Alien Predators

They communicated in a pidgin mish-mash of English and Sameer's language that would have been impossible for anyone else to understand but generally got the point across.

Overall their life was fairly easy. There appeared to be no dangerous animals. Food was plentiful and seemed nutritious for each, other than the big purple fruit that kept Greg near the latrine pit for a full day. Something Sameer found very amusing, if her imitation of his sounds of misery were anything to go by. Fortunately it didn't seem to have any lasting effect and her amusement was curbed when he delivered a firm, semi-serious spanking as retribution for her laughter. That lead to several interesting experiences.

Their idyllic life had a timeless quality to it, so Greg wasn't really able to say how long they were together before it all changed. Again.

They were laying in the tent during an afternoon thunderstorm. Sameer had one hand under Greg's shirt, stroking his smooth chest as she kissed his throat when he interrupted her.

"Have you forgotten what I said this morning?"

She stopped kissing him and sat up. "You say much things."

"I will have to refresh your memory then. You snuck a furry creature into the tent and put it in my pants to wake me up this morning. Remember?"

She looked up, giving the appearance of an insincere attempt to remember, then couldn't hold the attitude and started laughing. "You pretty when you dance."

"Well, thank you, but that's not what I was talking about. I told you that I would not have sex with you today because of that. And I meant it. So you might as well stop what you are doing."

Her eyes lit up, Sameer enjoyed nothing more than a challenge. She threw one leg over so she could kneel over his hips and peel off her shirt. She took his hands and pressed them to her full breasts as she ground her crotch against him.

"No sex, Greg?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

She leaned forward, pressing her breasts into his hands, so she could slip her own hands under his shirt and savor the feel of his skin. He brushed his thumbs across her nipples and felt them stiffen at his touch. Her eyes closed half-way and she looked down at him hungrily.

"No sex, Greg? Sure?"

He was a minute answering. "What's that noise?"

She smiled, still only focused on him. "No trick."

"No, I'm not trying to trick you." He sat up and took her hands in hers. "Listen, do you hear that?"

She blinked and her eyes opened wider, she gave the appearance of coming out of a trance. She tilted her head and listened, then jumped to her feet and dashed to the pile of her equipment she kept near the tent.

She dug through it frantically, then straightened with a device in her hand, the apparent source of the soft beeps Greg had heard. She spoke rapidly in her own language, then paused. A communicator? After a moment she spoke again and Greg heard the device respond. He was watching her face closely and could see the rising excitement in her posture. The device spoke back and she took a deep breath, looking at Greg with an expression of happiness he had seldom seen.

While she was holding a short conversation Greg stood and came to stand near her. Suddenly she dropped the device and threw her arms around Greg. He thought he knew what was going on and swept her up in an exuberant hug.

"You're people?" he asked.

"Yes! They are. They here soon." In her excitement she wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed him hard.

"That is fantastic, Sameer, I'm very happy for you."

She could feel the lackluster response from him and looked into his face. "Greg? What?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. You're going to get off this mudball. It's fantastic, really."

"We leaving mudball, Greg. You go with, yes?"

"Well, I want to get off this planet too, but I wasn't sure if I would be welcome. Your people and mine are strangers, I wasn't sure..."

Sameer relaxed her legs so she could stand and grip his shirt in both hands. "I not go without you. Never without you."

Her words were light, but he could feel the ferocity in them. He took the front of her shirt in his fists to match her grip and shook her lightly with a smile.

"Fair enough, sweetie. But I hope they aren't all going to want to bite me."

"Bite is for me. Like cock for me."

Greg heard an odd whining sound long before Sameer pointed out the small vessel descending toward them. He could not see what was keeping the thing from dropping out of the sky, there were no parachutes. It looked like it was under power, descending lightly and supported only by good thoughts.

It was about the size of a bus and it settled to one side of their clearing. Moments later a door opened and an odd assortment of shapes stepped out.

Leading the way was a group of women that bore a strong resemblance to Sameer. Following behind them were a second group, larger, powerfully built, with the same pale skin and hair. The second group carried obvious weapons, the first did not.

