by Viv Phoenix
I blinked in the morning sunlight, surprised I'd slept so near a stranger. He sat next to me, his disarming smile making my insides flutter.
"Now that we've rested, we'll feel better after we bathe." He offered me his hand and I rose from the platform and slipped down to stand next to him.
Bathe. My captivity continued to be filled with surprises. Time to bathe with an alien. Yes, of course. I didn't speak. I couldn't. I'd never been naked with a male in human form. Did he mean we'd bathe together? I hoped not. My blush extended to the tops of my breasts.
We walked through the camp. People stared at me. Koz dipped his chin toward others as we walked as we walked, giving silent greetings, I supposed. Raised voices and grunts spurred him to walk faster toward the disturbance. It struck me how different this camp was from most places shifters lived. They seldom vocalized. I jogged to keep up with his long-legged stride.
Two battle-locked males. Did the strangers always fight? One pushed the other hard enough to break his grip. He careened into me, stepping on my foot. I yowled.
Pushing my feet and hands against the ground I-- I remained human, in a humiliating position, my tunic blowing up and exposing my ass. Males drew near and Koz glared, gestured them away. I stood up straight, mortified. All my instincts raged to become tiger, but nothing.
"I'm sorry. It's the serum Lirian gave you. It prevents you from shifting." He sounded as though he meant it, that he was sorry. That helped relieve the sting. A few males trailed us. He turned and waved a hand at them. They dropped back. He kept a fast pace, getting me away from the others. I felt grateful for that.
"We have legends of your kind in our far-off world." His eyes sparkled. "As a boy, I read about the great werecats. I wanted to believe. But of course, adults don't believe in such things." He laughed, as musical as our talented singers, the bird shifters. "I never imagined one day I'd walk with a beautiful tigress."
I glowed from his wonder and his compliment. He gazed at me as he had at the doe and her fawn.
He led me into an unfamiliar cavern. Based on the piled boulders, I gathered he'd uncovered it by putting those gorgeous muscles to work. A deep pool lay at the center of the the cave's entrance, one of the amazing wonders of our world, deep aquifers that kept us all alive in these arid conditions. I relished the cave's coolness.
He shrugged off his robe with no concern for his nudity. The ripples of his muscles as he moved entranced me. He had dips above his buttocks where my face would fit. The hollows next to his hips called to my hands. I'd seen my sister hold her husband there when he mounted her face to face. I stared at the stranger's fine form and shrugged off my tunic, too, though without his unselfconsciousness. Goosebumps came up and my nipples tightened despite the heat. He bailed water into a large basin and took me to stand amid rocks on flat, tilted one. He poured cool water over me, giving me a slow steady stream that ran over my hair, between my breasts, over my ass and down my legs to run over my feet and down the stone. The water on my fevered skin felt delicious beyond bearing. I stretched in pleasure, raising my face to his offering.
"We clean ourselves before going into the water."
"That's good." I watched my toes, flexed them on the cool stone, missing my claws.
The strangers were sensible people. Despite their cold and warlike ways, we could have worse neighbors, such as our own ancestors, who fouled this world beyond belief, not thinking of others needing to drink or eat or breathe after their waste.
He refilled the basin and poured it on himself, sluicing the water over his skin with his hands. I did the same to my skin, blushing to touch myself in front of him, but he didn't molest me with his eyes. We were two people bathing and it seemed nothing strange to him.
I followed him to the edge of the pool and he filled the basin again. He placed his feet in a clever drain they'd created with flat stones angled away from the pool and washed his feet. This must be another projects he'd chosen his muscled frame to suit. In case of famine, his people would have the advantage of choosing forms better able to withstand the lack of food. They'd developed survival advantages as we had.
"Allow me." He washed my feet. His big warm hands enveloped each foot, sending warmth all through me and heightening the tingle between my legs. His spicy scent enveloped me. I inhaled him and my mouth watered. I wanted to lick and bite him.
