“Are you still human?” Chris asked. “Do the...whatever you call ‘ems....to they keep their distance from you because you’re a different species?”
“I’m not a different species,” Marissa replied. “The pack is everything to the Lycaon. If you belong to the pack, nothing else matters. I’m Caleb’s mate, and the pack worried he would never find one after the plague. So the whatever you call ‘ems are very happy to have me. They don’t treat me any differently than they would a female of their own species.”
Chris couldn’t look her in the eye. “I don’t think I could ever live like this.”
Marissa regarded her for a moment. Then she waved her hand. “Sit down. You can’t stand there all day long.”
Chris hesitated. If she sat down, she had no choice but to sit on the floor. And what was so bad about that? She’d sat on the cold, dirty ground dozens of times on camping trips back home. Yet somehow, sitting down on the dirt in this hovel carried a finality she couldn’t face. If she sat down here, across from Marissa, she would be accepting this life as her own. She would be accepting her fate, that she was on this crazy planet for good, and she would never get home again.
None of the other women would suffer these doubts. The Lycaon carried them into their houses and laid them on the floor, or on the bed, or wherever they laid them, no questions asked. They were here, whether they wanted to be or not. They had a long way to go to recover from their ordeal with the Romarie before they started wondering if they belonged on Angondra or not.
Only Chris was strong enough and healthy enough to worry about getting stuck in this place. Only someone as fortunate as herself, with hands outstretched on all sides to help her and make her comfortable, could doubt the blessing of her circumstances. She had to shoulder this burden alone. No one would help her cross the gap between herself and Angondra.
She raised her eyes and found Marissa watching her. She read every nuance of Chris’s expression, and a twinkle of understanding danced in her eyes. She’d lived all those doubts and anxieties herself before settling into this life. If anyone could help Chris bridge that gap, it was Marissa.
Chris lowered her eyes again.
Marissa pursed her lips. “Sit down....Sorry. I don’t even know your name.”
“Chris.” The memory of Sasha lying lifeless and still flashed through her mind. Sasha lay across the body of the Romarie who killed her, out there in the rain-drenched field, where Chris left her. She would never be buried. Chris swallowed hard. “I'm Chris Sebastiani. From Humboldt, California.”
Marissa smiled again. “All right, Chris Sebastiani, from Humboldt, California. Have a seat and drink a cup of tea. You’ll feel better.”
Chris looked around the room again, like that was going to do her any good. Not one piece of furniture occupied the perimeter of the dwelling. Only indiscriminate bundles lined the circular walls. An assortment of furs and blankets lay in a pile under one of the lodge poles. Chris blushed again. Marissa slept with Caleb on those furs. Where would she sleep? She might wake up in the night to the sound of them mating.
Marissa’s eyes pierced Chris’s soul. “Sit down, Chris. I won’t bite you, and you’re making me nervous, standing there. You’re a guest in my home, and I’ve offered you a cup of tea. The least you can do is sit down.”
Chris hesitated one more minute.
Marissa’s voice softened. “Sit down, Chris. You won’t lose your humanity by sitting down and drinking a cup of tea. If anything, it will help you stay human.”
Chris buckled. So Marissa understood after all. She wasn’t alone. Chris inched her way around the fire and sat down near Marissa. She folded her legs under her and stared down at her hands. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so rude. I don’t know how to understand all this.”
Marissa took the pot off the fire and poured steaming tea into a cup. She handed it to Chris. “You don’t have to understand it. In a lot of ways, the others have it easier than you. They don’t have to wonder if they’re doing the right thing by accepting the Lycaon’s hospitality. You’re the only one who has to think about it.”
“I just don’t want to get stuck here,” Chris explained. “I want to go home.”
Marissa nodded. “I know. But you have to remember you’re not signing any contract by spending the night here. You’re not agreeing to anything. You’re just spending the night. You can decide to leave first thing in the morning, and the Lycaon will send you on your way.”
“I’d have nowhere to go,” Chris pointed out.
“You could go to one of the other factions,” Marissa pointed out. “When the other factions find out we have a bunch of Earth females here from a crashed Romarie vessel, they may want to take some of them in. The other factions are just as desperate as we are for females. I’m sure the Alphas will have to negotiate about it.”
Chris’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t sell these women to the other factions, would you? That would make you just as bad as the Romarie.”
“We wouldn’t sell anybody,” Marissa replied. “No one would go anywhere or do anything against their will. But these women have to find homes somewhere, and families somewhere. If they don’t want to stay with the Lycaon, they can go somewhere else. I’m sure some of them would be more comfortable with the Felsite, or with the Ursidreans, the same way my friends were. I can contact them and find out if they have room in their own factions.”
Chris shook her head. “I don’t like this. You make it sound like some kind of mail-order bride service you’re running.”
Marissa patted her hand. “You’re a really good person, aren’t you? You don’t even know these women, and you want to protect them and make sure no one exploits them again the way the Romarie did. You’re a natural leader. Well, don’t worry. Nothing will happen to them until they recover their strength. Then they can decide for themselves where to go.”
