by C F Rabbiosi
All I’d like to know of their language is how to say: fuck yourself dead.
I drop next to Glenda. She sobs while grasping for the torn pieces of nightgown that hang over her chest. “Shh, it’s all right, you’re safe now,” I whisper.
“No I’m not!” A strong voice finds its way out of the meek girl as she rips the coat from my hands. She swipes back tear-damp locks and moves back into her place at the front of the line. “You should have just let him do it!” she cries out, her frightened gaze cast toward the scuffle. “We’re all dead anyway!”
I flip her around to face me. “No. We—” I almost tell her that we have a chance to survive and make a new world with our feared enemies at our side, but I forget that she isn’t part Koridon like me, and not all of us will survive the pregnancy. The males are so large that I fear one growing in the belly of such a small woman will be fatal in the last couple of months.
They will choose to save the child, letting it kill the mother before taking it from her body.
“As I thought,” says Glenda, despair thick in her voice. She wheezes in a pained breath and touches her chest weakly as the adrenaline surge crashes.
She chokes and blanches, and all I can think about is that we knew this day would come. Since the day we could understand, we were taught about the otherworldly monsters that came here and destroyed everything two hundred years ago. We couldn’t hide forever, but while I can’t promise everything will still turn out fine, I won’t deny the hope welling up in the dark places of me that still remember Kassien well. My unreasonable love for their prince suddenly penetrates the last days’ trauma and stabs through my aching heart. My throat swells, and I swallow back tears.
If Brekter hadn’t interfered, I would have been a royal and had the chance to change the world for the best. It wouldn’t be like this, with all of us in tethers, our feet bloody and the leering eyes of monsters moving us along. Most of these ladies have never even been out in the forest before.
“Glenda,” I say. “I’ve been around these beings for a time now, and I promise you, not all of them are bad.”
“Finn loves you,” she says, the harshness in such soft words surprising me. “He didn’t rest the entire time you were gone. He knew they were lurking out there, but he kept looking for you.”
Finn was always kind, and he didn’t complain when they matched us together, even though I was doomed to die early. The thought of him comforts me now, strangely.
“They seem vicious, I know,” I tell her as I glance back at Scarlet, the flaxen-haired ball of fire I’ve called the closest friend in my entire life. She’s focused on Brekter and Drakon as they continue to hold the mad Koridon back. Since being dragged out of the village boundary by one of our trusted leaders and ravaged to near death, she appears a pale shadow from that girl I knew. If Kassien hadn’t scented us when he did, we would both be dead already. I raise a brow and touch Glenda’s thigh. “But we as women have something special to offer them.” The thrill speeds up my words. “They are capable of deep passion and give very deep pleasure.” Something dark dances behind Scarlet’s gaze. While the other women are alive with horror, she seems to glimmer with amusement.
Two more of the giants move closer to the scene in case Kraetorr breaks loose.
Glenda snaps me back to attention. “You mean to say that creature who just threatened to tear me up with his cock is capable of love?” She shakes her head. “We’re nothing to them but helpless animals, so I can’t believe that.” Shaking her head slowly, she moves behind me. “What if they can’t stop him?”
“You must believe it,” I say and touch my belly. “I am loved deeply, I assure you.” In that moment, Brekter locks eyes with me through Kraetorr’s wind-blown hair, and a chill slithers down my spine. He and I certainly don’t share love but perhaps something more dangerous, something growing beyond reason. I want it so badly to be Kassien’s seed that has taken hold, but as I ripened, I received both males’ essence, so I don’t know whose child swells my belly. It’s only been a few days, but already I feel different. “See how he’s become crazed by you?” I ask Glenda, turning my head slightly toward her. She begins to pant again, and I help her to the ground. “That’s power.”
She breathes easier, and the smallest smile threatens to touch her lips.
