Primal: A Dark Sci-Fi Reverse Harem Romance (Alpha Unknown Book 1)

by Penelope Woods

  He didn’t know how deep my fears actually ran. I wasn’t so easily swayed by his cheesy one-liners. ”Just because you’ve been trying, doesn’t mean it won’t happen to you,” I said. “We all—”

  He sighed and urged me to stop being so morose. “You are still worrying about your home?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded, and he lifted my naked body above the water. Slowly, he dipped me inside the warmth, and I loosened up with relief. Reaching into a small satchel, he found a bit of herb. “Donovan picked this some time ago. It will heal your ills.”

  “Donovan?”

  “The third of our group. Not all of us are wise like you, but Donovan is. He has dedicated his entire life searching this realm to gain access to the other side,” he said.

  As I lowered my body farther, he tossed in the mix of herb, spreading it gently with his fingers. The hot water drifted over my shoulders, and, finally, I closed my eyes and felt more comfortable again. Whatever Donovan had plucked went straight into my pores. All of my troubles quickly vanished. “What is this stuff?” I said, feeling woozy.

  My eyelids were heavy, but I did not panic. Mag swirled his hands in the water. “Hollow berry and encheon root,” he said.

  I had never heard of any such root or berry. “Encheon and hollow, what?” I asked.

  Mag laughed and continued to spread the mixture across my skin. “Not much grows out here, but what does will either heal you or kill you.”

  “And I’m assuming this will heal me?” I asked, forcing a smile.

  “Lean back and close those pretty eyes, buttercup. You’re about to get spoiled,” he growled.

  I smiled, feeling pleased and ready to be pampered. He reached toward my feet and started to massage, all without my asking. That in itself was a miracle to behold. Zane never did that for me in the past, but I sure as hell did it for his gross feet.

  Tenderly, he cleaned up my legs, pausing briefly to admire as the water drifted down and across my smooth skin. Lowering his mouth, he kissed the bottom of my thigh, tickling me. My stomach jumped with excitement. I wasn’t ready for more quite yet, but it was already so tempting. Moving his hands up my thighs, he caressed every delicate curve. He glided his palm slowly, tantalizing my nerves.

  “What else is on your mind?” he asked as he put more soap into the tub.

  “There are too many questions to ask,” I muttered, rolling my head back against the wet porcelain.

  He smiled and stepped behind me, carefully lowering his face near my cheek. He kissed me, leaning his forehead against my temple. “Beautiful, I can see it in your eyes. We both are recalling the same memory.”

  The one annoying thing about falling for a beastly alien was they apparently could read your mind at the drop of a hat. Steam rose around my shoulders, tracing my eyes. I fell into a memory of when I was a little girl. My father finally let me into his world. But I saw too much. Something happened. Something bad.

  “When I was a young girl, we met,” I said.

  His lips met the crook of my neck. His hands worked with such care. All of his movements were dedicated to me. “I remember,” he said. “We’ve been connected for some time.”

  “I remember some of it. ‘Course most of it’s like a dream. When I think about it, it’s hard to put myself in my own shoes,” I said, shaking my head slightly with confusion.

  “That moment was the start of your life,” he said, slow and soothing. “By sheer accident, you saw something not many others had.”

  He used a gentle sponge across my stomach, shifting up and beneath my breasts. His movements led him back down to my quivering pussy. I bit my lip and hurriedly breathed in through my nose then issued a light whimper of pleasure. “It’s not that, though,” I whispered, mind still fixated that day with my father. “Something happened there. Something to do with this place.”

  “Shh...” he whispered. “We can talk later, after you meet the others.”

  I turned my head, and he traced his thumb across my cheek, eyes focused on the glow in mine. He looked at me as if we had known each other for a long time. I felt it, too, a deep and longing bond. He kissed me once more, tongue heavy against mine, sliding near the back of my throat before retreating to his own mouth again. His hand moved the soapy sponge between my thighs, falling directly onto my throbbing clit, and I closed my thighs to really feel it.

