by K. Webster
“My life back home was horrible. Looking back, I didn’t realize how I, too, was living without hope. Existing without truly feeling. It wasn’t until I was thrown into your care that I began to search out who I really am. I can’t thank you and the others enough for allowing me to find the real Aria. I have purpose now. As your partner and leader of the human females.”
I bow my nog to her. “You are most welcome, mortania.”
She smiles as she takes one of my fingers and slides on a zuta-metal band. It has etchings and catches the light. “Oh, thank God, it fits.”
Frowning, I inspect the zuta-metal on my finger. It fits comfortably but I wonder its purpose. She hands me a smaller zuta-metal band that has a shiny stone wedged between four prongs. It glitters in my palm.
“Put it on my same finger,” she instructs.
Carefully, so as not to snag her delicate flesh with my claws, I slide the small band onto her finger.
“Wedding rings,” she informs me. “It binds our promises to each other. It’s a human thing.” She winks at me. “Now, Commander, you may kiss your bride.” Her brown eyes are liquid fire as she parts her lips, just begging to be tasted.
I haul her to me, loving the squeal from her and the way her breasts smash against me, and devour her sweet mouth. I lick and taste her long after everyone leaves the room. And when it’s empty, I peel away her clothes and taste her some more. Everywhere.
Epilogue
Calix
From my vantage point, I can see straight into the sub-faction. She—Emery, as they say—is so fragile. Like the fine petals of a lilabush. But unlike the healthy flowers that grow in Galen’s lab, this one wilts. With each passing solar, her skin grows more pallid. The tiny coughs rattle from her chest and her breaths come out labored.
Aria has been distracted creating the home for the humans and readying the space for the others to be woken up, but she is overlooking the needs of my lilapetal. She is letting her die before our very eyes.
As usual, when I’m stealing gazes of Emery, her nog will slowly turn and seek me out. She does not smile for she is too weak. She does not gesture in greeting. All she does is cry. Silently. Motionless. The tears I’ve tasted while she was in cryosleep were unlike anything my forked tongue has ever had the pleasure of licking. I crave to hold her in my solid arms and lick away her sweet sadness.
But I am not allowed to hold her.
Aria demands that I keep my distance until Emery can decide these things for herself. They do not understand that I’ve studied her expressions long before she became the next awoken one. I feel attuned to her. She coughs and sputters, and yet I do not fear the pathogens that litter the air around her. It is unimportant to me because her well-being trumps all. The idea of anyone else coughing like that is enough to have me running back to the lab and sitting under the equalizer to eliminate the bacteria.
Emery, I’d gladly catch whatever it is she ails from.
Then I could hold her while it stole us both from this life.
Nobody, especially Emery, deserves to die alone.
I won’t rekking allow it.
With my eyes locked on hers, I try to read her expressions. She’s sad but mostly worried. Using what little energy she does have, she tugs and twists at the zuta-metal that is around her arm. I feel like it unlocks an important secret about her. I’ve scoured through the test results Avrell has obtained from her and read through his notes.
For someone so brilliant, our faction’s physician is plagued with not knowing what to do.
There’s a name for her ailment. She spoke it to Aria and it’s been recorded, but it means nothing to us morts. Asthma. Inhaler. All we know is her lungs struggle even on her own planet, but at least there she had the proper medicine. She is too weak for us to try to send her back. It’s been discussed. With space’s compression on one’s lungs, she would not survive. That is written in Avrell’s notes as well.
Which means…
There is only one thing left to do.
I study contagious diseases and pathogens. I find cures for our people. It’s what I’m good at. Like second nature. This will be no different. I won’t stop until I’ve done it.
Quietly, I step into the sub-faction and stalk her way, thankful that Hadrian is nowhere to be seen. Her eyes widen in surprise but she does not call out. Something that resembles relief flashes in her bright blue eyes. It’s enough to fuel me forward on my mission—a mission that’ll no doubt get me locked away in a reform cell, should Breccan and the others intercept it.
I cannot fail.
Kneeling beside her, I hover my palm over her cheek, desperate to touch her. But Aria’s commanding words still ring in my nog. Her laws about only touching if they ask. Hesitation swirls inside of me like the stirrings of an epic geostorm.
“Help me,” Emery croaks out, her body shuddering slightly as she pleads. “Help me or I will die.”
I allow my palm to stroke the side of her face—and then I do the unthinkable.
I gently pull my fading alien into my arms, careful not to break her, and carry her out of her home.
With haste, I rush back to my lab, where I will lock us away. They’ll find us eventually, but I will have to make sure they can’t get in. I’ll work relentlessly, undisturbed by them, until I find a cure.
I will rekking save her.
“Relax now, lilapetal,” I urge, my voice soft, just for her. “I’m going to heal you.”
Or I’ll die trying.
Keep reading with the next installment...
THE VANISHED SPECIALIST!
The Vanished Specialist
Book 2
My lilapetal is dying…and I can’t save her.
The woman who brought me back to life may not live long enough to see me truly happy.
All the tests, the experiments have failed me…and I have failed her.
If I don’t devise a cure to save my alien, I’ll spend the rest of my existence on Mortuus alone.
