by C. R. Jane
“That’s not entirely true,” Hades replied. “Besides, we have a perfectly good spring at the rear of the cavern. There’s no need to port anywhere right now. I won’t have you tax yourself needlessly.”
I took another sip of the water and held it in my mouth, moistening my lips. I could feel my cells expanding like thirsty little sponges. In the darkness, my other senses came to life. My nose wrinkled at the wretched smell rising from my skin. I caught myself closing my eyes, thinking fondly of a bubble bath and a glass of wine.
Those days were long gone. For all of us.
Hades cupped his hands in his lap and a small silver ball started to glow, illuminating his and Kharon’s faces. My heat-seeking vision immediately switched back to normal.
My stomach clenched. Everything was spinning out of control, faster and faster. I couldn’t even control the way my own fucking eyes worked.
Humans didn’t see heat. Humans didn’t radiate indigo light. Or stand in a swirling tornado of alternate worlds.
What am I?
You already know, the voice replied in my head.
I swallowed the sip of water and met Hades’ gaze. “I used to work for MedCorp.”
His head cocked slightly. “I surmised as much.”
“I don’t know what happened, but I was a scientist. I was conducting major research. I very well could have been on the main team researching the pandemic from the beginning. When I was talking to the contaminant, I saw a hallway loaded with my research. It could have been years’ worth.”
“More likely, a shit ton of cases,” Kharon drawled. “It’s only been three of your years since we arrived.”
That didn’t seem like much time, but I didn’t need to run a computer-generated impact study to know what a virulent virus could do in a month. Let alone three years.
Civilization as we knew it had forever changed in such a short time span.
“Are there any cities left?” I whispered hoarsely. “Did the vaccine work?”
“There are cities and the vaccine did work.” But the grim slant of Hades’ mouth told me it wasn’t good news. “The vaccine wasn’t made widely available, and only the very wealthy could afford to purchase it.”
“The rich. The beautiful. The famous.” Kharon grunted with disgust. “MedCorp decided who lived or died, and then started building biodome cities to house their perfect survivors. Everybody else was left to fend for themselves.”
My stomach pitched queasily. “How many died?”
“If you count the contaminants still roaming the countryside? Billions.”
Bile burned my throat. Every fiber of my being recoiled in helpless horror.
Doctors dedicated their lives to saving people. Medicine was created for the common good. For everybody.
Medical care wasn’t something sold off to the highest bidder.
The thought that the world’s trillionaires sat in some distant, safe sanctuary while the world dissolved in chaos around them made me so furiously ill that I almost started frothing at the mouth. My skin tingled like a million fire ants marched up and down my body.
And indigo light flared around me.
I closed my eyes, but I could still see the contaminated people. Twisted by the virus. Losing their humanity. Slowly turning into ravenous beasts, killing each other.
“High emotion brings out your power,” Hades said calmly. “You don't know what you're capable of yet, so try to keep your emotions in check.”
I made myself count to four as I breathed in and out. “What am I capable of?”
Kharon and Hades stared at each other a moment, as if silently arguing. I didn't sense or hear their words in my head this time, but I could almost feel them, like a tickle in the back of my mind.
Evidently Kharon won. Grinning, he seized my hand and dragged me up to my feet as he stood. “There’s one sure way to find out.”
Chapter 6
Kharon led me deeper into the back of the cave. I wasn't sure how far it went, but I felt a heavy sensation above, as if we were miles beneath the surface. The darkness was absolute, yet I could still see. My eyes adjusted effortlessly, following the red-hot glow of Kharon’s body temperature.
I smelled water. Lots of it.
“The upper spring is for drinking.” He pointed to the right, where the cool blue of the tunnel continued to wind beneath the earth’s surface. “It’s colder and tastes better. This water is a bit sulfurous for my taste but it’s fine for bathing.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I stripped off the borrowed clothes without hesitation. The pool shimmered slightly purple, warmer than the air. Not exactly hot-tub warm, but it felt so incredible on my skin that I couldn’t help but sigh.
