by Viv Phoenix
Contents
CHAPTER ONE Chapter
Title
Copyright
On Patrol
Caged
Attacked
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Description
CHAPTER ONE
Chapter
The cloud drew closer and closer, high as the tree tops.
The figure stopped. A man, but unlike any man of our people or the scrolls. Dust swirled around him in a cape. Massive in body, towering in the dunes with arms thick as my thighs, the muscles of his legs bulged, shining silver through the coating of dust. He threw his head back, his flat face wrinkling as though scenting the air. Would he smell me? His long teeth flashed in the gold light. The dark fur on his face was the one familiar thing about him beneath his up-sweeping oblong eyes, his small nose. His skin reflected light the color of a pool filled with the face of the moon. The sight of him stopped my breath.
Prisoner of the Alien
Tigress Science Fiction Romance
Folds in Time Series
By Viv Phoenix
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Electronic book publication: June 2016
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The sounds of my sister and her husband's pleasure kept on in my ears, driving me to the farthest reaches of my patrol. I trudged through the the fine dust, particles of buildings and bits of of my ancestors destroyed in the Last War. So much of the thick, ashy stuff extended out from the sparse woods at our border it mounded into dunes. My splayed shoes helped me walk over it without leaving a sign. Panting in the heat, I stopped and took a silent swig from my canteen. I strained to see anything worth seeing along the orange-tinged gray horizon.
My duty weighed on me. I wanted to scuff along the trail without caring if anyone saw, or skim stones down the dunes as I used to do before I came a scout. I wanted to throw a stone to make a dust cloud bigger than my human form, blot out Garhan between Lida's trembling thighs, her hand clenched in his hair as she made the cries that enticed me to watch them. Instead, I picked up my feet smartly, stepping clean by long habit to avoid giving my position away with the clouds of dust that rose from unwary movement. I trained with Wizen for months before he allowed me to patrol alone.
I soothed myself into the slower pace I could keep up for hours without panting. No one chased me. The bucket tipped and crashed outside their window, but they didn't know it was me.
Patrolling didn't seem useful much of the time, but it was an honorable roll. With little hope of any other, I resolved do my best at it. Days ago, Wizen diverted a silent coyote he thought might have been rabid. I couldn't help wondering if he imagined it might be dangerous for the feeling of being useful it gave him. The story of his chase gave rise to a celebration, brightening the night far into the dark hours. Miren flew from her eyrie to join us.
Maybe he didn't imagine it, maybe he told the story to give everyone a reason for joy. I still felt a pang when I caught older adults in a lie, but if he did that, it wasn't a bad lie. The glow of that night stayed with me, Wizen's hand kind on my shoulder as I watched Garhan and Lida dancing next to the fire, their bodies pressed so close I ached at the sight but couldn't look away. Garhan's hands spanned Lida's lower back and her skull, rocking her like something precious he mustn't ever release. Her eyes closed and I heard her purr over the popping fire, smelled her heat cutting through the wood smoke. Without Wizen's calm flowing into me, I would have run into the woods, bounding into tiger as fast as I could. Instead I watched, marveling that no one dared to intervene or show disapproval, in spite of what my brother-in-law was. They were heroes and that made them above the law. Nothing in my life was the same since Lida brought him back with her.
I scrambled up stump from a grandfather tree, a remainder from one trees grew huge. I plucked at my tunic to cover my ass, although I'd never seen another shifter this close to our border. Considering that I thought Lida might die when she left our world, I should have been grateful she came back, albeit with a stranger. A handsome, exciting stranger. Damn it. But I wasn't. They made me feel alone.
I longed to shift, to stretch my muscles bounding through the woods and climb a tree, feel it sway under my weight, see and hear my world with my stronger senses. But the elders forbade that, along with so many things. They required scouts to remain in human form on patrol unless an emergency required otherwise. Wizen's lined face had been grave when he made me promise.
I leaped down, careful to miss dead leaves and sticks that crackle under food. I kept to the cover of the trees, eying our terrain in all directions as he taught me. Nothing moved across the expanse of dunes that covered miles between our small oasis of narrow trees and the distant city jutting out of the softness like ribs sticking up from a rotting carcass.
Wizen shifted from crafty old man to gray wolf, faster than any other shifter I ever saw. My change to tiger seemed like dripping sap in comparison. I shadowed him often in hopes of catching him at it, learning his secret. Each time he shifted, I missed it. Following him improved my days. Maybe I'd find him after I completed my duties, stalk after him into the night, sleep in tiger form for a night away from my sister's. With her mate living there, it no longer felt like my home. My face burned. I didn't want to hear them at it again.
I shimmied up one of the smooth, tortured trees that bordered our territory. I never saw anything from there but the dunes stretching to the empty city, but Wizen said if strangers came, they'd come from there. It was the only landmark to attract anyone. And if there was anyone, they'd see our trees and head here for water.
