This had gone well beyond amusement for Rae. She did not like the way this mentally deranged barbarian threw around terms like “claim.” She set fists to hips. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
He glanced back at her. “Did I not introduce myself once already, female?”
Rae set her jaw.
“I am Prime Garr domé Kaython,” he said, staring right into her when he said it. His voice and intensity terrified her.
But she was not about to be upstaged, either. “And I am Dr. Rae Ashburn, whose name is on the sign. So get the hell out!”
Just then, Reese had found his taser. He gripped it a moment and let out a shout while plunging it at Garr’s bared chest.
A rapid clicking filled the air. Garr glanced down at the object set flush to his chest. He snatched Reese’s wrist and examined it. “I am going to feed this trinket to you,” he growled.
That’s not right. That’s impossible. Rae knew how a taser worked. The electrical signal mimicked the same one in the skeletal muscles of a human, forcing them all to contract at once.
Against someone who was all muscle, it should have worked better instead of not at all. She stared, stunned, at something she knew shouldn’t have happened. What was the explanation? Had it misfired? Was his nervous system different somehow?
It got stranger. The offended female from before stood from the audience and wandered closer. And she was at least eight feet tall, lean and wearing a pea coat that didn’t make it past her hips.
Rae might have actually guessed an anime convention cosplayer, except she’d have had to wear stilts, and Rae could clearly see where the woman’s knees bent. The biomechanics were… impossible. She was actually eight feet tall. That was four inches higher than the tallest woman in the world.
The tallest human woman in the world.
“Oh holy shit,” Rae breathed. For six full seconds, she watched Garr and the giantess seem to communicate with a silent stare. There were security officers coming down the aisles.
Garr glanced sharply at Reese and squeezed his wrist until the taser fell from his limp fingers. “Surrender your claim and I leave your bones intact.”
“I— I surrender!” he shouted. “Take her! She’s yours, buddy!”
Rae was already turning to bolt. If she were wrong, well, this would seem incredibly stupid to her in posterity. But she believed her eyes; she trusted her science. She ran.
And she got out the back exit into an alley before a chain link fence stopped her. The conference center door banged back open behind her and she tried to scale the fence.
A hand gripped the back of her jacket, dragging her off, spinning her around.
She stared up into the barbarian’s eyes. Something happened to them. They were dark brown before, but as Garr blinked, they changed, like a chameleon shifting its colors. Now there were no discernible sclera, irises, or pupils. His eyes were solid black and shiny like marbles.
“I claim you,” he said. “You are mine now, clever creature.” His finger stroked the point of her jaw, and she realized his hands were enormous too. He could have palmed her entire head with just one mitt.
“You’re an alien,” Rae said.
“No. Ythirian. You are an alien.” He stroked her cheek and she flinched at his red-hot touch, unable to control the shudder that went through her. But it was a shudder born from more than just fear.
“Are you going to kill me for my research?”
“Nothing will kill you but time, now that you are mine,” he murmured.
She prayed the security guards would get here soon.
He produced from his kurta a strange, purple blossom embedded in a nest of brown fibers. The blossom featured several layers of petals folded over one another. It had a floral scent that was sweet and dark at once, and he offered it to her, as though a gift.
She glanced from the flower to him. “That isn’t from Earth, is it?”
“We call it a night blossom.” He moved the flower nearer to her face, and she wondered if this brute was trying to be romantic. Then, however, the petals bloomed abruptly outward, revealing a gorgeous burnt-orange center. From the stigma, it puffed a violet cloud of dust.
She inhaled on reflex and immediately felt her mind slow. The world shifted around her, the colors dulled, and she slumped back into the chain link. “Did… did you just… rose-hypnol me?” she asked, sinking onto the asphalt.
“I claim you, taliyar.” His kurta unwound at the sleeves and slithered around her torso, swaddling her in fabric that felt surprisingly silky, but at the same time binding her wrists together at her chest.
He was wrapping her up, knocking her unconscious—kidnapping her, she realized in sudden horror. “And you are safe now that you belong to me.”