by Renard, Loki
We are two energies wrapped around one another, the dominant thrusting of the alien who owns me enhancing all that I ever was. I am coming closer to a peak which feels as though it might destroy us both. This is the way out. This is how we rise, with the pounding of rod and chalice, the eternal mating dance.
I cannot contain it anymore. I am glowing with energy, coming apart at the seams as the orgasm which has been building since his kiss claimed my lips bursts through me, the final note of the song an orgasmic shriek.
Vulcan
She collapses against me, entirely spent. She has used all her power. She has pulled me from the void, reached across time. She has given me wings. She has bested death. And now she is tired, too tired to do anything more.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lykar steps in front of me. Fool. He thinks he is stopping me by standing in front of me, but the way out is not through him. It is around him. He is so small, so pathetic, and like all weak men, he has found a tiny place in which his power might seem large.
“I’m taking her with me.”
“Where? She has no body in the world of the humans, and you have none either. Your flesh rots in a cave.”
“Flesh is just another word for a cluster of particles.”
“So?”
“So the universe is full of particles,” I laugh at him. “There is no such thing as death. There is just temporary disassembly.”
“I’ll add that to the list of ill-fated philosophies,” he smirks, arrogant. He truly believes that he has won, because in all of eternity, he has never been wrong. What happens next will be fascinating for him.
I have not abandoned Tres. And I have not been abandoned either. There is no coming back from death, that much is true. But I live in the future. It’s not possible for me to die in the past, not really. The strands of time are twisted and uncomfortable around me. They want to eject me back where I came from - and from the feeling I’m getting, they're not alone.
Tres and I are glowing with a light which does not come from within us. We have been lost, but now we are found. It was only a matter of time. The faun-king should have asked more questions. He should have wondered how it was a scythkin managed to penetrate his realm a little more deeply. If he had, he would have realized that I am not really dead, that death, as he knows it, is nothing more than a cheap magician’s trick.
“What is happening?” Lykar sounds half-panicked as I stride across the room. I have a flailing mate over one shoulder, but I need one more thing.
“Leave my mirror alone!”
I grab the frame.
“It’s not a mirror. It’s a piece of technology that doesn’t belong here. It’s out of place and out of time, and it’s coming with me.”
“It is not. You cannot leave,” he insists, furious.
“Scythkin are born in clutches. I might be dead, but I am not alone. There are ninety-nine others just like me, standing behind me. They have the cord of my existence in their hands, and they’re not going to leave me here.”
“Nobody leaves the realm of the faun-king.”
“They do, though. We are already on our way.”
The glowing is becoming brighter.
“This is not possible!” The faun-king shouts.
“It is. I was promised to Hyrrm. The god of the mountain. The fiery beast who lurks in rock beyond time,” Tres says.
“That was a stupid human idea…”
“No. It wasn’t. I’ve just realized that Trelok wasn’t actually wrong. I found Hyrrm. He’s here. It’s him. Vulcan. Hyrrm by another name.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!” The faun-king is tearing at his hair. “How could an alien be a mountain god?”
“How could a king leave his daughter to be murdered?” Tres replies. “There are many unnatural things in this world.”
“He’s no king. He’s a common faun with a piece of technology that doesn’t belong to him. This mirror allowed you to prey on the females of Earth for too long. It ends. Now.”
FWOMP
That is the sound of death being cheated, of time being torn. That is the sound of all that is wrong being made right. My essence and Tres’s are pulled from the realm of the dead, across time, and into a spaceship, where flesh clothes us, trillions of particles sucked from the universe to follow the code laid out in our core.
She opens her eyes.
Tres
“I feel you,” I say, my voice soft with wonder.
“I feel you too,” he growls.
I feel everything. I have a heart that beats. I have skin which feels. I am alive, with all that entails. My stomach growls and gurgles. I am starving.
“I’m hungry.”
“Being suddenly reconstituted from stardust will do that to you,” Vulcan says. He is smiling broadly, his long fangs flashing with pure glee. He pulls me close and embraces me with the intensity only a triumphant scythkin can master.
“I don't understand what has happened to me. But I know you’ve saved me. Time and time again.”
“And I will keep saving you,” he tells me. “Because you’re what makes the world worth it.”
“I don’t have goat legs!” I cry out in relief, looking down at myself. I have the human form I remember, perfect and complete.
“Of course not. They were an illusion of the faun. Never trust a man with horns.”
“You have horns.”
“Never trust a man with horns and hooves, then.”
I laugh and press a kiss to his face. The handsome human illusion of the afterlife has disappeared to be replaced by this vicious warrior, and I could not be more pleased. “How are we alive? I saw you die.”
“And I saw you die, but it wasn’t my time, and it wasn’t yours either. You and I were thorns in the side of eternity. It wanted us out. We’re out now.”