I marveled at his touch and that a leader of these strange people washed my feet, on his strong knees before me, sliding his fingers between my toes, touching me as no one had touched me before, with the tenderness a mother or father shows to their child and no one else as far as I'd seen. My heart lurched under my tender breasts. Children were so rare and I didn't know if I was fertile.
He offered me his hand. I blinked and accepted it. He held my hand and we jumped into the pool. The water surged over us. Laughing, shocked with the coolness, I put my arms around his neck and held on. His skin felt smooth and good, my fingers knew joy at the feel of his strong shoulders. He smiled and held my waist, keeping me safe as I got used to the buoyant water and his touch. Close up, he appeared more handsome than I judged him at first, with a fringe of pale lashes over his moon-colored eyes. His lips seemed to grow fuller, almost feminine, and more sexual for that. They resembled Lirian's. I'd noticed her mouth because of its beautiful shape, as though two round berries kissed on her lower lip, so succulent, a split plum to bite. Did her sex look the same?
His lips parted, shining with water and he licked them with a long, pointed tongue.
How would it feel if he kissed me?
His erection brushed my navel under the water and he moved back, holding me at arm's length.
"Are you alright now?" His voice came out gruff.
"Yes." I hid behind my hair, surprised at his retreat. Surprised too, that I felt so sorry he'd stopped touching me with it. Others of his kind seemed interested in mating with me, but Koz acted as though he meant for me to remain a virgin.
He released me. I submerged, came up sputtering and copied his movements to stay afloat. He stopped treading water and rested on the water on his belly with his arms and legs splayed. I tried it and found I could float if I stayed still. I giggled.
"Better?" His voice had the gentle tone that made me feel as though he was petting my ears.
"Yes, better."
He took my hand and my heart fluttered, but he led me to the edge of the pool and helped me out of it. He stretched on a flat rock to dry so I did the same, giddy with pleasure, guilt receding to a distant nagging thought that there was something I was supposed to do.
We walked back to his tent. The camp felt empty. I suspected he'd mentally told the others to clear out. How did it feel to have such power? My plan to find out more about the invaders came back to me. He hadn't taken me, but he'd seduced me. I lost sense of all else in his presence, became un-moored, basking in his glow. His silvery being seemed the genuine him. Muscles aside, if I closed my eyes I felt him radiate kindness toward me, surrounding me with his protection, a giant shield extending in all directions. I wanted to rub up against him and feel his hands petting me all over. I shook myself out of it, made myself content with watching the play off light and shadow passing between tree trunks passing onto his brawny shoulders.
"How did you come to be stranded here?" I glanced at his face from the corner of my eye. His lips looked thinner. Did the aliens change forms in small ways all the time? When I was a child, I sometimes popped out in whiskers or a tail without meaning it.
"We were exploring. My team wanted to find one of our colonies from the past. Poisons we created in our world rendered our females infertile, that means--"
"I know what that means. Go on." My impatience with his speaking to me as though I were a slow child broke through in spite of his total power over me. I took a breath and reminded myself to be grateful that he got me out of the cage. I suspected the cruel one planned to leave me in there until he felt like killing me.
"We hoped we could loca
te the colony and revive ourselves, be able to have children again." A wistful expression transformed his alien face.
I felt for him, not just the forbidden stirrings I felt for my brother-in-law, but person to person. He felt about the absence of children as I did about the absence of a mate. But did he see a female as little more than a means to have children?
The bulge in his robe suggested he desired me as a potential mate. He might feel that way about anyone, Lirian, perhaps. But what did I know of aliens? Maybe he got hard throughout every day. I wished I didn't care if he felt for me. I stole another peek. In the soft state when he dried in the sun its girth surprised me. It thickened like a creature with a mind of its own, dancing on his thigh. I bet the tip dilated but I didn't dare get on my knees to find out.
The tingles between my legs intensified. I wasn't sure I believed him-- not the stories he told that made it seem his people might be good to mine, nor the story his body and eyes told of wanting me, as though I might become more to him than chattel.
"You, Rar? How do you come to be here?"
I stared at him. This was my place, where else would I be? Not in a ship sailing between the stars. I took a deep breath. I'd tell him the story of my people. The short version.
