Allowing the strong streams of water to wash the soap off his body, he recalled the first time his cat had awakened within him, how afraid he’d been that night. The orphanage had sent him and several other teenagers to a summer camp for underprivileged children. He’d woken up that night bathed in perspiration, restless, the urge to leave the cabin too great to resist. Quietly he’d snuck out and gone into the dark woods. Once there, his cat had surfaced. That first shift was painful and, at first, had scared the living hell out of him. He still remembered how his voice had changed, the growls that came from his throat as bones popped and skin stretched and changed. Once the change was complete, he’d felt as free as a bird and he’d roamed the forest all night, returning just before daybreak. It had taken him a while to will his body to change back to human, and it had hurt like all bloody hell, too. Then he’d tried to make sense of it. He’d read about shifters, but never in a million years thought they could be real.
Damn, this can’t be a dream. How can I remember vivid events from my teenage years in a dream? He stepped out from beneath the cold stream of water, and like the other three men, sat on the ledge to dry off. There wasn’t any sun to speak of but it was warm, humid. He dried quickly. Following the others’ lead, he returned to the bowls behind the falls and oiled his body.
Suddenly he noticed their gazes on him. They scrutinized him from head to toe and back again. Why? Had he done something wrong? He held his hands up questioningly. But they just smiled and shook their heads.
They were probably mesmerized by my black skin shining like polished ebony.
The three men sat on the ledge again so he sat next to them. He had no clue what to do, what would be next. All he could do was follow their example.
Darkness fell fast. Below, he saw lit torches, a bonfire and shadows flitting about. Before long, brightly lit torches illuminated the compound. Music drifted up to him. It was a strange, haunting melody, not one he recognized. Where does the music come from? More technology that had survived their crash so many years ago?
A horn sounded, almost like a trumpet. The three men stood. He followed their example and tailed them down to the compound, to the circle that awaited them and him.
Tirzah stood with two other women behind the fire in the center. Her hair was curly, set off by a coronet of flowers atop her head. He noticed the elders in the shadows, seated at a table, behind them. A gong sounded. The three women danced. Their bodies, like his, shone in the firelight from the oils. He only had eyes for Tirzah. The dance was provocative, alluring, tantalizing. His cock rose to the occasion and throbbed with desire. Tirzah and the other women bent before them, their heads almost touching the ground, their hair swinging from side to side. He drank in the sight of her pussy, those virginal lips, no longer virginal but still appearing as if they were—the moisture trickling between the crevices. Her opening was exposed, wide open, inviting, pulsing for entry.
Oh, my God! I’m just supposed to stand here and watch this? Inwardly he groaned, his cock ready to burst. The women straightened suddenly and stood still. The elders approached and motioned for the four men to join them. Two men joined one of the women while he and the other man joined their mate. Apparently, one woman had chosen two mates. Tirzah crossed her arms before her and held them out to him. He watched the other men, copied them, and crossed his arms, resting his hands on Tirzah’s.
The elders approached. They wound a delicately woven vine laced with exotic flowers around each couple’s wrists, and around all the wrists of the woman and her two men.
They stepped back.
“Do you take this woman for your life mate?” they asked looking at each man.
Cain was pleased they’d used the translating devices. “Yes, forever,” he said softly.
“According to the laws of Alishur, you are bound to each other as human and as cat. This will be written in the book of joining and may never be broken.”
Their laws, it seemed, were the same as those on Earth—except for the woman with two husbands. Their vows were slightly different.
“You have our permission to initiate the mating ceremony.”
Tirzah withdrew her hands, and along with the other two women, she darted away. It was hard to pinpoint her in the shadows until he saw the women shift into their cats. Three white cats leaped the fence.
The music continued, people danced, sang, shouted and drank. What the drink was, he didn’t know. It kind of resembled wine, but had a very fruity taste to it.
Suddenly, his ears perked. He heard the mating call of his beloved. He was sure that’s what it was because his cat craved to emerge. He hurried to the wall, stood behind it for a few moments and listened again. Without further ado, his bones popped, his skin stretched and he shifted. He saw the other men had shifted into big white cats. One of them jumped the wall. He followed. His mate called him, urged him on. For the first time in his life, he felt the mating urge of his cat, the need to copulate with a female. Not just any female—he wanted, needed Tirzah.
Cain was amazed he could still think like a human, want like a human, yet the animal instinct urged him on. He leaped, he ran, he followed her scent and found her writhing on the ground. To his animal eyes, she was totally provocative, alluring. He nipped at her playfully only to receive a swipe from her claws. The foreplay continued for a while, until she crouched on the ground, her tail high and quivering. She howled and raised her rump, uttering the mating call that urged him on. Her front paws scratched the ground and her head turned sideways, rubbing the earth beneath it.
She crawled forward, pushed her ass up as he approached and raised her rump again.
Oh, my God, he needed her right then, more than ever. He pounced on her, flattening her to the ground. Playfully, he nibbled at her, licked her. She rolled over, then lay on her belly again, her ass up, tail up and quivering. Grabbing her at the nape of the neck with his teeth, he forced her head down, then mounted her and forced his cat cock inside. She growled softly, but was it a purr? He grasped her sides with his front legs.