I hear heavy footsteps coming.
“Alright. Brace yourself,” Vulcan tells me. “We may be about to face the most fierce beast yet.”
The wall slides open and just as Vulcan predicted, another angry beast storms into our presence. He looks just like Vulcan, but more tired, as if the weight of a myriad of responsibilities has worn him down. He flashes his fangs as he directs irritation at Vulcan.
“Well,” he says. “I hope you're happy. Throwing yourself into space and then damn well DYING. What the hell, Vulcan?!”
“I’m not happy. I’m ecstatic,” Vulcan says. “This is Tres.”
“I know who this is,” Krave says, flicking his molten gaze toward me before focusing on Vulcan once more. “You do realize what we had to do to get you back, correct?”
“Science things, I bet,” Vulcan says, more flippant than I recall him being. I also don’t recall him smiling this much. His joy makes him look more fierce than ever, all fangs, sharp teeth and bright, molten eyes.
“I had to disassemble both your bodies on a quantum level and bring them here and do you know what?”
“What?”
“People. Saw,” he growls. “So now, there are several humans walking around the planet, telling each other that bodies sometimes rise from the dead.”
“Humans like to tell stories,” Vulcan says. “The weirder the better. This won’t hurt them.”
“At least you got rid of the Galactor peons,” Krave sighs. “That is one small mercy. Ancient Earth will not be overrun with aliens. Just stories about people who are dead but alive, and flying saucers and alien technology which is capable of all kinds of magic.”
“They had that anyway.”
“That’s true. And I pulled out a piece of missing technology from that faun’s place. Look what he had.” Vulcan points over at the mirror, which has landed in this realm sitting up against the far wall.
“That’s no mirror. That’s an inter-dimensional gate. And you’re damn lucky there was one there. You would have been dead forever without one.”
I don't understand what they’re talking about, but I understand the tight grip Vulcan has o
n me. I understand that I am alive, and that is all that matters.
Vulcan
I get up and walk over to the mirror. Given what Krave just told me, I’m not done with that.
As I approach it, the faun-king appears before my eyes.
“I hope you realize that all living things come to me in the end,” he says. “Every blade of grass, every insect, every woman, every man. You will return to my realm, perhaps sooner than you think, and when you do, there will be nobody to save you.”
“Fuck off, faun.”
He laughs.
I gather my hand into a fist and punch the mirror, shattering it into trillions of pieces and a puff of smoke.
“What are you… idiot! We could have used that,” Krave growls.
“The faun was still in it. Somehow. I don’t…” that doesn’t actually make sense, but I know what I saw.
“Well,” Krave says. “I hope you’re happy.”
“I’m happy you brought us back. I knew you would find us.”
“You knew no such thing,” he says, scowling.
“Of course I did. You wanted me back. You were going to get me back.”
“It was reckless,” he says. “And foolish, and it has consequences which ripple far beyond your lives. Do you not see what has been done?”
“No?”
“We ripped the door between the living and the dead wide open.”
“Seems to me that was always a fairly arbitrary distinction,” I say.
“Tell that to the humans. Who are now surrounded on Earth by the rotting corpses of their ancestors, risen from the grave. The process wasn’t as clean for them as it was for you and Tres. There are shambling half-dead almost human creatures all over Earth. We’ve unleashed an ancient zombie apocalypse.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? That is all you have to say for yourself?”
“It wasn’t my fault, Krave. If the universe decides that the thing that most makes sense is having several hundred ancient humans rise from their graves and shamble around for an indeterminate period of time, then I cannot be held responsible. I was just doing what every sentient creature does: try to survive.”
“You’ve caused zombies to enter the human consciousness,” Krave growls. “They will be talking about both for tens of thousands of years.”
“Good.”
“Good!?”
“We leave them with a few strange stories and legends, so what? Nothing is as strange as the realms which intersect with that world. Humans are awash in legend and strangeness, the unnatural and natural woven together. We think we understand them and their world, but look what it did. It pulled me out of the future to save its favorite daughter, a female who was allowed to die the first time, and the second, became mine.”
Tres
They’re arguing over what sound like horrible things. I shrink away, slightly afraid that a real battle might be about to break out between them. I might die again, moments after I began to live.
“At least we now know who was responsible for it all,” Krave growls.
“Me?” Vulcan sighs. “Of course it was me.”
“Not you,” Krave says, his stare settling on me. “Her.”
“Me?” I squeak the word.
“You,” he says. “Your song caused a resonance which split time and space just enough to allow Vulcan to slip through, and a couple of extras who were dealt with. It pulled the Earth from its original timeline, and performed, for want of a better term, a hard reset.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You know what,” he says, flickering a wink at me. “Nor do I. But it tells me you and Vulcan are a match. The two of you destroy worlds, cheat death, and make a mess of my ship like no other.” His expression becomes temporarily stern, then clears. “Welcome, Tres. You’ve come a very long way to be here. We will do our best to make sure that your future is brighter than your past.”