  What happened so long ago, I wasn’t sure. Right now, that didn’t matter so much. I had somebody who swore to protect me, to be there for me when life felt too difficult to get through on my own. I never belonged at home. On Earth.

  I rocked my hips forward and whispered, “Use the showerhead.”

  A filthy grin formed across his handsome face.

  I wasn’t going home. I was going to stay here and live the life I deserved.

  9

  Donovan

  I searched into the stars for the thousandth time, weighing my conscience heavily. Whenever our eyes were forced open by the current of time, there was just too much at stake. The others felt it, too, I am sure. Mag, with his proclivity toward chaotic displays of force. Cadmar with his wanderlust sense of direction and strong heart. The one thing my counterparts could never fathom was that all of this was truly out of their control. Adeline was her own woman, and though it felt like our calling to find her, we had to let her decide what she wanted to do. And give up, for that matter.

  That’s how I knew she was the one. When we slumbered, we dreamt of destiny. I saw her face, as did the others. We all connected to her on a deep level, but in a way, I felt as if we were the same. The only difference was how I was made to live. My instincts. My primitive ways...

  We were made to be this way. Violent creatures. Monsters, beasts, aliens. Those were their words for us, not ours. We did not give ourselves a name. In all actuality, we weren’t that different.

  They never understood us. But I could get over their contempt for us. There was one who kept searching for us. Throughout her entire life, she sought to find another way into our world. And somehow, she dug deep enough. She found a way in.

  What a glorious day...

  We didn’t have a home. Not anymore. We’d lived a lifetime trapped by our hallucinatory existence. Now, I wasn’t sure of another way. I still didn’t know how we existed here, but I didn’t care to know why anymore. The only place I wanted to know more about was the other side to our dimension: earth.

  The types of humans and beastly creatures we had come across here were in the millions. I had seen things God himself might cower from. But there was never any answer as to why we existed. I looked through the travelers’ photographs and belongings. I found and saw all sorts of fancy and wonderful things. Still, I couldn’t make sense of their world. All I had were my instincts. She could tell me everything I wanted to know.

  They would subdue, rut, and gore her. Mag would prop her on a spike, and Cadmar would cut off a tit as a souvenir. I was no better than them, and I would probably react the same. That instinct again. Unfortunately, I was given what I was given. Who knew how our makers behaved? I shivered to think about it.

  A cool breeze wafted over my languid body. A yawn fell from my mouth, but I felt the air change around me, so subtle. Something was wrong.

  Mag. Cadmar. Talk to me...

  There was no sign of either of them anywhere. I circled, feeling the density of the forest weigh on me. Mag had found her. I felt it, could see fragments of their encounter every time I blinked. But he let himself get carried away. The other one. He let him go...

  The sound of quick footsteps rushed by me, and I jolted back, careful to keep one hand on my pouch of poisonous herbs and other chemicals. My nose twitched from the smell around me. Melancholy Bell. But that was an impossible flower to find. It didn’t exist on earth anymore. Even if a human were to ask any of the locals, they would never have handed over the rare beauty to an outsider, especially one from an affluent region. They knew the powers it held, and they knew of our strength and
importance.

  Yet, it was there. Somewhere nearby. I crouched and dug my fingers into the pouch. A layer of what felt like sand stuck to my fingers. I curled them and caught hold of the powdery mixture, ready to fling it in defense. I closed my eyes and felt the wind whip against my face. Three sharp clicking noises issued from my throat, our natural defense call and radar technique. One by one, my unique sound waves pinged off the trees. I did it once more, shifting to the left. I circled three more times, observing the soundscape of the forest. And then I saw him.

  I couldn’t believe I was so foolish to miss him. Earlier, I was so lost in my head he managed to find a place to cut me off. Above me, he sat perched between two thick branches. He pounced, wielding a glowing, familiar blade. Mag’s blade. He drove it down with intent to kill, but I jumped back with immense force, throwing myself yards away from him and dropping into a denser area of forest. “So,” I whispered, “you made it this far. No worries. You seem like an easy enough kill.”