Miren, the oldest of us, far older than Wizen, told us of other survivors who left generations ago. The few children always asked, 'where did they go?' No one, not even Miren-- who covered great distances in her flights-- knew of anywhere else shifters lived. Still, we hoped, and feared, there might be others on our world.
When my sister brought her foreign husband home, the sounds of their pleasures sparked an unspeakable hunger, urgent desires that made me touch myself at night in the room next to theirs.
I pulled myself up and steadied myself on the first branch. Balancing, I shaded my eyes and scanned the unmarked dunes. The seemed to wear the same ripples as ever, the winds sleeking and ruffling them over and over the way hands of children smoothed mud cakes. The empty buildings cast long shadows from the distance. Gaps in them winked as the light changed. I wished for the lenses written of in the scrolls that allowed our ancestors to see great distances. So much didn't survive the Last War.
Becoming a scout marked my adulthood. It gave me a way to get away from Lida's happiness. I loved her, but her euphoria, her devotion to her mate, grated on me. And I wasn't without prejudices against those not of our kind. Garhan was a bear. A big, strong, older bear shifter. A doctor, too. It wasn't fair. Being
in the same room with him made me turn red and fumble. I dropped things and twisted my tongue on words.
I wanted to move out. I finished my training, graduated to scout. I'd barter for help to make a place. Far from the slick and roaring sounds from theirs. I wiped my damp palms on my tunic, blinked away the image of them holding each other and writhing. Lida agreed to allow me, not that she could stop me now that I was of age.
Making sure nothing moved in any direction, I rested my palm on a tree and adjusted my shoe. She told me that morning they needed the room. She was going to have his baby. I wanted to ask what it was, a tiger or a bear, but sensed that would be rude. What if it was some third thing that had never been, a freak? Maybe that was the reason for the taboo, the law against mating outside your kind. The law put me out of hope. There were no male tigers left. Me and Lida were the last of our kind. Lida's cub meant life for our line. I should be happy for her.
A tear slipped down my face. I backhanded it away, watching the light turn gold through the narrow, dehydrated trees. Their resins made my nose tingle, but I enjoyed the smell. I clung to the trunk for comfort, the way I had as a child. It wasn't Lida's fault she found joy, and that she managed to break the law and be tolerated instead of punished. It wasn't her fault I liked her husband too much. I pinched my thigh hard, in punishment for the truth I wished I wouldn't tell myself. I wished he was mine. I wished I had Garhan for myself. Deep in the night, pillow clutched to my ears, I imagined he'd come to us from his horror-filled world without her. He saw me and desired me for his mate. I recoiled from the betraying thought, strove to wipe it from my mind. I loved Lida. Garhan was hers for always. It showed on his face every time he looked at her. I dug my nails into my palms and swallowed. I raised my canteen.
Rising dust caught my attention. A huge cloud of it, bigger than what I'd seen from any animal. Wizen demonstrated an uncanny ability to tell what animal moved far from sight by its dust signs. I knew a hare from a coyote before its fur showed, but nothing keener.
But that, that mass of dust, no. I had no words, no image for what that might be. I clipped on my canteen with numb fingers without taking a drink. I clung to the tree, fighting a sudden urge to make water. I squeezed my thighs together, breathing the way Wizen taught me for keeping calm. He said being a scout meant being able to respond to anything that happened, whether in aiding a silent animal with an injury, a woman giving birth, or a danger to the people. I held his teachings to me and kept my place in the tree. If I climbed down and ran, I could report to the others, but report what? Big dust? I'd hold my place and see what came. But if it saw me, that would I do? My mind filled with monsters, images in the scrolls of huge silent animals who existed no longer, that I wasn't sure ever existed. Shaking, I squeezed the tree trunk, blending with it in my tunic woven to match what cover our land offered. I squinted, reverting to a child who hoped not to be seen by covering her eyes.
The cloud drew closer and closer, high as the tree tops.
The figure stopped. A man, but unlike any man of our people or the scrolls. Dust swirled around him in a cape. Massive in body, towering in the dunes with arms thick as my thighs, the muscles of his legs bulging, shining silver through the coating of dust. He threw his head back, his odd, flat face wrinkling as though scenting the air. Would he smell me? Good I hadn't shifted, my form smelled less pungent as human than tiger in heat. His long teeth flashed in the gold light, the dark fur on his face the one familiar thing about him beneath his up-sweeping oblong eyes, his small nose. His skin reflected light the color of a pool filled with the face of the moon. The sight of him stopped my breath.
What creature was this? He wasn't be one of the rumored survivors. If any people so huge and strange had lived on this world, our scrolls and the stories of the elders would tell of them. But he existed. I knuckled my eyes, blinked hard. Yes. He existed. I made myself small as possible. As brave as I was, and Wizen often called me the boldest scout he'd trained, I quailed at the thought of those huge teeth biting into me. He licked his lips. His long dark tongue was pointed like a snake's, without the fork. It gave me chills.
He lifted a large bladder to his mouth and drank, his massive throat working, shining in the the dying light.
My heart awoke and pounded. This was it. Whatever the explanation for the stranger, my purpose in being a scout was to alert the others.
