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

did.
    They talked until nearly the sixth-eighth of the day, and then he went out to deal with work and his ongoing investigation into the death of the queen while Penny napped, still recovering from her medical emergency.
    When she woke from her nap, she realized it had been nearly two full 'days' since her trial. She only had five 48 hour days left to prove her innocence. And she was stuck in a cage, telling an alien about a lasagna loving cat.
    The anxious desperation that caused inspired her to kick and struggle with her cage some more, but she still couldn't get it to budge. Frustration turned to boredom as the hours passed with nothing to do but work out or kick uselessly at the bars of her cage.
    Eventually, just for something to do, she started singing. Some pop song that had been in her head, then things she'd learned taking choir in school, then half remembered musical numbers from movies she'd watched as a kid. She was half way through her favorite song when Tau burst through the door.
    "Stop doing that!" he shouted, and Penny's mouth snapped shut immediately as he dropped something by the door, yanked his helmet off and hurried to kneel by her cage, leaving the door open behind him.
    "Are you hurt?" he asked, expression lined with concerned concentration, "Are you ill again?"
    "No," Penny stared at him, confused and startled, "I was just bored. Why are you freaking out?"
    "That thing you were doing with your voice," he stared back at her in slightly worried wonderment now that he was no longer afraid she was dying, "What was that?"
    "Singing," Penny replied, "It's normal. Every human can do it. I guess it makes sense you wouldn't have it, since most of your population doesn't communicate vocally."
    "Every worker and drone for blocks around this cell has stopped working," Tau explained, "They just froze, listening. You shut down an entire section of the hive."
    Penny paled in realization of what she'd done, and cleared her throat.
    "Well," she squeaked, "And here I never thought I was that good."
    "You do not understand the power of the Queen's speech," Tau said seriously, "The workers and drones, they cannot help but obey it. It is a compulsion for them. Even if they can't understand what you're saying, they must listen. You can physically hurt them with it if you try."
    Penny, stunned, looked past him towards the open door, where a cluster of gold carapaced workers was clustered, staring in at her. She couldn't read emotion on their insectoid faces, but they seemed excited, chittering and jostling to see. Tau stood and hurried to close the door.
    "You must not do that again," he insisted, "It's dangerous. It will make the regents think you and other humans are dangerous."
    "I won't sing anymore," Penny agreed, holding up her hands in surrender, "But you have to give me something else to do. Maybe it's different for you, but a human can't just sit in one place for hours doing nothing. It'll drive us crazy. My team has books. Ask for one or two of them."
    Tau sighed and nodded.
    "I will do this," he said, returning to the front of the cage, "Just please do not make that sound anymore."
    Penny nodded and Tau, shaking his head, went to remove his armor.
    "Tau?" Penny asked as he was closing the armor cabinet a few minutes later, "Why doesn't my voice affect you?"
    Tau paused for a moment before answering. Penny saw the tension in his shoulders before he turned and wondered if she shouldn't have asked.
    "Because I am not a drone," he said at last.
    "What are you then?" she asked, curious, "I assumed all the drones were like you under their armor."
    "They are not," he replied, "They are more like the workers."
    "I don't understand," Penny frowned, curious. Tau frowned, brows furrowed in an expression of keen discomfort.
    "There are three castes, below the Queen," he explained, turning his back on her to go to the kitchen are and fetch his dinner, "The workers, the drone, and the winged males. The workers are all sterile