One of the smaller figures led the way. At first she had eyes only for Sameer, then she focused on Greg and a look of disgust appeared on her face. She barked a command and all of the weapons were suddenly pointing at him.

That didn't surprise Greg nearly as much as Sameer's response did. She let out an inarticulate scream and charged at the woman who had spoken. She leapt to meet Sameer's charge and the two proceeded to try and tear each other's heads off. Both of them threw punches that would have felled an ox which were either ducked or deflected. They grappled, muscles straining for purchase. Sameer made a cunning twisting movement too fast to see, got a good grip on the other woman, lifted her and hurled her into the ground savagely. She rolled the other woman onto her stomach, slipped an arm around her throat and bent her backwards, for all appearances ready to break her in half.

While the crowd of Sameer's people stood by with little expression, Greg was astonished. He knew Sameer was strong, easily as strong as he was, and he knew she wasn't always gentle, but this type of behavior he had never dreamed of. And why wasn't anyone trying to intervene? It was like this was run of the mill. Well, maybe it was for them.

The pinned woman made some sort of soft grunt and Sameer released her. She straightened and looked at the gathered onlookers, then pointed at Greg and snarled a sentence at them that came out too fast for him to understand. There was one word "meesania" that caught his attention. It sounded like "meesan" which meant "mine" or maybe "hands off" or something. The smaller members of the group, the women, gave a sort of half bow of acknowledgment. The bigger ones fell to their knees and lowered their heads to the ground. Greg felt his eyes going even wider at that.

The vessel was laid out like a bus, with several rows of seats side by side. Sameer and Greg sat side by side in the front row, the woman Sameer had defeated opposite him on her other side. , the rest of the women behind her and the others grouped behind them. Greg spent the trip to orbit trying to phrase his questions in a way she would understand and not really coming up with a good way to ask. Sameer spent the time in conversation with the other woman, although she did keep her hand on his arm the whole time, so he didn't feel completely ignored.

The conditioned air of the vessel felt cool and wonderful after the stifling humidity and heat of the planet.

There was no feeling of acceleration, just a smooth ride for a 30 or 40 minutes before they all stood to let Sameer and Greg leave first.

Sameer gave some more imperious commands then said to Greg, "I speak my people. I come you later, yes?"

He nodded, feeling uncertain. She was going to leave him alone? "Okay."

"Okay. Bite later. Fuck later."

"Fucking crazy lady."

"Yes." She was grinning happily at him the whole time.

He was taken on a long walk through the ship. How big was this thing? The walked ended and Greg was not exactly pushed into a small room setup with four bunks, or what looked like bunks. There was no bathroom that he could see. He was still filthy, probably stank to high heaven, hungry, locked in by aliens he knew almost nothing about and apparently abandoned by the one alien he had come to think was his friend.

Well, at least he wasn't sweating.

Sameer spoke to her sister, trying to get caught up with what had been happening in the empire while she had been marooned. Her main question was on why she had been lost for so long. Apparently the enemy had begun a major offensive not long after her own ship had gone down, and no ships could be spared to search for her until recently. The idea that they had been reduced to that level disgusted her, she meant to look into it personally. Heads would roll. At least.

The door to her private quarters closed behind her and she called out, "Greg? Where hiding?"

There was no response. Was he playing some game? She felt a tingle of anticipation. He was

far too serious in her opinion, but the few times he had played this kind of trick on her finding him had been delicious. He was a spectacular lover. She could feel her body growing ready for him already.

She began exploring the rooms with a seemingly casual air, waiting for him to jump out and grab her. She wanted him to throw her down and take her hard. She ached for it.

Minutes passed and nothing happened. She took a deep breath, then began searching more vigorously. Sniffing deeply she hunted for him for several minutes before realizing he was not there. What was this? She growled as the rage grew, and stormed up to the ship's bridge in a black fury.

She wasted no time on protocol, she stormed onto the bridge, grabbed the captain out of her chair by the throat and pinned her to the wall.

