“I know,” I replied tonelessly.
He patted my shoulder and guided me inside. Mother was standing by the window, her eyes wide, and I knew she’d seen everything. The moment I entered, however, she hurried to get me something to drink, and Father sat me down at the table.
“What happened?” he asked in a low voice.
I shook my head, angry at the fresh memory. Everything had happened so quickly and had been exactly what I’d been afraid of happening. It was hard for me to process the events. I could still see the image of Pugna’ta’s face as she spotted Tabitha in my mind, the fury and the fear in her features. I knew that, had I not attacked her, she would have gone into the house and killed Tabitha herself, or at least taken her to the lock-up with the other humans.
“She came to persuade me into a relationship again, and she saw Tabitha in the window upstairs.”
“What?” Mother whispered, horrified, as she brought me a mug of what I presumed was vigibrach root tea.
“She said I was putting everyone at risk, the tribe and all the A’li-uud. She said she was going to tell the Council about Tabitha.” I shook my head again and stared into the mug of tea. Steam rose up and clouded my vision, but I didn’t care. “I lost control. I was angry, and I was scared.”
“She wouldn’t tell anyone,” Mother said. I looked up at her and saw the worry scrawled across her face. “Would she?”
I almost laughed at the notion that Pugna’ta wouldn’t go running to the Council about this. “Of course she will. I’d bet my Elderhood she’s on her way to P’otes-tat Ulti right now.”
Mother just stared at me with wide eyes, but Father asked, “How do the other Elders seem to feel about the humans?”
“They’re divided,” I said honestly. “Almost split down the middle. We all agree there is a potential risk to the A’li-uud if humans know about us, but there is contention about the level of risk—if any—if they don’t.”
“They’re going to destroy the ships in the galaxy,” Mother told Father. “Rex told me when he returned from Forum today.”
Father looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. “There has been no vote on what to do with the captive humans once we have everything we can get from them, though.”
“And the others do not know of Tabitha?” Father asked.
I breathed in a long, shaky breath, and then I shook my head with a hint of shame and an excess of defiance.
“Perhaps they wouldn’t mind,” Mother said hopefully. “They made you an Elder for a reason. They trust your judgment. Maybe they will understand your decision.”
“My decision, at first, is what I thought was best for the tribe,” I said. I was starting to get angry again, but my anger was at myself for even getting into this situation in the first place. “But she has stayed here because I knew she would not be safe if I put her into confinement with the others. Too many A’li-uud would consider her a danger for her knowledge of us now.”
“You haven’t kept her here because you wanted her here?” Mother asked knowingly.
I looked away. I felt a strange heaviness in my heart, and my innards seemed to be twisted up in fear. “It’s true. I wanted her here,” I murmured. It was the first time I had admitted my feelings out loud, and it both thrilled and scared me.
My mother moved to the side to catch my gaze. “Then, don’t you think the Elders would understand that?”
“It’s not a risk we can take,” Father answered brusquely. He seemed to have snapped into action. His posture was very straight, and he looked deadly serious. “We have to protect Tabitha.”
“Of course we do, but how do we—?”
“Take her to your house,” Father said, cutting my mother off mid-sentence. His eyes bore into mine with more intensity than I had ever seen before, and I realized just how much he, too, cared for Tabitha.
I looked back at him, feeling helpless for the first time in my Elderhood. “I can’t. I’ve kept her here this whole time because I can’t take her there. The staff and the guards could tell someone, and it could be a disaster.”
“The staff and the guards are the protection you need for her right now. They don’t need to know they’re protecting a human. They just need to protect.” Father lifted his eyebrows at me with insistence. “Take her to your house, son.”
“How am I supposed to get her into the house without anyone seeing?” I snapped. My fear was making me quick-tempered, and my heart was beating so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Mother reached forward and placed her hand lovingly over mine. When I looked at her, I saw a blend of worry and pride painted in her smoke-grey eyes.
“My boy,” she whispered. “You’re the king.”
10
Tabitha
When Rex came flying into the bedroom, I practically jumped out of my skin. He flew around in a frenzy, grabbing the pile of clothes Beni and I had made and even snatching up the burnt, ripped clothes I’d worn when the Paragon had crashed. I was so stunned I wasn’t even able to move from where I sat on the bed. I just watched him race around, gathering all my things and not saying a word.
“Rex,” I said tearfully after a minute of no conversation or acknowledgment. “What’s going on?”
“We have to get you out of here immediately,” he said. He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
“Why?” I asked, sliding off the bed.
He didn’t answer me, but the look on his face told me not to ask again. I just started grabbing the few things I’d accumulated since arriving that he’d missed. When we had everything, he jerked his head to motion for me to exit the room first. I did, hurrying down the stairs, where I found his mother and father in a tizzy as well. Beni was hovering over the two little ones and putting away the furs we had been working on while Rex’s father trotted up to me with a huge bag made of sabrecat skin. He held it out, and I dumped the things in my arms into it. Rex came up behind me and dropped his gatherings into it as well. Then, he took the bag from his father and slung it over his shoulder.
