by Ruby Ryan
But then the confusion deepened into something worse: shame.
I am a Karak scout. My shift-father had been one before me, and his shift-mother before him. There was great honor in returning from a tour having fulfilled one's duty to the Karak Dominion, cataloging and collating the data collected for future use. The Dominion would use such data to plan contact missions, settler expeditions, and occasionally military action. None of which was possible without data from the scouts, and which relied absolutely upon the accuracy of their data.
And here I was, intimate with a foreign species.
I had violated my directive to avoid interaction. Shifting into this human form while waiting for help was an understandable and excusable category of interaction... but emotional and sexual contact was widely forbidden. Cases where Karak scouts violated their directive were made famous, the names of the traitors to the Dominion carved upon the dishonor stone for all to see.
The thought of my name carved upon such stone filled me with terror.
My ancestors would be disgraced. I would not be permitted to reproduce, and with the current Dominion Lord--whose strictness was renowned--I would likely be executed for my crimes, or forced to fight in the Sunken Pit. All for casting aside my duty.
Yet I had cast it aside without thought.
This human body is weak, I thought bitterly. This species was driven by physical and emotional need more than intellectual decision. I wanted to scream to the stars that it was not my fault, that I was merely tainted by my shifted vessel.
Jo snuggled her nose against my chest, and I inhaled the scent of her hair.
And I realized, in that moment, that I did not care.
That shocked me most of all. That even being self-aware of my crime, a veil of shame passing over my eyes at that very moment, I could not pull my focus away from the shape of Jo's body pressed against mine. The tender inside of her sex as it clenched around my fingers. The way she'd clutched at my hair with desperate need.
We Karak mated once and only once. When a mate was chosen, we were with them for the remainder of our lives. There were occasional outliers in society, but the vast majority of Karak were unable to become sexually aroused once their mate was gone. A function of our photon-based brains that simply shut off.
Perhaps that was what this was: the emotions of my Karak self and my shifted self were intermingling to a confusing degree. The raw, sexual desire of the human propelled upward by the long-term Karak love.
"You had a mate before," I muttered into Jo's hair, unable to stop myself.
"Mmm hmm."
"And he is gone now."
"I don't know how often you get laid," she whispered into my chest, "but your pillow talk is rusty."
I frowned down at her, puzzled.
"Why have you remained here, alone?" I knew it was the same question as I'd asked previously, but the scout in me desired to know. The brief download I'd performed on Jo's computer told me that humans were promiscuous indeed. Yet here Jo was.
"I dunno," she said after a long pause. "Stayin's easier than goin', I guess. Familiar job, familiar cabin, familiar town. New things can be... scary."
"I'm new."
"You are new," she agreed. "Which is why I was scared as all hell this might happen!" She poked me in the belly, a sign of humor, yet her words confused me still.
"Why were you scared this might happen?" I asked. "I was attracted to you. You were attracted to me." That should have been the extent of the reasoning.
Jo pushed up on one elbow to put some space between us. She looked all around before finally settling on my face. "Sure. But there's more to it than that. One gets so lonely out here, which is good and bad. Especially after the death of a partner. A person doesn't know if they're ready until they are, and even then it can take a hell of a lot longer to realize it than one should."
"I am sorry to have supplicated your partner's position."
She smiled a sad smile. "No reason to be sorry." She laid back down and pressed her back against me, inviting me to wrap an arm around her bulk and hold her close. I sighed at the sensation. The closeness human touch demanded.
"I'm sorta trapped, anyways."
"Trapped?"
Jo let out a long sigh. "Bank still owns most of this land. It gets harder and harder to make the payments each year, especially with property taxes rising steadily. I've tried to sell the land to the business that bought the hunting lodges, but they're not interested. Prefer to rent time on my land rather than buy outright. So I've got a giant chunk of land I can't get rid of, which I'm forced to tend until..."
She shrugged her shoulders, which rippled the skin on my chest.
"I thought you enjoyed what you do," I said. "That was why you sold the lodge and hospitality aspect of the business. Right?"
"Ehh." The syllable was a buzzing vibration against my chest. "I mean, I do enjoy it, in a vacuum. But the work on the property takes too much time, to the point that it's an overwhelming chore. I don't have time to do the things I really enjoy."
I squeezed her close to me, feeling the give in her body, the skin and flesh and bone bending to my will. "Things like this?"
She elbowed me in my ribs. "I meant things like hunting. Fishing. Reading. Enjoying the land rather than being a... I don't know. A slave to it."
I blinked and considered that. I hadn't pictured it that way at all.
Slave.
It was a foreign concept to a Karak, for whom duty and responsibility overwrote all other desires. All Karak, whether a scout or engineer or settler or researcher, must fulfill their niche in our Dominion. Such obeying of responsibility was what kept our society together.
Thinking of it as a slavery, a burden, was a new perspective. I swirled the idea around in my mind.