  Collecting my strength, I stared back at his confident twitching stature. All of his shifty movements were absorbed by my predatory faculty. Lightly, he swayed, deciding on his next move. With stealth, I took the powder mix from my bag and cupped it, stomping my heel back against the soil, digging through and down toward the roots of the trees. I let out an incredible roar, knowing this was his death. He didn’t have to come searching for us. The fact he’d made it this far showed me he talked to the natives, even heard their stories. He broke their trust. I would consume his memories later, and he would suffer the consequence of a trial.

  Today was his death day.

  I barreled through the trees, sight fixated on his worthless body. Soon, it would be a corpse, and I’d make sure to keep his organs preserved enough to keep the life force strong in this realm. No, his energy would not disappear, as that could not be destroyed. Instead, it would serve to keep us alive, the darkness that binds the light. He’d stay fixed in his agony every single night.

  He made an attempt to dive away, but my hand caught his shirt. Twisting, he swung that blade, slicing across my chest. The sting subdued me for a split second, but the sight of oozing blood quickly enraged me. I hit his forearm and tore his shirt before taking his leg from underneath him and whipping him effortlessly against the tree. He fell to the earth’s floor, heaving in painful gulps of air. The wind was knocked out of him, and he was debilitated enough it would take a while for him to recover.

  I laughed at how easy a fight it was. He wasn’t the first man we would mutilate here, but he might have been the one I would most enjoy. I stepped through the excess of twigs and earthly soil, onto a large tree that had fallen over in the process. I looked down upon him and held my hand in front of me. The wind picked up the dust I had been holding and spread it around my person, a blue glow. I had all the power in the world to kill him, this puny man I now recognized as Zane. One look into his pupils, and I could see who he was. The boy who found a way to cheat as a man. The boy who destroyed heart after heart. He was insignificant to the grand scheme of history, but he had hurt Adeline. For that, I wanted his head.

  I leaned down in full glow, running my hand over his flushed cheek, taunting his masculinity. He looked at me in horror, still unable to get in a breath big enough to satisfy. I curled my hand around his chin and squeezed, so he would know to listen to every word I said. “This is not your home.”

  “I came for... for her,” he managed to grumble.

  “Adeline,” I growled and started to salivate. My impassioned cock started grew and throbbed with lust. I had yet to see her, but I felt like I knew her already. In his memories, she was a saint who deserved more. She had been used, time and time again. Whether it was her parents, this sack of shit, or the system itself, she was made to fall into a life of sadness and hurt. But she heard the beating of our hearts. The insatiable curiosity took hold, and together, we yearned to fall in love.

  “She’s here!” Zane shouted, ready to give her up at once. “She’s in a cabin. Nearby. Oh, God, I swear it! I can... I can lead you there.”

  The sight of a grown man weeping disgusted me, but when he threw Adeline under the bus like that, I was more than disturbed. Incredible rage shook me, causing me to see red. My pupils shifted and lined to make a target out of him. He started to dig away from me, but it was no use trying to run from a beast in his own home.

  Zane was more of a coward than I thought. As I jumped from the log, I walked slowly over to him, ready to cast a spell that would freeze his heart forever. Mag could do the impaling, and Cadmar would be more than happy to lead the ceremony after. “You will remain here forever,” I said. “But you will no longer have any agency over your body.”

  “N-no!” he shouted. “Addie!”

  “Nobody can hear you now. The time has come,” I said.

  I picked up Mag’s blade and sliced his cheek. A thin stream of blood fell down his face, pooling up near his lips. At first, he simply winced, but when the pain seemed to wear off, he started to laugh. “You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?”

  Across his cheek, his capillaries turned from red to dark blue. They ran through his skin like a river, branching out in infinite directions until it made a noticeable pattern. It solidified into a thick scar.

  I stumbled, holding the bloody blade in front of my face. I was shocked I could have been so careless. Why didn’t I just kill him? Why the fuck was I just letting him live? But I knew why. Adeline wanted it to be this way.

  At the sounds of more movement, I looked back and saw Cadmar, clearly distressed. Our eyes locked, and a sense of urgency formed. “Donovan!” he called out. “Fucking run!”