"WHERE IS MY MATE!"

"He was taken to quarters in the drone area, princess. He is unhurt, I assure you."

"WHY WAS HE NOT TAKEN TO MY QUARTERS! WAS HE GIVEN FOOD? CLEAN CLOTHES? WAS ANYTHING DONE FOR HIS COMFORT?"

"No princess? Why would we have bothered?"

The bridge crew paid no attention. It wasn't important, just a minor discipline issue between the captain and the Heir. Nothing to concern anyone else.

Sameer jerked the woman away from the wall, then slammed her back against it painfully. When she spoke her voice was dangerously soft. It was more of a threat than her screaming had been.

"I am going to go find my mate and escort him to my quarters. I am going to let him clean himself and eat, then I am going to fuck him until he cannot move. If there is a bite or bruise or scratch on his body that I did not put there I will pull your skin off and eat it."

The captain lowered her eyes to the floor, as was proper. "Yes, princess."

Greg had pulled off his worn boots and laid down on one of the bunks. He tried napping but couldn't relax well enough. There was nothing to eat and nothing to do in the room so he lay there thinking morose thoughts. The one thought that kept surfacing more than any other was "I thought I meant more to her than this."

He was so sunk in self pity that even the door opening to reveal Sameer didn't help much. Nor did her coming closer to kneel beside the bunk and lay her head on his chest.

He didn't know it but the gesture was an apology, he also didn't know that his response of stroking her hair told her that he understood and accepted.

She stood and held out her hand to him. "Come, Greg, come."

"Where are we going?"

"Better place, messania."

Her place was better, he couldn't argue with that. She apparently was the sole occupant of a palatial 4 room suite; the bathroom alone was bigger than the room Greg had been locked in. The suite's main door was locked too, but from the inside to keep others out. That was a nice touch.

Sameer's first act once they were alone was to peel his clothes off then push him into the bathroom. She had to show him how to turn things on and off, but that led to a very pleasant shower together. A very long, shower. After drying each other, Greg wrapped a towel around his waist, Sameer didn't bother with even that much.

She sat him down on a thick cushion and combed out his long hair before putting it in a short braid. He preferred to keep his hair loose, but she was humming happily the whole time. In fact, she took a lot longer to do it than it really needed. Was her doing that significant? Well, time enough for that later.

Once done she sat in his lap facing him and gently pushed up the corners of his mouth. "Why Greg no smile? Safe now, off mudball now. Why no smile?"

He shook his head. "No word." It was a phrase they both used often.

"Say."

She wanted him to say it anyway even though she probably wouldn't understand. Fair enough.

"Who are you? Who are these people? Who are you to them? Who am I to you? What happens next?"

She looked stricken and said, "No word."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Look... On the planet, they were going to kill me."

"Yes."

"Why?"

She got a frustrated look on her face then held her arm along side his, comparing the difference in their skin. Then she took a strand of his hair that had escaped the braid and held her own hair along side it. "Not same."

"Yeah, I'm different. I am an alien."

"Yes, not same."

"You stopped them from killing me."

"Yes," There was ferocity in her voice when she said it. "They no hurt you, Greg. Never. No one hurt you. Messania."

That word again, mine or hands off, or whatever it was.

"What does that word mean? Can you explain? What is messania?"

She took a deep breath as she thought. She looked into his eyes somberly, then took his head in her hands and held him against her breasts, her arms around his head. "Greg is here."

Then she released him and pressed her cheek to his chest, her arms went around him and she held on tightly. Greg put his own arms around her the same way she had. "Sameer is here."

"I am in you and you are in me? Is that it?"

She lifted her head and put one hand to his cheek. "Yes. We are part and one."

"We are... a pair? We are a part of each other?"

"Yes. Greg is Sameer, Sameer is Greg. Not right but..." She made a helpless gesture.

He grinned. "So, is it safe to say you like me a little?"

She grabbed his head and shook it. "Yes, like much."

"Well, I like you too. When you aren't biting me."