I had never considered what I would do after my scouting tour was complete. Scouts usually assisted in analysis of the collected data, providing consultation and advice. Some would fall into permanent roles in the secondary and tertiary duties that spawned, whether poring through video and audio collected from alien planets or even accompanying settlers across the stars. Others became settlers, the next logical step beyond scouting. Who better to lead a settlement expedition than the scout who gathered the data in the first place?
Yet I had not considered what to do at all.
Mostly, I realized deep down in the part of my Karak consciousness that usually remained silent, I didn't want to think about it because I had no idea what I wanted. My entire life as a scout had been dictated to this point; my upbringing, education, and role in the Dominion all planned before I had aged enough to attain true intelligence. Being on the precipice of choice, finally having authority to guide the direction of my own life, was terrifying.
Much in the way Jo said that being with me was scary, I realized. It clicked in a way that abruptly made sense.
And her voice inside my head, with her body pressed against me, gave me a startling certainty: what I wanted was to be with her.
"You feel good," I said, squeezing her tighter for emphasis. The connection we shared was wonderfully new. And scary.
Pressed against her behind, my sex swelled with need. Again I imagined myself enjoying the place between Jo's legs, the warmth and wetness of it coating my manhood. And she must have felt my member throbbing, because she grinded back against it, a gently rocking of her hips that put enough pressure on it to tease.
"Ready for your turn?" she asked without looking back.
I was. My conscience roared to have her, human and Karak nerves mingling together in a singular voice. Demanding that I take her. Mate with her. Fuck her, to use a term in her book.
And then the same shame from before descended on me with renewed thickness, drowning out any lustful desires I may have had. My chest tightened, and I wondered how I would explain myself to Jo.
"I think I'm hungry, first," I said.
She rolled over and on top of me, pinning me down on the sheets. Her pubic hair bru
shed against my thigh, and her blue eyes sparkled as they gazed down into mine.
"Why, Eric," she drawled in what I believed was an exaggerated southern accent. "I don't believe you have it in you to resist my feminine wiles." She added a goofy grin to the words, each eye pinched with exactly three wrinkles.
I want your feminine wiles, I thought. I want everything about you.
And then, another voice: you are a Karak scout.
The shame swirled with my desire, and then the moment was gone.
I managed to cover my emotions with a yawn. "I don't think I have the energy," I said. "Without some food I might pass out in the middle."
"You're free to pass out all you want." Jo grinded her sex against my thigh, wetness spreading across my skin. "I'll have my way with your sexy body while you're unconscious."
She leaned in for a slow kiss, hair brushing against either side of my face. I kissed her back gently, feeling my body melt against hers, Jo's perfect breasts pressed firmly against my chest. I reached down and cupped her ass with my hand and she made a noise deep in my throat that was so much like the jungle-tigers of Parax-3 that I almost came all over her right then.
"Tell me you want me," she said, looking deep into my eyes. And the words came from my lips, because it ached to leave them in.
"I want you, Jo. I want you more than I can describe."
"You want to make love to me?" she insisted.
"Yes."
"Do you want to fuck me?" she arched an eyebrow.
"Also yes."
And the sparkle in her eyes intensified, and she began to lean back in for a kiss, but then she froze. Her brow furrowed, and she cocked her head in a way I didn't recognize.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer for an eternity. I wanted to repeat the question, but I dared not speak. Finally she looked at me, and instead of lust it was alarm that shone in her eyes.
"Someone's here."
11
JOANNA
I flew from the bed as if my life depended on it, landing softly on the wooden floor. Quietly I dressed, stepping into my panties and jeans but not bothering to look for my bra before pulling the shirt over my head. I strode to the door, remembered what was going on, and turned around.
"Stay here," I said, then slipped into the hallway.
Daylight still shone through the windows of my cabin. I leaned a head around the corner and remained there, listening and looking. The snow-covered landscape out the window of my kitchen remained still, and so did the two windows in my living room.
But I knew what I heard. Snow crunching. Branches cracking.
The ten seconds that I stood there lasted ten thousand.
Movement, to my left. A dark shape passing from one tree to another out in the woods by my driveway. The motion was unnatural, stealthy. Not a deer or other wild animal. Someone who didn't want to be seen.
Instantly, my pulse raced. My heartbeat was like a drum, making it impossible to hear anything else. I took three deep, deliberate breaths to collect myself.
There's an intruder outside.
And their intentions are almost certainly not innocent.
There was a short list of people who might visit my property out of the blue: Leslie, and Andy if I had a request from the general store. But the latter was rare, and neither of those people would skulk around in the woods.
I kept a shotgun by the front door, but it was unloaded, and I'd need to cross the living room space to reach it. The floorboards in here creaked loudly, and anyone outside would be able to see me through the windows. How far away was the shape? If I cast aside silence and sprinted across the room, I thought I could reach the gun and load it before someone came through the door. But that would be escalating the situation, an remaining veiled in silence and secrecy felt safer. Once I let the intruders know I was aware of them, there was no going back.
