Free Alien Romance: Caged By The Alien: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 4) by Marla Therron

replied, "There is only one queen. She has different bodies, different shells that she works through, distributed across the planet. But there is only one."
    That rather disrupted Penny's metaphor.
    "You're commander of the military, aren't you?" Penny tried again, "Who do you fight?"
    "Anything that threatens the hive," he answered at once, "The Wasp-kind. Off worlders. Rogues."
    "Well, say you wanted to make a deal with the Wasp-kind," Penny tried, "An ambassador is who you would send to talk to them, to make sure you could make a deal without fighting."
    "You cannot deal with Wasp-kind," Tau seemed just as confused, "They are Queen-less animals."
    Penny sighed.
    "Off worlders, then," Penny begged Tau to understand, "The person you would send to talk to and understand the offworlders. You, Tau, you are your people's ambassador."
    Tau stared at her thoughtfully for a long moment. He'd removed his armor completely now. As Penny looked at him from this distance, just far enough away not to be able to see his hands or the compound cells of his eyes or the strange texture of his hair clearly, she could hardly tell he wasn't a human man, broad shouldered and strong jawed. Nothing like the delicate winged males at all. He looked powerful.
    On earth, she was certain he would have been all too popular. He was looking at her with those intense, reflective eyes, shining almost amethyst in the light.
    "We are the same." he said, the words loaded with meaning Penny didn't understand.
    "Yes," she replied, then realized they'd gone off track and hurried to recover, "Which is why it's pointless to separate me from my team. They can and will operate just fine without me."
    "I see," Tau blinked, straightening up and setting the last piece of his armor in the cabinet. He removed another set of plain white clothes from the drawers, then closed it, the wall sliding back into place again, "Then, we must separate them all from each other."
    "No!" Penny huffed in frustration, "That will just make them even more desperate!"
    "How can they do anything if they are alone?" Tau asked, frowning.
    "Trust me," Penny hung onto the bars, her expression serious, "If you divide us we just fight harder. That's what humans do."
    "Interesting." Tau said without emotion, then turned and opened a door that blended so seamlessly with the wall Penny hadn't even known it was there.
    "I am going to bathe," he said, "If you wish to bathe as well, I have restraints."
    "No thank you," Penny shook her head, not wanting to find out what his restraints were like, "I had plenty of bathing earlier today."
    He nodded and left. Penny heard water running beyond the door and was glad their species had at least things like that in common.
    When he returned, not long after, she was examining the mossy pillow things, wondering what they were made of.
    Tau went to the area with the counter and opened another hidden cabinet, removing two objects the size of softballs. He handed one to her through the bars, then sat on the edge of the cradle bed with the other.
    "We examined your food," he explained as Penny turned the soft, waxy sphere over in her hands, "And synthesized a suitable nutrient replacement. It should be able to be processed by your system and contain no allergens, but we could not do much testing, for obvious reasons."
    "Okay, but how do you eat it?" Penny asked, baffled, as she stared at the weird shape. Tau, by way of demonstration, punched a nail through the soft wax surface to make a hole, then tipped the sphere up and drank from it.
    "The container is also edible," he explained, licking his lips as Penny scraped a hole into the orb, "And nutritious. Please inform me if you require more."
    Penny tipped the sphere up and a sweet liquid poured out into her mouth.
    "Tastes like honey," she gave a short, tired laugh, "Why am I not surprised?"
    It had an aftertaste of spices, ginger and nutmeg, and tingled on her lips like mint. Not at all unpleasant, and when she'd drunk