by Viv Phoenix
I batted away a crazy urge to call Koz with my mind. It wasn't his job to keep me out of trouble, it was mine. I was an adult and a scout of my people.
Holding my head high, I rose to my feet, raising my hands out from my sides and moving slow in hopes of avoiding violence.
The hard-eyed, angry alien glowered over my head, his eyes distant. All sounds and movement ceased.
I looked at the rapt faces and knew something momentous happened.
Koz reached my side, huffing, and wiped dust off his nose. He glanced at me and stepped between me and his leader. I tugged on his robe as though less than half my age.
"What, what is it?"
His voice came into my mind with great gentleness. Simod is our captain. He decrees death for your people.
I rushed past him into the circle of aliens to face the angry captain. I'd practiced not thinking, not visualizing intentions for such a moment. Koz hadn't anticipated me and I moved too fast for him to stop me.
With all my force, I used my silent voice. Our lives, the lives of all my people, depended on it.
Stop. Listen. We are people. Our lives matter. I'm sorry you got stranded here. That must be horrible for you, from what I've learned of your world and your ship, I feel for your losses. We can help you learn our world and live here. Let us share this place and make it better. Exhausted by the effort, I paused. I braced my hands on my knees, panting. Koz stepped to my side and rested his hand on my lower back, showing his claim, possessive and protective.
The aliens stood silent and motionless. All eyes stared at me, as shocked as we might be if a non-shifting monkey spoke in our tongue.
I succeeded, I hoped, in startling them, making them see us as people, too, people who could communicate in their way, however much it cost me.
"They will listen." Koz used his command voice, though he didn't need to vocalize to them. It was a courtesy to me, a demand for respect, allowing me to use my natural voice to continue.
I took a deep breath and began our origin story, augmenting it with images from my mind as much as I could. I made my voice gentle and lilting, a song spoken into the wind to soothe children or the mad. It was the greatest effort of my life.
Lirian stepped forward and stood at my other side, lending me her strength in some unknown way. I sensed her apology for dosing me with the serum. I stood taller and my voice and images poured forth stronger, my story reaching everyone. She took my hand with her long, cool fingers. My images grew brighter, more detailed. I felt them reaching the people around me. No longer aliens, people, living here with us.
I sent them an image of all of us living here side by side, building-- and, I blushed as I showed my feelings for Koz-- loving.
I bowed my head, praying with all my heart for them to stop the captain's decree of torture and genocide. Their fabric rustled as they shifted, their usually placid faces thin-lipped, staring at Simod.
If you must kill anyone, kill me. Spare my people, I beg you, I cried to them in their silent way. I dropped to my knees. Lowering my head, as before a more powerful shifter, I begged for their mercy. If they were going to kill us, I prayed they killed me first. I couldn't stand to watch Lida and Garhan, Wizen and Miren, our few precious children or anyone else die because of me. Koz and Lirian stepped closer to me, their bodies touching me on each side. The radiance from their silvery skins soothed me, as though together they'd protect me from all their shipmates if need be. If I had to die, at least I had people who seemed to care at my side.
A whistling as of wind through the trees rose from the crowd. Approval, it seemed to be their signal of approval. My heart lifted with hope. Koz and Lirian raised me to my feet and then to their shoulders above the crowd. Tears flowed down my face. They heard me!
Captain Simod approached with a look of wonder on his face, like someone who witnessed a lame child taking a step.
"Forgive us. We didn't know." His speech came out slow, husky. He wasn't used to vocalizing, nor apologizing. I sensed he felt dazed to be addressing someone he'd viewed as a beast.
I nodded, uncertain what to think, or how I felt. I kept the lid tight on my thoughts, my revulsion that he'd attack someone he thought of as helpless and inferior. No letting emotion ruin the accord I'd worked so hard to achieve. People shifted around us, stepping closer to stare at me, reminding me of rare book page photos of people gaping at animals in zoos.
The captain lifted his hands.
