Alien's Concubine, The by Kaitlyn O'Connor

find of the
century … or the one before, for that matter, maybe the greatest
find of all time, she thought a little wildly.
    Her hand shook as she poised the
scalpel in her hand at long last over a segment of bandaging. There
was no end that she could see. She would have to make a cut to
begin unwinding it from the remains.
    Something brushed lightly at the hair
near ear. “This is interesting, Moonflower. I am not familiar with
this particular ritual.”
    A jolt traveled all the way through
Gaby from her ear to the hand holding the shaking scalpel.
Goosebumps followed like geese taking flight. Puppet-like, Gaby’s
head jerked upright.
    Everyone was staring at her tensely,
but she couldn’t see that anyone looked the least shocked or
disturbed in anyway.
    “ They cannot see me,” Anka
murmured in a conspiratorial whisper.
    “ Because you’re not really
here,” Gaby muttered under breath.
    “ Of course I am, my
treasure, and like animals, they sense my presence even though I do
not permit them to see me,” he said arrogantly. “Look at their
faces, the tension in them.”
    Gaby looked. They did look tense and
uneasy, but she’d figured that was because they were as on edge
about the procedure as she was, albeit for a different reason.
“It’s the body,” she muttered under her breath.
    “ What about it?” Paul, her
assistant demanded in a nervous whisper as he leaned
closer.
    Gaby stared at him blankly, trying to
jog her mind into supplying her with something to say. “Nothing,”
she said tersely and then glanced around at her audience. “Excuse
me a moment. I’ll be right back.”
    Without awaiting a response, ignoring
the looks of shocked surprise and dawning outrage on their faces,
Gaby dropped the scalpel, peeled off her gloves, whirled on her
heel, and stalked from the room. She was shaking all over by the
time she reached the ladies room.
    Moving to the lavatory, she turned on
the faucet, ran cold water over her palms, and finally cupped
handfuls and splashed it over her face. When she lifted her head to
look at her reflection, she saw him, sprawled negligently on the
counter across from her on his side, his head propped in one hand
as he studied her appraisingly. Uttering a squawk, Gaby whirled to
face him.
    “ What are you doing here?”
she demanded when she discovered he hadn’t disappeared as she’d
more than half hoped he would.
    “ This is a strange place,”
he said instead of answering her question. “What is it
for?”
    Gaby blinked at him. Slowly, heat
flowed into her cheeks. “The restroom?” she asked
cautiously.
    He grinned. “This
building.”
    “ Oh. It’s a
museum.”
    His dark brows rose
questioningly.
    “ We preserve and display
antiquities here so that everyone can learn about them.”
    He looked amused. “Yesterday’s trash,
today’s treasure?”
    She wasn’t certain if it was his
arrogance that irritated her or the comment, which denigrated her
work. “We learn from the past,” she said tightly.
    He sat up and settled to the floor,
moving toward her with the slinking grace of a prowling cat.
Delicious shivers crawled up and down Gaby’s spine as she watched
the play of muscles with his movements.
    He was wearing the breechclout once
more, and the leather gauntlets—not the mask, but he still looked
like some dark, infinitely dangerous warrior who’d stepped out of
the distant past. “Learn what, my pretty Moonflower?” he asked in a
purring voice as he reached her and lifted a hand to brush his
fingers lightly, caressingly along her cheek.
    Gaby stared into his tumultuous green
eyes feeling perfectly blank. “Things,” she finally managed to say.
Her mouth felt desert dry. Gathering moisture with an effort, she
moistened her lips with her tongue.
    His gaze zeroed in on the movement,
his eyes smoldering with heat. “I have given it a great deal of
thought and I have decided that I am ready for procreation,” he
announced calmly. “I am here because I