The others believe my mate isn’t strong enough to survive. That she can’t breed and should be put back into cryosleep until she’s healed.
But I won’t allow it.
I will defy the only family I’ve ever known to save her.
Even if it means vanishing into the unknown.
She is all that matters and no amount of her protests will keep me from doing what I must to keep her safe.
1
Emery
It’s dark, the room where they lead us and the hallway beyond. It makes me shiver even though it’s warm enough to make the bodies around me emit the rank, sour scent of sweat. The thin, threadbare gown they gave us does little to contain body heat, so I try to wrap my arms around my waist and get a sharp jab in the ribs for attempting to struggle through the handcuffs I forgot I was wearing.
They file us in, one by one, and with each step closer to the yawning doorway that will lead me to my fate, my chest squeezes tighter and tighter. I know mentioning my need for an inhaler will fall on deaf ears, so I try to control my breathing, remembering the techniques my mother taught me.
“Relax, Emery. Listen to the sound of my voice.”
The sound of her words is faint, has gotten more and more so in the years since she passed away, and it does little to drown out the sound of the others’ weeping or the guards’ sharp directives. My breath wheezes and spots dance across my vision as the line of us moves closer to the door.
I don’t know where we’re going and I wouldn’t dare to ask, even if I could get the words around my labored breathing. The last one who tried to speak got a vicious backhand for her troubles. I have enough problems without drawing attention to myself.
“Breathe, little one. You have to breathe.”
It’s my turn. The guard beside me shoves me through the doorway and my lungs seize as I stumble forward. A scream catches in my clenched throat and I fall.
I jolt awake, my lungs and body both aching. A pair of strong arms are around me a
nd I glance up at the concerned—or at least I think it’s concerned—expression of the alien who took me from where I was resting. My legs are wrapped around his waist, his hands warm at my back. I must have fallen asleep on the trek from the rooms where Aria was keeping me.
He shifts all my weight to one brawny arm, somehow managing to balance as he walks, and brings his free hand to press against the juncture of my throat. “Breathe, little one. You must relax or the commander and his mate will surely rekking send me to The Eternals, skinned and butchered like a rogcow.”
I struggle to do as he directs, my stubborn lungs fighting me with every inhale. I was dreaming. It was just a dream. I focus on the sound of his soothing words to clear away the cold press of fear.
“That is it,” he says, adjusting me again until I’m snug against his chest. “We are almost there.”
The one the others call Calix is the only thing about my new reality that doesn’t frighten me. He should. He’s nearly seven-foot tall with ghost-white skin and jet-black, close-cropped hair. His size alone should be intimidating, even if he weren’t an alien. But he also wears glasses that are currently balanced precariously on the edge of his nose and there’s a tablet stylus tucked behind one of his pointy ears. If he were an awful alien or monster, he wouldn’t look so…normal. Something about him put me instantly at ease, more so than any male I’ve ever come in contact with—this planet or elsewhere.
“There? Where are we going?” I ask breathlessly. My cheeks are raw with the remnants of my tears. I want to scrub away the sign of my weakness, but I can barely hold on to his neck as it is.
His arms tighten around me. “I am taking you to my lab. You will be comfortable there and it will give us time to heal you. Do not worry, my lilapetal, I will not fail you.”
The farther we get from the bustle of the main building, the more my chest eases. I take comfort in his presence. Enough that my breathing begins to settle as I become distracted by the melodious lilt of his voice. I could listen to him talk forever. “Lilapetal?”
The length of his long, clawed fingers tangle in my hair in soothing strokes, then return to my waist. “A flower, delicate, one of the only to survive the harsh climate here on Mortuus. It is elegant and beautiful, but strong. It reminded me of you the moment I saw you.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say.”
We reach a door and Calix shifts my weight to wave an armband. The door opens with a swish and we stride through.
“Good solar, Calix. How may I assist you?” a digitized female voice greets.
“Silent mode,” he grunts out. Then to me, he says, “Uvie. She is a computerized program that we use when we need assistance with our duties. I will not require her assistance this solar.”
Opposite the doorway, I see our reflection in a row of tall glass-fronted cabinets. Even from a distance, I wince at the reflection of my pale face. It almost blends in with the snow-white color of his skin. My hair hangs in limp strands, the once bright blond locks knotted and unwashed from the long stay in the cryotube and then in the sub-faction, as they called it, barely able to move once I was woken up.
He carries me past a long work table scattered with what looks like notebooks, beakers filled with unidentifiable liquids, and a smattering of papers to one of three doors that open to reveal an examination room of sorts—a bed, machines nearby, and medical-looking tools. Calix places me on the somewhat stiff bed with extra care, his dark eyes roving over me with an emotion akin to tenderness. Simply being away from the chaos of the other rooms has improved my ability to breathe. I’ve only been awake at this facility as Aria calls it for a few days, but it’s already claustrophobic with all these people. Their commander named Breccan is always growling and making Aria giggle, which oddly enough, annoys the heck out of me. Avrell, their doctor, is friendly, but always poking and prodding at me. And Hadrian is so talkative and extremely exhausting.