Vulcan’s arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me up against his body and snuggling me tight. “No more dying,” he says.
“No more dying,” I agree.
“And no more singing,” Krave says. “At least, not that song. We can’t have you opening up rifts in space and time every time you get a tune in your head.”
“That’s not how it works. At least, I don’t think it is. And…” I pause, trying to think. Then I shake my head. “I can still sing.. but that song. The one that bought Vulcan to me? It’s gone.”
“You mean you can’t remember it?”
“I mean, it’s gone,” I say. “It’s just… not there anymore.”
“We should check you for brain damage,” Vulcan says. “You did die from a head injury once. You may not have gotten all the bits of brain back.”
“I’m not brain damaged,” I snort. “I just… I think I don’t need the song anymore. I think it has gone to someone who does.”
“Okay,” he smiles. I know he doesn’t take me seriously. I know he thinks my primitive ways are just a joke, a superstition, but Krave knows better. There was power in that song. It had a life and a mind of its own, and I think it has gone to save another soul.
I don't need the song anymore. I have Vulcan. My lava hot mountain of lust who wraps himself around me and drags me down into a writhing, wailing ecstasy like no other. We have an entire eternity of making love and cheating death ahead of us.
COMING NEXT…
I hope you enjoyed the scythkin adventure on Ancient Earth. I’m planning to return to the possessive scythkin later in the year, but for my next book I have something without a pointy alien in sight, but with a whole lot of heat and sting in its tail. We’re staying science fiction, but we’re heading to the Wild West!
There's nobody more lethal with a weapon, but it's his belt I have to worry about.
Orion Steelbane is a legend. He's the biggest, meanest, most augmented gunslinger in the West. It's best to stay off his radar, but when he finds me tied to train tracks, I lose that option forever.
Orion doesn't do anything for free, including rescuing distressed damsels, so now I owe the alpha outlaw my life.
He reckons he owns me. Says I'll have to do what he tells me.
But I'm not going to fall in line without a fight.
My rebellion and Orion's passion go hand in hand.
Every time I defy him, we get one step closer to his bed.
I might even be falling in love, if it is possible to love a man like him.
Or if he could ever love me back...
Then there's my secret.
The reason he found me on those tracks in the first place.
The wild western colonies are being tamed, and with the law bearing down on the both of us, time is running out.
Love won't save me.
But Orion might.
ORDER ORION’S BELT HERE AND NOW :)
Or read yourself a little tease first…
“Alright, whats yer name?”
No, are you alright? Just a rough barked, whats yer name. Hardly the kind of question a hero asks after he sweeps you off the train tracks right before you get turned into minced meat, but I guess I owe him an answer.
“Josie,” I say, rubbing my wrists where the ropes used to tie me to the tracks cut into my skin. “My name’s Josie.”
“You got a last name?”
He’s got eyes that glint like the sun in the blue sky, set deep beneath a heavy brow. His hair is dark and shaggy around his ears, and he has dark stubble around a hard jaw. He looks like every other criminal in the West rolled up into one big broad shouldered, narrow hipped bastard.
I should be grateful to him. I am grateful to him. He saved my life. I owe him and his men everything that happens between now and the grave. But I reckon they’ll be taking full advantage of that fact if I don’t get the hell out of here soon.
“Mighta had one once, but I lost it a while back,” I say with an easy grin.
He doesn’t smile back. His expression is hard as nails. T
his is an interrogation and I don’t like it.
“You tell me who put you on the tracks.”
“Ain’t saying.”
Now I’m off them, he don’t need to know who put me there.
He takes a step closer to me, his shadow blocking out the sun. He smells like tobacco, sweat, and cologne and when he narrows his eyes I feel a bolt zip right through my nethers. Didn’t expect to be able to get those feelings this soon after everything I’ve been through.
“I reckon you’ll say,” he growls.
“Listen, Mister, I wasn’t scared when those bastards tied me down to die, and I surely ain’t scared now.”
“You’ll tell me, because I need to know what trouble I just got into by setting you loose on the world again.”
“You worried about trouble, Mister?”
“I’m surely worried about you, Miss Josie,” he rumbles. I could swoon, if I were the swooning type, hearing my name on those lips.
“Don’t worry about me, just accept my thanks, and maybe if you’re still feeling generous, drop me in town next time you go. Or I’ll see myself off.”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “Them fellas with the guns will be coming after you to finish the job. You’d better stay with us in the meantime until we sort out what’s goin’ on here.”
He’s not listening. Men usually don’t. Something about being a girl means that no male I meet ever seems to think I have a brain in my head. They talk to me just like this guy does, as if I don’t have any right to make my own choices, or as if I don’t know what I want.
