Sci-fi Nights: Alpha bad boys & wild girls of futuristic romance

by Calinda B

  His father’s face grew ugly, transformed by his fury. He stormed into the bleak, bare dining room. “It’s your kind, too. Yet, you disappoint me by taking after your mother.”

  “Yeah, well, you might have thought of that when you bedded a human empath,” Gaige said, crunching into the apple. “Whom I happened to love way more than I give a rat’s ass about you.” It gave a satisfying snap, as sweet juice squirted onto his face. He chewed, licked his lips, chewed some more. Ran a hand across his cheek to get the sweet, sticky juice. Licked his palm. Wiped his hand on his pants. Scratched his bare chest, still sweaty from soccer practice. He liked the muscles starting to bulge in chiseled, hard-edged power.

  “It was a stupid mistake. The human mind is a rich source of sustenance. But the pattern of empath brain waves? Utterly intoxicating. Her Delta waves while in deep sleep were…it was…oh, never mind.” His father paced and fumed, the horns on his head growing larger, indicative of his growing rage. “It should never have gone this far.” He waved a hand in Gaige’s direction.

  “That’s what happens when you have sex, pops. Need me to explain how babies are made?” Gaige looked at his father’s horns, shrugged, and got back to his apple.

  His father shot him a vicious glare.

  “Someday you’re going to be pissed in public and those things are going to stick out. People will think you’re wearing a Halloween costume, dressed like the devil.”

  “I have superior cloaking skills.”

  “Whatever.” Gaige shook his head. “I don’t know what it is with you and brain wave patterns. Deltas, thetas, betas, blah, blah, blah. That’s all you talk about. I don’t seem to need them. Food serves me fine.”

  “Your transformation hasn’t occurred.”

  “Whatever.” He sauntered toward the living room.

  “You’ll need the feedings, too.”

  “Uh huh.”

  His father lunged, batting the apple out of his hands. It landed with a wet thwack on the opposite wall, falling with a soft thud on the gray tile floor.

  Gaige’s jaw dropped. “Hey! I was eating that apple.”

  “You were ignoring me. That’s what you were doing. Now you’re not. I need you to pay attention. We’ve got to force your transformation to find out what kind of stuff you’re made of.”

  “What the…? I’m a human. With human friends. And human skills, like soccer, which I happen to be really, really good at. Maybe I’ll go pro someday.”

  “No-one’s ever bedded with an empath. We’re not supposed to co-create with humans of any kind. We don’t know what you’re capable of. The red is an indicator.”

  Gaige paused, mid-mouthful. “Indicator of what?”

  “We don’t know. We’ve got to find out. I’ve arranged a union for you. To a purebred Deltarc she-male. We need to breed you to force the change.” His skin began to shimmer with a sickly yellowish-red hue, the way it always did when he grew excited.

  “You want to what? Breed me? Like a fucking stallion? Hell, no, to that idea.” Gaige sauntered over to his apple, retrieved it from the floor, brushed it off on his pants and took another bite. Looked out the window at the gloomy Seattle skyline. My father and his bullshit.

  “She needs to get with child. She’s miscarried five times. She’s dispensable. Once she’s with child she can be eliminated.”

  “Eliminated?” Gaige’s voice came out in a squeaky rasp. Shivers crawled along his skull. “You can’t force me to unite with anyone. You can’t force me to do your bidding and participate in your lies.”

  “Can, have, will again.” His father smiled a victorious smile. “It’s either that or wipe you out of the gene pool.”

  Icy shivers curled up Gaige’s spine. “What? Wipe me out of the gene pool? Like, snuff me out? You’re my fucking father, for Christ’s sake. Is that some kind of sick joke?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

  A cold smile appeared on his father’s face, chilling Gaige to the bone. He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘the red is an indicator’?” He averted his face from his father’s scrutiny.

