Otherworldly

by C F Rabbiosi

  “The universe is full of beings. Different walks of life. But all of us are subject to our world’s conditions. Therefore, the species that prevail become the master race. Like us. Our kind. Mammals, I believe you refer to them as.”

  “You’re speaking of evolution?”

  “In a sense.”

  His answer weighs heavily on me, because I’ve always felt a spiritual presence lingering somewhere beyond a veil of unseen things. I don’t feel like purely a product of chance and animalistic flesh. There has to be more. “I find it hard to believe, all that scientific theory.”

  “s Good.” His hand squeezes the back of my thigh. “Of course, there is more to it.”

  His squeeze spikes my pulse, and it’s so aggressive, my leg aches afterward. My stomach hurts partly from this conversation and partly because of the jostling against his shoulder. I suppose we’re enough of the same genetic material if we are what the universe creates. He can and will mount me; that isn’t a problem. Our bodies fit. And if his sperm recognizes my egg for what it is, it will burrow. It could be fertilized. “Why aren’t you mating your own women?”

  “Something about your world. Many things, most likely. We are trying to understand it, but over the years fewer and fewer of our offspring are completing their time inside the womb. If she is even able to conceive at all.”

  “What do you think is causing it?” Two hundred years have passed since they landed here, and it’s well known that they have had children. Perhaps the reason our meager human colonies haven’t been found is because there really aren’t many of them left.

  “Certain pathogens on your planet may be causing the miscarriages. Things our kind have not responded well to over the years.”

  “And you think if your children have human blood running through them, they’ll survive.”

  He jerks, and I nearly slide out of his grip. “I know they will.”

  “But you are so much bigger. The child could kill me as it grows in my belly, couldn’t it?”

  “Do not worry. We will ensure the child’s survival.”

  Realization floods me. They would rip it out of me, tear me to pieces to get their child. “This means you’d be interbreeding with an animal. You’re fine with that?”

  He stops, and I slide down his front. “I will do what I must.” His cold tone doesn’t match the song in his eyes.

  I sing back with fingers imprinting his back. “Would you let me die, after what we’ve experienced together?” My teeth sink into my bottom lip, knowing full well that a child means far more to him than our depraved encounter. I don’t know why I said it. He made sure not to breed me out here without his guild watching. He wants to be sure they recognize the savior of their people.

  “I might miss you.”

  “That touches me, Brekter,” I say half-heartedly. The sting of betrayal burns through my veins, Kassien’s plan for me revealed. Oh, this cannot be all I ever am! A vessel to make children for another race? No. And besides, I can’t breed. I’m sick. A mutation.

  But what if somehow I can reproduce, after all? What if it was Kassien, and I was his queen…What would that mean for my people?

  Every fiber of my being screams to rip my arms away from Brekter, but with a smile, I hold him tighter.

  I have to escape them. My people try not to have children because of the world they would be born into, but I would rather have one with a human husband. With Finn. I imagine the warmth of my sweet mother and how she would look holding my baby. I have taken her for granted, and that feels worse than the realization of my death looming.

  Brekter takes me back into his arms and, as he flies through the brush, questions of what I am to face spin round and round my tired head. If I became queen of the Koridons, would my people be free? Not if I’m this beast’s bride…somehow, I doubt he will ever take humans into consideration. But he isn’t the rightful ruler, and Kassien’s family will strike him down eventually, and me along with him. If I happen to survive long enough. I drift in and out of sleep with nightmares bleeding into every bit of rest I desperately yearn for.

  We cross the tree line and come to the clearing where his ship sits. He puts me down to watch and listen. Making his way to the aircraft, he waves a hand across the entrance and a green supernatural light appears. He tells me to stay quiet and stands with his head tilted. It’s so dark, so silent. Then, something rustles from within, and Brekter flies backward.

  18

  ~Calypso~

  Efaelty bursts through the light and swings a massive, straight-edged sword right into Brekter’s head. She misses as he rolls away and her blade chips into the hard dirt. He barrels into her and the steel clinks to the ground. As they scuffle, one punch thrown after another, I run toward the gleaming sword. It weighs my arms down, every muscle taught as I wield it through the air.

  It slams into Brekter’s forearm, his leather armband taking the hit. He snaps it away and stabs through Efaelty’s shoulder. With an agonal groan, she yanks back and it slides out. Blood seeps through the cracks in her fingers as she rolls away to avoid another of Brekter’s thrusts.

  Four more females rush out, and together, they take Brekter down. Amidst his ferocious struggling, they get metal rings around his wrists and legs. Blood racing, I search for Kassien, but he does not appear. Neither do any of the other males. Efaelty falls backward and one of the women runs to her and carries her inside. A whole lot of harsh language gets thrown back and forth between the three remaining Koridon females and Brekter,

  I edge away slowly. I could run; they won’t stop me. They would be happy if the human interfering with their men disappeared. I spin around toward the forest, but a blur of Kassien stops my momentum, and I turn back. He’s a shadow inside the darkness of the ship, and my skin prickles. He disappears and is suddenly running toward me. Even with the limp in his step, he’s faster than any natural creature, and I’m in his grip before I can even think to run again.