"We will spare them. I decree no one shall harm these people. Killing any animal, whether you believe it to be capable of communication or not, shall be punished by death."
I breathed my relief that he'd closed the loophole that might allow a guard with bloody hands to say he was hunting and hadn't meant to murder a shifter.
Lirian squeezed my hand in both of hers. I sensed she felt desire for me and I blushed. She cleared her throat.
"I completed my tests this morning, Captain." Her voice conveyed criticism that he made his initial decision to exterminate us before consulting her. "Rar has given more than sufficient evidence of her people's right to equality under our laws. I wish to bolster her fine argument that there are crucial reasons for us to live in peace for the betterment of us all." She waited for everyone's attention. "Based on my tests, this planet's inhabitants may be compatible with us." The whistles drowned out the last word. Hope, a future. I squeezed my new friends' hands.
In the haven of Koz's tent, I rested beside him on his bed, taking slow, deep breaths to ease the headache from the silent speaking and all the image-sending.
Koz sat beside me, moving restlessly. The security commander seemed unaccustomed to inactivity. I felt flattered he chose to remain inside, rather than joining the others in their celebration outside the tent's magical walls.
"What did Lirian mean, compatible?"
He sighed. I strained and picked up a glimmer from him, reticence to broach this subject. Learning to meet minds reminded me of practicing with a slingshot to scare away rogue animals. My muscles burned for hours and my elbow screamed from the first few sessions. After days of practice, I got good at it and could sling fist-sized stones without pain.
He shifted his weight and cleared his throat. He seemed to decide against vocalizing.
We collected your genetic material-- that's, he flipped through images and ideas so fast I felt queasy, the poetry of who you are in your physical being, what makes one of you tawny in coloring and a tiger shifter, another dark-eyed and an eagle. We ran many tests to check for compatibility and it's possible we may be able to-- breed-- successfully with you. I mean, your people, in your human forms. He recrossed his long, strong legs at the knees and flexed his huge feet, distracting me.
"Oh." What could I say. Breed. The aliens seemed to be engaged in animal husbandry. I pushed down my defenses. Koz found our language strange and had to stretch to express his meaning. He couldn't know how cold and unromantic breeding sounded for the act of two people becoming intimate.
The import of Lirian's report seeped into me. Oh. That meant the entire future of our two peoples, total strangers to one another, now depended on each other for our shared hopes of preventing extinction. And it meant-- I did my best to prevent any image in my mind-- I might be able to have Koz's baby, if he wanted me.
That alert look came over his face and his shoulder muscles bunched in preparation to respond to duty. He bounded off the platform and strode to the door.I suspected a sense of relief at his chance to escape this conversation. Was he faking it? No, I didn't think he'd go that far. He was their security commander. He had to monitor what went on beyond his tent and respond as needed-- no matter how many urgent questions I had. I felt sad that he was so eager to leave. Were males locked in combat again? I wanted to see.
"Stay," he commanded. He put on a short tunic and buckled a belt with a thick baton around his hips.
"Rahr," I answered in my mini-growl, a pale version of my tiger voice, angry that he spoke to me as to a trained pet.
I was not that, never that, no matter how beautiful he was in his chosen shape, the damned, arrogant male.
He strode to the door and out into the camp without looking back. His delicious rear view didn't help my temper. His light tunic clung to the firm peaches of his ass. My hands longed to grab them and squeeze. Would they have a light down like Garhan's, or was the alien flesh smooth as a plum? My mouth watered. Relief replaced my pique as I realized Koz had supplanted my brother-in-law in my desires.
I counted to three and went to the door. This time, I wouldn't obey like a guard dog. I was a tiger. I'd bite his luscious ass until he yelped, teach him not to speak to me that way again. Damn him for having all the power. We'd see about that.
Maybe it didn't matter if he could kill me. I didn't think he could bear it. Something in him went tender at the thought of babies. And I caught that look on his face more than once when he looked at me. I must look so small to him, with his great height and muscles thicker than my thighs. He may come from a war-like, cold people, but he was not cold himself. Maybe he was as much an outsider amid his kind as I was in mine.