“Be safe,” his father whispered, giving him a quick, one-armed hug.
Beni bustled over to him as well and threw her arms around his neck, murmuring, “I love you, my son.”
Rex opened the door, and I started to walk through it, but, before I could, Beni threw her arms around me as well. She pulled me to her warm body, and I could feel her trembling slightly.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispered in my ear as she hugged me.
I felt tears prick in my eyes, and I felt a heavy weight of sorrow in my chest even though I didn’t know what was happening. “I love you, Beni.”
“I love you too, sweet girl,” she said softly. She kissed me delicately on the cheek, and then she let me go. Rex’s father stepped forward and hugged me briefly as well, but he didn’t say a word. It looked like speaking would cause him pain. When he released me, Rex nudged my arm with his knuckles, and I walked out of the house into the sunset.
We hurried silently down the walk. When we reached the fencepost where I’d sat on my first day here, Rex stopped talking. He turned to me, and his face was grave.
“What I have to do is against A’li-uud law,” he said without preface. “I don’t know if it will even work, but we have to try.”
“What are we doing?” I asked nervously.
He looked out over the landscape as though ensuring nobody was within earshot, despite there not being another tribal home for miles, and then turned back to me and said, “We are going to fly on the winds.”
“That’s not against the law. You do that to get to the Forum.”
“It is against the law to take someone with me,” he said. “And I assume the law is especially unkind to taking humans.”
I swallowed hard. “Does it—will it hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt me, but I don’t know what it will do to you,” he replied. He was sincere, but the answer frightened me anyway.
I gritted my teeth and nodded. He held out
his hand to me, and I took it. The feeling of his skin against mine was divine, even in the uncertain and terrifying circumstances, and I recalled the sensation of having his palm pressed against my cheek. I closed my eyes and took in a breath.
And then I was flying.
I heard everything and nothing at the same time. It was like having wind rushing in my ears and complete silence all at once. Bird chirps, rustling grass and prairie stallions galloping all seemed to sound repeatedly, but the sounds disappeared the moment I heard them and left me wondering if I even heard anything at all. I could still feel Rex’s hand in mine, but it had no pressure or temperature. It just existed. I was too scared to open my eyes, and even when everything suddenly came to a halt, and I was jolted to a stop, I kept my eyes closed.
“Come,” Rex murmured. I could feel his body up against mine now, pressed so closely that the heat of his front radiated up and down my back. Slowly, anxiously, I parted my eyelids.
We were in front of a house constructed of the same things as his parents’, but it was much larger and grandiose in its size and architecture. My jaw actually fell open as I took in the burbling fountain before us, made of something like marble but much more exquisite and standing well over ten feet tall. The house itself was palatial, with massive, extravagant windows and beautiful balconies strung with strange, glittering lights.
I didn’t have time to take in any more than that, though, before Rex ushered me forward. He was walking quickly but quietly, and I wondered if we were breaking into someone’s home. He silently opened one of the double doors which served as an entrance. They were large enough to have been the doors of an old English abbey.
It was dark inside, but I was able to see there was a staircase before us so grand that I felt unworthy to step up on it. I didn’t have a choice, though. He grabbed my hand and ran up the steps with me in tow. Once we reached the landing, he looked each and every way—for what, or whom, I didn’t know—before tugging me to the right. We raced down a long, wide corridor with portraits of A’li-uud lining the walls before coming to another set of huge double doors. He opened them, practically shoved me through, and shut them behind us. I heard the click of a lock before he turned to face me.
“What’s going on?” I asked him again for the first time since in the bedroom at his parents’ home.
“I’m keeping you safe,” he replied. He grabbed onto an armoire so big I could probably stand inside and twirl and started to pull. It moved an inch, and he yanked again. I hurried to the other side and pushed, and it began to give. I kept quiet until he straightened up again, and I realized we had moved the armoire in front of the doors.
He wasn’t done, though. He went to a vanity of matching wood and pattern as the armoire and started to shove it toward the doors, too. I didn’t help with this one. Instead, I pushed for answers.
“What do you mean, keeping me safe?” I asked. “From what?”
“Pugna’ta saw you,” he grunted, shoving his shoulder up against the vanity as it eased its way across the floor.
“Who?”
He huffed as he got the piece of furniture in front of the doors as he wanted and turned to me. “Pugna’ta. She’s one of my warriors, and she saw you today.”
“Oh,” I said slowly, realizing who he was talking about. “The woman that came to your parents’ house.”
“Yes,” he said, walking across the room. I realized for the first time since entering that we were in a bedroom of such a size it would likely hold Beni’s entire house and all of the things in it. He sat on the bed and looked at me, and he had such a defeated expression on his face that my heart actually ached. “She and I have a history she’s always trying to rekindle. That’s why she came by. She saw you in the window, and she’s going to the Council to tell them about you.”
My throat seemed to constrict at the news, but I tried to remain calm as I asked, “Why is that so bad?”