“Quiet!” one of the males commands as he checks the ropes along the waists of the frightened women. His long hair, tied back in an ornate braid, gleams more aqua than cobalt like the other Koridons possess, and so brilliantly, even in the dim light of dawn. His touch lingers along Mary-Shelly’s waist. She stifles a cry from his sheer proximity and jerks away, bringing a memory forth.
She used to glow with love for the boy who had been chosen for her to marry back in the village. They would exchange wistful smiles in the lunch hall, and their happiness was clearly exuded the day after their one night together. We aren’t allowed to love with freedom because of the dangerous world we find ourselves in, children and the scent of arousal both forbidden, but they give us something.
How dare these creatures take a married woman!
The ones with a mate should not have been forced to go. But we were lucky to get the deal we did, as they first planned to take our men as well to use as slaves and kill the ones too old or young to be of use.
Mary-Shelly stares fearfully ahead as the Koridon male drags his fingers past the rope and touches the shadowed area of her nightdress. He must be curious about the desperation Kraetorr displayed and the yearning that crazed him. He leans down and sniffs her neck. If any one of these huge bastards loses control and breeds one of the girls, the scent of forced desire will infect the rest of them.
“Arek!” Commander Drakon yells. I study him as he rides over with regal grace, his features sharp and his hair lighter than the others. “You were all ordered to stay away from the breeders.” Sneering, he stomps his beast over to the one he called Arek, who has remained fixed on Jane. “You all know the consequences of these women’s spells! Do you want one? Do you wish for a child to grow within one? Then they are not to be touched for now. Don’t even look at them!” He rides by and shakes his head. “Tearing them to pieces would be amusing. But pointless.”
Arek removes his touch as though anvils are attached to his wrists and snaps his gaze down. A light dew grazes his muscular chest, and the space around him vibrates with frightening intensity. A little thrill pulses through my belly at the sight of such a love-struck creature. He isn’t like Kraetorr—his animalistic impulses suffocate, but he buries them deeper at will. The sight of his controlled desperation twists my soul and drives me to want Kassien again so badly it hurts.
“We still have quite a journey ahead of us,” says Drakon, bounding from his horse. “I will not have a single one of them harmed. You will bed them according to mating law and will wait to be matched accordingly!”
Brekter secures Glenda’s ties, and, watching his fingers move, all I can think about is the crushing weight of him—outside, inside, and the frenzied touch of his lips that had never felt another’s upon them. Kissing is a human thing, and this warrior race has no thoughts of it… until that soft yet powerful intimacy is unleashed upon them and they’re helpless to watch as their unparalleled strength drains away. But in our story, does true love’s kiss conquer all?
Doubtful.
Drakon appears behind Brekter. “You are to heed this warning as well,” he says to my wicked lover. “The girl you keep risking everything for has yet to prove yours.” He glances at my belly, and thoughts of my mother and what she went through eat at my already shaky sanity. She was impregnated by one of them long ago when she was transferring villages and survived my birth, making me a rare find indeed. Whichever of the otherworldly beings creates life within me would see their child born of very high Koridon genetics, unlike the human women around me who would produce only a half-breed.
Brekter straightens his spine and meets Drakon’s threat with a confident smirk. “Calypso
is mine.”
The commander lets out a humorless laugh. “Was it not Kassien of the royal family who first spilled seed inside her?”
“Yes, the same prince you left for dead.” A head taller and a million miles from being intimidated, Brekter taps the weapon at his side and brandishes a smile that would shame the Cheshire cat.
“So you would attempt to steal his heir?” Drakon circles us and I prepare to push Brekter onto the commander’s bizarre sword if only the chance would arise. Brekter peers at him knowingly, and it puts a dark sensation into my heart.
Drakon hisses, “What a disaster that was. My warriors driven mad by the lust in the air. My own daughter shot.” He purses his lips and spins around. “I am ruler now and will say who she and her child belong to.” The other Koridons nod and murder glimmers on Brekter’s face.
“Does Kassien live?” I blurt out. Brekter seethes at my concern and his firm grasp lands around my wrist.