  Confusion. Perplexity. And then understanding kicked in.

  Zane stood up and brought his closed hand near his heart. Then, in the flash of a moment, he whipped the contents out. Melancholy Bell. Fuck. It immediately sank into my eyes, into my pores, settling inside my body. I fell and heard him usher a botched prayer, one the natives would have had to give him. But how?

  “You!” I roared and writhed on the ground. Cadmar punched a chunk out of the trunk of a giant tree, screaming back with tumultuous anger.

  “Stay back!” Zane yelled, voice teetering on the edge of excitement. In his hand was more of the crushed flower. He had found the weakness, and it had worked. What wasn’t there to be happy about?

  I stumbled back, feeling the sudden onset of dizziness and weightlessness. I raised my arms, searching for Cadmar, but I could barely see. “No,” I groaned.

  “You don’t understand what you’re doing,” Cadmar said. “The portal will shut. There is no time.”

  “I came here for the girl,” Zane said. “Anything else means very little.”

  “Why? What does she have that you want?” Cadmar asked. I could barely think, let alone speak. My power, instinct, and primal strength were drifting away from me. I felt such a level of loss that I fell to the ground, yearning for the worst. It was so horrible, so cold, and so wrong. But it was our entire fault. We should have known someone would exploit us again. Ever since we had been free, we grew wild and cocky.

  We weren’t prepared, and he beat us for our ignorance.

  But before Zane could answer, I heard the pounding of paws against the ground. The soil rumbled, and the sounds grew louder. Soon, I could hear the sharp and predatory cry ring out above the trees. Zane turned to look up, but everything went silent. He circled around, suddenly looking very worried. “What the fuck?”

  Cadmar inched forward, closing him in. “This is not your world,” he said, smiling.

  Zane gulped and slowly started to walk backward. “Look, just give her to me and let me go,” he said.

  Cadmar followed, issuing a few quick and sudden sonar clicks with his throat.

  Zane jumped and placed his hands out, trembling with fear. “Okay, I take it back. I don’t need her. You want her? Take her! She’s all yours, just let me—”

  His back hit something sturdy, muscular,
and breathing. He spun and came face to face with Mag who grinned and slowly clenched his palm around his throat. He lifted him into the air, suffocating the life out of him. “What a gentleman you are.”

  “Chh-kk-heellpp me,” he choked.

  Quickly, I reached into my bag for a cure to the poison that was taking me under. I found a small vial and held it to the moonlight, observing the liquid contents. Finally, I clamped my teeth around the top and drank it down. Within seconds, I felt relief. “Took you long enough,” I growled.

  But I was taken aback at what I saw when my vision cleared. Adeline walked out from the trees and placed her hand around Mag’s flexing forearm. She pushed it down and removed his palm from Zane’s throat. “We don’t kill,” she said.

  Her body was soft and mesmerizing, like an ancient rose. She was gorgeous, warm, and sexy, all at once. Her round breasts heaved against her shirt, inspiring me to walk closer. I sniffed the air, delighted by her tantalizing scent. The girl we’d met so long ago was all grown up.

  “Adeline,” I whispered. “It’s... it’s really you.”

  “It’s me,” she said. She was unable to recognize us, but I’d expected that. When she came through the first time, she was so young. She probably had no idea what she actually did, but she saved us. She made our lives better.

  My senses went wild as I gazed upon her, but I managed to subdue my darkest urges. I bowed in front of her. This was the best day of my entire existence. “We knew you’d come back,” I said.

  At her orders, Mag subdued Zane by heaving him to the ground and tying him with a thick rope Cadmar removed from his bag. Finally, he was in our hands, but Mag didn’t look too enthused. ”We can talk later about the fact you didn’t set up the alarm systems at the greenhouses.”

  “Mag, I didn’t think about it. He was trying to—”

  “That’s exactly the point!” Mag sneered. “You never think about the consequences. Your head is always in the stars.”

  A flash of anger rushed through me. My cheeks grew hot. “Well, someone has to find a way out of here, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be you.”