Rex’s eyes narrowed at me through the darkness. “You don’t understand. There are Elders who will have you killed, or will kill you themselves, the minute they hear about you.”
“I thought you have to vote on things like that,” I squeaked.
“There are those who would prefer to do first and pay later,” he said. He got to his feet and walked to me until we were only inches apart. “I won’t let that happen.”
I looked up at him, shaking slightly with a new and powerful burst of adrenaline. “Where are we?”
“This is my house,” he said, waving a hand around. “Well, it’s the house of the kingdom’s Tribe Elder. I don’t own it.”
I nodded in understanding as my mind raced with fears and questions. I could feel his eyes on my face, but I didn’t look up at him until I found the voice to ask my next query. “Couldn’t we just go to the Forum? Together, I mean. I could talk to the other Elders myself.”
His face, somehow, grew even more serious than it had been since he’d burst into the bedroom at his parents’ house. He said, “Tabitha, you would never get out of there alive. Like I said, there are Elders who would kill you the moment they saw you, and, even if they were able to restrain themselves long enough to hear anything you said, they would kill you after that just because you know so much about our kind and our world.”
“So what?” I asked. My voice sounded about an octave higher than normal in my gradually rising panic. “Why does it matter if I know anything about A’li-uud or Albaterra or you or anything? What could I possibly do to hurt anyone?”
He shook his head, and I saw a mournful look take over his face. “It’s not about what threat you pose individually, Tabitha. It’s about what threat you pose as a species.”
I felt as defeated as he had looked just moments before. He had an answer to every single one of my questions, and no answer was something we could work with. There was a dead end no matter which way I spun it. I felt hopeless, helpless, and tired.
“Wait,” I said suddenly. “What does this mean for you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Won’t you be in trouble for protecting me? I mean, especially if that girl tells the Council about me and they put a—a hit out on me or something. Wouldn’t you be in trouble for, I don’t know, obstructing justice or something like that?”
He looked back at me silently, and I felt my head start to swim. I was right. He was facing serious consequences for what he was doing for me.
“The ones who would kill me,” I whispered, terrified to ask the question I was about to ask but even more terrified to hear the answer. “Would they kill you, too?”
Again, he just looked at me, and it was as if the walls around me were caving in. My heart stopped in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat. Black spots danced in my vision. I couldn’t hear anything except for his breathing.
“No,” I murmured. My voice started growing louder with each word I spoke. “No. You can’t do this. They can’t do this. I won’t let them!”
With a cry of distress, I leaped forward. He caught me in the air, and I threw my arms around his neck. Our lips crushed together in a kiss so deep and so passionate that I realized I had never truly been kissed before. I tasted him, tasted the fruit of Albaterra on his lips, and relished the way his tongue intertwined with mine. My legs curled around his waist, and I felt his hands take hold of my rear end, keeping me held aloft. Suddenly, we were moving, but I knew nothing except for him. Our mouths were fused as one, and I felt his soul meeting mine.
I loved him. I was no longer falling in love with Rex; I loved him, and the very thought of him meeting his end to protect me brought tears to my eyes. They spilled down my cheeks in torrents and made both of our faces slick as we kissed, falling deeper and deeper into one another. I wept against his lips and finally released the fear, the uncertainty, and—above all—the love I’d kept bottled up ever since I’d landed in a fiery heap on Albaterra.
“I can’t let you do this,” I sobbed, breaking the kiss in my failed efforts to rest
rain myself from saying the words. I became dimly aware he was carrying me across the room toward the bed. “I can’t let you die for me.”
“I have no choice,” he said hoarsely. He wasn’t watching where he was walking. He just kept his eyes pinned to me. “Without you, there’s no life to live anyway.”
I looked back at him, our eyes searching each other, and then I kissed him again with fervor. He kissed me back, his tongue gliding over my lower lip, skimming the path of my teeth, just as we tipped backward onto the bed.
11
Rex
“The ones who would kill me,” Tabitha whispered. “Would they kill you, too?”
I stared back at her, unable to form the words to answer her. My ears were pricked for any noise that would give warning of incoming danger. If she hadn’t been looking at me with such desperation, I would have been pacing the room and looking out of each of the windows intermittently. When I didn’t respond, her face crumpled.
“No. No. You can’t do this. They can’t do this. I won’t let them!”
She cried out and sprang toward me, and I reached for her. She landed in my arms, and, the next thing I knew, we were kissing. I felt her legs wrap around my waist, but I couldn’t process anything other than her. She tasted exactly as I imagined the heavens would taste if I could pluck one of the lavender clouds from the sky. I was filled with that same sweet, delicate scent of hers I smelled every night as we slept beside each other.
I carried her to the bed, and we fell onto the mattress clumsily. Her lips were against mine in furious passion and carnivorous lust. I blindly reached for her clothes and ripped them from her. I was so hungry for her I was sure I wouldn’t survive it if I didn’t have her. She reciprocated rolling my pants down my legs, whipping them off, and throwing them to the side carelessly. Through the darkness, I could see her eyes widen as they focused on my nether region, and I looked down too. I was erect and ready.
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