The cherry-red bedroom, Becky’s color of choice when she’d been in the midst of her teenage rebellion, was almost entirely engulfed in fire. Smoke poured thick and opaque out of the open window and over my head. Lying on the bed, body bent in sleep, was Becky. The flames kissed her cheeks, which, along with the rest of her, had been reduced to flaky cinders. She was less than a corpse. She was ash.
With swimming eyes, I took one last look at my little sister. Then, I dropped to my knees and let the flames take me too.
“Is it locked?”
The chipper, slightly timid voice jerked me from my unpleasant musings. I looked up to see Madeleine, my assistant, standing beside me. She held a Styrofoam cup in her hand, from which dreamy steam billowed in tempting wisps. Following my gaze to the cup, she extended it to me.
“Sorry,” she said, her mouth tightening anxiously with the apology. “I didn’t mean to interrupt whatever you were thinking about. It’s just…well, you’ve been standing there for a couple of minutes.”
I glanced down and realized I was in front of my office door. My hand was poised on the handle like I’d been about to open it.
“That’s okay,” I reassured her. She immediately looked relieved, and I offered her a small smile. “I was in my own little world. I need to wake up, I guess.”
“This will help.” She held out the cup to me a little more with an insistent expression on her face. I took it gratefully and finally turned the door handle.
My office was exactly as I’d left it the evening before; cluttered with papers and reeking of cheap, watery coffee. As I entered, my pumps made soft scuffing sounds on the navy nylon carpet, and Madeleine followed with scuffing of her own. I discovered there was nowhere to put my cup once I rounded my desk, so I balanced it precariously atop an off-kilter stack of files and bent down to log into my computer.
“General Morgan is here to see you,” she announced without preamble.
I swiveled my head to gape at her. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know,” she answered unhappily. “I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just said it was important.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I just got in,” I snapped.
Madeleine shrank back, and I immediately regretted my reaction. It wasn’t her fault that the General wanted to see me, and it definitely wasn’t her fault that I really didn’t want to see him.
“Is he in uniform, at least?” I asked, my tone softer.
“Yes,” she murmured nervously.
“Well, there’s that,” I muttered to myself.
She opted not to reply. The fear on her face was almost laughable to me, not because she looked comical but because Madeleine and I were only a few short years apart in age. It was strange enough to be just four years older than my assistant, but for her to be so intimidated by my authority felt nothing short of outrageous.
“Send him in,” I said with a resigned sigh. She nodded and turned, but, before she could exit, I called to her, “Thank you, Madeleine.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, her face relaxing slightly as she smiled at me over her shoulder.
Once the door closed behind her, I sank into my wheeled desk chair and covered my face with my hands. Of all days for General Morgan to make an appearance this week, today was probably the worst. I was way behind on paperwork, my office looked like a paper bomb had gone off, and, as the cherry on the sundae, I’d had the dream again last night.
I’d felt the flames on my skin, smelled the acrid stench of burn around me. The panic had quickened my heart and knotted my stomach, and then the grief of seeing Becky’s charred corpse had rendered me broken. Sweat had drenched every inch of my skin and soaked the sheets I slept in. Once again, I’d lived the nightmare.
Images from the dream flashed before my closed eyes, and I quickly snapped them open just in time to see a very tall, very fit man through my fingers as he stepped into my office.
General Rodney P. Morgan was, by all accounts, a local celebrity. When the astronauts had returned from their mission and revealed their encounters with alien life, he’d been among the first to assemble defense squads in the New York area. He’d worked closely with all branches of the military, as well as with NASA, to choose soldiers who would be best suited to fight against extraterrestrials—whether it be for their brute strength, tactical skills, knowledge of advanced technology, or even relative criminal history. What had resulted was a host of platoons so diverse and deadly that they’d collectively earned a fitting nickname: “Alien Assassins,” or “Alias” for short.