“I’m sure some of them will want to go home, too,” Chris pointed out.
Marissa gazed down into the fire. “I’m sure they will.”
Chris peered into her tea cup. She still didn’t dare to put it to her lips. “I wish Sasha was here. She’s much more of a natural leader than I am. She was going through the crash site checking on everybody when you showed up.”
Marissa shrugged. “Sasha’s not here anymore, but you are. You have to be the leader now, and as long as I’m around, no one will do anything to those women. You have my word on that.”
At that moment, Caleb entered the room, followed by Turk. Caleb scanned the room and nodded. Turk frowned when he saw Chris. Then he turned his eyes away. Caleb sat down next to Marissa and kissed her on the cheek. Turk sat across the fire, as far away from Chris as he could get.
Marissa handed Caleb a cup of tea, and then handed Turk one. Both men drank the fragrant liquid, and Marissa refilled their cups. Then she opened a bundle from the side of the room and removed a chunk of meat. She cut it into pieces on a flat rock by the fire and set it to boil in the pot.
Caleb turned to Turk. “We’ll have to call a council to discuss these women.”
Turk nodded.
Chris’s head shot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Turk frowned at her. “Don’t you think they will want to help you any way they can?” He waved his hand at Marissa. “These women have been living alone among the factions since they escaped from the Romarie. Marissa came out to the meadow to see you and help you and make sure you had everything you needed after you crashed. The others will want to do the same thing.”
Chris glanced at Marissa. “I didn’t think you....”
Marissa lifted her eyes and smiled. “I know what you thought. You thought I was one of them, one of the warriors. You thought that’s why I was out there, to take control of you. But I’m not. I wouldn’t have gone if you weren’t my own kind.”
Chris’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I do,”
Marissa replied.
Turk faced Caleb. “Let’s let these women recover first, and then we’ll know what to do.”
Caleb nodded. “I should put you in charge, Turk. You have a good head for strategy, and it was you and your scouts who spotted the crash in the first place. You always find a way to benefit our pack. I’m nothing but a figurehead.”
“Even a figurehead needs his lieutenants,” Turk replied. “If I was Alpha, I would need you as my lieutenant, and I couldn’t function without you. You’ll meet with Renier and Donen and Aquilla, and we’ll find homes for these women, one way or the other.”
“Who are Renier and Donen and Aquilla?” Chris asked.
“Renier is Alpha of the Felsite faction,” Marissa replied. “His mate is Carmen Herrera. Donen is Alpha of the Ursidreans, and Aria McCray is his mate. And Aquilla is Alpha of the Avitras, and Penelope Ann King is his mate.”
Chris cocked her head. “How did it work out that you all mated with Alphas?”
Marissa shrugged. “It just worked out that way.”
Caleb listened to their conversation. “As a matter of fact, the Alphas were all present at the gathering where you escaped from the Romarie. We fought with them. That’s where I first noticed you.”
Marissa blushed and looked down at her work. “Caleb saved my life at the gathering. One of the Romarie fired his weapon at me, and Caleb stepped in front of the blast and was injured. After he and Turk brought me to this village, I couldn’t forget what he’d done for me. That’s how we came to be mated, and I became a member of his pack.”
Chris frowned. “You said the Alphas were at the gathering. What was Turk doing there?”
“The Alphas of the factions went along,” Marissa explained, “and most of them took their secondaries. The Felsite sent their whole Alpha clan. That’s the way they do things. The whole clan has to keep up with political developments in case anything happens to the Alpha and someone else has to step in.”
“What’s a secondary?” Chris asked.
“Just what I told you,” Marissa replied. “It’s a member of the Alpha’s family who stands to take over if the Alpha can’t lead his people. Turk is Caleb’s secondary.”
Chris stole a glance at the two men. Something eerily familiar about the two of them struck her for the first time, even when they sat on opposite sides of the fire.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Chris muttered. “You said the secondary was a member of the Alpha’s family. How could Turk be Caleb’s secondary? He’s only a lieutenant.”
Marissa shook her head. “He’s a lieutenant, and he’s a secondary. He’s practically an Alpha himself. He would be Alpha if he’d been born a few minutes earlier.”
Chris blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you understand?” Marissa asked. “They’re brothers. Actually, they’re twin brothers.”
Chapter 5
Chris’s eyes popped open, and she took a fraction of a second to figure out where she was. Her eye traced the star pattern of lodge poles above her head, with a circle of clear sky in the center. A cloud of smoke covered the hole for a moment, and then the smell of roasting meat and strong tea stung her nostrils, and everything came flooding back.
She closed her eyes against the memory of Caleb and Turk sitting across the fire and sharing a meal with her and Marissa—at least, they shared it with Marissa. Chris couldn’t stomach the food, no matter how delicious it smelled. Everything she put in her mouth, everything that touched her skin, poisoned her in favor of this planet. In a little while, she wouldn’t be able to get this planet out of her system. She would turn into one of them, just like Marissa had.
Did the other women who landed with Marissa go through this paroxysm of alienation? Did they fight it the way she did? How long did it take before they finally accepted defeat and mated with these aliens?