When faced with a difficult decision, always put off the choice that's irreversible. My dead husband's words in my ear, a piece of wisdom Fred liked to impart when someone was at a crossroads. A pang of guilt sprung up at the memory of his voice. I was suddenly very aware of the nude stranger in my bed.
Sleeping with Eric was irreversible.
I hadn't had actual sex with him, but that was a hollow technicality. I'd taken a man to bed, the first one since my husband's death, and had intended to do more.
It was my right. And I'd waited long enough. And yet I still felt guilty for the act.
Emotions were stupid.
Focus, I told myself. Making a run for my gun was irreversible, and would eliminate any element of surprise I had. That might be my only advantage: that they didn't know I knew they were out there. I sure as hell didn't want to give it up right out of the gate.
Movement to my right, out the window in the kitchen. Only for a second, between two distant trees.
Shit.
There were two intruders, coming from two separate angles. Any presumption of innocence I'd hoped they had disappeared in a puff of optimistic smoke.
Calling Leslie would make too much noise. And it'd take her too long to get out here. Scratch that off the short list of options.
I needed a weapon. I was a hunter; I felt naked without one. And I need to move now.
I left my relative hiding place by the hall and pawed across the kitchen, grabbing a carving blade from the knife block as I went by. The shotgun beckoned me from across the room, but I would need to go around the outside of the room to avoid the loudest floorboards. I ducked low and took one careful step at a time, eyes flicking back and forth between the two windows.
I reached the far wall and pressed against it. I whispered a prayer that the boards would remain silent as I slid sideways, inching closer to the door and gun. From here I had a perfect view out the window where I'd seen the first person, but there was no further movement. That scared me more than seeing them; it was like the spider in your bedroom that suddenly disappeared. Not knowing its location was worse than seeing it right in front of you.
With startling abruptness, the man moved across my view. And it was a man, wearing a black coat and black beanie. He was right outside the window, close to the house, moving around the back. He never looked inside, and was gone in an eye blink.
And he carried something black, and long.
A gun.
He was moving away from the front door, which was good. But I didn't know where the other person was, which was bad. The front door could open any minute and he'd barge inside, with a gun identical to his comrade's, and that would be the end of Joanna.
I stepped closer, and closer, the impulse to jump the final 15 feet growing stronger with every step.
Silently, I prayed that Eric would obey me and stay in bed. He would ruin everything by choosing that moment to get up, walk around, ask me what was wrong. I gazed at the door to my bedroom and hoped my willpower alone could keep him silent and inside.
Please trust me, I told him with my mind. Stay there. Let me handle this.
Ten feet. Five feet.
Finally I lunged at the shotgun, simultaneously reaching up the shelf for the box of shells. My fingers trembled as I opened the box and fed them into the chamber, two, then three, then four. I shoved another handful into my pocket and pressed my back against the wall.
Chest heaving with adrenaline, I aimed the gun around the room, waiting for a target to appear.
When none did, I twisted the lock on the front door. The click it made sounded like gunfire in the silence.
I breathed, and aimed my gun across the expanse of my living room, and breathed some more.
I had a weapon. Time to think strategy.
If I were alone, things would have been easy: walk to my left a few steps to the coat closet, crouch down inside, and wait for an intruder to enter my cabin. He'd have to pass right across my vantage there, where I'd have a clean shot, and then it would be me against the one guy that remained. If it were just one other guy.
But
Eric complicated things. Whatever these guys intended, I had to protect Eric. I had a weapon and he didn't. This was my cabin, where he was a visitor. The burden and responsibility fell on my shoulders.
I always felt like I had to protect Fred, too, I thought with a wry grin.
So I couldn't just hide and wait for danger to come to me. I had to go on the offensive.
I slid past the front door toward the window, staying back from the glass. Slowly I leaned forward until I could see most of the front of my property: my truck and the four-wheeler over by the shed. If the first man who'd walked past the window was moving carefully, he should be by the back door any moment, which meant--
Suddenly, the second man walked across my driveway.
He came into view without care, swinging his long rifle in a wide arc around him like he expected to be ambushed at any moment. He was walking parallel to the wall of my cabin, not even looking in my direction.
Without further thought, I unclasped the window and swung it open a foot. I leaned down and rested the shotgun on the window sill, aimed it at his chest, and spoke in a commanding voice.
"Drop your gun or you'll soon hear mine."
He flinched and yelped as if I'd already shot him, and his weapon fell to the snow. It was a strange shape, and looked like rot against the perfect white powder.
"Oh God," the man said, quickly thrusting both hands in the air. He rotated in a slow circle, looking for the source of my voice.
Good.
"Slowly turn to face the cabin, keeping your hands in the air." I kept my sights trained on his chest and my finger hard against the trigger. "No sudden movements."
"Oh God," the man repeated, a quiver in his voice. "Please don't shoot..."
"Max! What is it?" the other man shouted. He burst into my view to the left, chubby and slow, a long rifle in his hand.
"DROP IT!" I roared, switching my aim to him. He whirled to face me, bringing the gun around...
