Challenged (Mates for the Raskarrans #8)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

Angie

T he tail is supposed to come off in my hands.

It doesn’t come off in my hands.

Instead, the guy yelps, spins round. He moves so fast I barely have time to register that he’s grabbed me before I’m pinned up against the wall, the hot water showering down on me, soaking my hair and my clothes right through. My back jars against the wall, a flare of pain moving through me, but the pressure on my shoulder releases almost immediately, a large, heavy hand withdrawing. I look up, meet wild yellow eyes as they grow wide with surprise.

I expect him to run, to grab for a towel and flee before the paint starts dripping off his body. Instead, he takes a small step back, the spray of the shower still hitting his broad chest as he raises his hands, holding them palm out towards me in a gesture of submission. I should be looking at his face, trying to get a read on his intentions. I’m in a very compromising position right now, alone in a shower with a naked guy. But my eyes are fixed on the water bouncing off his toned pecs.

And the green that is very much not washing away.

Panic flares in my gut. Without thinking about the consequences, I pounce, pressing my hands to his skin, rubbing at it. My fingers glide through the remains of the soapy lather, his skin warm and smooth beneath them. But no amount of scrubbing makes any bit of the green shift.

I look up. Find him looking down at me with a brow arched in a very human kind of way. The lighting isn’t great in here, but it’s better than the constantly shifting light of the pod room. I search his face for seams, edges to the prosthetics he must be wearing. The too broad nose, the too heavy brow. The features they’ve enhanced to make him look not quite human.

But all I see is the strong line of his jaw, cheekbones made to cut diamonds. My heart stutters in my chest, and I grow painfully aware of how close we’re standing. How very naked he is.

With a cry that’s half frustration, half building terror, I launch at him again, this time sinking my hands into the hair that must be fake. My fingers slide through thick, wet strands before I close my fists, grip it and tug. Yellow Eyes lets out a low, warning growl, but he’s smiling at me, mouth twisting upwards in a way that signals his amusement. When I pull again, harder, he grins, revealing a flash of fang.

And his hair doesn’t shift. There’s no give in it, it doesn’t lift anywhere. Wigs can attach pretty strongly, but the yank I just gave it should have dislodged it a little.

The tail that was supposed to come off in my hand didn’t.

The hair that was supposed to be a wig isn’t.

The green that was supposed to wash away hasn’t.

I look back at his face, meeting those yellow eyes. Eyes that are supposed to be that colour because of contacts. But no matter how hard I look for it, I can’t see the telltale circle around the iris that is the edge of the lens.

My heartbeat grows more erratic, my breaths only reaching the very top of my lungs. I stand frozen with my hands still gripping his hair, unable to move, unable to think.

Because if I do anything to move past this exact moment, I’m going to have to admit to myself that this isn’t a trick.

It’s fucking real.

He’s really real.

He’s really an alien.

Gently, so gently, he takes my arms, moving my hands away from his head. His fingers are warm where they close around my wrists, my pulse beating hard beneath them. The amusement is gone from his expression, replaced by a softness that’s almost tender.

“Nhi Angie,” he says, his voice low, a little rough at the edges.

I can hear the roar of my blood in my ears. Suddenly, it’s like I’m looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope, his face distant from mine, even as I feel the soft brush of his breath against my cheek. Black crowds in at the edges of my vision.

By the time I recognise the sensation, it’s too late. My knees give way beneath me, and I topple into unconsciousness.

When I come to, I’m lying on the floor in the shower room, my head throbbing. I groan as I sit up, massaging my temples. It takes me a moment to remember the sequence of events that lead to me passing out on the floor, but when I do, I look round in a panic, half expecting the naked alien to be leering over me, preparing to do something unspeakable.

Instead, he’s sat on one of the benches at the edge of the room, dry and dressed in natural looking clothing. Brown trousers that appear to be made from an animal skin, and a vest that hides his chiselled physique, but not completely. The neckline is loose enough to give a tantalising glimpse as he leans forward, grinning at me.

“I hope now that I am dressed you no longer find me so overwhelming that it causes you to lose consciousness,” he says.

All my fear is instantly replaced by anger.

I scowl at him. “That’s not what it was.”

He leans back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest as he raises his brows at me, everything in his manner suggesting he doesn’t believe me. I blush hot red, anger and embarrassment mingling. My outrage is hampered by the fact that he looks devilishly handsome slouched back like that, his trousers stretching tight over impressive thighs, his grin wide enough to reveal those fangs again. It doesn’t seem to matter to my libido that he’s green, that his tail is flicking about behind him.

That he’s an alien.

The truth of that comes over me in waves - easy to forget for a moment, then smacking into me with a force that knocks my breath out. I wonder if I’m in danger of passing out again, but the edges of my vision remain crisp.

They weren’t lying to me. I’m on an alien planet.

Which means the rest of it - the cryostasis part - must also be true. I have been frozen in a basement, forgotten about, for nineteen years.

Baxter really did make me pay.

Only the thought that he’d be in his sixties now, probably with a middle age spread and thinning hair, makes me feel any better about it.

