Taken By Two Aliens (Alien Scifi Menage Romance) by Meg Ripley

you know?” Umi didn’t speak, so she pressed ahead. “The one thing that set me apart was my Hulk mode. I’m too small to take seriously otherwise. I’m worthless. Xondux needs Hulk, not Bruce Banner.” She laughed bitterly. “You don’t even know what I’m saying. Umi, just go. Just get to your hall; leave me here to die.”
    “No.” Umi crouched in front of her and took hold of her shoulders. “I do know what you’re talking about. And you’re wrong.”
    Caden looked at his shining eyes, fierce with grim determination. “What?”
    “You’re wrong,” Umi repeated. “I shared knowledge with you while you were healing. Bruce Banner was not just some scientist. When he was not in Hulk mode, he was still in invaluable part of the Avenge Team.”
    “Avengers,” Caden said shakily. “We shared knowledge?”
    “So I know that the Hulk is incomplete without his other side, and that he is miserable when he denies one part or the other. The Hulk was best when he accepted himself as he was; all the heroes were.” Umi squeezed her shoulders, and Caden shivered as he pulled her a little closer to him. “I know what you are, Caden. And I know what you can be. Embrace your fear when it comes. Let it be a part of you. Let it make you better.”
    “How can fear make me better?” Caden whimpered. “How can it make me anything but weak?”
    “You have to answer that yourself.” Umi’s eyes moved behind her, focusing on something in the distance. “And you might have to answer sooner than you think.”
    Caden turned to see what his eyes were focusing, and almost wished she hadn’t.
    What looked like a giant lump of matted fur was moving quickly toward them, eating up yards of space with each seconds. It was making a fearsome crackling noise at is moved, and Caden’s mind was curiously blank. At first she thought it was a mountain, and then it let out a great roar that shook the ground beneath their feet.
    “Bezoar,” Umi whispered. “Caden, I can’t teleport us. There are huge pockets of disruption in the blood desert, we’ve never been able to figure out why. The interfering energy would dice our bodies to pieces.”
    So will this Bezoar, Caden thought as it neared them. Now was about the time that her body usually dropped and her blinding terror took over; being awake to see this sort of thing was not something she was used to. The ground was shaking harder and harder as the snarling beast barreled toward them, and Caden could see a few dozen red eyes embedded in its body at different angles. Her fingers clenched into a fist, but she couldn’t move any other muscle.
    “I’m sorry,” Caden heard herself whisper.
    “Caden, it’s okay. I don’t blame you for whatever happens.” Umi’s voice was steady, but his body was shaking like a leaf.  She pictured the Bezoar bowling her over and crushing him, and the image snapped the last bit of indecision from her body. She could feel his fear behind his words, and his fear stuck in her mind more than anything else. It felt sharp and cold, and finally the red thorn of anger finally took hold of her mind. She knew it was because they had just done the energy equivalent of making love, but his fear had become unbearably personal.
    “Nothing is going to happen,” Caden said. The anger bloomed in her chest, and she stepped in front of him, shoving him back with one hand and squaring herself in front of the beast. Her heart was slamming against her ribcage, and her body was vibrating with the anxiety and adrenaline coursing through her system. Caden didn’t think about Umi’s soft cries of pain as he landed a hundred feet behind her, focusing on stopping the thing intent on causing him more harm. As the beast got nearer, she noticed odd lumps on the parts of its body between its eyes---like bundles of nerves, or even joints. She realized that those were the places where the Bezoars all knitted together; she was looking at the equivalent of its heads. The