The anger in his eyes faded and he frowned instead. “I do not understand human ways.”
“Even human guys don’t, babe,” I drawled.
There was more confusion. “You call me an infant?”
I would’ve rubbed my forehead if I could. Instead I sighed. “We’ll talk about slang once I’m safe.”
That caught N’Ashtar’s attention. “I could attack the camp, destroy all of the Caterri.” He paused. “It would be a suitable way to demonstrate to you how worthy I am of being your mate.”
My brain played, then replayed, his words over again. He wanted me as his mate? Even after we’d spent days annoying the hell out of each other? Maybe he was a masochist. Either way, I wasn’t going to push back against it. Not right now, with my life in the hands of the Caterri. Whether it was just him or not, I wouldn’t be able to escape on my own.
Besides, I did sort of like him. A tiny bit. He was a feisty ass, but he was my feisty ass, you know?
“You would get your ass kicked,” I told him frankly.
He slitted his eyes, the sclera turning red. “You doubt my prowess as a warrior?”
I rolled my eyes, because really, men and their egos. It didn’t change no matter what planet you were on. “Do I doubt you can take out almost a dozen Caterri that are better equipped than you are, by yourself? Yes.”
If N’Akron pouted, that was what he was doing. It was kind of adorable, if my life hadn’t been in danger.
“If you do not think I can handle such a thing, maybe I—”
He never got a chance to finish his grumbled words because I gestured for him to come closer, then kissed the hell out of him. Or tried to, anyway. I pressed my lips to his, my eyes half-closed, and met what felt like a scaly brick wall. A brick wall that quickly pulled back, nearly overbalancing me, and stared at me with wide golden eyes that looked almost out of place in his scale-patterned face.
“What was that?” N’Ashtar asked suspiciously, his voice a shade too loud for where we were. I hushed him quietly.
“I take it you guys don’t kiss?” Now that I thought about it, had I seen Hetta kiss O’Rrin? I wasn’t certain.
“What is a kiss?” N’Ashtar stared at my lips like they were the alien, not him.
“You press your mouths together, maybe involve your tongues, too.” I’d never had to explain it before, and it sounded a lot less sexy than it was, but I figured I could give him a demonstration later when I was free and we were safer.
“Humans do that?” He looked skeptical, even though his breathing had hitched and he was eyeing me with more interest. A glance below his waist confirmed a hardness there, although his pants didn’t seem built for it. Whatever his uncertainty, he wanted me. I felt a flash of guilt, because really, I was taking advantage of him at the moment, and the fact he seemed into me. There were definitely better ways to handle it, but I was desperate.
“Yup.” I reached out and cupped his package as best I could, trying not to think too much about how big it was (because he was very well endowed). Where the hell had he been hiding that thing? Mentally, I shook my head. Later. “If you don’t go all crazy and try to take them out all by yourself, once we’re free, I’ll show you more kissing and other stuff humans do. Got it?”
His hiss was low but not frightening. If anything, it was a hiss like he couldn’t contain it, like he was already going out of his mind. “You’re going to ruin my pants.”
I removed my hand, which I was secretly grateful for. Not that I didn’t want to keep touching him, but given how I was chained to the hovercraft, moving my hands anywhere was a bit of a challenge. “What do you mean?” I glanced at his dick, still obviously hard behind the leather.
“Do your males not retract?” He looked at me like I was the strange one.
“Do they what now?” I raised an eyebrow.
Bemusement made his strangely alien face look more human and more approachable, something that made me feel warm all over. “Because it is sensitive, it retracts into our bodies when not in use.”
I whistled. “So you can’t be kicked in the balls and be incapacitated. Smart.”
The look he gave me was blank. “What?”
I shook my head, because it wasn’t relevant. I could hear the Caterri mumble to each other from near the fire, because it was time to switch watch. Crap. “I think I know what you should do.”
He gave me a look that was skeptical at first, but after studying my face, became more serious. Then he nodded. “What do you have in mind?”
“My favorite professor studied war, and one of the things that people did in the past was when a group was out numbered or technologically weaker, your goal is to fight smarter, not harder.” God, it was hard to take my history professor’s love of twentieth and twenty-first century warfare in South/Central America and reduce it to ‘studied war’, but I was already going to have enough trouble getting N’Ashtar to understand as it was.
He frowned. “What is ‘wahr’?”
I should’ve known that wouldn’t be in his vocabulary. “We can discuss that later. Basically, you should draw out a guard or two, kill them, and then hide. That way, they discover the dead guards, freak out because they’re obviously being stalked, and it’ll slow the group down and make them paranoid. Make sense?”
“Why not just kill them all at once?” N’Ashtar regarded me with a mixture of amusement, respect, and affection. Whether he took me seriously or not, he was at least
