Bear Mountain Bride: Shifter Romance

by Sky Winters

  “Wait,” he said. He sighed and stared at the ground and then turned to Valerie.

  “What is it?” She had been the victim of cold rejection before and she was not prepared for a second dose.

  He stroked her face and gave her a half smile. “I’m afraid I must tell you something.” She looked at him expectantly, reminding him of a wild animal trapped in a snare. “Master Shakh just gave me some great news. It seems the gateway to Earth will be re-opened three moons from now.”

  Valerie’s eyes popped as she thought about the implications. She could return home, and to a life she had…her thoughts fell flat there. It didn’t take long for the smile that had begun to form to wipe itself into obscurity. She looked at Malek, and saw the sadness in him, but she knew she would not be able to decide right then what the right course was.

  “I never thought I’d get the chance to return home,” she whispered and let go of his hand. “At nights I dreamed of it, when I just got here. I…I…”

  “It’s alright Valerie,” Malek told her. “I won’t keep you here if you want to return home. It is understandable.”

  “I can’t do this right now,” she said, and then she turned and walked away.

  The gathering parted as she did, and Malek stood there next to Master Shakh as he watched her walk away. His heart cried out, but there was no way to appease it. He felt Shakh’s hand on his shoulder then.

  “Be strong great warrior; the day has just started, and it is long. Many things happen before sun sets,” he told him, and then he walked off with the rest of the village with him.

  Malek heard what the old man said, but he found it hard to believe in it now. He wanted to get angry at himself, for falling in love with a dream. Of course she would want to return home; he would if he ever wandered onto a strange planet with strange people. So he would never deny her the chance of returning. With his head held down, he trudged to his tent, his heart a hundred degrees below the point it had been only a few minutes ago.

  When he got there she was waiting for him, and she came forward to meet him. “I don’t know what to do,” she cried.

  He held her, squeezing her to him, and he felt her tremble against him. “Don’t worry. We will figure it out together,” he told her. He felt the emotion well up inside him in the same way he suspected it was consuming her, and not knowing what else to do, he held her head back and kissed her, so that everything else would be still.

  CHAPTER 10

  Valerie and Malek spent the next few weeks acting as if the moons would not pass, and that their future was not hanging by a thread. They lived as they had before, with Valerie not making a decision in either direction. Until the day before the gateway would reappear.

  She woke up in a sweat on that morning, and sprang from the bed. “Ssh,” Malek whispered and pulled her back. “Let’s not do this today. We knew this would happen. Let’s just get through this last day.”

  Valerie’s chest heaved as she allowed him to calm her, and then she sank back into his arms. He enveloped her, and then his lips found the smooth skin at the base of her throat. Her heartrate instantly quickened, and she closed her eyes as she anticipated what was to come next. He slowly and methodically removed her clothing, and when she was bare, his tongue went to work making art along her body. He circled her breasts with his tongue, and groped her sides as his needs increased with the size of his manhood. He felt her hand on him now, squeezing him, and he suckled harder as he felt himself grow with her touch.

  He kissed her sides, her navel, her inner thighs, and ran his tongue over that pink wet spot beckoning to him for more. He felt her tremble, and as the fire raged within him, he guided himself into her. She winced at first, and her head fell back when she gripped the bedding and curled her toes. He slowed until her tension abated, and her insides hugged him, commanding him to give her more as she grew hotter and wetter. Then he sank into her over and over again, matching her rhythm with his, and Valerie moaned long and hard, not wanting the moment to end.

  Malek raged on, and he gripped her thighs as he plunged into her faster, harder and deeper. She panted, and when he rolled her onto her side and entered her again, it was too much. She cried out and dug her nails into him, and the pain she inflicted got intertwined with his euphoria, and he felt himself tingle as he neared his climax. He pressed down into her firm skin with his palms as he released everything into her. She held onto him, keeping him inside her, even when it was over.

  And then they lay there, for hours, not saying anything, until sleep stole the uncomfortable silence between them. When Malek opened his eyes again, it was after midnight. The gateway would open when the sun was highest in the sky and the moon covered it. The time was close and he still wasn’t prepared to let her go.

  At dawn, she rose, her eyes melancholy, and filled with as much confusion as her heart. Malek wasn’t there, but by the time she got dressed, he parted the slit in the canvas and stepped inside. “It is time.”

  He held her hand and led her to Master Shakh. “We go now,” he told her. “We not have much time.”

  They got to the spot where they had first found her, and Malek led her to the entrance of the portal. “This is it,” he said and stood back.

  Valerie stood there, the shimmer actually visible now that she was looking. She reached out and touched the spot, and then her hand fell to her stomach. “And if I go back, how long before this opens again?” she asked.

  “Not sure,” Master Shakh answered. “May not be for another hundred years. Not every time moon meets sun it opens.”

  “A hundred years,” she said softly and then walked back to Malek. “That’s a long time to be without the father of my child.”

  Malek made a start, and then he made two steps to her with his long stride. “Your what?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” she told him and held his hand and placed it on her stomach. “We are going to have a baby.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, and the smile trickled slowly onto his face.

