by V. K. Ludwig
After applying salve to the wounds, I climbed into a fresh set of uniforms, a strange tingle coursing through my chest. I’d never mated with anything with a heart before, and hers beat with a fierceness I admired. Who was she? What was her name?
The way to the yuleshi stables seemed endless, probably because my thoughts kept wandering to her. Small breasts I hadn’t touched. Narrow lips I hadn’t kissed. And a secret hiding between her legs that forever changed my worldview.
Which scholar came up with the idea that their females weren’t built to mate with my kind? She fit me like a glove, begging for my seed for reasons still obscure.
“By the Three Suns,” Torin murmured sitting on his beast, the golden child as pristine as ever, buttoned up and wrinkle-free. “What happened to you?”
I shrugged and mounted. “The usual. Got clawed, scratched, and choked by a Jal’zar.”
Also molested, kind of, but I kept that part to myself.
His brow tugged into an I-told-you-so arch. “How many warriors?”
“One female,” I grumbled underneath my trimmed beard.
“Pardon me?”
I glanced over my shoulder, back at a good thirty of our warriors, then leaned over to Torin and whispered, “One. Female.”
He chuckled low. “Wild creatures. Perhaps more savage than their male counterparts. A fight for life and death by the looks of it?”
“Brother, the fight wasn’t even the worst part.” The way she’d thrown me into salt water with my penis and testicles on fire was. “Any new intel on the warriors?”
He raked a hand through perfectly trimmed brown hair, and spurred his yuleshi into an easy walk. “Nothing. Their tribes split up into smaller groups and villages, the area suddenly too empty to be anything but suspicious.”
I steered my mount up beside him, crotch aching at each jostle coming from the beast underneath me. “Empty?”
“Most young females disappeared as well, and the tribe we’ll question today now consists of nothing but elders and children.”
My fingers tensed around the reins. “You don’t think they’re sending their females to fight, do you?”
Vibrant green eyes gave me a sidelong glance. “Given the way you look, such news would have me uneasy. The Vetusian Empire brought to its knees by females. Again.”
“Always the females,” I groaned. “Let’s hope Earth leaders will finally see sense and provide us with the women they had promised. And then hope again that they are placid.”
“I will have no part in their females.”
“Don’t let the Empire down, Torin.” I chuckled. “You and I need to sire heirs to take on our burden as wardens, given how our kind refuses to transition into a democracy.”
A political course of action I’d supported for solar cycles — with no success. Vetusians loved their wardens too much, and I’d been bred for the job, much to my people’s misfortune.
We clicked our yuleshis into an almost silent gallop across the scarce plains of Solgad, warriors following behind.
While our ships intercepted those launched by the Jal’zar outside the planet’s thick atmosphere, Torin and I lead the troops down here. The mission…? Find all males of fighting age and don’t let them leave the planet to join their other forces. Easier said than done on a ball of ash, where everything tried to kill you, including its sun.
“Let me do the talking,” Torin said as we curved a rocky outcropping.
Behind it, a small tribe had settled half a moon ago underneath something the Jal’zar called a mother tree.
Except… it wasn’t there.
Where had been a young tree only three suns ago, with hammocks tied to the branches, we found a charred trunk. Billows of smoke wafted over the black ground, and our yuleshis’ paws danced nervously on the hot ground.
Torin sighed. “Ragna?”
“The area spans too wide to have been a simple fire.” And ragna, what Jal’zar called their sun, had the annoying habit of scorching entire landscapes on a whim, though it was said shamans could foresee it. “They probably moved on, settling elsewhere before the solar flare.”
Torin sighed. Again. He did a lot of that ever since we’d been sworn-in as wardens. “We lost three stargazers after their last launch. There are warriors in this area, and they’ll cause us heavy losses if they make it off-planet.”
“They never venture far from their yonis. The one east of us is where I encountered the female. Chances are she belongs to the tribe we’re seeking, and they settled somewhere in that area.” Or perhaps I didn’t give a shit about the warriors and just wanted to find her. “I might be able to coerce her into telling us what we need to know.”
Torin lifted a brow at me. “Are you saying she’s still alive? You had no chance to kill her?”
Plenty of chances. “She’s an exceptional fighter.”
His tongue smacked disapproval before he turned to our warriors. “We ride east. Be vigilant as they might ambush us.”
I led the way toward the foot of the hill, my entire body tense with the urge to find the female from the yoni. A dry breeze forced itself over my chapped lips, the biting, sulfurous tang of limestone growing thicker the closer we came to the wind-worn outcropping hiding the yoni.
Clawed paws galloped past the entrance and farther east, toward an area where stunted trees grew crooked. My heart raced alongside my yuleshi at the sight of hammocks woven from some sort of rods, which dotted the sparse foliage.
“If you detect movement,” I shouted over my shoulder, “encircle them and do not let them escape.”
Warriors split in three groups, two approaching them from the sides, while Torin and I led the third group straight. With the hill in the back, we cut off any viable escape route.
