Read Hunted: BBW Alien Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 4) for Free Online

stopped,” Sybil said, standing up and going to the entrance of the hold. “They’re coming, let’s get everything together.”
    Tamzin helped her friends collect their belongings and retrieved her own pack, the exertion bringing on a bout of coughing.
    “Are you OK, honey,” Sybil asked.
    “Sand in my lungs.” Tamzin cleared her throat and stood up. “Maybe I won’t get to go to Karal after all.”
    “It’ll clear itself,” Sybil said, but her look showed concern too.
    “Let me empty my pack for you.” Tamzin tipped the contents out, immediately picking up the photos of her parents and her underwear. The rest of her clothes were hardly worth keeping, but not worth giving away either, so she stowed them back in her pack.
    Collecting anything of use, she handed the stuff to Sybil and then gave Thomsk her coin. “Here, I won’t need it anymore.”
    “I can’t take it, Tamzin.” But Thomsk looked desperate.
    “Yes you can, old man, you take it and use it to get by while you look for work.” She lifted his hand and placed the coins in it. “Think of me.”
    “I will, Tamzin,” he said, pulling her into a hug.
    She knelt down and gave his kids a hug too. “Look after your dad for me.”
    “Will we see you again?” Sam asked, hugging her so tightly she wanted him to hold on and never let her go.
    “One day, who knows.” But she knew. She knew that once she left here she would never look on their young faces again, never watch them grow up into young adults. “Goodbye.”
    Looking up, she saw the alien called Garth standing looking at her, a strange colour skimming his skin. Something about him was attractive, she couldn’t deny that, but the other one, Okil, had such a nice, easy way about him. He at least seemed to like humans, whereas now, with the ragtag bunch of humans coming his way, Garth stood back as if they would burn him with their touch.
    She smiled. He probably had a right to be wary: they had all been covered in rain, which contained its fair share of acid. Looking down at her hands, she saw the redness on her skin; it was drying out, wrinkling as if it had been burned. Oh well. It would heal. And then she began to cough, and panic filled her. That was something that wouldn’t heal, and she wondered if she should say it to the Karalians now, tell them she was tainted and they should leave her behind and take someone in better health.
    Then she felt Sybil’s hand on hers, as she came to say her last goodbye. “Go, they may have medicine, or equipment, on their planet, to remove the sand you breathed in, or the clean air might make it easier for you to breathe. Here you will die. So take this opportunity and leave.”
    Her eyes were fierce as she spoke the last word, as if she were kicking Tamzin out of her life, out of her heart.
    “I will,” she said, knowing she would only be a burden to the woman who had taken her mother in and nursed her while she died. She wouldn’t do that to Sybil, not again. “Take care of yourself.”
    “You too, honey, and when you are lying by a pool, drinking fresh fruit juice, think of us.”
    “I will.” She hugged Sybil once more, and then the older woman pulled away and left the cargo hold.
    Tamzin stood and listened to them as they walked down the ramp, not bearing to watch them leave. If she did, she would have run after them, told them to take her with them, ripped the tag out of her neck with her fingernails if she had to.
    But her feet didn’t leave the spot until she heard the ramp close.
    “You should come and sit down. You need to put a seat belt on,” Garth said.
    She looked up at him, and saw a spark of red cross his face. “How do you do that?”
    “What?” he asked, looking puzzled.
    “Your skin, the colours.” She pointed at her own face, and swirled her finger around.
    “It is just how we are. You show your emotions in your actions and in your words; ours are on our skin.”
    “And what does the red mean?” she asked,