I could feel my skin drinking up the water as it gently leached some of the sunburn heat out.
Kharon dug in his pack and tossed me a flat bar of soap. I scrubbed myself head to toe until I was raw, but I could still smell death clinging to my body. I’d probably never get that stench out of my nose.
I was rinsing my hair after a second wash when the two aliens joined me in the water. I kept a wary eye on them, but other than holding out a hand for the soap, neither of them tried to touch me or even looked at me.
They were too busy taking care of each other.
Kharon’s red-hot lips pressed to the cooler blue-tinged skin of the other alien’s neck, leaving warming trails of green. Across his shoulders. Down his pecs.
“Lie back, skyr,” Kharon whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Hades turned his head toward me as he leaned back into Kharon’s waiting hands. “My energy is running low. The blasts I fired trying to get the contaminants off him drained me, and then he needed a little extra juice to bring us all here.”
I dropped lower in the water up to my chin. “What does skyr mean?”
Kharon knelt in the water, his arms cradling the other man’s floating body. “Prince or lord.”
Holy shit. Hades was an actual royal personage? What would his people do when they realized what had happened to the explorers they’d sent to Earth? Maybe they would exterminate us after all.
“The navigator sees and opens the gates,” Kharon continued. “But my energy fizzles out after a single trip and it takes forever to recover. But with him feeding me energy, we can go further and quicker.”
My brain buzzed with a thousand questions. Were all of Hades’ kind considered princes by Kharon’s? Did they power the ship with that same kind of energy? If Kharon could see the multitude of worlds waiting in the Spiral, why didn’t they just leave? Why stay here?
“Power, Thanatos.” Hades floated closer, his silver hair tickling my arm. “Neither of us have enough juice to make a port that far. And no, not all Nyxosi are skyr. Only the true royals carry that title, though Kharon forgets that our queen effectively disinherited me by sending me here.”
Oops, I forgot my shields again. I grimaced, shaking my head at him. “Telepathic aliens are damned inconvenient.”
Kharon grinned, a show of teeth. “You ought to be the telepathic alien dealing with human cockroaches.”
I winced, but he had a point.
“Peace, my drakon,” Hades chided. “She means no harm, and she may be part of the answer we’ve been seeking.”
I tensed, unsure and suddenly very suspicious. “I carry a cocktail of DNA soup inside me and I don’t know how that happened. I’ll probably contaminate you both with a new strain.”
Even flat on his back in the water, Hades managed to shrug elegantly. “Probably. We were dead as soon as the Megaskyr sent us to your planet, though she expected her assassin to take care of the deed rather than a human virus.”
He managed to flip my suspicion back to curiosity. “Is the Megaskyr your queen that you mentioned? Is she your mother? Why would she try to assassinate you?”
He shuddered, sending a ripple of water cascading over my arms. “Not my mother, thankfully, but yes, she is the Nyxosi supreme ruler. She wanted me dead for many reasons, both pol
itical and personal.”
“Fuck, Thanatos,” Kharon growled. “Do you really want us to give you a complete Nyxosi history lesson, or would you rather see what kind of latent powers lie beneath that tantalizing human form?”
My eyes widened.
Me? Tantalizing? She of the pasty office skin and pudgy figure? Yeah, right.
I choked on a laugh. “I don’t even know my name, but one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I’m not tantalizing in any way, shape, or form.”
Hades dipped his knees down to the ground and straightened so he could look me in the eye. His silver hair still glinted like metal even though it was wet. Long sparkling strands coiled around his neck and shoulders. His skin seemed translucent and delicate, though maybe that was just my heat-enhanced vision. I could see the lingering spots on his neck where Kharon had kissed his throat. Only now those spots were more yellow, because the rest of his skin had heated to green.
“You don’t even know what you are, do you?” Ever so softly, he coiled a strand of my very plain and boring brown hair around his index finger. “Why do you think we called you Eve as soon as we found you?”