She shook his head again playfully. "Bite when Greg fuck good."

"Thank you, I think. How about some food, I'm starving."

"Fuck first."

"Do you ever think of anything else?"

"No! Fucking crazy lady!"

"Yes you are."

Greg sat across the desk from the newly appointed ambassador to Sameer's people and shared what he had learned in his two years with them.

"I think that's pretty much it, ambassador. Oh, no there is one other thing, a warning. Don't let yourself get to, uh, intimate with any of the females, unless you don't mind getting bitten."

"Bitten?"

"Yes, bitten, with teeth, you know." Greg pulled his shirt open to show the side of his neck. "Bitten."

"They bite you?"

"No, not all of them, just the princess." He motioned to Sameer who was sitting beside him.

"Why does she bite you?"

"I've asked the same thing. It's either a cultural expression of affection or she's a crazy lady. Oops."

As Greg feared, Sameer said brightly, and clearly, "Fucking crazy lady! Yes."

Naturally, she would understand that much. "It's possible that I have expressed some things that I maybe shouldn't have expressed. Sorry but it seemed appropriate at the time."

"That's alright, I think we can work around that."

"The good news is the princess is the only one who has ever heard it."

"It's fine."

Sameer tugged his hand. "Greg, what he saying?"

"He wanted to know about... biting."

"OH! I show him." She jumped to her feet and sat in his lap.

"No, honey, let's save that until we get home."

"Not?"

"Not. Maybe later."

She gave a long-suffering and completely insincere sigh of disappointment before returning to her own seat.

The ambassador cleared his throat. "Well, we appreciate the inroads you have made with these people. It's clear that you have made our job much easier by establishing a personal relationship with such a high ranking individual. But I'm sure you are anxious to return home so we will arrange transportation as quickly as possible."

"Oh, I'm not leaving."

"No? You are staying?"

"Yes, of course. I have no reason to go home, and really no home to return to. As you've seen, the princess and I have become very... close and she's asked that I stay with her. In fact, she's kind of demanded that I stay. Well, she would let me go if I wanted to... I think."

"And you are okay with that?"

"Certainly, I've been very well treated since we got to their homeworld. And, to be honest, I'm not sure how she would react if I was to try and leave."

It wasn't clear how much Sameer understood, but she definitely understood one word. She tightened her grip on his hand and growled, "Greg not leave." It was clearly a threat and it was not directed at Greg.

"Honey, it's okay, he wasn't saying I had to leave. I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes. Not going. Messania."

"Excuse me, but heard her say that word a few times. What does it mean?"

"It took me a while to figure out that out too because the meaning seems to change based on context. But when Sameer says it about me, it means 'mate'."

"Oh, I apologize, I had no idea."

"Neither did I for a while. Something else to keep in mind, they take that sort of thing very seriously. They mate for life and a perceived threat to the mate of a member of the royal family would be a very bad thing."

"Ah. Thank you for the warning."

"You're welcome. Was there anything else, ambassador?"

"Not for the moment. If there are any questions I know how to contact you."

"Great, I'll be happy to help however I can."

He tugged Sameer's hand and they left together. In the hall she said, "Fuck now?" She made no effort to keep her voice down so they got some looks from people in the hall.

He scoffed. "Maybe you could wait until we get home?"

"No. Now."

"I need to teach you the meaning of the word 'discreet'."

"Fuck first."

"Will you stop talking like that? You know you speak Standard better than I do."

"That is interesting, you taught me Standard so how is it possible that I speak it better than you?"

"The real question is why do you insist on talking like Tarzan?"

"Who?"

"Why do you insist on talking that way to the ambassador?"

She shrugged with just her eyes. It was a subtle thing but Greg had learned a lot about reading her face. "It is best if your people think we are illiterate savages, then they will not fear us."

"Should they be afraid of you?"

"Only if they try and take you away."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You are not. I am not done with you."

"Take your hand off my butt."

"No. I like."

"Savage."

"Yes."

"Fucking crazy lady."

"YES!"