“Good morning, Roxanne,” Morgan said in a silken purr as he clicked the door closed behind him.
I tried not to grimace at his tone while I got to my feet and rounded my desk with my hand extended to greet him. “General.”
He took my hand and shook it, his harsh gray eyes skimming slowly down the length of my body. I instantly regretted choosing to wear the form-fitting pencil skirt and simple yet flattering white blouse. “I see you’re taking your new position seriously,” he commented. I could practically hear the saliva gathering in his mouth.
“Yes, I am,” I replied, a bite to my words. Then, pointedly, I added, “There’s quite a bit to do.”
Our hands were no longer shaking, but he still gripped mine as though he was unwilling to let it go. I wrenched my fingers free and turned to go back to my chair. As I slipped into it, I motioned to one of the two seats opposite my desk for him to do the same. Morgan ran a hand through his mop of dirty blonde hair and sat. His eyes still had a greedy, hungry look about them.
“You know, Roxanne, I never did properly congratulate you on becoming the new Ambassador of Alien Relations. How about you and I—”
“Why have you come to see me, General?” I interrupted my temper beginning to flare. While many considered Morgan to be an attractive catch with his impressive rank and smoldering gaze, his repeated sexual advances toward me made me think of him as nothing less than a slimeball, and my tolerance for him ran very thin. “And, since you’ve mentioned it, I’d prefer you to address me as Ms. Rigby, since I am the new Ambassador of Alien Relations and all.”
Morgan’s gaze hardened for the briefest of seconds, and then the left corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk. “Very well, Ms. Rigby,” he conceded with aggravating sweetness. Leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees, he suddenly became intense. “I’m here because it’s time to put you to the test. We’re going to see what our new Ambassador is made of.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
He leaned forward a little more until his rear was nearly falling off the seat, and his eyes glittered with excitement. “We’ve got the leader.”
3
Dane
The sound of clanking filled the truck as I struggled against my bonds. My warriors and I had been strong-armed into the back of a large green vehicle with a bench on either side after being chained together by thick irons. Three of the warriors sat opposite me with their ankles bound in adjoining manacles and their wrists restrained behind their backs. Lokos and I occupied the other bench, held captive in the same manner. Each time I shifted my leg or jerked my shoulder, Lokos was forced to move his as well. We were completely unable to flee or fight.
I had to hand it to the humans: they had us.
“What do we do now?” Lokos murmured, speaking A’li-uud.
Three pairs of white eyes fixed on me as my other warriors waited for my reply. “We wait,” I answered in a voice as low as Lokos’. “There is little we can do now. These shackles allow us no leverage, and we are unarmed.”
“You still have your sword, Fierce One,” the warrior directly across from me, Silah, pointed out.
It was true. The humans had taken my warriors’ weapons from them before chaining us together, but they had been unable to take my sword. Every time someone reached for it, the hilt jerked violently, and the inscriptions etched upon it seared with angry white light.
It was a perk of the Elderhood I had not known. Apparently, the powerful, fuchsia blade was bound with magic to prevent anyone but its owner from taking it or using it. I imagined the only reason I’d been able to hold it when Duke had turned it over to me was because he’d relinquished it willingly and we’d held it together while he performed the ritual that released him of the Elderhood, crowning me in his place. The glowing scimitar rested on my hip, crushed between my body and Lokos’.
“Yes, but, as long as I am bound, I am unable to use it,” I said, rustling the chains on my wrists to demonstrate my helplessness.
There was a series of bangs on the metal mesh that separated us from the humans in the front of the truck. “Quit your clacking!” the passenger barked.
I ignored him. Speaking A’li-uud was the only semblance of privacy I had with my men in our confinement, and I certainly wasn’t about to switch to English and allow the soldiers to listen in on our discussion.
“Can you not travel on the winds and free yourself?” Lokos asked.
“I must be outside to use wind travel,” I explained. “As primitive as it is, this vehicle constitutes an indoor environment. I am grounded.”
