by Naomi Lucas
If I follow the lake north until it ends and then go northeast from there, I’ll be right back at the facility. I look behind me at the mountain slope I just came down. If I go back up toward the plateau, I can get to the facility even quicker.
I push to my feet.
“I’ve found you,” a deep voice says.
My stomach plummets.
I slowly turn. Up on the ledge, the big one with the cowl is staring at me. The giant. The barterer. Our eyes meet and my soul shrivels. Not him.
I scream.
Four
My Queen
Zaku
I’ve finally found her.
I can barely hiss, barely breathe. My wicked loins leak with seed, spilling out from behind my scales. I am an idiot for taking the time to dismantle the others, for spreading my seed, when I should have been hunting for my mate.
The Python’s orb mentioned only one female is near me, and I hoped it was the one who’s mine. The one who hurt him… It excites me.
I feared it would be the redhead I would come upon. She seemed more likely to fight back. But it’s not the redhead who has invaded my every thought; she’s not the one making my body turn against me. I don’t want her, even knowing the rare creature she is. She is not my queen.
My queen is scared, though not scared enough to not sink her blade into the neck of one who would have her.
All night, I searched. All night, I cursed, wanting to shout to the sky, fearing I’d lost her. Even when I used the Python’s orb and it told me there was a single human near my location, I feared.
A king does not fear.
Stumbling through the forest and toward the big lake, she does not yet know that she’s been found, that she’s been caught, and soon to be claimed so thoroughly that her mind will become as clouded as mine.
I saw her under the tree. I saw her staring at my tail. I’ve been trailing her since, learning what I can about her. Because I’ve begun to give off a different smell since my body turned against me, and I don’t know why. She has done something to me and I needed to make sure it wasn’t another attack of some kind. A sneaky attack. Something else I could admire about her.
Studying her, she looks harmless. My tongue tastes the air.
Her long, light hair is a wild mess down her back, with sticks and leaves poking out of it. Her legs are bare now, and the way the muscles move under her skin as she dodges branches captivates me.
How strange it must be to have legs instead of a tail. How limiting… How does she climb trees? Or protect her backside? Does she not have a single scale to protect her joints?
I slip through the forest behind her, keeping her in my sight, searching her skin for them.
She does not have scales that I can see... not a single one… Worry fills me. These humans have no natural armor. They have no fangs, no claws, nothing to guard themselves against those that wish to prey on them. I’ve seen human women in images and on the tech, and I have always wondered how such a species survived for so long without natural protection.
I shudder, imagining how easily she could be hurt.
It doesn’t matter. I will keep her safe now. I have enough armor for both of us. I dig my claws into my palms, noticing the dirt and grime on her next, the smattering of blood.
It’s not hers.
She dashes to the lake’s edge when it comes into view. I hear her moan of pleasure, her gasp of wonder when she stops and looks across it to the mountains on the other side.
She comes from the sky… Do they not have lakes in the sky?
She drinks from the lake and washes her flesh. She dives her hands between her legs, rinsing there as well. Did she have to touch her body last night, like I? The thought thrills me. Clasping my member, I squeeze it once more before tucking it back into my tail. She is a small thing. She will bring me greater pleasure than my hand ever could.
Except I failed her.
She endured a cold night in the forest without me, unprotected. A queen should never have to endure such a thing.
She rises to her feet, pulls her yellowish hair away from her face, and smiles softly. My heart slams against my ribs as a streak of sunlight brightens her small form.
I must claim her now before another sees! Before another arrives, wishing for death!
Puffing out my chest, I slip out from behind my tree. “I have found you,” I declare, claiming her outright for all to hear, making it known.
She twists toward me, and I expect her to gift me her shy smile. Perhaps her hands will go between her legs again...
Her smile falls. She screams, stumbles back into the water, and trips.
Confused, I jerk forward and reach for her.
“No!” she shouts, blue eyes wide with terror. “No!” She slips through my hands. Water splashes in my eyes.
No?
I hiss, reaching for her again. She evades and splashes to the left, moving further out into the lake.
“The hunt is over,” I say, my voice straining as I try to catch her. More water hits my face, and I’m forced to pause and blink it out.
She ignores me, moving further away. I slice my tail to catch her, but her bare skin slips easily over my slick scales. I push through the shallows, hating the feel of the water sliding through them.
“Don’t!” I bellow when she dives under and I lose sight of her.
I draw my tail back, flinging the blasted water off my limb. The lake is too big for her to swim across. Only a Blue Coral or Cottonmouth could manage such a feat. And there’s no spare tech around for her to use. Gasps fill my ears as she emerges farther out and begins swimming into the deeper waters.
She’s going to drown. My jaw pops, searching for something on the shore to catch her and bring her back. There’s nothing.
Why is she running from me? I am a king.
The king. The only king.
Growling, the divide between us grows. Desperation strains my limbs as I stare helplessly after her. To keep her from drowning, I’m going to have to go in. I push into the water and dive forward, biting back my disgust. My tail sinks to the filmy lake bottom, scattering stones and silt. The water pulls at my limbs.
