“No.” Dassenze grunted and gripped her wrists even tighter.
Through the haze, she blinked at Brask.
“Say you want me in you, little Earth bitch. Otherwise I won’t fuck you. I’ll just tease you another hour. Or would you rather I drag you down to the main sleeping area and mate with you in front of the others? Is that it?”
Alarm rose. She shook her head, frantically, her heart thumping.
“No?” His smile was dark as hell on a cold night. “That’s one answer. Now say yes to my cock. Be aware, once you say this, you’re mine from now on. I’ll fuck you whenever I want to, wherever I want to.”
The words resonated. Wherever, whenever? She wanted him now. She was a woman out on a wild plain, with black clouds boiling overhead and her arms outstretched, waiting for the storm to consume her, to enter her.
“Say it.” His voice was husky and raw with his own need.
“Yield,” Dassenze grumbled from behind her. “This is meant to be.”
She closed her eyes and gave in, whispering, “yes,” into the gag.
“Eyes on mine. Look at me then say it again.”
After a moment, she opened her eyes. His mouth was in the barest curve and he waited patiently.
The words refused to leave her at first, stuck in her throat. Giving in to Brask seemed the hardest thing she’d ever done.
She blinked. “Yes.”
“Of course it’s yes, Talia,” he said, gently kissing her forehead. “You’re so stubborn.”
Then he stared at her as he plunged into her, to the deepest he could go, and he fucked her madly, jarring her back into Dassenze until she was sure her cries were echoing to the heavens. He fucked her hard until she came, screaming, though Dassenze muffled her by twisting her head back and covering her mouth with his.
She came, shuddering and crying, her body shaking as it wound down through a series of mini-orgasms. Then she cried afterward in a giant huddle with the two of them. No one said more than soft words and she felt them both kiss her face clean of tears.
She only laughed when Brask murmured, “How are we going to get you down through the building with a hole in your pants?”
The truth was painfully embarrassing.
Talking after that was weird. It was as if a thousand years had passed. Millennia. Everything had changed.
She wet her lips. “I think everyone knows you fucked me. I screamed a lot.”
“That you did.” Dassenze sounded amused. “No one would dare say anything. They will think you are my mate also.”
True. That was true. Something about his tone made her wonder at his thoughts.
She shifted about, finding she was half in his arms and half in Brask’s, and she looked into his eyes. Was that sadness? She kissed him lightly then wormed deeper into his embrace. “Are you okay?” It was an odd thing to ask a god.
“I am. I will be even more okay when I find out you can dodge bullets.”
“Hmph.” That was his only reason for this? For wanting to hold her while Brask...she breathed in, out, thinking back to what had happened, remembering emotions, actions, in raw flashes of awesome detail...he’d held her while Brask took her.
No, it wasn’t his only reason. That was obvious. Yet he wouldn’t, no wait, he’d said couldn’t, mate with her. Mate, that word made her feel like an animal. But it also made her imagine how things might be, if he could.
She shivered.
Perhaps she was going lust crazy.
It was warm here, with these two males. Were they hers? Was she theirs? It didn’t seem right to belong to Brask. The stars overhead winked at her.
The faintest unease came to her.
What had she done?
She ended up begging for a new pair of tights from one of the Igrakk women. The raised eyebrow that elicited from her only emphasized how similar they were. Gestures, facial expressions, anatomy, like...was Brask’s cock actually as humanlike as she thought? Her curiosity appalled her.
There must have been a human diaspora at some stage of the galaxy’s history where people had fled outward from a common genetic source.
“Here.” The female turned back from her bag and handed over a pair of grey military leggings. The purple spiral on her arm was as cute as a piece of jewelry. It meant she was bond mated with a Feya, Talia recalled.
“Thanks.” Jeans were tougher, but harder to wash.
And harder to tear a hole in the crotch. The heat invading her cheeks was unexpected.
“You’re welcome. Next time tell your mate to be less violent with your clothes.” Then she walked away, leaving Talia with her mouth open.