There were more bangs on the mesh, and, this time, the soldier turned around in his seat to glare back at us.
“I said shut up!” he bellowed. His face was round and doughy, and it was becoming a rosy shade of pink in his anger. “Otherwise I’ll cut one of your throats and drown the rest of you in the blood!”
“Do what you must,” I replied calmly in English.
Lokos, who was glaring at the soldier, stiffened upon hearing my response but said nothing. The other warriors continued staring at the human with loathing scrawled across their faces as well. For a moment, the man goggled at us with a mixed expression of fury and surprise, and then he turned back around in his seat.
“Arrogant prick,” he muttered to the driver.
Lokos’ chest was heaving in and out at great intervals, though his breathing was silent. I knew he was seething, and I didn’t blame him a mite. To be captured by humans was infuriating enough, but he was also in the throes of grief that he was, as of yet, unable to express. Ki’lok had been his brother. He had witnessed his own flesh and blood being murdered at the hands of those who had now taken us hostage. It was a wonder he was able to remain as calm as he did.
“Where are you taking us?” I asked the soldiers, still keeping my voice calm and steady.
I saw the corner of the passenger’s lips curl down into a snarl. “None of your business,” he snapped. “But, if I had my way about it, I’d be taking you somewhere a lot nastier than where you’re going.”
This surprised me, mainly because it intimated that we might not be headed to our deaths after all. Of course, had they intended to kill us, the leader of the squad would have never stopped them from shooting the rest of my men and me, and they likely wouldn’t have bothered gathering us up in the truck. After all, they’d left Ki’lok’s body lying in the muddy grass without any mention of what would happen to him—an act that disgusted me beyond measure. A’li-uud had great respect for the Grand Circle of Life, and to discard the dead without reverence for the magic of existence was the ultimate dishonor. It was just one of the many reasons my distaste for humanity had become nothing short of sheer hatred.
When I had come to Earth several months ago, I had been on a mission to destroy humans and analyze whether their planet was worth colonizing. Those of the A’li-uud who were not fond of conflict convinced themselves it was a mission of defense since humans had learned of our presence in the universe and their history showed that they would make attempts to invade Albaterra and take it over. It was a fallacy, however, to believe the mission was anything other than an offensive move on our part. Once the humans found out about us and returned to Earth with the knowledge, the confrontation between the two races was imminent. We were simply striking first.
Of course, not all humans were loathsome, at least not by the standards of every A’li-uud. The first group to find out about us had crashed on Albaterra after we’d shot missiles at their ship for encroaching on our territory, and an Elder I knew reasonably well, Rex had fallen in love with one of the survivors. She’d never returned to Earth when we’d permitted them to leave Albaterra; as far as I knew, she was living healthily and happily with Rex in his kingdom of Campestria. As if that wasn’t absurd enough, my own brother, who’d joined us on the mission to exterminate humans, fell in love with his human hostage too. It was his desire to be with her that drove him to relinquish his Elderhood to me.
On the other hand, it was because Rex and Duke fell in love with humans that I was sitting in the back of a military truck right now with my hands chained behind my back and my leg joined to Lokos.
“I will kill them.”
Lokos’ voice jarred me from my thoughts, and I twisted my gaze from the truck wall over my warriors’ heads to him. His face was gnarled in an ugly frown of resolute bloodlust. His eyes, usually as white as the snow capping the craggy mountains of Montemba, seemed darkened to a shadowy gray and as hard as the aspex mineral that was abundant in my kingdom. Even the way he spoke reminded me of stone; impermeable and unyielding. His statement was not one of anger or idle plans for escape; at that moment, he was taking a vow of vengeance.
“We will all kill them,” Silah agreed.