First Jal’zar climbed off the trees, running in all directions, only to turn and find themselves surrounded. Hissing followed, and tailclaws flicked behind their backs.
Paws worked up dust as we encircled them, the beasts halting shoulder-to-shoulder, and my heart faltered to a stop at what I saw.
“They’re all females,” I murmured, but not just that.
At the center stood the one who’d begged for my seed a mere sun ago. Would she recognize me? Remember what we’d done?
“Why would their young females congregate?” Torin asked. “I do not like this recent development of how they split into hundreds of small groups, each more difficult to oversee than the last.”
I jutted my chin toward white hair, braids twirled into a nest between her horns. “That’s the one who attacked me. Let me speak to her. See if she has information on the young males.”
“It doesn’t appear she was very talkative last night. Why would she be now?”
“Because now I have thirty warriors at my back.”
Under different circumstances, such a statement would have neutered male pride, but not after I had my cock up her cunt.
“Let me pass,” I ordered, reining my yuleshi through a wall of warriors, my heart beating so hard it caused physical pain.
Purple eyes caught with mine.
The female stumbled back with a hiss.
I offered an overly large smile in return. “Yeah, I remember you too…”
She bent her knees as if readying herself to pounce. “Go away, demon.”
“Kuna,” I murmured, female, eyes locked on her. “A word with you in private?”
Pearly-white fangs glistened. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Are you certain? Because I have questions, and my warriors will remain until I have received answers. If you refuse to supply them, perhaps I’ll have to consult with one of the other females. Tell them about a most confusing encounter last night—”
“There’s no need for that,” she grunted. “Ask your questions and leave us be.”
I let paws stroll up beside her and offered my hand to help her mount. When she refused, I dismounted, handing the reins to the golden-eyed female beside her.
�
��Step aside,” I ordered my warriors and led the way through the small gap they formed for us.
We walked in silence, and it wasn’t until we were out of earshot that I stopped, turned, and drank her in. Such a stunning creature; the dress she wore primitive, undyed cotton, but her beauty needed no embellishments.
The longer I stared, the more her nose wrinkled until she snarled, “There are no males in this camp.”
“I don’t care about any males.” I secured privacy with a glance over my shoulder before I continued, “Explain to me why.”
“Why?” Her pupils darted all over me and sunk to the ground once realization dragged them down. “It’s not for you to know, or care.”
I chuckled. “You defiled me, female.”
Purple irises came back up, sharp like a blade. “Be quiet, Vetusian, before I kill you.”
“Kill me, and my warriors will slaughter your entire group of females.”
Her fangs flashed. “Only a weak male lets others fight his battles.”
“Or a smart male who would like to stay alive until he has answers.”
“I should have killed you.”
I reached out for one of her braids, letting my fingers run along the smoothed strand. “We should have killed each other. Instead, we coupled. Why?”
She slapped my hand away. “A choice not of spirit but of nature. It’s the season of our heat, and the young, unclaimed females ache to be claimed by a male.”
“Heat?”
“We endure great pains during our moon of fertility, a time where our bodies call for mates to claim us so their seed might ease the pain and fill our wombs with child.”
I struggled to make sense of her words, but the way she swung her arms around her lower belly brought back blurred memories. “And did my seed ease your pains like you hoped it would?”
Her tailclaw struck at me in warning, but at least she didn’t deny it. “You have your answer, now leave me be.”
“Always glad to be of help.” And not at all reluctant to be of service again. “How much longer until this… heat passes?”
“Another moon phase, perhaps longer.” Her voice tightened when she added from a lowered head, “It’s only my second heat, and I’m still learning how to endure the pains.”
She did a poor job of it.
Another glance over my shoulder revealed an increasingly impatient Torin shifting on his mount.
What was I supposed to do with this information? The female’s answers came with an onslaught of at least a dozen new questions. Why did they seclude themselves? Why did my seed ease the pain of a female unable to grow a child from it?
Solgad’s nature was confusing.
While I didn’t understand everything, I understood enough to turn and walk away. Except, my boots refused to lift, almost as if the ground this female walked on had turned into quicksand. I wanted to ease her pain — and mine right along with it.
Guaranteed suicide.
But then again, there was no death more honorable than the one achieved in battle. If it came at the hands of the female I buried my cock in moments before she cut my throat, what was there to grieve about?
“Are you in pain right now?”
Oh, I liked how she hissed at me. “Why do you care?”
“I’ll make it go away… and nobody needs to know.” And nobody could know, or we would unleash chaos of epic proportions. If our males found out what they hid between their legs… “I’ll wait at the yoni for you every night.”
“You’re wasting your time. I won’t come.”
I turned and stepped away. “Make sure nobody follows you.”
“Such arrogance.”
I gave a final glance back at her, because I preferred her anger over the programmed indifference of a droid, and winked. The rage it triggered would ensure she came to kill me — we could just take it from there.
Back at my yuleshi, I received the reins from the golden-eyed female — with a standard hiss — mounted, and rejoined the warriors.