Her mate. Nooo. She just couldn’t accept Brask as that. Even if he’d done things to her that she’d never forget. The sex had been incredible. A freaky damn revelation that scene on the roof had been.
She jarred into awareness. “Uh.” Luckily no one had noticed her staring into space.
She really needed to stop reminiscing about the sex.
Dassenze was outside in the hallway, with Stom talking to him. She caught the tail end of Stom’s words.
“...sure it’s her.”
When she halted beside them, Dassenze only gathered her close under his arm. The surprised frown that earned from Stom said he was either bad of hearing or isolated from gossip. It seemed as if everyone had noticed.
“If you can guide us toward where you believe Willow is, we’ll equip the shuttle with as many men as it can safely bear, leave the rest here, and go fetch her.”
“Thank you, Lord.” Stom bowed his head. “I can do that. East and south is the direction.”
“Good. You’ll come too, Talia, and Brittany. I want to keep all of you Earth women of power together, if I can, from now on.”
By morning the Preyfinders had prepared the shuttle. A total of fifteen people were aboard – twelve Preyfinder warriors, including Brask, Jadd, and Stom, as well as her, Brittany, and Dassenze.
In an ominous hint of the uncertainty of their future, the single remaining engine sputtered before it would produce enough power for flight.
Brask sat next to her in the row of seats and Dassenze was on her other side. She had an Edo sword, which Brask had presented to her as if it was the crown jewels and a light saber all in one package, a feeling that running on ceilings had become a darn sight easier, two alien males who wanted her sexually, and a shuttle that might crash any moment.
She settled into the seat and prayed.
Then Brask turned to her, held her head with both his hands, and kissed her thoroughly while pinning her to the seat.
“What?” Dumbfounded, mouth tingling with his taste for he’d slipped in his tongue, she looked at him as he pulled away. “Why’d you do that?”
“Reminding you that you’re mine.”
Her reply should’ve been witty and cutting, but she found it impossible, mostly because as he’d spoken, he’d wrapped his hand over her thigh and curved his fingers between her legs.
“Uhhh.”
Dassenze leaned in and whispered, “Behave.”
Two of them. She whipped her head from one to the other and groaned. “I think I might sit elsewhere.”
When they both grabbed one of her hands and trapped it on the armrest beside them, she gave up, slumping back.
She was in so much trouble.
Chapter 12
Wracked by guilt, Ally insisted they stay near Yunta and do a search of the surrounds. The South Australian country here had transitioned from desert and dirt to land where the grass sprouted in green to gray-green clumps and straggly trees were plentiful around the watered areas.
Since the full semitrailer could only negotiate the better roads, they’d separated the prime mover from the rear trailers to gain more maneuverability. Steve allowed no one else to drive it, believing that an alien could never do a proper job. They’d unearthed a motorbike in Yunta and, being a farm girl, Betty knew how to ride it.
Nothing had been found until
now.
Betty had spotted the crater. Sitting poised on the bike, where she’d parked it on a small hillock, she’d seen the change in color.
Ally shaded her eyes, looking east. From the red-rimmed crater a haze arose, swirling up to the sky at mid-morning, leaving a trail of black smudges. This close, there was a subtle crackling too, like something hatching or a dying fire consuming the last of what it’d been fed.
She swallowed bile but kept going. Her legs were turning to stone, heavier with each step.
“Something’s burning.” Rimmil unslung his weapon and flicked a switch, sending out a temporary hum. “Stay behind me, Ally. Something bad is there.”
“Don’t say that, please. Please?”
“Sorry.” Worry creased his face. “I just don’t want you hurt.”
Dread took her breath away before she dismissed the horrible feeling. “I need to see.”
This was Willow. She could feel it. The nearer they approached the more certain she became, until her certainty was as solid as the lower torso armor Rimmil wore. She tweaked her mouth in a rueful smile. Her hero and his shiny armor with the cherry red designs against the whiteness seemed out of place, here.
Betty was to the left, her shotgun ready. Steve was on the right wing with his revolver out and pointing at the crater like some modern day gunslinger.
A car could’ve hidden in this hole, no, make that a fire truck. It was bigger than she’d thought.