  He backs away, shaking his head as though he were shaking away a dream. “Did he damage you?” He hesitantly touches a line down my cheek, then a strand of my hair. “I just awoke.”

  “No.” His face still swells with various cuts and bruises, the muscular bunching down his stomach opens with healing wounds. “He damaged you, though.”

  Fire roars in the air between us and the hint of a happiness peeks through his rough exterior. “I am healed.” He caresses down his washboard stomach. “As I healed your cut.”

  “But the pain and underlying bruising remain.” The others fall silent, even Brekter, who seethes at every word of our exchange.

  “It mends, but so many deeper tissues still cry,” he says, and I think of the kiss that sparked right through me. I swear it also dances behind his glittering silvers at the same time.

  “Efaelty was hurt,” I whisper, fighting the urge to press myself against him and beg him to ignore his hurting so we can go back to the lake where I suddenly began to exist. Everything about him calls to me, his closeness soothing an ache I’ve felt every hour away from him. But I remember Brekter’s tongue all over my body and a shiver rolls through me. I hate that he made me pant and push my hips into it…

  “She’s been taken to the medical quarters, and I dare not follow.” His brows jump a warning and I do not puzzle for long over his statement.

  Tipping my head back, my long hair tickles the small of my back where his hand sets, and I release a thoughtful sigh. “Brekter told me what you plan.” His lips purse resolutely and he nods.

  “Will you do this?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  His expression says no. “Yes.” Commotion ensues as the females wrestle their angry captive inside.

  “And if my choice is no?”

  He turns to the side and says, “It will not be.”

  ***

  ~Kassien~

  She feels like silk in my arms, like the soft, touchable material we have unearthed from the wreckage of different sites over the years.
Like those treasured items, I yearn to pull her away from everything that would destroy her and hide her away until the occasion calls for her unveiling.

  Tenak and Gerakon had called out to me a distress signal as I stormed ahead of Calypso. I was angry with her, yes, but I never would have left her out there alone, and never would I have thought my trusted men would betray me. Things have truly never been worse. It is like the rain and thunder before the glistening of budding green life. They will see.

  She is infuriating, her lack of understanding, and yet, she knows so many things, shows me things that reach inside like knives and carve new meaning into my soul, a soul I had never felt until the moment she was dragged away from me by my enemy and was ripped out by her screams. Tenak and Gerakon said my mind was clouded by her, that I needed to submit to them until her spell was broken. It hurt me to fight my brothers, to wound them so deeply, because they were right.

  As I crawled out of the mud to my knees after her, the darkening world spun around me, and I fell back down. I could not see or move, but sounds of misery rang out all around me. From my own mouth, they infected my ears, and when Larai, Brekter’s own mate, found me, she could not have known that no cut or welt tore at me, but instead a violent scorching from the inside out worsened every moment she was used by Brekter.

  Son of the Senate, Brekter was never fond of my patriarchal rule, and he had found a way to slip in and take over. In all fairness, he could have. We have grown weak while my family and the other warriors have been out exploring the universe for planets that support life where its occupants are in their infancy of development. If they could find such a place, we would not have to destroy anyone to rule it, but life-giving planets are so rare, I doubt they will ever return to us anyway. Brekter had every opportunity to claim his rule over the scattered clans upon this rock, but he is not well, either. How ludicrous that we should fight amongst each other after what we have endured as a race. Our home, the planet we had defended for so long, faced a threat that no perfect warrior could prevent. Our sun, the star that made all life possible, began to die. Expanding outward, we watched as the planets inward from us were boiled alive until, finally, our time had come. We had been searching the universe for a place that could support life, and our skill in fighting had given us access to many planets. None of them were compatible with the environment and atmosphere we needed to survive, whether the air was too thick in nitrogen without the growth of plant life or the planet had become drained of its resources from advanced populations. It was only a matter of finding one that could sustain our people—could we, before the planet was scorched?

  Nebulas were ejected from the expanding star and, as temperatures rose, we took to the sea. Deep under the cold, dark water, we constructed domes to live under upon the ocean floor. We utilized heat vents to stay warm, used machines to run power that could turn salt water into drinkable water, and ate of sea life for nourishment. But even that was only a temporary fix as our scouts roamed the universe for a new home. Our last hope, the life-giving seas, began to boil away, evaporating deeper and deeper until little time remained. Only years stood between my people and fiery death, and in what seemed like that darkest midnight, we received word that a potential new homeland had been found.

  The years beneath water had been hard on us. Our numbers were low and we were in no condition to fight a planet.

  Our survival was at stake, nevertheless.

  Making my way into the holding quarters, thoughts of what he did to her, with her, jab at me and tempt me to take a very long time to kill him. I force the rage back down and bury it. His mate would be most displeased if I broke my promise to her, though Larai supports me in locking him up. I cannot afford more enemies. As of now, she hates the human girl because she’s caught Brekter in her snare, but she does understand why Calypso is important. Yet, it cannot be Brekter who mates her. He is not worthy. His bloodline is not only lesser, but more than that, he has no moral standing.