I followed him. I admit it, my eyes glazed with passion. I'd awakened next to him from a dream of his mouth hot and urgent on me, kissing lower and lower on me as Garhan did to my sister.
Fevered, I locked my gaze on his magnificent body, his erect posture, his massive arms, back and legs. I wanted to feel him on me.
I opened to the truth, the shape he chose expressed him the same as my shapes expressed me. It didn't matter than he could choose from many. I saw him. Seeing him gave me pleasure beyond anything I'd imagined.
The males surrounded me without my having sensed their approach. I cursed myself for an idiot. I, a scout, in the invaders' territory, allowed them to catch me inattentive.
Oh, no. Did they sense my mind's contents the way Koz did? My body felt akin to when I went into heat in tiger form. Damn. I might as well have called them to me, and right after Lirian's announcement that mating with us could create the offspring their people needed.
The nostrils of their small noses dilated. Along with my thoughts, they smelled my arousal. Their circle tightened, cutting off escape, even if I was strong enough to try it. Twelve of them, one of me. In human shape, weakened from the serum that kept me from shifting, from my efforts to reach their minds, and the stress of trying to save my people's lives, I stood no chance against them. Their tunics billowed toward me like offering flags on the tips of their mighty erections.
Damn, oh, damn. They reached for me, their hands making first contact as their cocks wished to do.
"Rar." I bared my puny human teeth. The unmusical sounds bursting from them in my mind must be laughter.
A tall one in front of me reached between my legs. Unthinking, I leaned over and bit him. He yelled and cuffed me. Another one grabbed my hips and yanked me against his groin, only my tunic and his robe between my virginity and his erection. All of them grabbed at me, gripping my arms so hard I yelled. They pulled my legs wide as a wishbone, lifting me off my feet. I screamed and spat at them.
"Raahhhrr."
The male roar made my teeth vibrate. There were no tiger males left, nor lions. How could this be? I couldn't see past the aliens surrounding me. Huge hands gripped two of the attacker's heads and knocked them together like eggs. The sound made my stomach lurch. Koz kicked and punched, emitting an unvoiced growl that made my eyes water. The men's erections wilted. Many of them fled. The ones too stunned or stupid to stop touching me, my defender pummeled to the ground. Koz beat them down, growling my name in a powerful frenzy of punches and kicks. His huge body performed a punishing dance awe-inspiring as storm waves. His face radiated a glorious pleasure in the righteous desire to make them pay for putting their hands on me. The most persistent males lay groaning at our feet, clutching their genitals, their heads, their broken hands. He lifted me in his arms, buried his face in my neck and nipped me.
"Rar, Rar, Rar." My name became love in his mouth. "I told you to stay."
"That's why I left." He tilted his head back and shifted me to see my face. He pursed his lips and half-closed his eyes, seeking, I suspected, my meaning from inside me. He bobbed his head, signifying that he got it.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It's our way, my way, from a life in command. I'm not used to, well, adjusting to a female. Will you forgive me? I'll try to make my meaning clear in future." He shut his eyes, thinking. "And ask you for your cooperation. Try to understand, when I command you, for I will again, it is meant with-- honor," he tasted the word, "and concern for your wellbeing. Not to-- denigrate you." He buried his face in my neck.
I suspected that cost him a great deal to formulate and express, that he was a man unused to explaining himself. And based on his reactions to the men who seemed to have gang-rape in mind, he was unused to insubordination-- and wouldn't suffer it from anyone.
He squeezed me close and raised his face from my fevered skin. He cast blazing glances in all directions. The men at our feet flinched at the force of his mind.
This female inhabitant is Rar. She is under my protection. No one may touch her. Do not seek to harm her in any way. Do not attempt to molest, interfere, or mate with her, or I will rip your testicles off your bodies. His eyes reddened with his ferocity.