Closing in, I grab her ankle, and she shrieks, kicking me in the face. I rear back and slice my tail forward, but the water stops me from striking out and coiling around her.
“We will both drown,” I choke, pushing my tail to the lake bottom instead to keep my body above the water’s surface.
She dives under again, and I lose her. I thrash, searching the water, scanning the broken waves we’ve made. With the water so deep and clouded with disturbed silt, I can’t see her. I can’t see anything.
Water is my weakness. I hate it. There’s only one pool I swim in, and it’s heated, private. It’s nothing like the lake early in the morning. Waving my arms wildly, I search, feeling for her. I will not lose her so easily.
I won’t fail again.
She emerges again several lengths ahead of me. My lips twist, and I dive after her.
This time, when I catch her, she doesn’t slip through my grip. My fingers close around her arm, banding around the delicate limb.
“No!” she screams again, kicking at me.
We drop into the dark depths as I tug her to my chest, and I feel for the lake’s bottom to push off of it. When we break the surface, she’s clinging to me, gasping.
“No more, female, no more,” I tell her, spitting out lake water. I swim us back to shore.
Holding her tightly to my side, I fall onto the bank and pull my tail out from the lake. My mate pushes off me and rolls away coughing. I do not let her get far, coiling my tailtip around her ankle. She shivers violently and continues to cough. Turning on my side, I press into her back, seeking to warm her.
“The water freezes overnight,” I rasp into her ear. “It is not a sssafe place to swim.”
She shakes, pressing her limbs to her body, straining away from me.
“I will warm you,” I continue,
wrapping my arms around her small frame and pulling her into me tightly, draping my tail to slide up her front and closing her in. “My black scales catch the heat. Touch them. Let them take away the cold.”
She’s tense and doesn’t say a word as we lie there in partial shade. She also doesn’t touch my scales. I wish she would. I would like to make amends. If she is the one who stabbed the Python, she might be in shock from the kill. Her silence and shivers stop me from prying.
There will be plenty of time for that later. I am content just holding her, knowing the hunt is finally over.
I listen for predators as the sun rises higher, drying us. My member tries to emerge, but I keep it locked away. I won’t mount my queen out in the open, on the dirty forest floor, drenched in lake water. She will mate me in my nest, one I have prepared for her, one where she belongs. She will wear my jewels and my collar when she opens her slit for me.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she wheezes after a time, her voice weak and winded and filled with so much sadness it startles me.
“I will never hurt you.”
“Then will you let me go?”
I lift my head and study her. She’s facing away from me, avoiding touching me any more than I make her. Brows wrinkled deep, there’s a hand over her mouth as her eyes stare at the scales of my tail. Even like this, she is beautiful. So beautiful I almost believe I don’t deserve her.
Ridiculous. I shake the thought away. I reach down and brush the wet hair on her cheek away.
She flinches at my touch.
“There is nowhere for you to go but to my nest,” I say, hoping to soothe her with my words. “There you will rest and eat, and we will mate.”
She falls silent again. I spend the next few minutes gathering her wet hair from her face and brushing it out with my claws. Strands of it dry and curl into soft waves around my fingers. I gently squeeze the water out that’s gathered in the rest of it, enjoying the simple act of caring for another.
She is in my arms. She is protected. This is good.
“I waited for you for countless yearsss,” I hiss. “I will never let you go. Never. You are safe.”
She closes her eyes and whimpers.
She must still be cold… Rising, I cradle her in my arms, nuzzling her shoulder.
And with the sun warming my back, I carry my precious treasure home.
Five
Captured and Carried Away
Daisy
I let the alien male carry me to wherever it is he plans to take me.
Fighting him, as weak as I am right now, is futile.
Wincing from the built-up water in my ruined jacket and the sun’s rays burning my exposed legs, I’m hoping the elements kill me before we get to wherever we’re going. They won’t. I’m on Earth, after all. Humans evolved here, surviving on this planet for thousands and thousands of years. Somehow, I fear I won’t die so easily. If there’s anything I’ve learned growing up traveling through space, it’s that humans are remarkably adaptable.
Even after attempted genocide.
Earth has been deemed safe now that the radiation levels have returned to normal. People stopped morphing into gross amalgamations after illegally landing here.
A shiver passes through me. Those first humans—those brave or stupid enough to return—whether for religious, scientific, or greedy reasons, had all suffered for their choice, growing extra heads, even brains, arms, toes. One human turned green before his bones dissolved.
Those humans all survived, which was the most horrifying thing of all. They suffered until death finally came.
Which means I’m probably going to survive too, and it makes me wish I had grabbed my knife when I ran. I stare at the forest canopy until it blurs.
If I hadn’t let my compassion win, if I hadn’t saved those babies, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead, and they would be dead too. I take comfort in the fact that they’re still alive and so am I.
Hours pass by. Not once does the alien stop to take a break or eat. He carries me like I weigh nothing, slithering away from the lake, through a forest that thickens, over one small mountainous hill, and toward a larger one—the largest mountain on the horizon. It’s impossible to miss.