Here, it’s quiet and peaceful. Calix even shut up the computer lady.
A voice inside my head tells me maybe this brawny alien has something to do with the calmness I feel, but I brush the thought away. That’s impossible. I barely know him.
“How are you feeling?” he asks as he drags a screen on an extendable arm down to the bedside. It comes to life with a whir as he retrieves his stylus and begins writing.
“Better, for now. Thank you for helping me.”
He pauses, his pen hovering above the screen, and I can feel his eyes moving over me like a physical caress. The silence extends for a moment longer, then his pointy ears twitch and the briefest flash of a forked tongue appears as he licks his lips. “Think nothing of it, lilapetal. I am going to begin by taking your stats and then we will get you cleaned up.”
I jolt upward, despite the effort it takes to lift my head. “You aren’t going to…I dunno, start? Tests or procedures or whatever.”
I’d been to the doctors so many times for my asthma, I’d gotten used to being treated like an experiment rather than a person. Even with Aria and Avrell, they discussed me like a project. Something to do, to fix. With Calix, it’s not like that, it would seem. He wants to help me, but when he looks at me, it’s almost like he truly sees me. After being invisible for so long, being caught in his gaze is like being warmed from the inside out.
Heat blooms inside me and I try not to melt under his stare.
He’s this…thing…and yet, I’m attracted to him in a way I can’t seem to understand. Truth be told, I like the spell he seems to have me under. It distracts me from everything else that’s not pleasant.
He lifts a hand and cups my cheek, the tips of his claws lightly scratching over my flesh. “I think you have had enough shocks to your body for a time. You have undergone a trauma and you will heal better once you have been groomed and changed into clean coverings. After that, you need to rest. While you sleep, I will run blood panels and do scans with my instruments. You will not feel a thing.”
I have to admit, clean clothes and a shower will do wonders. As he resumes his note-taking, I recline on the bed and attempt to let him work, which lasts all of two minutes. “Why are you helping me?”
“It is my duty,” he tells me, his eyes not meeting mine.
“This goes beyond the call of duty,” I say back, nudging for more information.
“I suppose it does.” Calix attaches a band to my arm, his fingers lingering on my skin before meeting my stare with a sad expression of his own. “Some time ago a deadly disease affected our people.” His eyes grow distant as though he’s seeing something I can’t. “It took most of our kind. There are only ten of us left now. There were several strains of various diseases after our planet was ravaged by radiation. It took our families swiftly and without discrimination. After my mentor succumbed to the disease, I was all who was left to try and stop it from spreading.” His features darken as he remembers. “I could not stop it, though, despite all my training, despite all the knowledge I have gained. All we can do is keep the ones inside this facility safe and those harmful pathogens out. I will not let you succumb to something trying to take your life…I cannot. I will help you like I could not help those others. All life is precious and needs to be protected. Even yours, sweet alien.”
I cover his hand and it stills beneath my touch. Despite his unusual appearance, my curiosity about his past is undeniable. After the hell I survived, his gentleness soothes the wounded parts of me. The kinder he is to me, the more my need to be around him—for him—grows. Even now, he watches patiently for my answer and I want to lap up his gentle responses from the source. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Calix.”
His lips firm into a line, his ears twitching. “Do not be sorry, little one. My troubles are not your burden to bear. Rest while I finish taking your stats. It will not be long.”
It’s strange to feel safe. And for once in a long time, I do. On my own planet, it wasn’t exactly easy after my mother died. And then…
My mind drifts to my captors. Th
e cold ship. Their even colder glares. A shiver runs down my spine. At least these people—despite clearly not being human—seem more human than the ones I was with last. I dart a glance at his dark eyes as he works. His brows are furrowed in concentration. A very humanlike expression contorts his face.
Definitely safer.
Especially with Calix.
Miraculously, or perhaps because the past few days have taken their toll on my body, I do as he instructs and relax. As he works, my mind wanders to all the information Aria has tried to cram into my brain when I first woke up.
We’re on a horrible planet. The terrain, the atmosphere, the creatures, the pathogens. It’s amazing these morts as she calls them have survived this long. But the aliens here are good, she claims. From what I’ve learned of them and now with Calix, I can see that. No one has tried to harm me. Not like…
I blink away those horrible thoughts and focus on the now. Here. This facility. Aria told me about all the alien guys here. I haven’t met them all. Her guy is Breccan—the commander. He’s big and grumpy. Not sure why she likes him, but she’s carrying his baby nonetheless. Hadrian is younger than the others and is like her assistant. Avrell is the doctor, and apparently Calix is kind of like their scientist. There’s another one named Draven, who sort of creeps past the doorway to the sub-faction, but never enters. Some of the other names run together and I can’t remember them all. Another one I remember, though, is Sayer. Aria explained how he’s a linguistics genius and has somehow implanted a translator into the other morts’ heads that allows them to understand hundreds of languages, including ours. Not only do they understand them, but it helps them reply back in the language they’re spoken to in.
The sound of the humming from the machines and the muffled tap of his stylus against the screen lull me into a light doze, this time thankfully void of terrifying dreams.