  “Not before yesterday, but it’s true. We are going to have an Earth-Xenon baby,” she said and laughed. Malek howled and hoisted her in the air.

  “So, does that mean you will stay?” he asked, when her face was level with his.

  “I loved my home, but for the last couple of years, I felt like I was somewhere I didn’t want to be. I tried to run from it, by going to Mexico, and if I hadn’t done that, then I wouldn’t have found you. So yes, I will stay with you. I just wanted to come here to get some closure or peace, or whatever. I needed to so that I would be really sure I wanted to stay. And, my sweet Malek, I do.”

  Malek needed to hear no more, and as Master Shakh nodded his approval to the couple, he held her and kissed her, more fiercely than he had ever done. When he let her go, he set her down, and knelt so that he was facing her stomach. He kissed her there, and she hugged him, and in the jungle where they had first met, they were one again.

  ************

  A few months later, right by the waterfall where they first consummated their union, she held a babe in her arms. Malek was next to her, and he stared lovingly into the eyes of his first born.

  “He looks just like you,” Valerie said and smiled.

  “He is the first born of a new line of people. He has my blood, your heart and the history of our two people. He will be strong and a fierce leader.”

  The baby grabbed a fistful of his mother’s hair then and gurgled. “I agree with you about him being strong,” she laughed as she entangled the lock of hair from his arms.

  “That’s my boy,” he laughed as he reached over and took him. He stood with him, the feeling of love and joy radiating between him and his son, and Valerie sighed, feeling more contented than she had ever been. She watched the orange glow of sunset as it slowly disappeared behind the trees in the distance.

  “I think it is time to go,” she said as she gathered their things and got up. Baby Malachi needs his rest.”

  Malek
turned to her and reached for her with his free hand. “Let’s go home.”

  They walked off together, disappearing into the trees that opened a path to home. Her last thought then, when she looked back, was of getting away from the hurt she had experienced. Never in a million years did she dream she would have found love on another planet. If she had ever thought love could be out of this world, she had not thought far enough. She held on to the hand of her mate as he led her home. THE END

  Space Dragon

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Infertility Crisis

  “Alert. This is your president speaking. All volunteers for the Fertility Enrichment Program must arrive no later than seven a.m. tomorrow morning,” the tiny, disembodied voice of the President of Earth boomed over the loud speakers throughout every building and structure. “Repeat. All volunteers for the Fertility Enrichment Program must arrive no later than seven a.m. tomorrow.”

  Celeste Monroe did her best to plug her ears with her hands. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her family’s small, squat slum of a home. For nearly twenty years now, the citizens of Earth had put up with such grand announcements. For almost twenty years, Earth’s leaders had been in a state of panic. That was because, for just about twenty years, no child had been born on Earth.

  The planet was in crisis. As soon as the problem came to the attention of the leadership, they beamed out a message to all neighboring planets and solar systems. Planet Earth was facing a major infertility crisis. The human race was dying out, and they desperately needed the help of another planet and its men.

  Celeste thought this was ludicrous. How were men from another galaxy supposed to help the population? The children of space men were not really Earthlings at all. She was not kidding herself. But her family was poor, and it was promised that the families of those women brave enough to volunteer would be provided with food and resources enough to survive for life. She may have thought the plan was hokey, but Celeste was not about to pass up such a deal. She was smart, but she was not selfish. Say the pregnancy thing did not work out. At least her family would be able to live comfortably.

  And hey, if it did not work out she would not have to have a baby.

  Tall, curvy girl that she was, Celeste did not want to ruin her figure by running off and getting herself impregnated. She was only twenty-seven years old, for god’s sake. She figured that she had time enough for a few dates first.

  Nevertheless, she marched out and volunteered when They asked, and signed her name where They told her to. She knew that, in time, they would be in touch with her.

  And, sure enough, that day came.

  That day was tomorrow at seven a.m.

  “You should eat something,” Celeste’s mother told her. “You don’t want to appear too thin. No man is going to want to mate with a woman who is too skinny.”

  Celeste smirked a bit. “Oh yeah?” she asked, putting several more forkfuls of rice into her mouth and then speaking with her mouth full. “And what if I don’t want to mate with a man with two heads and four arms?”

  Her mother shook her head at her. “You may find a mate, but you will never find a husband with that kind of attitude.”

  “Well, lucky for you a husband’s not the goal!”

  Standing up from the table, Celeste washed her bowl in the sink. She frowned as she looked down, irritable, at the soapy suds that encased her used dishware. Because of the food shortage, rice and corn were just about the only commodities left. As the human race died out, so did labor for agriculture. Everyone on Earth had pretty much been biding their time, for twenty years, for either The Big One, or for savior to come down from the sky.

  “What do you think they’re like?” her mother asked then. “The Daskani? I assume they’re kind enough to offer to help…”

  “You always assume on the side of optimism,” Celeste retorted. “I am not holding my breath. It’s quite possible that the only reason they answered our ruddy call is because they want to fuck our brains out and feed our entrails to their babies.”

  “Language!!” her mother shouted. “Your sister might hear you!”