“I’ve been abducted, frozen for nineteen years and abandoned on an alien planet, and you think a little nudity was the thing to tip me into unconsciousness?” I say, my voice sharp. “You aren’t that impressive.”

I don’t like how this tastes like a lie.

His smile doesn’t shift. “You accept the truth of that now, then? Your failed attempt to wash away the colour of my skin has convinced you we are not painted?”

My blush deepens. “Yes. Clearly you aren’t… painted.”

The strange way he put this draws my attention to the fact that he’s speaking my language. When Liv had Shemza come over, they gave the impression that he only spoke a few words, and yet this guy is fluent.

“Why didn’t you say something before?” I demand, irritated that he let me panic myself into unconsciousness rather than telling me to sit down.

“You were told by Liv and the others that-”

“No, I mean, why didn’t you speak to me before? Instead of just growling at me like a wild animal.”

He chuckles. “There are many ways I can be wild, linasha. You might find you like some of them.”

Heat licks up my spine and I could curse my body for responding to his obvious attempt to get under my skin.

“My name isn’t ‘linasha’, it’s Angie.”

“I know,” he says, yellow eyes boring into me, stoking the heat he’s already sparked.

Then he shifts, and the intensity of the moment snaps. His next smile is more casual, friendly. The change is so abrupt it unsettles me almost as much as his flirtation.

“I did not speak to you before because I could not,” he says, and there’s an earnestness to his words. The roguish glint to his eyes is gone, an almost boyish sincerity replacing it. I don’t trust it for a second.

“What, one tug on your tail and you forget a whole language for a few minutes?”

He laughs, and at least he doesn’t seem pissed that I attacked him. Judging by the yelp he made, it must have hurt when I pulled his tail.

“I am certain there are ways you could pull on my tail that would make me forget a great many things.” The flirtatious version of him rises to the surface once more, but he shakes his head, returning to the earnest version before he speaks again. “But I could not speak your words because I do not know them. I do not speak them now, you are just hearing it that way.”

“Right,” I say. “Is this some alien thing? Have you done something to me?” Panic surges. “What have you done to me?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Well, I caught you as you fell. Then set you down in the drying pelts and immediately went to fetch your sisters. Beyond that, nothing.”

His voice is firm, serious. Like he needs me to believe this. I glance over at the ‘drying pelts’ - a folded pile of animal furs that’s on one of the nearby benches. Definitely not lying in them. Does he really think he can gaslight me into remembering something that so obviously didn’t happen?

“I don’t have any sisters,” I say.

“I mean your tribe sisters. Liv, Lorna. Brooks was already to her bed.”

“So you put me in the pelts and went to fetch Liv and Lorna. And yet I woke up lying in the middle of the floor and they’re nowhere to be seen.”

Yellow Eyes nods, then leans forwards in his seat, any trace of teasing flirtation or the boyish sincerity vanished from his eyes, his expression. A seriousness settles there instead, and I wonder who this guy actually is. Which of the many shifting personalities is the truth.

“This is not going to be easy for you to hear, linasha. I do not like to have to tell it to you so soon after you have had to hear other difficult things.”

A flicker of fear ignites in my chest. I’m already having to deal with being on an alien planet, nineteen years in the future. What other difficult thing can there be left for me to hear?

Perhaps Yellow Eyes senses my panic, because his next words are as gentle as any I’ve ever heard, despite the growl that textures his voice.

“You have not yet awoken,” he says. “You are still asleep.”

This is so ludicrous I’m rendered speechless for a long moment.

“I’m awake,” I say once my tongue starts working again. “I’m obviously awake. What the fuck are you on about?”

His expression doesn’t shift, and neither does his tone.

“This is the dreamspace, my Angie. We are in dreams together. After you fainted, I caught you, rested you in the pelts, then got your sisters. They bid me carry you up to the room you have chosen for yourself, which I did. When I left, they were taking off your wet clothes so that you might sleep more comfortably. Your body remains there now. It is your headspace only that comes here.”

My brain reels. Headspace? Dreamspace? And did he just call me ‘my Angie’?

“I’m awake,” I say again, my voice squeaking out of me once more.

“Look at your clothing,” Yellow Eyes says, gesturing at me.

I look down, realising even before I do that I’m not cold, I’m not uncomfortable. I should be - the water of the shower soaked through my outer layer and into my skin. The jumpsuit should be clinging to me, the water drawing out my body heat until I’m shivering. But I’m not. I can’t even feel water dripping down my neck from my hair. I expect to see I’m wearing the same sort of handmade clothing that Liv and Lorna had, but my eyes catch on ruffles, pink checkered fabric.

The dress I was wearing for my first Screening.

My heart jolts. I paw at the dress as if I could rip it off my body. Or perhaps as if touching it would change it. The fabric is every bit as coarse and stiff as I recall, the ruffles scratchy against my arms, my shins.

How could they know? How could they have found an adult version of the dress I wore to my first Screening? A dress I wouldn’t even remember well if I hadn’t just dreamed about it.

“What the fuck?” I say, my voice hoarse now.

Yellow Eyes is suddenly beside me. I didn’t hear him move, his feet silent against the tiled floor. He holds his hands up in careful submission, his eyes full of concern.