His hands clutch me, reminding me of the male who tried to rape me. This male could be taking me to a private place so he can do what he wants and not have to worry about being attacked…. That would be the smart thing to do, right?
I think I doze for a time, once I realize he’s not going to immediately throw me to the ground and assault me. I don’t want to sleep, but I’m so tired I can’t help it, and the soft swaying of being in his arms. It’s annoyingly soothing. I try to sniff him and get a whiff of his scent. It’s gone.
The lake water must have washed it away.
I hope… My chest tightens. I hope he won’t hurt me.
I startle awake when he sets me on the ground. Sitting up straight, I brace. Instead of attacking me, he moves away, perches on his ginormous tail, and yanks several shiny red orbs off of a tree. Once his hands are full, he returns and offers the orbs to me.
I turn away.
“Food,” he says, his voice a low rumble.
I stare at the forest. Eventually he hisses, sets the red orbs down, and goes back to pick more. Soon there’s a pile of them beside me.
“Eat,” he says again, lowering on his tail to wind it behind my back. “Humans love these. I’ve seen it. They are called apples.”
My brow furrows. That doesn’t make sense. Humans don’t live on Earth anymore. And unless he’s seen them iconified from some of Earth’s relics, how would he know they liked these apples?
“There’s no humans here. You’re lying,” I say, facing him. I take in his bare chest, his groin region, where there’s only smooth scales. My throat tightens. He’s naked, except for his scales, and it’s very obvious.
A body like his—minus the tail—would be favored by the military. He’d ascend in rank from his size alone.
Lucky bastard.
“I am not a liar,” he barks, clearly annoyed at being called such a thing.
The other male had a big cock sticking out of his tail where this one is smooth. Do they not all have cocks? My pulse races as I hope for the miraculous, that he’s a eunuch.
He did say we would mate…
I stare at his tail, unable to help it, too dazed to realize how long I’ve been doing it until the male shifts, startling me. My eyes cut to his face, and my cheeks heat with embarrassment. He’s watching me intensely, his cowl pulled taut and framing his pointed face. His tail starts to move, and it’s like I’m in a whirlpool of limbs.
My stomach twists and I pull my arms and legs closer.
“Why are you staring at my tail?” he asks a little too thickly for my liking.
I part my lips, closing them again after a second. I shake my head. “I don’t want to mate you,” I say. “I’m not going to mate you. Let’s get this out of the way now. You’ll have to force me, like the other one, if that’s all you seek from me.”
His expression shifts, morphing first to confusion and then to fury. Dark, slitted irises streaked with gold, blaze with emotion.
Fear breaks through my numbness, and I go rigid. Struggling to hold my tears in, I want to fight, to run, but I know I’ll never get away. Not again, not without food and rest. I don’t even know where I am or how far we’ve gone, and if it’s not him who breaks me, it’ll be the wilderness.
“Force… you?” he says slowly. “Force you to do what?” His cowl flares and the scales on his shoulders shoot outward. His face continues to darken.
I lean away, too frightened to answer. His tail shifts again, and I scramble back, pressing against it. He continues to rise over me.
I gape.
“You...were forced?” he growls.
He’s so huge. One sweep of his tail would knock me across a room. One hit and I’d be on the ground. He could pin me beneath it and crush me. My fear becomes something more
, something harder to fight. Dread.
Rational thought drops from my head as I shoot to my feet, sprinting head-first into the trees. Something snags my ankle. I kick hard and manage to break it off.
He roars.
I run, dashing through the forest in no direction except the one before me. The trees aren’t thick anymore, and the bushes are gone. I sprint faster, realizing there are no hiding places. The terrain has changed since I fell asleep.
The ground begins to slope down, and I pick up speed, stumbling over my feet. There are noises behind me—loud, low hissing—and I know he’s right there.
I’m not going to get away.
Stopping suddenly, I sag to the ground and sob, curling into a fetal position. My chest hurts so much. I can’t breathe. I wait for him to strike me down, to do his worst.
So when he lifts me and cradles me gently, I lose it.
“Ssssshhhh,” the male tries to comfort me, making everything worse.
“Why are you doing this?” I gasp. “Why me?”
He begins moving again, and I cry. I inadvertently press my nose to his chest seeking his scent and then whip my face away, disgusted with my actions.
“There are no females left in these lands, no females like me,” he says softly, his fingers petting me where his hands clutch me. “You are precious and should belong to a male who deserves you. There is no one more deserving than I. You are beautiful. You are my chosen queen. My—” he clears his throat “—loins recognize you as such. The mere thought of you has filled them with seed. I will avenge you.”
I cry harder. He has a cock and plans on using it. I’m disgusted and angry at his words, angry at myself for being too stupid to hope my luck hadn’t run out yet.
Numbness claims me again when my tears dry up.
I don’t know when it happens, but my mind blanks as the Earth’s sun descends below the trees. As the moon climbs in the sky, I realize the trees are all but gone now and he’s carrying me up a sloping mountain ledge. We’re so high that by peering out over the horizon, the forest, the mountains, and even the lake comes into view. Untamed wilderness with deep greens and blues meets my eyes, cast in the golden hue of twilight.
