the spike creature. His eyes were glowing, she saw—their pale, piercing blue seemed like two laser beams aimed directly at her.
Hail took another step towards her, his eyes burning.
“Please!” She tried to back away but her back was already against the wall. Trembling, she put out a hand to stop him. “Please,” she whispered again.
A look of dawning comprehension came over Hail’s transformed face. He shook himself once, took a deep breath, and reached to the back of his neck. Then he began to change again.
In a moment, he seemed to shrink although going from nine feet tall back down to seven still left him plenty big enough as far as Isobel was concerned. Still, he certainly got less scary to look at. His eyes stopped glowing, his hair went back to its normal, short length, and his voice, when he spoke, wasn’t the inhumanely deep growl of the beast.
“Isobel?” he asked in his regular voice. “Are you well?”
He sounded and looked so normal—well, if a seven-foot-tall naked alien warrior can be considered normal—that Isobel began to relax.
“I…” She put a hand to her chest to still her pounding heart. “I think so.” She gave a shaky laugh that was more than half sob. “I’m sorry. I…I know you were defending me but you looked so…so scary.”
A look of sadness passed over Hail’s face and was gone so quickly Isobel wondered if she had imagined it.
“That was my beast,” he explained heavily. “The part of me I told you about. But please don’t worry—I have turned my emotion damper back to its medium point. You are perfectly safe with me.” He held out a hand to her, as if asking her to join him.
“Oh, um. Thank you,” Isobel said weakly but she couldn’t quite make herself go to him. The sight of him growing huge and menacing and roaring at the spike-monster was still too fresh in her mind.
Hail’s hand dropped and that look passed over his face again. Then his stern features grew impassive and his shiny black oculars—which had been retracted as he fought—abruptly came down to shade his eyes again. The bloody gashes on his chest and abdomen stood out in stark relief against his tan skin in the white room.
I hurt his feelings! Isobel felt a sudden pang of regret as she looked at the wounds on Hail’s torso. He just risked his life to save me and I snubbed him.
The idea made her feel terrible but she didn’t know what to do. She felt like her system was on overload—the flight or fight response still sending adrenaline coursing through her body as she shivered, naked against the cold, curving white wall of the round alien room.
Stop this now, she lectured herself. Get control, Isobel! Hail is trying to protect you—he got wounded and risked his life for you. The least you can do is stop acting like a scared little girl shivering against the wall!
She was about to say something—although she wasn’t exactly sure what—when the little gray men began talking again.
“This is getting us nowhere!” Grrn sounded angry as she heard him speak in her head.
“Because you are going about it in the wrong way,” Fsst replied. “Just because these creatures are less advanced than we are technologically doesn’t mean they have no emotions. You cannot push them together through external threats and expect them to make a sexual connection based purely on fear.”
“You’re right, Fsst.” The other alien sounded thoughtful. “Fear doesn’t work. I think we should try lust.”
There was a hissing sound and suddenly the entire room was filled with clouds of pink, choking smoke.
Isobel gasped and pulled in a lungful of the stuff, then choked it back out. God, it was awful! It left a sickly-sweet aftertaste on the back of her tongue like artificial oranges.
And then she started to feel strange.
It started as a tingling in the tips of her breasts and a warmness between her legs. Then it spread to her entire body, a heat that rushed from her toes to the roots of her hair in an instant.
Isobel had once had a CAT scan with iodinated contrast to check for a k
idney stone. This instant rush of heat which traveled all over her body in a split second reminded her of the effects of the contrast—only about a hundred times more intense.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “What…what did they do? What happens now?”
“I…don’t know.” Hail’s deep voice was hoarse and choked. When she saw him through the clouds of pink, Isobel realized, with some trepidation, that his massive shaft was erect again and standing straight up against his flat belly. It was so hard it looked like it must ache.
I should stroke that for him…maybe kiss it better, whispered a naughty little voice in her head.
Isobel blinked. What had she just thought? What in the hell was going on with her?
Just help him take care of that, whispered the little voice.
Unbidden, the image of herself kneeling before the huge warrior and lapping gently at the head of his massive cock popped into her mind. It was so vivid that for a moment, Isobel almost thought she was actually doing it—not just imagining it.
The skin of his shaft would be silky against my cheek and his precum would be salty and delicious, whispered that naughty little voice. He would groan and run those long fingers through my hair and I would lean closer, taking as much as I could between my lips…down my throat…
Isobel blinked and she was suddenly across the room from him again. What was happening to her? And more to the point, what was happening to Hail?
She saw him wince and take his long, thick shaft in one big hand. Was he going to jerk off right in front of her? And why did that thought suddenly fill her with lust instead of horror?
“Hail,” she whispered hoarsely. “God, I don’t know what…what’s happening.”
“I don’t either.” His deep voice sounded strangled. “But I dare not find out. Forgive me, Isobel, but I fear I must turn my emotional damper all the way down in order to control myself in this situation. You are too beautiful and I find you much too desirable.”
Reaching to the back of his neck, he made as if to twist the dial on his damper again but then, suddenly, he froze in mid-motion.
“There!” Isobel heard Grrn said in her head. “There is the problem—the male has much too much control over his emotions. See—he has a device which allows him to turn them up or down.”