  Celeste scoffed. “She should be paying attention now. It’s likely that she’ll end up having to follow suit someday.” Though Celeste really hoped not. Her little sister Ruby was twenty years old, one of the last babies born on Earth. She was of age, but according to Celeste and her mother, she was still much too young to be thinking about having babies or being abducted by mysterious aliens from another galaxy.

  Her mother gave Celeste a sad little half smile. “Because of you, she probably and very thankfully will not have to volunteer,” she said. “Because of your sacrifice…”

  “Please,” Celeste said with a grimace. “Don’t call it a sacrifice. That makes it sound like I’m noble.”

  As her mother looked at her, Celeste realized that she was not looking at her in judgement or annoyance like she usually seemed to do. No. She was looking into Celeste’s eyes and smiling at her in a way that said she was proud of her. And maybe even somewhat sad to see her go.

  Give a faint chuckle, Celeste pulled her mother in for a hug. “Hey,” she said. “I don’t leave until tomorrow. And even then, you don’t know that I’ll be gone forever. The Daskani are going to be taking care of our crummy planet from now on, so I’m sure you will still be seeing a lot of me.”

  Tears filled Mrs. Monroe’s eyes now. “I hope you’re right. When your father died, I hoped that that might be the last time the family broke apart. And now… You’re not just moving to another town, you’re moving to another planet.”

  “Like I said,” Celeste said, rubbing her mother’s back in a comforting sort of way. “Maybe I will meet a Daskani who is really interested in Earth biology for some reason, and he’ll want to start a colony of space sheep here or something! Ohio is not what it used to be, but it’s better for space sheep than, say, Texas would be.”

  She was clearly joking. Texas was practically a pile of ash, and Ohio had not had a sheep in it in at least ten years. Still, it made her mother smile.

  Of course, everything that Celeste said was a front for how she was really feeling. She did not want her mom or her sister to know that she was terrified. She did not want to be mated off to some alien brute that she had never met. The very idea repulsed her. Only when she was alone did she allow herself to think about what lay ahead and how much she was really, truly dreading it.

  Celeste was a brave woman. She did whatever it took to keep her family safe. Ever since her father’s passing, she had worked hard and she had been the one to hold things together. But that did not mean that she did so without fear in her mind. It did not mean that she did not feel like crying for help.

  The morning of the Fertility Enrichment Program came to greet Celeste before she was ready, even though she had been preparing herself for it for quite some time. She got out of bed, short auburn hair cowlicked in more than a few places. She stretched, and put on her black plastic glasses, thinking that they might make her appear better in the mirror. They just made her messy, sleep-deprived-looking appearance clearer.

  She got out of bed and threw on the clothes she had picked out for this momentous occasion: a lavender jumpsuit with a belt that had a gold, star-shaped buckle. She thought that it would be better to dress like she was taking on a mission, not like she was trying to sex up a stranger.

  As soon as her groggy mother took one look at her however, she was back in her bedroom putting on some black leggings and a purple dress instead. She kept the belt, though. Celeste liked the idea of eloping with an alien while wearing such an appropriately-themed belt buckle. She supposed that she was not always super mature.

  Or perhaps she just had a silly sense of humor.

  “You look like you want to be beamed up,” her mother said. “But I guess that will be appreciated. Do you know who you’re going to be assigned to?”

  Celeste shook her head and bit her lip a little. She did not like that terminology.
They were not going to be lab partners. They were going to be sexual partners. And she was not going to be the Daskani male’s ‘assignment.’ If anything, she hoped that she might be his friend. But she was trying to be optimistic about that. It didn’t do any good to be negative now.

  The alarm sounded, signaling that the volunteers needed to make their way to the main area of the compound. If any household had been asleep before, they were awake now.

  Celeste’s mother suddenly pulled her in for a hug. “I am very proud of you,” she said, choking back tears and then letting a bunch of them escape anyway. “I will miss you so much, but I am so proud of you. Ruby is too.”

  “Ruby is too,” her little sister’s voice said from behind their mother. She smirked as she came into view. She looked a lot like Celeste, except shorter and with longer, blonder hair. The same galaxy of freckles darted across the bridge of her nose; the same twinkle was in her light brown eyes. Only, Celeste doubted that there was a twinkle in her own eyes right now.

  At least, not a twinkle that wasn’t tears.

  “I hope you get a hot one,” Ruby said, then she gave Celeste a hug.

  “Ha,” Celeste said, doing her best to wipe at her eyes while her face was on Ruby’s shoulder. “You know I’m hoping that, too. Be good, kid. I will be back to check in on you. Though probably not until I’ve properly bred something.”

  She knew that it was time to go. She hated goodbyes, so she did not allow herself to linger. Giving a quick nod and wave to her mother and sister, Celeste turned from their house and walked out under the bright early morning sun.

  The Earthen compound was made up of thousands and thousands of small, squat homes. They were all gathered in groups, with a large dome-like structure at the center. That was where important Presidential presentations were given and things like that.

  Today, that was where Celeste and all of the other ready-to-breed young women were to meet. And wait.

  She joined the throngs of young, nervous women and stood there in the rows along with them, gazing up at the dark triangular shape in the sky. The Daskani ship was coming in for a landing. At first, it seemed like it was just going to land and crush all of Earth’s last hope.