How could this be Willow? She really didn’t want to find out.
“Don’t shoot anything, please. Not unless we’re sure it...needs to be done.”
At twenty yards to go, she halted and put out her arm in a signal to stop. The clumps of grass they walked through were almost knee height, stiff, and scratching her legs. A two-foot long goanna eyed them, tongue flicking, before it scuttled away, making the grass rustle.
She shaded her eyes again. Red dirt had been flung aside when this thing ahead had hit the ground, leaving a circle of raw dirt around the hole, and the land was so flat she couldn’t see in.
“Do we keep going?” Betty whispered, clasping her shoulder gently. “Ally? If this is somehow your cousin, you need to know she can’t be alive.”
Oh fuck. She’d said it, breaking the barrier of impossibility she’d raised around this in her mind.
“No.” She swiped away tears with her arm. “I don’t know that. We have to look. I have to.”
“Okay, dear.”
Together again, in a line, they sneaked up to the hole and peered in.
Below was a woman, standing, dark, and with the shadow of wings above her shoulders. From her, ashes rose to the sky like black paper crows and when she raised her head red and orange flared in the cracks of her eyes and her wings. Though she was naked, a gray mist twined around her body.
“Willow?” Ally put her hand to her throat.
“Yes.” The word rustled and died, soft, as if her throat was no longer human. “I’m sorry. Keep away from me, Ally.”
This was her. Willow was no longer just Willow. Where had she sent her cousin that she’d returned as this? “Oh, Willow,” she choked back a sob. “What happened? What...are you?”
“I don’t know what I am...anymore. Dangerous.” She turned in a slow arc and, as she did so, the wings seemed to fade in and out, gone, not gone. “Keep away.”
“What should we do, Ally?” Rimmil sounded lost. “Is this her?”
“Yes. I think it is.” She looked at all her friends and drew back her shoulders. “She warned us. So we keep back, but I don’t give up on Willow because she never gave up on me.”
“She looks bloody scary. Like she’s been to that place downstairs where I never want to go.”
“Hell?” Betty frowned. “I don’t think that’s possible, Steve. We’re dealing with aliens here.” She shrugged at Rimmil. “I know you don’t look like her but still.”
“Yes.” Standing square and keeping his weapon lowered but ready, he reassessed Willow. “I say we observe her. Anything that warns me off gets a chance, but, if she attacks or seems about to attack, Ally, we need to do what needs doing.”
Ally met his eyes then looked at Willow again, her lip wobbling. Kill her? That was if they even could. This was terrible, as in a one thousand and one rating of terribleness on hundred scale. They’d known this wasn’t going to be right even before they saw this...her.
“Okay.” She inhaled deeply. “I guess that’s sensible. I did this to her, though. That means I have to figure out how to fix this too.” She yelled down to her cousin, praying this wouldn’t trigger some event she’d regret, like her attacking them, “Follow us, Willow. Please?”
Her hands grew cold as she watched her nod. With what seemed a sad smile on her face, she walked up the slope toward them. Grayness puffed from the earth where her bare feet touched.
“Back.” Ally gestured.
By leading the way and remembering to turn back and beckon Willow onward, they led her to the prime mover of the semitrailer then slowly back to Yunta. Even Ally wasn’t courageous enough to let whatever Willow had become into the cabin to sit beside them.
There, on the lightly grassed area before the hotel, she settled on the ground cross-legged and waited to see if her cousin with the beautiful heart would awaken to her existence again and speak to her. Rimmil stood guard and they set up umbrellas to shield her from the midday sun.
It didn’t seem likely Willow needed shelter.
Tears dried on her face. Despite many tries at getting her to speak, Willow said nothing.
Lunchtime passed and still all she had before her was a silent creature half-collapsed to her knees in the dust of this bare bones garden.
At three pm a rumble came from the sky, the empty blue sky, or so it seemed when she rose to look. Was this some oncoming doom that Willow had brought down upon them? Another nuclear bomb? Worse? If there could be worse.
“Look.” Rimmil drew her close and pointed.