Several thrusts and he was done, his come shot inside her. He waited, still holding her down with his teeth, before he pulled out slowly. He felt the barbs tear at the insides of her vagina and she snarled, but instinctively he knew that it stimulated her into ovulation. He knew that this night he could have impregnated her.
Oh, my God! She could be pregnant after this. Will it work? Will our species mingle and procreate?
Within a few minutes, his blonde nymph stood before him.
“Cain?”
He shifted out of his cat and stood before her, drank in her fragile appearance and took her into his arms. “Yes, babe?”
“We are joined forever.”
“Yes, seems that way.” He reached for her and took her into his arms.
“Maybe I will have our litter.”
“Litter sounds crude. And if you did conceive, let’s call it a baby. You told me a shifter is born human, right? Doesn’t change until puberty?”
“Yes, a baby. Maybe more than one.”
“Not quite how I imagined becoming a father. But I’m happy all the same. We’re legal now in the eyes of your people. Now we have to become legal in the eyes of my people, or…the people on Earth. Before we can do that, I need to get you papers, a last name, a birth certificate and social insurance number. The sooner we return, the better. I need to get started on making plans.”
“First, I want to make love with my mate. All night. Sex as cat is not the same. It is too fast and it hurts.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Each time we make a baby, it will hurt.”
“We won’t be making that many babies. I’ve heard from other people, they’re expensive little critters.”
“Expensive? Meaning it costs a lot of your currency to raise a baby?”
“Yes. A whole lot.”
“But we live for many, many years.”
“And that’s yet another problem we have to face. How do we explain living for a few hundred years? How long have your people been on Earth? I don’t see anyone who could be over the age of fifty, yet the elders must be a couple of hundred years old.”
He was eager to take her to bed, but his mind roiled with the problems ahead. An island. If he could raise enough money with the stones to buy a private island, that could be a solution. Trying hard to put the worries out of his head for now, he swung her into his arms and returned to the compound.
“Where do we sleep tonight, baby?”
“In my room.”
Her younger siblings, too young for the celebrations, giggled and whispered when he carried her into her home. “Is there no place we can be alone? Where is your room?”
“Up the stairs. I share my room with some of my brothers and sisters.”
“No privacy?”
“Cain, they see people mate all the time. It’s okay.”
“Not by my standards. I’m not about to put our love on display. Kids will be kids and curiosity kills the cat, or in this case, the libido.”
“I don’t understand.”
“On Earth, we don’t make love openly. At least not in my culture. It’s something that’s private, between lovers. Unless you’re into kinky stuff.”
“Kinky?”
“I’ll explain that some other time. Let’s go back to the party.”
Wriggling out of his arms, she jumped to the floor and looked up at him. She looked incredibly sexy in the flickering light of the torch on the wall and though he didn’t relish putting on an exhibition, he was horny as hell.
“No! If we go back to the celebrations, it would mean shame for me. This is officially our marriage night. We are expected to copulate as humans now to fulfill our vows.”
“Okay, then we’ll just lie in each other’s arms and cuddle,” he said, but claimed her sweet lips before she pulled him by the hand to her sleeping area.
Chapter Ten
A few days later, the elders summoned them. “It has been decided. Opek and Henke will join you,” they told them.
It was barely daybreak. They would get an early start. Calira had removed Tirzah’s implant. She no longer needed it, having mastered English completely. The implants would be shared by others so they could learn whatever English the elders and Calira had learned.
Tirzah and Cain were ready to depart. He had not counted on any of the others going along, especially Opek.
“We want to know if any other members of the forbidden tribe are on your planet. Tirzah is young. Her telepathic abilities have not yet fully developed. We may be able to locate them, if any are alive.”
“Wouldn’t you already know that if your telepathy is so strong?” Cain asked.
“Our telepathy can reach quite far, but we don’t know how far your home is. The distance might be too great.”
“America is a big place, then there is Canada, Alaska, and many other countries across the ocean.”
“If we go to where you were found, we might be able,” Henke told him. “Tirzah, how did you know Cain was a shifter?”
“I scented him. But he was not far from me. He doesn’t have telepathic abilities.”
“His telepathy is just showing itself. He, too, is very young, and he hasn’t been raised among the people of the forbidden tribe. It will strengthen.”
“I wish you’d stop calling them forbidden. Why not just call them black cats? If any are alive and living on Earth, I’m sure they’ve evolved and adapted to our way of living,” Cain said.
“Alright, Cain. From now on, we call them the black tribe. Tirzah was right when she said the animosity between our tribes is all ancient history.”
Cain was glad their attitude had changed, even though he doubted they’d find other black cat shifters. He shifted into his cat, the harness tightening as his bones, muscles and skin popped when his cat came out. The two elders wore a harness, too, because they’d decided to take some of their working instruments along.