I quivered from the force of his announcement. His possessiveness and desire to protect me thrilled me.
He carried me inside his tent, his arms cradling my shoulders and ass. My panting breaths rasped out of my chest faster and faster. I pressed my nails into his back and licked the side of his face. I arched my back so high he almost dropped me. I nipped his throat. I had no idea how females of his kind signaled the urge to mate. He set me on his bed and patted me all over my body, checking for injuries.
What, what is it, are you alright? In his agitation he spoke in my mind as he had before.
Touch me, Koz, touch me. I willed it with all my being. His eyes widened. He pressed his hands to each side of my face. Joy transformed his face. We thought you were dumb. It amazes me you speak as we do. More than what you showed everyone in response to the captain's decree, you show me you, all of you, without holding back. Admiration poured from him.
My head pounded from the effort. I blushed from his praise. I supposed even people able to speak mind to mind knew subterfuge and lying. My unedited desire for him must be something new to him. A rush of fear took me. How would I seem to him, so inexperienced and unknowing? I hoped I wouldn't disappoint him.
"You don't disappoint me, Rar. Be you, that's all I want, love." He squeezed me with his massive arms and rocked me close with his entire body.
I soared inside with the wondrous feeling. He kissed my neck, my face, soft kisses with his lips swelling. He slid my body lower.
I felt his hardness pressing against me; I spread my legs and pulled my clothes out of the way.
He shuffled to the platform and lowered me onto it. I positioned myself to welcome him, opening myself with my fingers as I saw Lida do. He hissed in his breath.
His eyes glowed with desire. He lowered his weight, easing himself into me with great care, sliding through my virginity with the slickness from us both. I gasped as he pierced me. Oh, impossible, so huge. He watched my face, held still.
Yes, yes, yes. Keep on, Koz. Keep on.
He pressed on. He stretched me, filled me. He waited, searching my eyes.
Yes, please, take me.
Unfamiliar words poured from him into my mind, a poem of pleasure in a new language. Transported by his desire radiating through me, I responded to his rocking motion, rising up to meet him, taking him deeper, loving him, reveling in the delicious pleasure pouring through me with the motion of his cock far inside me, his hands and body and mouth treasuring me, his entire being cherishing me. At last, I found my mate at last.
Yes, yes, yes, Koz's words flowed through me with his joy.
As his need intensified he pinned me with his powerful arms and took me
like the warrior he was, his hips pummeling me, his big hands shackling me to his bed. Being trapped made me free. I ground against him in heat, unfettered by embarrassment, breaking out of my fears of sex to open to him and be the sensual tigress I was born to be.
I arched to meet him in a frenzy. I pushed my heels against his ass pulling him in. He released my hands. I clawed his back. He moaned and pounded me harder, his body high on me, putting friction on my bud. I shuddered and cried out.
"Koz!" Juice spurted from me as he flooded me with his seed.
I nestled against his firm chest in the shelter of his arms. I stroked him all over, soft and slow, as though he were a kitten. He did have fine down on his fine ass. It delighted me to discover it with my exploring fingers.
I woke before the dawn. Watched him breathe, marveling at the miracle of him as though I'd brought him into being. The wonder and pleasure of his existence and our coupling left me languorous. One thought disrupted my peace.
Did he want to stay with me as much as I wanted to stay with him? Was such happiness possible, even if it meant my people would think I betrayed them?
Yes. Yes, I want to stay with you. I want you with me forever, Rar, my mate.
"You eavesdropping, brain-frying alien bastard!" I smiled, minding my alien's invasion, but not minding.
"The better to command you to please me, my love." The rumble in his voice was a tiger's.
Things felt all mixed up. My people were safe now. No matter what anyone might think of what I'd done, I believed I saved us. I prayed so.
"What do you do with your victims after you fry their brains?" I propped myself up on my elbow to watch his expression.
"We eat them, of course." He flicked his pointed silvery tongue over his lips. His lips swelled like Lirian's. His cock tented the covers.