“You do not need to be afraid,” he says, tone still achingly gentle. “The dreamspace conjures things from our memories. It has brought us here, I suspect, because it is the last place you recall being. It has conjured you familiar clothes also. But this is not the waking world. We are in dreams.”

Dreams. I dreamed about this dress, and now it’s here. Because I’m still dreaming? A different dream. A shared dream?

Is it really so difficult to believe that, given everything else I’ve had to accept since I woke up?

Think about it logically, rationally, I tell myself. Do what you do best.

Solve the problem.

I take a breath, hold it deep in my lungs, then try to expel my panic along with the air when I release it. Pushing to my feet, I brush my hands over the hideous dress, trying to straighten it. A force of habit. I know there’s no way to make this particular number look good, even if I could flatten every crease in it.

“You say we’re dreaming now?” I say, pleased when my voice comes out firmer.

“Yes, linasha,” Yellow Eyes says, rising to his feet as well. He passes my height, then continues unfolding up and up. Over seven feet tall. I have to tip my head back to look him in the eye. I don’t like that it sends a little shiver down my spine to do so, my treacherous body quivering in the face of his raw masculinity.

“And we’re in dreams together. So you are the you that I saw in the pod room? Who I attacked in the shower?”

Even though my attack doesn’t seem to bother him, a blush rises in my cheeks again.

“Yes. My name is Rardek.” He puts a hand to his chest, bows his head, as if in some sort of formal greeting. Then his eyes flash, his grin turning wicked. “And do not be embarrassed that you were unable to keep your hands off me. I know my face is very fine, my other features even more so.”

The little emphasis he puts on ‘features’ douses any embarrassment I feel as quickly as a bucket of cold water.

“Funnily enough, I didn’t even notice your dick. So it’s clearly not as ‘fine’ as you think it is.”

I regret opening my mouth immediately. Being antagonistic towards guys rarely works out well, insulting their manhood even less so. But Rardek just roars with laughter, eyes sparkling as if my sass delights him.

“I was not referring to my cock, although I promise you, it is quite fine. It was my backside you had the opportunity to stare at.”

I blush again, wondering if he knew I was standing there, staring at him. Admiring him. No, I decide quickly, pushing my embarrassment back down. If he knew I was there, he wouldn’t have let me pull his tail.

Then I look at his expression and realise he’s not being serious. There’s a teasing slant to his smile, his eyes glittering with amusement. I scowl at him again and that amusement only intensifies.

“So you will remember this conversation when I wake up?” I say, dragging myself back on point.

“Yes. This is as real for me as it is for you. I will know all that has been spoken between us. I will recall the sight of you in that dress.” A glimmer of amusement at my expense. I can’t even be pissed about it - I look ridiculous. “Sally of the human females has the best command of our words. I do not believe you have met her yet. She will be able to translate any conversation you wish to have with me to confirm this.”

“Because you don’t speak my language in the waking world?”

“No.”

I think about it for a moment. “Okay. Let’s decide on a code word. Then if you are able to repeat it to me in the waking world, I’ll know it really was you talking to me now.”

He nods. “Clever. What word would you like to use?”

“Uh.” My mind goes blank.

“How about ‘flame’?” he says, eyes glittering with mischief.

It’s as good a word as any, I suppose.

“Okay, ‘flame’ it is.”

Silence falls between us, but Rardek’s eyes remain on me, the heat of his gaze licking over my skin. The way my body warms in response is made even more uncomfortable by the scratchy, oppressive fabric of the dress. I tug at it, wishing I could rip it off.

“Don’t tell anyone about this awful dress,” I say.

Rardek grins. “If you dislike your attire, will it to change. This is the dreamspace. You are in control here. Simply imagine it and it can become true.”

And prove I’m asleep at the same time.

I close my eyes, picture my work attire. The sharp lines of my shirt and pencil skirt combo, the red patent leather of my nicest shoes. I picture my hair scooped up in a high, professional pony tail. Earrings and a subtle necklace to finish the picture.

But then thoughts of slouchy trousers, oversized t-shirts, creep in. The sorts of things I wore at home, alone, when no one else could see me. I debate if that’s the image I want to present to Rardek. Decide it can’t possibly be worse than this dress.

When I open my eyes, I’m wearing my softest yoga pants, a cute tee with a motivational quote wrapped around some flowers on it. I pluck at my new clothes. Feel the fabric between my fingers as real as if I was awake.

“Wild,” I say, my mind already racing at the possibilities. What else can this dreamspace do?

Closing my eyes again, I picture my living room. I sense a shift in the atmosphere, comfort washing over me. The floor beneath my bare feet turns soft, carpeted, familiar scents filling my nose. Opening my eyes, I see my living room recreated perfectly around me. Rardek looks incongruous, standing in the middle of it.

I take a seat in my armchair, gesture for him to take the sofa. He sits down, folding his large frame into the too low seat. He should look ridiculous, but he just slouches back again, effortlessly sexy. I swallow past an increasingly dry throat.

“We are definitely dreaming, or something like it.”

“We are.”

“And I can find out if you really are you in the morning easy enough.”

“You can.”

“So, working on the presumption that you are the real you, why are you here?”