“Valok,” he said. Then he took his knife, splitting the cactus thing with the blade and pulling the plant’s skins apart, revealing a sticky translucent goo on the inside. Ah. So that’s what we’d seen in the footage. It wasn’t an animal, but a plant getting split open and having the insides sucked out. Like an alien juice box.

He held the plant out to me, indicating that I should have some, and I shook my head vigorously.

“No thank you, Mr Alien. I have no clue if my human stomach can handle whatever that is.”

Speaking of stomachs, mine immediately fell when I remembered that I had no human supplies at all. No water. No food. No sunscreen or backup clothing.

Maybe I can get back to the ship somehow...

Maybe all those crab spider things were gone now. But what about the other women, my friends? I’d been so focused on fighting this guy off when he’d grabbed me, that I had no idea what had happened to the others. Panic rushed through me at the thought.

“We have to go back!” I said quickly, pointing wildly at the crack we’d come through. “Back!”

The kangaroo gladiator guy was looking at me like I was nuts. And maybe I was, to go back there. I’d be putting myself in massive danger, not to mention him. Even though he seemed like he held his own pretty well before. At the very least, if things went really badly, maybe I can bury them. The thought of Theresa, Melanie, Kat, and the others, lifeless and alone in the sun, made my stomach clench with nausea.

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. Whatever had happened to them, I had to go back. To get supplies. And see if there were any other survivors.

“Back, let’s go back.” God damn it. How could I tell this massive wall of body what I wanted? I didn’t know a single verb or preposition. Just a random dabbling of nouns that, so far, had proven to be kind of off-base. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted him to take me back there – I still wasn’t clear on his intentions. The massive pull at his loincloth told me whatever his intentions may have been, they were definitely not entirely honourable. But there was no way I’d survive two seconds out there without him.

Well, Cece, you’ve got yourself in quite the fucking pickle.

My English, combined with the wild gesturing of my arms, wasn’t getting us anywhere. Neither were the phrases in Japanese, French, or Spanish that I tossed his way. The alien had tossed the valok plant down and sheathed his knife at his back once more, and was watching me with an unreadable expression. His hands hung loose at his sides, but his entire body thrummed with energy. I knew that the second I tried to make a move, he’d react. How he’d react, I had no idea.

No other way to find out...

I took a sharp breath, then faked movement to one side before sprinting around the other, aiming for the crack we’d come through. I hadn’t made it two steps before a rock-hard arm shot out, snaking around my waist, drawing my back hard against the alien’s torso. A ripple of guttural language ran through the air, and I was pissed to realize I didn’t recognize a single word. What the fuck kind of training did I get? How they did they have a hope in hell of me communicating with these guys?

The alien said a bit more, and I shivered at the feeling of his breath against my ear and neck. And there was that erection, pressing into my back.

“OK, OK, my dude. This is not time for... whatever it is you have in mind.” His hands ran down to my hips, and I felt his mouth brush along my neck once more, sending heat bursting below my skin and, absurdly, between my legs. A deep, warning growl emanated from him, the sound a strange, primal call that was answered by something deep within my body. I squeezed my thighs together.

For a moment, nothing else happened. I had to admit that, if he’d wanted to kill or eat or rape me, he would have done it by now. There was literally no way I could have stopped him, yet so far he’d done nothing to harm me. Sure, he’d licked the blood from my skin like a weirdo, but he’d also saved me from certain crab-clawed death, and had tried to feed me from the spiky aloe thing. He has tools, and language, and some kind of domesticated animal he uses as a mount. And there was no denying the deep, almost unsettling intelligence I’d glimpsed in his strange eyes. I wish I could talk to him. Fuck you, Colonel Jackson, for all of this.

But when his huge, hot hands moved, slipping under my jacket and moving up to my waist, it seemed very clear that talking was not what this guy was interested in at the moment. I spun in his grip, placing my hands flat against his pecs, my fingers splayed against the impossibly tough skin. I remembered when he’d first grabbed me, and I’d bitten down as hard as I could, barely making a dent. What the hell is he made of?

It wasn’t just tough. It was smooth, and warm, and the way it faded in places from copper to brown to black was strangely appealing. For a moment, I forgot what I was meant to be doing, to be saying. That is, until his hands descended to grip my ass.

I yelped, jerking, then smacking my palms against his wall of a chest.

“Stop that!”

His brows contracted, and he said something in his deep, growly voice. His hands moved back up to my waist. But then, a moment later, they were gripping my butt again. He was staring hard at me, the metallic specks of his eyes completely blown apart, turning his whole gaze into something shimmering and uncentred. There was a mischievous sort of curiosity in the angle of his head, the slight uptick of his mouth. Oh my God, he thinks my reactions are funny.

Anger bubbled up in my chest, and I gave him my best fuck-you face.

“No.” I did my best to inject my voice with a dangerous tone, and it sort of seemed like it worked. The metallic glimmers of his eyes immediately contracted inward, and the beginnings of a grin that had been pulling at his mouth disappeared. He said something to me again, something I could not for the life of me understand. I could tell, though, that he was asking me a question. What that question was, was anyone’s guess.

“Sorry,” I said softly. “I don’t have any answers.”

His face darkened, but a moment later, he let me go. And this time, he stepped aside, allowing me access to the only exit. I faltered, wondering if this was some sort of trap, but he just seemed to watch me impassively, tracking every my every movement.

Alrighty, then.

I moved forward, following the path back out the way we’d come -

- and came face to face with a monster.

I reared back as the thing snarled, and raised my hands to protect my face, just as Mr Kangaroo Gladiator made a clicking sound at the back of his throat. The monster snuffed, then turned and moved away, and I watched it warily, my heart in my throat.

It was the thing we’d rode in on, of course. But I hadn’t realized how truly creepy the thing was when I’d been on its back.

Its hide was a deep, dusty purple, and its head and body vaguely resembled an Earth alligator, if alligators from Earth had, like, twenty eyes. And instead of four legs, it had what looked to be hundreds, sweeping over the sand like a centipede. It was huge, bigger than any alligator on earth, more like the size of a small whale. With really, really big teeth.

They don’t have alien horses where this guy comes from? We have to deal with the dino-centipede?

Despite the heat, I shivered, watching its many insect-like legs move in a horrible ripple. At least it seemed to listen to the alien guy’s commands.

I turned back to see said alien guy right behind me, his dark eyes fixed on me. I swallowed, the intensity of that gaze penetrating me.

“I guess I should stop calling you alien guy, eh? What’s your name?”

Idiot. Like he’ll understand that question.