Krayter

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

SHIT s**t s**t.

Pain radiated down Krayter’s spine and he knew without opening his eyes that he wasn’t in his speeder anymore. The last thing he remembered was losing altitude way too fast and crashing down through dense forest and splashing into a small river. The guy at the rental place had told him to be careful and mind the warnings posted on his map.

Krayter had, perhaps, been a bit more impulsive than advised.

At least his brother Kayleb was safe back at their quarters in New York City and not... wherever he was. Krayter groaned and opened his eyes. Well, tried to open his eyes. At first he had the disturbing notion that whatever had happened to him had cost him his sight, but the slight tug at something on his face and the brush of his lashes against a piece of cloth told him that he’d been blindfolded. A heaviness across his chest proved to be another binding, he discovered as he tried to sit up.

Krayter considered himself an adventurous Detyen and this wasn’t the first time he’d been trussed up like a prize. But he normally liked to know the name of his playmate first.

“What the hell?” a high pitched feminine voice practically shrieked. His translator took a moment and for a second he didn’t understand. She spoke English, not Interstellar Common. Krayter had only been on Earth and in the United States for a few weeks and it was strange that almost no one spoke the language he’d grown up with.

Krayter opened his mouth and was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn’t been gagged. But another woman, or girl, judging from her voice, spoke before he could say anything. “You’re not supposed to be here! You were completely passed out! Just pretend you didn’t see this, we’ll take care of it.”

It. Krayter did not like the sound of that. He started to form an idea of where he’d landed. The guy at the rental place had marked off a section of the map in red and told him to stay far away. They didn’t take kindly to aliens, non-humans, in Highland Settlement.

Normal people didn’t find an injured man in a downed speeder and tie him up in a cold building on a very hard slab of something. They offered medical aid and contacted the authorities. Unless, of course, the authorities were more likely to murder the victim then render assistance.

He was in more trouble than he’d thought.

The older woman, the one who wasn’t supposed to be there, made an angry noise and footsteps crunched over the floor, getting closer to him. “You sit out there,” she commanded, “and don’t leave the building.”

“But, Pen─”

“Ah,” she, Pen, cut off the younger one. “Out. There.” He could imagine a slender hand, calloused with hard work, pointing towards a weather worn door. Krayter found that he liked the sound of the older woman’s voice. And if the circumstances were different, he might not have minded being trussed up for her pleasure.

But as he roused himself closer to consciousness, he was starting to come back to himself. His ankle burned like a pyrnar fire on Jaaxis and his teeth wanted to chatter from the cold. The crash into the river had seen him soaked, and he hadn’t been out of the water long enough to completely dry off.

One set of footsteps got further away and wood banged against wood as the door shut. Krayter could hear Pen’s labored breathing and he winced as she dragged something heavy across the floor and ended up next to him. He held himself as still as he could, as if he could trigger some sort of invisibility instinct. His claws were retracted deeply into their sheathes on his knuckles and he kept his hands relaxed to make sure they didn’t accidentally spring out.

No need to give away the secret weapon just yet.

“Are you injured?” Pen asked. She was closer than the other girl had been and he got the vague sense of her presence directly next to him. His wrists were tied down too and he couldn’t reach up to undo the blindfold and get a look at her.

How long had he been unconscious?

“Who are you?” he asked. He needed to get untied and then get out of here.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she responded coolly. “Since I can understand you, I’ll assume you have a proficient translator. By now you must have realized that you’re not in a good situation. At present, I have no reason to kill you. Don’t make me change my mind.”

“Do you practice that speech?” The words popped out of Krayter’s mouth before he could even think to hold himself in check. He was sure that Kayleb was flinching somewhere back in the city, just knowing that his reckless brother was getting himself into trouble. Again.

“I don’t need to practice,” she said with complete sincerity. Krayter wondered if humor was a rare trait in humans. His friend Max had it, but so many of the creatures on this planet seemed to take everything so seriously.

“Do you ever give the speech when your audience isn’t tied up?” He was poking her, trying to rouse whatever beast lived inside. And he knew that he shouldn’t. But there was something in Krayter that wanted to see how far he could take it. At what point would this woman snap and...

He swallowed hard as his thoughts took a turn he wasn’t expecting. One second he imagined ripping himself free, fighting his way out, and reuniting with his friends and family like nothing had ever happened. And then he imagined this woman, Pen, leaning over him too close, her scent invading his senses as she raked sharp nails down his chest, strong enough to hurt.

Krayter clamped down on that thought and tossed it out the airlock. A few months in space away from his fun and willing partners on Jaaxis was doing a number on his brain. He wasn’t here to fool around, he reminded himself. As soon as he could disentangle himself from this mess, he had to get back to New York and search in earnest for his mate. And for Kayleb’s. And for every other damn Detyen out there. Earth was their best hope.

No one else needed to end up like his sister, Karwan. Not after they’d found Lis, Dorsey, Reina, and Max. Humans all and compatible Detyen mates.

“I’m uninjured,” he said with deliberate calm. “My name is Krayter NaMoren. I ran into difficulty with my speeder and crashed in a body of water. That girl you were talking to earlier must have rescued me.” He spoke quickly, imparting as much information as possible in the hopes of making this woman let him go. Or, at least, take the blindfold off.

The legs of the stool she was sitting on dragged against the floor and clattered back as she stood. “Your speeder?” she asked, half-panicked. “Where is it? Is it still near the river?” She spoke with the urgency that invited thoughts of pacing and nervous movements, but her feet remained planted on the floor.

“I’m not sure,” Krayter responded. “I was unconscious. I only just woke up.”

“Damn it,” she spat. And now her feet did move, stomping in the direction of the door before pausing. “Just... just be calm. We won’t—I’ll be back. I promise.” The door slammed behind her and Krayter was alone once again.

Wind howled through a broken window somewhere near him and he got the sinking suspicion that things were about to get worse. She’d promised she’d be back, but she hadn’t promised that he wouldn’t be hurt.

Shit!

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