“Do not concern yourself with such things,” he breathes from behind, rubbing his palm along my stomach. “I will not have you putting stress on my child.”
“It’s not your—” He smashes his forefinger into my lips and tips his head, a warning playing across his face.
Drakon sheathes his weapon. “Let us continue! We waste precious time.” The Koridons hoist themselves upon their animals and the line of women stirs.
“Tell me, Brekter!” I take hold of his leather wrist armor as he walks away, and he takes my hand and twists me around in turn. He holds my arm in an awkward position, and sharp pain travels up my radial nerve. “Let go. You heard your commander! You can’t touch me.”
He slams me back-first into his chest and reaches between my thighs. As he pushes my under garments aside, his breath burns my ear. “You belong to me in every way imaginable. I will claim you when we reach our destination, and my cock will find every warm, dark place your body has to offer.” He pinches the sides of my clit and rolls the tissue around it up and down, creating a trill of paralyzing pleasure. “And my tongue will find its every satisfaction upon your responsive flesh.” As though he commanded it, my nipples harden to the point of pain. “There will be no rest for you.” I flush as he strokes the sensitive spot between my legs within its own hood, and the hungry eyes I feel upon us only slicken his fingers. A rush of heat plays against his strokes, and my legs weaken.
At that moment where my soul turns black and welcomes any perversity that will push me over the edge of climax, he shoves me away and the rope burns a painful line around my ribcage.
* * *
The day drags on as we’re led under low hanging branches and over fallen debris and boulders. Glenda bravely presses forward, stumbling easily and weakness hindering her every movement, but she doesn’t give up, no matter how strained her breath becomes.
We stop to rest in a grove of Hollow’s-Eve touched trees with swaying leaves of red, gold and orange. The ones that dance upon the ground bounce under my shaky hands as we sit in a circle around a fire. Hunger eats at my stomach at the smoky scent of deer and boar roasting over the flickering flames for our midday meal. Scarlet rests one leg over the other and blows the hair from her face. She still has a kind smile for me, though my existence has placed her in such danger. Again. She drapes her arm around my shoulders. “You survived their—” her brow raises suggestively, “attacks, didn’t you?”
I nod. “After Kassien found us out there, he took me to his ship.” Black-haired Alice and blond Alice both snap their heads up to hear about the venture into my own rabbit hole. The others listen attentively as well, though Sybil and Mary-Shelly both stare off with tears glistening. “It was like something we’ve read in books,” I say, trying to put our misadventure in an intriguing light. “It was huge, sort of spherical, though some parts weren’t. It’s hard to explain. The walls had this mirroring ability to make it invisible, but from the inside it was translucent. You could see everything around you.”
“Do you think that’s where they take us now?” asks Scarlet. “To their spaceship?” The word sounds ridiculous, and yet it’s the only way to describe the grounded vehicle the Koridons came to Earth in. Arek brings water to the horses, and I wonder why they choose to ride around on beasts of the earth instead of some high-powered gadget they must surely have with their technology. Kassien told me the energy to power even their fancy weapons is in short supply here on this planet, though, and cannot be reproduced with our elements.
I shake my head in thought. “They might be bringing us to a similar place. But we aren’t headed to my husband’s sector.”
Sybil’s mouth drops open. “Your husband?” My village mates lean in closer, except Glenda, whose hurt expression steals my next musing. Finn mattered to me, and I want to tell her that, but I can’t find the words. Not here. Besides, as much as I cared about her brother, it wasn’t enough to stop me from desiring Kassien to the very core.
“You married one of them?” asks Mary-Shelly. She brushes back red locks and scoots forward, the rope pulling taut.
Brekter’s heated gaze settles upon me as he slices open a boar to clean for the roast. “Yes,” I say quieter. “I was bedded by their prince in a ceremony in which all of their kind watched.”
“Is that what will happen to us?” asks Scarlet, and the others flick their curious eyes over each of the huge males that keep us prisoner.
“Maybe,” I say, but I’m worried they have no plans of honor or tradition toward their breeders.