  And I will die if another Koridon feels her body the way I have.

  I know what this is. It is not magic, just hormonal signals, but still so powerful I cannot think straight enough to realize it. I am flooded with chemicals because of her; is it nothing more? I am questioning everything. Then, my thoughts tumble into the unbelievable misery of being fixed inside her, her slick walls giving way to my aggressive size. As badly as I wanted to shove in and ease my pain, even more did I want never to hurt her. She let out a such a beautiful sound as she slid back and forth over the crown of my maleness, and that sound was my vanquishing. It melted within her when that whimper touched my ear.

  Then, she lightly pressed her lips to mine and a rush of adrenalin surged from my mouth straight to my loins. My chest crushes as I remember the way we fit together like perfection, and I have never come across such a thing. Perfection is not a word in my language. This is a human word, and now I know why such a fantastical concept exists.

  Waving my hand over the sensor, blue light switches on and I watch the door slide up. In the middle of the lock-up quarters, Brekter suspends in the air by an electronic harness. He lets out a snarl upon my approach. Tanak and Gerakon come to attention on either side of him as they hover.

  “Drekan shend…do you think you can keep us here?” My enemy hangs against his restraints and his rough breaths expel the hair away from his mouth.

  “After trying to kill your prince? I should think the answer would be obvious.”

  Tanak grunts from beside him. “We only meant to subdue you. Protect you from yourself.” His head falls. “From her.”

  “There is a reason I am prince, as you can well feel from the bundle of screaming masses you have been reduced to.” The females backed me when my own commander did not. Together, we triumphed. Perhaps they are longing to see children again, no matter how they feel about the girl. Intelligent, rational beings, my females. I move back into Brekter’s face, his sneer close enough to reach out and bite me. “And once I was down, you thought to take her for yourself?”

  Brekter’s teeth clenched, he vibrates with rage that threatens to spill around the binds that hold him. “I had to get her away from you. You are not thinking clearly.”

  “And how do you know what I am thinking?” But I know exactly why he understands my state of mind. “Because what you did not tell Tanak and Gerakon is that she swims in your blood as well.”

  “No. You could not be more wrong. I understand that you think you can mate her and save us all,” he mocks, “but you are in love with her, as they say, and she will destroy you, change you. And it will affect us all.”

  “Brother,” Gerakon interjects with a note of defeat and complete respect. “She is human. We must not mix our lines; it would be of the greatest desecration to do so.”

  “Better than dying out altogether,” I retort. Our genes are strong. Superior, and will create something different but beautiful. We will have families again.

  “You do not know for sure that we will die out, my prince,” says Gerakon. I cannot believe he would question this after today’s pleading in a lab full of dead animals from our planet. “Our people will return soon. We will leave this place forever and repopulate.”

  “That is still to be seen,” says Tenak. “Look at our weakened state. There are only ten of us left in this region. The other sectors are not doing any better. Perhaps we should mix blood.”

  “Mixing with humans would weaken our genes,” Gerakon says. “But I suppose we could continue into something new.”

  “Yes!” I move with excitement as young Gerakon speaks what I know to be true. “And there is more. What she possesses as human will make us even stronger. Better. Happier.” Her spirit is so large for such a small species, and it envelopes me in its impossible glow of happiness. She makes me think of peace in a lifetime of war. I am drawn to her sexually, but it is what she promises that my own spirit is aflame with. The girl, in only a day, has shown me things I could never have imagined. Beauty that enters th
e eyes and shoots straight to the chest, the taste of sweet nectar though my tongue is dry. She turns me into weightless, vibrating particles, and I am floating through the dark ocean and flying through the sunset at the same time. Her movement like a dance, she makes me want for more than the thrill of victory. For instance, a kiss in the rain…

  Brekter snorts a laugh. “I see it the opposite. They are weak-bodied. Emotional. Intelligent, yes, but not in the ways that it matters.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be annihilating the humans. Maybe we could learn from them,” I say weakly, breaking from that place with Calypso I desperately wish to cling to. My gaze falls on Gerakon to remind him that it was he who brought this same idea to light earlier about getting to their books full of information about this planet.

  Swollen veins ripple through Brekter’s arms which take punishment as he hangs in the restraints. He says, “Each member of our clan will ask that it be someone other than you, Prince Kassien, who mates her. You are obviously in an unwell state.”

  Circling Brekter, I fight myself to deny her presence and think rationally and for the good of my people—as I should, being their trusted sovereign. It does not matter that she has cast her human spell upon me; as the strongest bloodline, she should have my child. It will provide the best outcome for future offspring. “Are you asking for her?”

  “Not necessarily,” he bites out, “but it cannot be you.”

  “I have never done anything that was not in the interest of the clan. If you had not poisoned my most trusted brothers against me, they would not be questioning me now.” I stand at his back, my proximity raising the hairs on the back of his neck. “She has caused something strange to enter my hard exterior, but it will wear off. I will never let her change our way of life.”

  “You killed Lekoran,” he says. “You have already killed one of us for her.”

  “I had to!” my voice booms too loudly. “He was going to snap her in two. I could not allow it. She is too important.”