Oh. Heat flooded my face, and I averted my gaze. “Sure, yeah. The last female alive suddenly becomes the first again. I guess anything would be attractive then.”
Kharon growled again and surged toward me.
I didn’t think. I reacted. I whirled in the water, wet hair whipping my face. I dodged slightly aside to avoid his attack, but then used my momentum to thump him so hard in the back that he belly flopped in the water. But I didn’t stop there. On his back, knees hard in his kidneys, I wrapped my forearm around his throat and held his head beneath the water. Thrashing, he rolled like a crocodile, taking me under with him. I kept my thighs wrapped around his waist and tightened my grip on his throat, determined to ride him to unconsciousness.
Silver power flowed around me, coiling around me like Hades’ hair. I shivered, my skin prickling, even underwater. I could feel the stroke of his energy crackling along my skin. A promise, not a threat. He made it very clear that he could use that power to haul me off his friend if need be. Though he’d much rather…
I didn’t know. And that’s what made me release Kharon. Curiosity, again. I wanted to know what he could do with that power.
What I could do. Because now that he’d touched me with his energy, indigo blazed around me, lighting up the underground cavern.
Slinging water like a dog, Kharon rose up out of the water and snatched me up against him. I thought he’d be pissed. Maybe yell at me. Curse me. Flatten me with one of those big fists.
Instead, he crushed my mouth beneath his.
And suddenly, all I could think about was sex. Reckless, passionate abandon. The world had ended. Almost everyone was dead. My life was over. We would likely die. Tomorrow, in hours, a week… I had no idea.
But if I could fuck him, and then his friend, and then probably them both again and again—
Kharon’s chest rumbled against mine and he lifted his head. “That’s more like it, Thanatos.”
My cheeks blazed with embarrassment. Shields, again. But at least I wasn’t beating myself up for my rather lackluster appearance. They wanted me, at least for now. I might as well enjoy them before we died.
Hades slipped up behind me, his skin wet and cool against mine. A stark contrast to the furnace blazing in Kharon. “The quickest way for me to refuel is through sex. The more we touch, and the more pleasure we have, the better. There are other ways to re-energize…”
Kharon let out a low chuckle. “But why waste time eating and sleeping for weeks when a good fuck is all you need?”
“That’s why Nyxosi and Thracians work so well together. He needs more power to travel. I can give that power, but I need to be refueled. So together, we make quite a team.”
“And fuck a lot.”
I tried to build the stone walls in my head, but I couldn’t concentrate. Not with them both pressed against me. I was comfortable with sex. I knew that. But had I ever had sex with two men before? Let alone aliens.
I had no idea. No memory sparked in the dark recesses of my mind.
“But there are limits to the amount of pleasure that two males can raise together, though granted, Kharon is an impressive specimen. With a female in the mix…” Hades’ breath skated over my ear and every muscle in my body clenched. Hard.
It was a good thing my vision had switched back to normal once his power had risen. Because I was sure that I gleamed liked white-hot supernova.
Maybe it was a side effect of the virus mutation I carried. It gave me a vivid indigo power signature… and an equally powerful libido. It’d be easy to blame the alien DNA I’d picked up for my elevated desire, for relative strangers who just happened to also be aliens, no less, but I was pretty sure I’d feel like this whether I carried a virus or not.
Life as I’d known it was over. We were all about to die, but right now, in this place, we were safe. Why the fuck would we not take solace in each other, just for a little while?
I leaned in and sucked on Kharon’s bottom lip, digging my teeth in slightly before letting go with a pop. “Do you have any strange alien customs I should know about?”
“All kinds,” he replied with a wink. “But we’ll take it easy on you to start.”
Chapter 7
Kharon closed his hands around my waist, easily lifting me off my feet and turning me around to face his friend.