Torin eyed me warily. “What did she say about the young warriors?”
I neither remembered nor cared, but the furrows between his brows made it clear he expected an answer. “Only that there are no warriors here.”
“She’s lying.”
“Can you blame her?” We’d slaughtered her kind by the thousands, and for no other reason but a staged war, taking care of a threat for Earth that had never existed in the first place. “I’m her enemy.”
Five
Zavis
Torin stared at the holographic casualty report, his words a mumble with how he pressed a palm to his mouth. “Warlord Krevon launched another unit from the Noja spaceport. Eighty of our warriors are dead, ambushed by one of their vessels.”
I leaned against the strategy table of Com Central, eyes flicking to the time displayed at the far end of the main hall. Would the female come to the yoni this night?
“For savages living in the dirt, they sure know how to navigate their ships,” I said.
The air hung thick with ozone from all the beeping electronics. Above us, the air handler blasted, but it did little to alleviate the heat of this forsaken place.
“His son Katedo is leading this fleet. He studies interstellar warfare at Noja,” Torin said. “Rumors have it, he’s never been outmaneuvered.”
“Any word from Earth?”
Torin scoffed and, with a swipe, changed the hologram into the map of Solgad. “Stringing us along as always. They want us to bring this occupation to an end first before we renegotiate on the females they owe us.”
“Think they’ll stick to the agreement this time? Requesting a hundred females from poor situations per solar cycle isn’t unreasonable.”
“It’s too generous, considering that number makes little impact on our quickly approaching extinction.” He took in the warriors and scholars bustling about the main hall before he activated a privacy shield around the strategy table. “If Earth continues to refuse their cooperation, we have no other choice but to invade.”
“We lost many warriors during this occupation.” And more would follow, because Jal’zar proved more resilient than we’d anticipated. “Invading Earth will be a tough campaign to fund and see through without a new financing source. Not to mention that their females might not be inclined to breed with those who slaughtered their soldiers, should they try to fight us off.”
“We tried to find a friendly solution to this for over a decade. What did it achieve? Earth no longer takes us seriously, and leaders believe themselves safe, thinking we wouldn’t grow hostile since we’re so closely related.”
“Reason enough to remain friendly.”
“Do you have an alternative solution?” When I offered nothing but a grunt, he added, “I didn’t think so. When was the last time you read over a battle report? Not once have I seen you look at the classified planet report of Solgad, either.”
“I never wanted to come to this planet.”
There was a tic in his left eye. “The personal opinion of a warden cannot interfere with those choices we have to make for the greater good of our people.”
“I never wanted to be a warden, either.”
“But you are!” he barked. “Our females are dead. Our males are restless with no purpose. In half a century, we’ll be extinct, unless we bring this damn occupation to an end and reunite our gene pool with Earth.”
I shrugged. “What do you want me to do? My battalion rides the cliffs along the drought belts each sun, trying to track down Jal’zar warriors, doing everything we can to keep them from reaching Noja.”
“You are doing everything?” He arched a brow. “Each night, you disappear into the plains as if you can afford to die.”
I kept my face straight. For the last four nights, I’d rode to the yoni. Stashed away between the thick foliage of trees, I’d observed many females who visited it — none the one I couldn’t stop thinking of.
Whatever I’d said to her when we ambu
shed them clearly hadn’t pissed her off enough — a mistake I would remedy the next time we met.
“I need you to step up to your role, Zavis,” Torin said. “Your personal feelings on this occupation are selfish in the face of our doom.”
Another flick to the time. “Anything else?”
When he shook his head and sighed, I turned on my heels and left through the privacy shield. Father’s words pushed into my mind without consent. “Defective,” he’d called me. “Riddled with mental problems. Void of morals and principles.”
Unfit to lead.
Why would I bother, then?
I rode for the yoni and hid in the thick underbrush that vined along the rock until the old male I found there limped away. Then I climbed into the tree and waited. Always waited.
If the female thought me relenting, then she hadn’t paid attention. Between nights with no sleep and an occupation of Solgad that could last another solar cycle, I had lots of time to wait in trees.
Traces of salt and minerals drifted from the yoni, and I closed my eyes to the nearby yaps of beasts. Ushtis roamed this area: large felines with white fur and sharp fangs, their spiked tails lethal.
A tap against the gun holstered to my chest put me at ease. It lasted until the voice of a female resonated from a nearby patch of brush, calm and sweet and therefore, not her.
The dark-haired female carried a small bowl of some sort in one hand, while the other intertwined with that of a young male child. He toddled along, naked, pointing at the blood-red moon standing above the yoni.
“Leshna,” he said in Jalut — moon — tiny fingers scratching over his scalp where his horns only just emerged, but the motion stopped when an ushti howled from afar. “When I’m big, I hunt ushti like father.”
Not even the darkness could hide the pain on his mother’s face, her forehead wrinkling as she plucked some sort of weed from the rock that encapsulated the yoni. “Once he returns from the stars, he will show you how to skin it and flesh the pelt.”