He approached, and my resolve fled. I didn't dare climb down the tree with him so close. If he devoured me, there'd be no one to warn the others. I held still. This was the purpose for the patrols, to protect us. Each year our numbers diminished. More died than gave birth. Any threat might end us. No more shifters of Gon. The enormity of it locked me to my perch. I drew a careful breath, made myself silent. Even the loss of me, despite my fate to never give birth, would be a blow to everyone. Lida would cry for me and bury me in her best tunic. My guilt for my earlier betraying thoughts swallowed me.
Moving with steps as light as mine despite his mass, he entered the copse and walked to the cave as thought he knew where he was going. I shifted to the next branch for a better view. It creaked; I grabbed the one above to hold some of my weight. His head rose and his nostrils dilated. His nose worked the way lizard's eyelids do, but moved from all directions like an iris. The outer membranes must protect it. It made his nose appear an intimate part of his body, something puckered I shouldn't see. What was he? Where did he come from? His ears came to high points reminiscent of elves in children's books. Nothing else about him was elfin; he resembled a giant. That's why I kept thinking he might eat me, a harking back to childhood fears of ogres, goblins, and club-wielding monsters. I held every muscle so tight my body ached. I closed my eyes to hide.
A rustling sound made me look.
He shrugged off his garment, one piece of fabric that covered him chest to groin. His naked body shined, rippling planes of broad chest, hard-muscled torso, flat lower belly. Oh. Bigger all over than my brother-in-law. My face flamed. I stared. He was the second grown man I'd seen undressed. Other than his mass and face, his form resembled humankind. Did the tip of his cock dilate, too? Garhan's roseate foreskin bobbed across my inner sight. The heat in my face became so intense my head ached. The warmth spread to my breasts, and lower. I squeezed my legs together hard.
He stepped toward the cave. He meant to go in the water, our precious water.
Now was my chance to move. I must warn the others.
I stayed, my eyes entranced by him. I shimmied down the tree, tunic bunched at my crotch, taking secret pleasure in the friction from my ride. Landed soft. Crept closer, eager to watch. I wanted to see every part of him, up close.
I took in my fill of his rippling silver muscles from behind a rock. Watched him fetch an unfamiliar vessel from behind a boulder and rinse his body. His silver skin glowed free of dust, moonlight and shadow loving the rises and dips of his shape. He took care not to dirty the pool.
Whatever creature he was, he showed intelligence. But how could such a thing be? Water sluiced over his strong buttocks and down his shining thighs, over his broad feet, wider than any feet I knew, like duck feet, though not webbed. He looked better equipped for my world than I was with my clumsy shoes that inhibited climbing. My eyes darted glances at his cock. If it grew as much as Garhan's did when erect-- Oh.
I ducked down between boulders as he moved to his garment. He cocked his head and stopped. Had he heard me? A deer and her fawn walked on their thin legs to the water. I held my breath. There were so few of the silent animals, we didn't kill them. I wished with all my heart for the monster to leave them be.
The doe stood still, ears twitching. With slow steps, she reached the water, looked about her, and drank. Her little one drank beside her. My chest ached, tender at the sight of mother and child. The moonlight lit his spots, made both of them glow: apparitions from a past that for this moment hadn't ended in death for most of their kind and ours. If our ancestors hadn't destroyed our world, I'd have a mate and cubs rubbing aga
inst my side.
The stranger held still as I did, leaving them unmolested. I dared to breathe, my heart beating gratitude that I didn't have to witness their deaths by the huge hands and shining teeth of a monster. I averted my thoughts from what kind of weapons he might have in the bulky pouches of his belt. The scrolls and a few burnt-edged book pages showing our ancestor's weapons and wounds from them gave me screaming nightmares for weeks as a child.
The deer leaped away, startled by something other than us. I felt an odd kinship with the stranger as his big head swiveled to watch them. They rose through the air, their small cloven hooves digging into the earth and propelling them away.
He rushed to his clothes and I held my breath, willing my heart to slow in fear that he might hear it. What if a creature who protected its nostrils with membranes had acute hearing? Everything about him was beyond my knowing. What was he called? What kind of name did his species have? Did they have personal names? What would I call him if we ever spoke?
His cock flopped as he ran and water dripped down his face. The moonlight made him shimmer and lit the wonder on his face. He looked as moved and desirous of preserving the lives of the deer and her child as I; he appeared to me as a person instead of a monster.
A rush of pleasure jolted through me, making my body jerk.
Terrified the stranger sensed me, I held still, practicing being one with my surroundings as I had in so many lessons.
He grabbed his garment and pulled it on, his movements smooth despite his massive size. He fastened his belt, soundless as a scout. The word warrior came to me. We'd had none in my lifetime, yet I knew the term from the scrolls. His powerful body, his mastery of himself in unfamiliar surroundings-- he train as hard as I trained.
He fastened his belt, this thick-fingered hands dexterous, his face lit so that his oblong eyes gleamed.