Looking deeply into my eyes, Hades bent down so our noses almost touched. “Do you trust us? Really trust us? Because I am going to feed on you. You’ll feel me pulling on and draining your energy, even if I’m not touching you. I’m going to wallow in the pleasure Kharon gives you. I’m going to drown in it, breathing in your pleasure until I can’t hold any more. And then, if you wish, I’ll take a turn while Kharon rests. But if you’re afraid…”
I reached up and combed my fingers through his hair. The silken strands clung to my fingers as if they were alive. “I’m not afraid. You pulled me out of an early grave and brought me to a place of safety. Why wouldn’t I trust you?”
“Because I’m alien. Not just as a species, but in all aspects of life as you know it. I could accidentally drain you too deeply and you won’t be able to recover, especially since you were human. But I’ll do everything I can to control myself and minimize that risk. It’s just so unexpected to find someone with Nyxosi power, whom I can trust…”
His words sparked my curiosity again. “So there are Nyxosi still alive that you don’t trust?”
Kharon groaned and nipped my ear. “Fuck you, Hades. Will you quit giving her ideas and let us get down to business?”
“I do have one concern, though,” I said, watching the way Hades’ eyes flickered like prisms, catching our combined glows and sparkling like crystal gems. “Well, perhaps more of a request than a concern.”
“Ask and it shall be done, if it’s at all in the realm of my ability to do so.”
I laid my palm on his chest and lightly stroked my fingers over the planes of his upper body. His skin was velvety soft, his frame slender, but not frail. I tried to find his heartbeat, but his anatomy must be different. Or maybe his heart beat slower and fainter, so I couldn’t sense it without equipment. How many degrees cooler was his body temperature?
My brain kept throwing up question after question. But with Kharon’s heat against my back, and his powerful hands spread wide on my waist and hips, not even anatomical differences in our species could distract me.
“Instead of taking turns, I’d rather have you both at once.”
His eyes went dead and dark, as if a black hole spread in his gaze rather than the crystal prisms. Worried, I started to open my mouth to say never mind. Evidently, I’d insulted him. Gravely.
Kharon laughed, releasing a deep chuckle that vibrated against my back and rang in the cavern.
“What’s so funny?”
Still chuckling, he dropped his chi
n against my shoulder. “One way or another, we’re going to teach you to keep your shields up, Thanatos. You didn’t insult our skyr. You fucking turned him on even more than you already did just by being here.”
“I did?”
My gaze wanted to roam down Hades’ body and check out his package, but I was pretty sure that would be rude.
This time, even Hades quirked his lips. “It’s never rude to evaluate a potential partner’s paraphernalia to make sure they’re acceptable. Though I assure you, neither Kharon or I are lacking in that regard.”
To emphasize his words, Kharon stepped closer, tucking my ass back against his groin. And yeah, hello, he was very VERY happy to see me. Like freakishly happy. I was almost afraid to see…
Kharon guffawed again, which made the tips of my ears crisp with embarrassment.
So yeah, I dropped my gaze to Hades’ dick, which was just as elegant as the rest of him. Somewhat more slender than Kharon’s felt against my ass, but plenty long to fill me up and then some.
Eyes still dark and heavy, Hades tipped his head back, shaking his shining hair back over his shoulders. Every inch the princely alien elf. “Let’s get out of the water.”
Immediately, Kharon swept me up in his arms and carried me out of the pool. Turning in his embrace, I kissed his throat and smoothed my hands over his shoulders. He was built thicker and shorter than Hades, his muscles bulging with explosive, animalistic power. He was hairier too, though not excessively so. I breathed in his scent and my stomach flip-flopped.
He’d given me his shirt to wear earlier. I recognized that musky animal scent.
He gripped my nape, spreading his fingers wide to palm my head. “I wanted to mark you with my scent from the first moment I saw you. Even buried beneath corpses and smeared with filth.”
Throat aching, I stared up into his eyes as he lowered me back in the blankets. This time, on his and Hades’ side of the cave. “Why?”
He stretched out beside me and drew me up onto his chest. Keeping a firm grip on my head, he didn’t let me sit upright, but kept me close to him as Hades came down against my back.