Some flying saucer thing was there, only it was less a Frisbee shape than a horseshoe with a flat tail and lots of streamlined pods and guns and things stuck to it. Shiny, gold and white, and it kept on vanishing, materializing, vanishing.
“It’s a shuttle from Doomslagger and they’ve got stealth on but it’s malfunctioning.”
“Oh?” She tilted her head as it bore in toward their right, fully visible, and engines whining as it ground into the field a hundred yards off. With grass and dirt flung high in a spray, the shuttle spun along, halting somewhere out of sight beyond the trailer.
“Frack!” Rimmil took off at a run then looked at Willow. “Have to go! They might need help.”
He was going without her? Walking backward, she examined her cousin. Willow was spaced out, ashes strewn about her as she rocked in place, growling now and then. She wasn’t going anywhere. Ally turned and sprinted after Rimmil with Steve and Betty following her. They dodged around the trailer.
The side door to the craft began opening when she had fifteen yards to go. Rimmil trotted to a halt beside it. Warriors in armor like his spilled out, jumping the small drop. Next came a woman who was definitely human, but dressed in similar clothes to the gray shirt and pants Rimmil possessed. She promptly staggered aside, put her hands on her knees, and threw up. A big man with blond spiked hair held her hair out of the way.
The scaled six-and-a-half-foot giant who emerged from the shuttle next made her stop in her tracks.
“Is anyone injured, Lord?” her man asked.
This must be the godlike Ascend he’d spoken of to her. Her man? She’d thought of him as that but they’d only kissed. Momentarily, Ally grinned. It was a spark of joy in the midst of catastrophe. She tucked it away to reflect on later.
“No. It’s only the engine, Rimmil. I see you survived. Congratulations. Where is Willow? We came looking for her and here we find you. This is good!”
Another warrior hopped from the tilted opening of the shuttle. His hair was black and his f
ace wasn’t scored with colored marks like the Igrakk but his skin was covered in undulating black stripes like a zebra. His long legs made the drop to the ground trivial. Though the alien men were taller than the average human man, this one was big enough to make some of the Igrakks look small.
Stom. She recalled him. The last time she’d glimpsed him she’d been stoned on the drugs the Bak-lal had given her. He’d been fighting to the death to save her and Willow.
He’d be here for her cousin. And now she wanted to crawl into a hole herself. How could she tell him?
Distraught, stomach churning, she glanced back the way she came and glimpsed the light upward rain of ashes coming this way. That could only mean one thing. Her mouth turned down. Seeing Willow without explanation, was it worse, or better?
She hurried over to where the aliens were gathered.
“Sorry about the landing, Lord. The engine is no longer functioning.”
“We’re fine, Stom.” The Ascend nodded. “You brought us down without killing us so I find that to be wonderful piloting. Now.” His gaze swept from Rimmil to her. “I am Dassenze. You must be Ally?”
“I am. I’m sorry, sir.” She swallowed, shook her head with her eyes closed before looking up again at Dassenze. “I have no easy way to say this. You seek my cousin Willow.” At this last word, she finally grew brave enough to look at Stom, but he was looking over her head.
Too late.
She turned, knowing what she would see, yet still shocked at the apparition – the dark-winged, ash-clouded figure that was her cousin, walking toward them on tottery steps that left singed grass and earth in her wake.
“Is that? Willow?” Stom gently moved aside Ally then ran to her cousin, stopping a yard from her.
Willow halted and her words came clearly to them all. “Oh...my love. Stom. You mustn’t touch me. I don’t know what I am capable of doing. I might kill you.”
“Willow... I need to touch you.” His voice cracked.
“You cannot. Please. Please don’t.” The red tracks of tears sizzled as they slid down her face. Where they dropped to the ground, the grass smoked and hissed.
After a while, she went to her knees again and Stom lowered himself too, sitting on the grass of the dusty field. They simply sat and looked at each other. Though Ally wanted desperately to join them, she did not. Stom was Willow’s bond mate and, for once, despite her lifetime of sharing everything with Willow, she knew she could not share this.
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