* * * *
After traveling for days, they came to the spot where they were to meet the boat. According to Cain’s calculations, they were right on time. They changed to human form. Cain opened his backpack, glad he’d taken it to shore now as it contained some of his clothing. A pair of shorts, a pair of jeans and some t-shirts. They would fit the two men. He handed them the items. Unfortunately, he had no extra shoes or sandals, not even in the duffel bag he’d left on the boat. He put on his own clothes and watched Tirzah dress, her frown telling him how she hated putting on clothes again. Inwardly, he laughed. Maybe they’d have to join a nudist colony.
“We should have listened to you and Calira,” Opek told Henke, “and explored further. Assuming the savages populated the whole planet was stupid.”
“It was, I guess, but with most of our equipment destroyed, no way to truly navigate, what else could we do? We did go quite far, but inland, further into the forest. We should have followed the river, like Tirzah. It’s hindsight now. But it’s going to be very difficult for Cain to blend us into the population since our numbers have grown.”
Cain joined the conversation. “You’re right, but even if you’d found our cities, how could you have gone undetected? You would have needed help. Had you approached officials, your life would have become a living hell.”
“Mm, maybe our error in judgment wasn’t so bad, after all. You’re right. Fifteen aliens would have created quite a commotion, just like it would have on our home planet if an Earth spaceship arrived suddenly,” Opek agreed. “We never had any aliens visit us, so I can’t tell you how the space travelers would have been received and treated.”
“On Earth you would be hounded by the media, the paparazzi, TV, crazy Earth people whose minds are only focused on space and aliens—never mind the government questioning you endlessly and scientists wanting to run tests on you. Shapeshifters only occur in stories and books on our world and most people think aliens are little grey men with long arms and legs and huge black eyes.”
“You make it all sound intimidating, Cain,” Henke said, frowning.
“It could be. That’s why we have to be very careful. I’ve got no idea what day this is, so I can’t tell you how long we have to wait for the boat. I should have kept better track of time somehow, but I estimate we’re well within the four weeks the captain said he would wait for us.”
“Cain, what if the captain doesn’t return?” Tirzah asked.
“Then we continue on foot. It’ll be tricky, but what else can we do? At least we’re all decent.”
“Decent?”
“Wearing clothes. But if we have to continue on foot, we need to continue as cats. We can put the clothes with the stones until we get there.”
“Cain, look!” Tirzah shouted and pointed.
He looked. In the distance, a boat approached. “Might be him. I hope so.”
The captain had kept true to his word. Cain wasted no time in getting the canoe into the water, but it took two trips to get them all to the boat.
“Mr. Jones, this will cost more money. Extra passengers,” the captain told him.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be paid handsomely,” Cain replied.
“Where you find the people?”
He felt like telling them it was none of their business, but he just shrugged. “They were on an expedition and got lost. I offered to take them along.” He waited until he dug into the pouches that held the stones and dug up a good size emerald.
Approaching the captain, he handed him the stone. “Will this take care of your expenses? It’s an emerald. It will fetch you a large sum.” He watched the captain’s eyes grew large, then greed enter his expression. The man almost yanked the stone from Cain’s fingers.
“Yes, yes. This is good payment. Any time you need boat, please call me?”
Cain left him to join Tirzah, Opek and Henke. “Guard the pouches that hold the stones with your life, and the ones that hold your instrument
s. I don’t trust this man,” he told them.
The boat turned and headed back for civilization. They took shifts watching over each other as they slept, just in case the captain decided to do away with them and steal the other stones. Not that he knew there were more, but Cain didn’t want to take any chances.
Once they arrived at their destination, Cain quickly transported them to his hotel. He was mesmerized by the expression on their faces as they examined every detail of his hotel suite. He just let them explore. When Tirzah turned on the TV, it halted their exploration on the spot and they watched it intently.
“What is this?”
“Entertainment. This is a movie. We watch the news, documentaries, and all kind of shows on the TV. By the way, when we got here, I booked a room for the two of you. Your names are Opek Akerson and Henke Bjorn. Both names are Swedish. Your room is just down the corridor.” He handed them both a keycard.
“Are these names permanent?” Olek asked.
“Not necessarily. I’m going to start looking into all the paperwork you’ll need as soon as we’ve all rested. I also have to find out where I can sell the stones.”
Rested? Right now, his libido was in overdrive. All he wanted was to be alone with his bride and make love to her. He couldn’t very well tell the two men that. “I’ll walk you to your room. Tomorrow, I’ll buy you clothing and I’ll start planning.”
Where to begin? The internet was first. Maybe he could find out there how to get them identification, names, papers. “Come with me,” he told the men.
He walked them to their room. “Tirzah and I need to be alone for a while, and I need to think,” he told them. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here. Don’t leave your room, whatever you do. I’ve ordered meals for you, so if anyone knocks on the door, it will be food delivery. I’ll come and see you in the morning.”
He hoped he was clear enough. He longed to be alone with Tirzah and the last thing they needed was for Henke or Opek to come knocking on the door.
Opek was the wiser of the two. He sent an understanding glance, smiled and nodded. “We understand. I was a newly wedded man once.”
TirzahsAllure Page 8
