Lion Man's Captive by Kaitlyn O'Connor (read full novel .txt) 📕

She shook that thought. There werebound to be casualties, but there had also been plenty of time totake cover. Even the people on the interstate like she had been andaway from home had fled to safety. They were just smart enough tohide.

It took them over an hour to traversethe industrial complex. By the time they had the sun was hoveringnear the horizon and Anya was thinking uneasily about shelter forthe night before it got too dark to look for a place.

“We need to find a place tospend the night,” she said, pointing to the sun’sposition.

Aidan studied her when she spoke anddutifully looked when she pointed out that they were looking atsunset very soon and then shook his head.

“We’re close now. Weshould be able to find the ship before dark.”

Anya glared at him. She wasexhausted—weak with fatigue, lack of food and water. She wasn’t inany shape to run for her life and she wasn’t in the mood to trysign language! “Look, fucktard! It’s almost dark! There’s notelling what will come out to eat once the sun sets!”

Aidan glanced at his wristthingy and then glared at her. “Ah-na fckdard! No Aidan! Ned ship! Go!”

Uneasiness slithered through Anyadespite her anger—for several reasons. First off, it seemed prettyclear that Aidan had figured out enough of her language to knowwhen she was being insulting. And she didn’t think it was reallysafe to insult him if he was aware of being insulted, seeing as howhe was a really big and potentially very dangerous alien! Secondly,it seemed to her that he was suggesting that he intended to carryher away on his ship. And while she wasn’t especially happy aboutthe way things were going on Earth at the moment, she damned wellwasn’t going off to alien land with chewbacka!

Ok, so he wasn’t hairy enough to fitthat particular name, but she still wasn’t going off withhim!

She set her jaw stubbornly. “I’m notgetting on any damned ship!” she snarled at him through grittedteeth.

Aidan stopped, glaring back at her. “Onship, yes!”

“On ship, no!” Anya snappedback at him.

He studied her speculatively forseveral moments and then, quick as lightning, his hands shot out tograb her. Before she’d even had time to suck in a startled breath,he’d tossed her across one shoulder and manacled her legs to hischest with one arm.

“What the hell? Put me downyou son-of-a-bitch!” Anya snarled.

Instead of complying, hepopped her ass—her bareass! “Quiet! Callnarltacter!Eat Ah-na and Aidan!”

She had a bad feeling he was talkingabout that thing that had chased them into the sewer system. Thatthought killed the urge to vent at the top of her lungs. It didn’ttake the fight out of her. It was the very fact that she wasconcerned about being bait for something like that, or worse, thathad inspired her to object strenuously before.

It was still useless—a caseof determination not paying off. She hadno nails. She’d chewed them off to the quick. Shecouldn’t get close enough to bite him. And every time she boxed himwith her fist, he popped her bare ass—a little harder.

When she finally subsided, he depositedher on her feet again. Pushing his face close to hers, he glaredand shook his finger in her face warningly. Anya resisted, barely,the temptation to chomp down on it. Instead, she glared back at himmalevolently.

His expression hardened.

Anya decided he could do ‘evil threat’way better than she could. After a few moments, she looked away,discovering that they’d entered what had clearly once been a fairlysizeable town. She frowned. “Is it just me, or does it seem strangeto you that those insect-thingies are leaving more and more stuff?I mean, they cleaned up everything in sight when they came out ofthat missile thingy.”

She saw when she glanced atAidan that he was looking puzzled, as well, but naturally enoughthere was no way to tell if it was for the same reasonshe wasconfused.

She supposed, if those insect-likethings actually were something out of nature, that they might havegotten their fill and just hadn’t gotten around to polishing offeverything in sight. She’d had the impression, though, that theyweren’t actually insects of any kind, nothing natural, at anyrate.

So had they just worn themselves outconsuming everything up to this point? Or were they malfunctioning?And if they were malfunctioning was that a good thing? Or mightthey do something worse?

Aidan had also noticed thatsomething wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t a little uneasy, however.He was extremely unnerved. There were clear signs that at least oneof the terra-formers was malfunctioning—the one nearest theirlocation—and he couldn’t think of anything good that had ever comeof anything malfunctioning.

He’d been preoccupied enough with hisgoal that it hadn’t registered completely or immediately that therewere more and more signs of the civilization that should have beendisappearing. Once the ‘wrongness’ finally resolved itself in hismind, however, it added to the sense of urgency he felt to find theship and leave the planet as soon as possible. The terra-forming atleast followed a logical progression of events and was, therefore,predictable even if the events themselves could belife-threatening. If the things had gone off programming there wasno telling what the damned nanites were liable to do!

Just as worrisome, he thought Ah-na wasright about the danger increasing the closer to dark they got andthe sun had dropped from sight long before his wrist computerindicated they were nearing the ship. He still thought they’d bebetter off to seek shelter in the ship if they could find it andassuming it was whole enough to offer shelter. As far as he knew itwas comprised of materials the nanites weren’t programmed to breakdown and that made it the best insurance they had that it wouldstill be sheltering them if they let down their guard andslept.

They both needed sleep. Neither of themhad managed more than snatches of sleep here and there since they’dfound one another.

He also needed something a little moresubstantial than the rations in his suit and he didn’t think he wasassuming too much to think Ah-na did, too.

He stopped and looked around when hiswrist computer indicated that they were within fifty meters of theship. Seeing no sign of it, wondering if