Marissa no longer considered herself another species from them. Her transformation was complete, and no doubt it began the same way. She ate their food, drank their tea, and one of them touched her with his hands until Angondra invaded her very cells.
She wasn’t human anymore. She didn’t have the same patterns of hair on her head or their pointed ears or their blunt noses, but she was one of them. She admitted it herself. The pack was everything to the Lycaon, and she was a member of their pack.
Chris couldn’t let that happen to her. She had to fight it, and she had to find a way off this planet. She would get hungry and thirsty and lonely, and those needs would wear her down until she gave in. She had to escape before that happened.
Marissa only smiled at her during the meal. She read Chris’s every thought. She knew exactly what was going through her mind. That smile drove Chris insane. She had to get away from Marissa, too—but how? The Lycaon could outrun her, and their strong senses of smell and hearing could track her through the woods.
She sat up. Maybe one of the other women would help her. The women she crashed with couldn’t help her—not before she transformed into one of these aliens. They might even welcome the transformation after their ordeal with the Romarie. They would tell the Lycaon what she planned to do and try to stop her from getting away.
Who would help her? Not Marissa. Marissa only wanted to make the assimilation process painless for her. None of the Angondrans understood her problem. Turk kept staring at her all through the meal. He fixed her with his inscrutable gaze. Then he would catch himself and look down at his food again. But eventually, his gaze always migrated back to her face.
What was he thinking? Was he planning to destroy her as an enemy of his people? If he could read her thoughts the way Marissa did, he would understand how much she loathed everything he represented. If she couldn’t escape, she would destroy anything that crossed her path.
Caleb barely noticed her. He talked to Marissa and his brother through the meal, but he gave Chris only the most cursory attention. Maybe he couldn’t forgive the slight of her rejecting his family. Turk lived in a house nearby with their mother and sisters and children. These were Caleb’s relatives, too. They’d honored her by offering to house her with the Alpha’s family. Marissa explained all that, but Chris couldn’t accept it. She didn’t want to be honored. She wanted to disappear into the ground and never be seen by these people again.
But where could she go? Marissa insisted again and again that Chris could choose where she went and what she did. She could choose any other faction if she wished. Maybe one of Marissa’s friends wanted to get out of here as much as she did. One of them would help her get off this planet.
She ran through the scanty information Marissa gave her about them. Carmen was with the Felsite, Aria was with the Ursidreans, and Penelope Ann was with the Avitras.
She got up and tiptoed to the door. No one saw her. Marissa and Caleb went out together after the meal, and Turk went to his own house. No doubt his mother and sisters would wash his feet and give his shoulders a rub. They fawned all over their hero brother. Chris could just see it now.
She peeked outside, but the village was deserted. Afternoon sun slanted through the trees. Smoke twined out of the roofs of the other houses. The Lycaon must all be inside resting after the trek back and busy tending the new arrivals.
So much the better. Chris stepped out of the house and, with one last glance around, set off through the woods.
She glanced back over her shoulder, but nothing stirred in the village. She walked faster, and the farther she went, the faster she hurried until she broke into a dead run.
How long she ran, she couldn’t tell, until she stopped to catch her breath. Nothing but miles and miles of trees surrounded her on all sides. She couldn’t distinguish one direction from another. She could be running in circles and never know the difference. Only a faint shimmer of sun snuck through the canopy to lighten the forest floor. She couldn’t use that as a guide.
In Girl Scouts she learned that the moss grew on the north side of tr
ee trunks. If you ever got lost in the woods, you could guide yourself with that to find your way. Maybe the moss didn’t grow on the north side of the trees here, but it would grow on one side and not the others. She could use that as her guide.
She ran her hand around the nearest tree trunk, but moss grew on every side of it, all the way around in a uniform mat of velvet green. Every side of the tree was in the same shadow as every other side. Chris shook her head. She couldn’t let this discourage her. She had to go on.
But she didn’t run blindly anymore. She walked and let her mind turn over the problem of finding her way to one of the other factions. She knew nothing about this planet except what Marissa told her. The Aqinas lived near the water, and the Avitras lived in the trees. The Ursidreans lived in caves in the mountains, and the Felsite lived in cities on the plains. That didn’t tell her anything about how to find them or how to deal with them when she did.
The sun slipped by overhead, and the day disappeared. In the depths of the forest, Chris noticed only a change in the quality of the light, and a drop in the temperature. The golden sunbeams streaming through the trees turned to grey, and the animal life chattered to quiet. Night was coming.
Where could she spend the night? A pile of sticks and leaves sounded pretty good right about now, and the memory of Marissa’s stew of meat, herbs, and roots made Chris’ stomach grumble. She should have eaten that stew when she had the chance. Who knew how long it would be before she got a hot meal like that again?
But she couldn’t go crying over spilled milk now. She had to keep her thoughts clear to find food and water for herself. Thirst started to gnaw at her, though. That was a much more pressing problem right now than food. She ought to head downhill. If she kept going down, she would find water. And she could follow a river or stream—where? To the Aqinas?
Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel Page 36
