Worked up, sweating, smeared in fluids, she shrieked. “My name is Evangeline, mother of that thing that was just pulled out of me. Mothers on my world are celebrated and adored!”
“Mother?” The concept appeared to throw him.
And it was there, the translation working however their tech did to make that name solid in the alien’s understanding. “You would be mother to one of mine? Such a thing would kill you. Though you honor me in so deep an offering.”
The translation between them was clearly flawed. “Mothers on my world are protected by their husbands or wives. Should a larva put them in a position where their life is in danger, the child is removed.” Not a lie. Caesarean sections happened consistently for such a reason. But not a full truth either. “Mothers are given soft places to rest, bathed, and fed. Treated as equals by their counterparts.”
The alien slowly going from red to purple, it was the first time Evangeline heard the true hideousness of an alien laugh—if you could call a series of hissing grunts laughter “Pet, you are no equal. None is equal to a Necrimata.”
Why was this thing just as bad and men from her town, her campus, and her job? Why did it send her skin into an angry flush? “Your Class One pet wants to eat! She wants to be clean! SHE WANTS TO SLEEP ON SOFT THINGS!”
“Deceptive, pretty human.” Stretching of those tentacles, all six reached for her at once, pulling her close to warm icy skin back to pink. “This concept of soft things… there is nothing soft here.”
Voice heavy with everything, Evangeline mumbled, “I cannot sleep on your body.”
“You’ll learn, fierce thing.”
“I need food, and I need to pee.”
It smirked, fangs poking from a lipped mouth. “And both life necessities are at your fingertips, should you ask your master kindly.”
Feather gray eyes in a pale freckled face looked up. Her wild, red hair was a mess, her body the canvas for alien things and stimulated by many roving tentacles. Self-preservation made it easy to beg. “Please. Please give me someplace soft to sleep.”
“Luxuries you require? This was not in the manual.”
Again with the manual! “May I read your manual? As an expert in humans, I might make a few notes.”
There wasn’t any indication he’d heard her before her eyes began to shutter, roll back, jaw hanging lose. The manual was being downloaded into her brain.
Foaming at the mouth by the time it was done, Evangeline hung limp in his slithering hold.
As if adding a note of his own, he stated, “Your brain is not evolved to the point of handling a simple information transfer.”
Not that it would matter at this point, but she was utterly screwed. The manual was committed to her memory as if it had always been there. Much like his language. And it was wildly incorrect.
A cough, one that misted blood from where she’d bitten her tongue marked his face. “I won’t survive you. Humans cannot live without water after three days; we need it several times a day just to function normally. This manual says water weekly by human time. That is not a way I’d choose to die. Fuck me to death instead. At least then when the end comes, it won’t be after days of suffering.”
And with that, she passed out.
Chapter Four
A pallet of soft furs. Waking snuggled on her side, over and under Evangeline’s skin was cushioned. Her fluttering fingertips, resting against her cheek, were stained blue from alien cum. But she was warm, and more importantly, she was alone. Even sporting a view.
The entire wall was open to space. Either a projection or a window or an anything that advanced alien tech might have to offer so fine a vantage.
Stars in the extreme distance; closer stars zinging by. In a room that, in that moment, held space and the glories of the night sky she’d loved all her life.
And it was then Evangeline felt warm tears. From eyes they fell, to dampen the furs, though she didn’t warble or wail.
She just leaked out stuck feeling, passed it from one space to another, and grew lighter as it drained.
Emotion returned.
Bedazzlement by the stars. Acute anxiety when she dared consider how she’d gone from feeding goats, to endless nothing… to this.
This was real.
She was never going home.