He sat on a rock and patted his knee. I hesitated, but I wanted to do it, sit there and let him hold me. With my fingers soothed by the feel of his strong back and my ass resting on his big thigh that was more comfortable than the bench he made, I told him our origin tale.
He listened with great attention, not interrupting.
"Thank you. That was wonderful." We walked to his tent in silence and reclined on the platform. I no longer feared it.
I averted my eyes. Aside from Lida, I'd never felt so close to anyone. But he was an invading stranger, an enemy. Did he have the same power as the other one, to fry brains?
"You like to watch." He stated it as a fact. The thin line of his lips didn't allow me to divine if he meant it as a taunt, a judgment, a challenge, or something outside my ken. I guessed his lips swelled like his cock when he felt desire. What did he feel now?
"Yes." He knew my secret. No point dissembling with an alien who can see into my brain, my poor, over-curious, in-danger-of-frying, brain.
He gestured at a tent wall and it stopped being. I can't explain it. He waved his big hand through the air and it the wall ended. Shining shapes filled its place; a big oval looking glass glowed like a tiger's eye in the dark. It brightened. I jumped back, aching to transform to defend myself.
"Calm, Rar." His tone came out between a command and a desire to soothe. I subsided. I couldn't transform anyway with their horrible 'serum' inside me.
My sister and Garhan! There in the glow, kissing in their bed. Had he moved the tent the way he said their ships moved through the stars? Was it some magic? Some trick? I edged toward the oval. From the corner of my eye I saw his hand wave. Their voices came to me.
"Garhan, yes, love me with your mouth."
Garhan caressed her ribs, her flanks, kissed her breasts, kissed her tummy and down to her mound. His big fingers opened her like a flower and he licked her right there the way he did when-- the curtains fluttered behind his dark head. Me! Me watching them. I covered my face. How could this mirror show what I did in the past?
Her hips shuddered as his face burrowed in her private place, his tongue lapping at her, his big hands gripping her ass to hold her to his mouth. Her hands grabbed his head, pushed him right to her bud. She bucked against his face, wild, crying out, arched high. She collapsed and he mounted her, rampant, a glistening drop on the tip of his thick cock, his face shining with her juice. His eyes glowed with desire. He held her legs wide open and pushed into her, making her gasp. So big! How did it fit in there? I couldn't look away.
A bang against the wall, me losing my balance outside the window. Lida and Garhan jerking up eyes wide, Garhan dismounting, leaping to see-- me, running away. He knows. Oh, no, he knows! I prayed they didn't see me. But if this vision was true, he saw me. He wouldn't mistake my back, my flying hair and scouting tunic that blended with the trees for anyone else.
Why did this alien shame me so? Did he delight in tormenting me? I wheeled on him, hands tensed like claws. I might not be able to transform, but I could scratch his face.
"It's true. What you saw is what happened. He knows you watched. And I know it wasn't the first time." He waved and the wall came back. I blinked, losing my ire in the wonder of it. How could I fight such an enemy? He'd fry my brain before I reached his face. I forced my hands to hold my thighs and stay put. I panted like my sister, filled with confusion, excitement, shame and rage. His silvery body, his bulge bigger than before the scene of Lida and Garhan mating, tilted my reaction to him to desire.
He raised his magnificent head, leonine, his posture on alert, eyes inward.
"Stay here." He ran out the door. I rushed to it, not daring to disobey, but hoping to see what was the matter from the threshold. In spite of danger, I kept going as far as I thought I could get away with. How could I face Garhan again? What if he told Lida? He probably did. Or would he laugh about it, the way some men did about sex things, and not think it worth mentioning?