I heard the soldier in the passenger seat grumbling to his cohort, but he didn’t turn around to shout at us this time. Leaning my head back against the wall behind me, I tightened my lips into a thin line and exhaled in one sharp breath. My hair, long and specter-white, draped over my shoulders in tousled disarray. I’d been captured by humans three months ago, along with the others who accompanied me now, but I’d only been one of them at the time. Now, as an Elder, I felt the heavy weight of responsibility to my loyal fighters, and I was riddled with frustration that I was unable to free them from this captivity. We could do nothing more than sit as we were taken to our bidden destination.
“Yes,” I murmured. “But we will not only kill them. They will pay for their wrongs, and there will be retribution for Ki’lok. The A’li-uud will reign supreme.”
The warriors across from me let out loud, warbling war whoops, and the human in the front returned to banging on the mesh. He roared something at us, likely an order to be quiet, but his voice was inaudible over the raucous yells of my men. We could not be silenced. We were the people of the universe, perpetuating the Grand Circle and allowing nature to dictate our course.
We would see that the corrupted human race never won.
4
Roxanne
“How do you know he’s the leader?”
I was staring at General Morgan like I’d never seen anyone like him before, but I was also extremely dubious about his claim. After all, the very streets I navigated every morning and every evening, once bustling with Big Apple activity and splendor, were virtually desolate now, all at the hands of the A’li-uud. It was hard for me to believe that capturing the leader was possible with anything less than an entire military branch and New York’s complete arsenal.
“He said he was,” Morgan replied. “And he has a special sword that glows and can’t be taken away from him. None of the others have that.”
“I see.” I frowned and pursed my lips.
Morgan propped his elbows on the edge of my desk and rested his chin in his palms, almost resembling a youthful schoolboy apart from his leering grin. “Are you afraid of the big bad alien, Roxanne? Would you like me to stay with you while you speak to him?” he asked in a babyish, patronizing voice. I held back the retch that rose in my throat.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said firmly, trying to force as much dislike into my gaze as I could. “When is he scheduled to arrive?”
He straightened up again before responding, squaring his shoulders and returning to his military, rigid way of sitting. “The squad picked him up, along with some of his buddies, outside of Newfi
eld near Ithaca. By my estimation, they’ve got another three to three-and-a-half hours to go. You should be having lunch with that blue-skinned abomination, but I don’t think he eats tuna salad.”
I bristled at his words. “You know, General,” I said icily, laying emphasis on his title to impress upon him the responsibilities of his authority. “Just because he’s different than us doesn’t make him an abomination. Maybe it’s that kind of narrow-minded thinking that convinced the A’li-uud to attack us in the first place.”
“Don’t let that shiny new title turn you into a bleeding heart,” Morgan retorted with a flick to the nameplate resting on the front of my desk. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was engraved with Roxanne Rigby, Ambassador of Alien Relations. It was perhaps the thing I was proudest of in my office. “These are vicious creatures that came here for no other reason than to show us they’re bigger and badder than we are.”
“That’s ignorance and fear talking,” I snapped. Though his distasteful comments were, for once, not directed at me, I found Morgan’s crude and intolerant attitude as repulsive as his constant attempts to get into my bed. “You can’t know what their intent is until you talk to the leader, and assumptions are only going to lead to some very big mistakes.”
“It’s not my job to talk to him. That’s your job. My job is to make assumptions that protect our country, or, in this case, our world.” General Morgan was stern now, and I was suddenly very aware of his forty years to my twenty-five. I felt like a scolded child. He only worsened the feeling by pointing at the nameplate again and saying patronizingly, “Earn that paycheck, Ms. Rigby.”
As he strode out of my office, I lowered my face into my hands again. The lingering anxiety from my nightmare had been washed away in the wake of this news, but now I felt fresh anxiety at the prospect of meeting with the A’li-uud leader. Morgan was right; it was my job to speak with him. As the Ambassador of Alien Relations, I was the messenger between our side and theirs, and it was up to me to get as much information from the alien as possible. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I was cut out for the task.
Dane: A Scifi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 3 Page 2