“If you’re bound to one of those monsters,” says blond Alice, “why has another taken claim over you?”
“My true mate will come for me.” I throw a glare of daggers at Brekter. “And he’ll pay on his knees before my lord.”
“But…” she draws her finger in circles through the dirt. “You seem to like him.”
My stomach wrenches, and I hate myself for letting Brekter titillate me so easily. I’m so inexperienced, and his fingers find buttons I didn’t know could be tapped, manipulated, and sprung to life. It happens so fast I can’t think, and I’m deeply ashamed for my betrayal. I can’t even put anything into words to counter blond Alice’s observation. Luckily Sybil saves me.
“Do you know where they come from?” she asks. “And why they look like that?” Sunlight plays off the Koridons as they work, and I notice something I’ve never seen before: the lightest hue of blue/green in a scale pattern gleams off their skin.
“They came from a dying planet being swallowed by the sun, and had turned to the deepest parts of their oceans as the land was scorched. I imagine they took on certain characteristics of marine life over the years.” Their hair feels different too, so fine that when it’s loose, it seems to float on the breeze. Even now, as I really study them, they seem to tread along the bottom of a clear ocean, graceful and effortless.
Scarlet asks, “Why were you forced to lie intimately with him in front of the others? That’s absolutely depraved.”
And yet, being loved in front of an audience was still better than what Brekter did to me in private. “You know how our queens of old had to be bedded in front of the court to prove the marriage had been consummated?” I say, remembering enchanting stories about a time long ago and lost forever. “Well, it’s like that, but also—” My hand lies across my impregnated abdomen and I cringe, remembering how I was still dripping from Kassien when Brekter shoved inside. “They traditionally have the ceremony and mate their females when she is ovulating.”
“You’re with child?” asks Mary-Shelly, blanched fingers digging into her bare thighs. “As we will all be?” An unexpected hopefulness lights up her smile, and shame burns my cheeks. If there is a child growing inside, who does it belong to? How could I live with myself if I had my enemy’s child? Then a surge of confidence lifts my chin. It is Kassien’s seed that held, and he’s too damn stubborn to die. He’ll come for me.
I won’t lose myself no matter what happens in the future, or what happens tonight, when the sun goes down and Br
ekter moves my dress up in the dark. There’s hope, not just for the freedom of our people from fear and bondage, but individually as well. I see it reflected in Sybil and Jane’s expression as they watch the warrior males move about in their tasks, chiseled with such muscular perfection. No man in our village could ever look like that. Kraetorr wipes his forehead as the fire roars and black clouds billow around his massive form. I cringe, because he’s larger than even Brekter, who was Kassien’s leader of defense.
And how his predatory gaze scorches with Glenda’s scent in his blood.
“Imagine what this could mean for us,” I say, still trying to convince myself that everything could work out. “We’ve been forced to hide inside a small village cloaked by their technology since we were born. Married but hardly allowed to touch for fear of becoming pregnant. If we join their race, we might all be free one day.”
“And what of our current husbands?” Blond Alice says as the sizzling meat is pulled from the flames. She reluctantly takes a piece offered to her. “And what about our fathers? Brothers? Are they to be enslaved now, being that they have no womanly cavities to abuse?”
They were left behind in the village when we were taken, but now that their location is known, all of our families will have to pack up and travel to the other villages immediately. Hopefully with the attention all on us, they’ll make it safely. “It’s a start,” I say to blond Alice. She snickers as she chews. I understand her reluctance with this situation, especially having been married to Oliver only last year. “We have an opportunity here. There was no future for us as it was.”
“Forced to be brood mares for monsters is a future?” She throws her meat into the dirt and stands. “I would rather die today than be touched by those horrid aliens!” Arek and the other watchful males begin moving toward us.
“Don’t fight them!” I whisper loudly. “Or you will suffer.”
Blond Alice flips her long locks back and stands tall. “Good. You may have a future with them, Miss Mutation, but we don’t. We are all going to die.”