Outside, two of the aliens, muscled males, though not as tall and massive as Koz, locked with each other. They shuffled in a circle, their hands locked around each other's silvery throats, faces stretched in grimaces. Kill-lust? Sport? An argument? I had no idea. Nothing about these people made sense to me. The thing that affected me the most, Koz's beauty, wasn't real, wasn't him. I kept reminding myself, because he drew me the way a candle flame draws a moth and singes it to death. I'd seen enough bodies wax pools to know better than approach him. Of course I knew better than to consider having an alien for a mate, didn't I? I held my hands to my burning cheeks to hide and cool them, my gaze locked on the battling males. Their fine cloth breech clouts covered their male equipment and nothing else. Their asses shined with sweat. All their muscles bunched with the effort to squeeze the breath out of each other. If this was normal, the way some boys fought for fun, Koz wouldn't run to them. He stood, near enough to to touch them, his massive arms crossed, observing.
In the confusion, I hadn't noticed the men appeared aroused. Maybe they liked to fight, or liked each other. I'd met women who chose each other, and a couple of men who preferred each other, too. But I'd never seen anything like this fight. The hands gripping throats looked dangerous, as though meaning to kill. Koz, though less revealed, appeared erect still.
One of the males went to his knees in the dirt, dust billowing up to his face and the other's thighs. His opponent didn't loosen his grip. The downed man gasped, choking, dust coating his lips and the spittle on his chin. The other choked him without mercy.
Koz stepped up to them, the force of his eyes glaring like the light of his looking glass before it showed me what I'd done. The murmurs of the onlookers stopped. The top man loosened his grip. The downed one rasped in breath with a wheeze, coughing and-- cussing, it sounded to me. Expressions shifted on faces. Koz must be communicating to everyone, but I couldn't hear it. It made me sad. Even if my crazy thoughts of-- us-- came true, I would always be outside, without hearing or sound for the way they spoke.
I slipped back to his platform and resumed my place, hoping he'd think I obeyed, but not daring to believe I'd be able to deceive him in anything. Couldn't that be a good thing? But he could kill me. And what relationship could survive without its little lies? I loved Lida, she raised me since our parents died, perishing of thirst in the desert when they went on an expedition to search for an oasis I found on a map in a scroll. She did everything she could to console me, telling me they were explorers long before I was born. They saved the scrolls when others would have burned them to destroy our shameful history, our collusion with destruction. They lit out again and again seeking a better place, land less blistered by poisons and the Last War. It wasn't my fault, she told me. But I knew if I hadn't taken the map to them
in my excitement, they wouldn't have died of thirst. In my mind's cave at night, the rasping sound of their parched voices saying their last words to each other burned me still. I collapsed in the pillows, burrowing my face into Koz's scent and wept.
"Rar?" The commander's voice, gentle, and tinged with an uncertainty that must be as unfamiliar to him as minding my own business was to me.
I raised my tear-tracked face. He opened his arms. I took a breath and launched my body against his. He enfolded me with his massive muscles. I heard his heart beat against my face. He has a heart. In that at least, he's like us.
Even if he is a brain-frying alien invader.
He chuckled. His eyes gave a slow feline blink with pleasure.
"I'll call you Ahspa, it means tawny in our language and stands for a beautiful jewel that glows like your eyes." He smiled, his eyes distant, as though he was seeing his home world, and the minerals and gems he missed there.
My back arched. If I was in tiger form, my fur would bristle. I liked, and didn't like, his naming me. How dare he take my name?
I forced myself to calm down. He didn't take my name. No one could do that. He gave me another one, one perhaps easier for him to pronounce or with meaning to help him relate to me, the way no foreign word, even one as well-suited as my classic mini growl, could do.
Still, it irritated me that he gave himself such liberties with me. I longed for tiger freedom to jump and climb and make the leaves shake with my voice. I needed to let out all the pent feelings inside me. I raced out of the tent.
"Rar!" He followed after me.
Running furious, I left him in my dust. I rushed through the aliens milling in the middle of their camp. I was tired of them being here, changing everything, threatening me and my people. I wanted them gone. I elbowed through them as through a meadow of tall grass. Damn them all. They moved away from me as people do from a person gone mad.
I slammed into the alien I rejected. He put his hand on my forehead and shoved me away. I landed on my ass, surrounded by an alien mob. Damn. Yeah, that was the way to handle a tough situation. Piss off a bunch of powerful invading aliens and get yourself knocked on your ass and surrounded.