  “You know full well what I mean.” He seized Gaige’s shoulder and spun him around. “That red.” He stabbed his stubby, sharp-nailed finger at Gaige’s right eye. “You think I haven’t noticed the red spot in your eye? Your lovely teenage hormones are kicking in.” His smile grew larger. “That’s a sign you’re coming into my side of the gene pool in a big way…a never before heard of way. I’d wondered. Your mother’s influence was strong. But there’s my proof. My seed is stronger. We have to catch it while it’s fresh. We have to draw out the red in you for you to assume your lineage. Your Sheltarc mate will do that for us. She comes from good stock.”

  “What? You talk about me like I’m a science experiment.” A weird frigid sensation snaked up Gaige’s spine. Usually his father’s rants went in one ear and out the other. But recently he’d noticed changes. Bizarre cravings. Disturbing compulsions. Things about his behavior his teenage mind couldn’t comprehend. “You’re wrong, dad,” he spat out. “I’m out of here. Maybe I’ll start now.” He turned to stalk out the door. To hell with you.

  “Want to see your mother again?”

  Gaige stopped, another sub-zero chill washing over him. “What?” he said without turning around.

  “Your mother. Lyrica. I know you loved her.”

  “Yeah, so? Seems like a natural response to the person who gave me life. But then you drained her, you bastard. Sucked the life right out of her, leaving me with you as a caregiver. Some care I got.”

  “What’s your point? That’s what we do—feed, grow stronger. But, once the change is complete and you’ve made the transformation and confirmed my Deltarc superiority, I can restore your mother. It’s the least I can do for you.”

  “What did you say?” Gaige turned around slowly.

  “I’ll restore your mother.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “It will be my way of saying thanks.”

  “You’re sick. I won’t stand for this. I’m leaving.”

  “You can never escape who you are, boy,” his dad said, looking more and more like the devil himself as his gloating increased.

  “Want to bet? Watch me.” He turned to get away from his piece of shit father. A warm, slimy wet rope of flesh wrapped around Gaige’s neck, stopping him in his tracks. He reached for the foul thing, pulling free of…of… “God, you’re despicable,” he spat, his lip curling in disdain. He flung his father’s tongue—his tongue of all things—away from him, watching his father slurp it back into his evil mouth.

  His dad let loose a hideous laugh. “If you’re lucky, you might grow one of these, too. They come in handy.” He waggled it suggestively.

  “Not if I can help it. I don’t want to turn out anything like you. Nothing. No resemblance. Forget it.” Gaige’s stomach churned with disgust.

  “Genes are genes, son, and mine are strong.” His father swaggered toward him, flicking his tongue in the air, like a cat licking cream from a bowl.

  “How can you do that? You make it all…all…too long. That’s not right.” A shudder rippled up his spine. “As for mom, I don’t trust you to restore her unless you have a thing for zombies. She’s dead.” He backed away from his dad.

  “She’s in frozen stasis. I couldn’t merely let her die. Her sustenance is stunning. I’ve got her in a chamber somewhere, being kept alive until modern medicine catches up with itself and can return her back to life. Oh, to feed on that woman again…” His father actually trembled.

  Gaige staggered backward. “You’re revolting, you know that? She’s alive somewhere? Frozen? So you can fucking feed on her?”

  “Don’t believe me? New technologies are emerging every day. Medical science is learning how to keep people alive while kept at a specific temperature. They’re still working on restoration and healing techniques but it’s only a matter of time. We have enough people to experiment with, that’s for sure. Goddamned world is so overpop
ulated you can barely get around.”

  “Where is she?”

  “That’s a need to know secret.”

  “I need to know. She’s my mother.” He lunged for his father, prepared to choke the life out of him, but his dad’s damn pink, black and yellow tongue snaked out of his wretched mouth and wrapped around his wrists. Gaige shook free of the grotesque thing and leapt away, out of reach. “I’m going to find her.”

  “Dream on. You do and you’ll only suck the life out of her, like I did.”

  “Are you kidding me? She’s my mom. That’s sick. I’d never do that.”

  “Once the transformation occurs, you might not have a choice. Half-breeds can be different.”

  “I thought you said no-one ever bedded outside the clan before.”

  His dad waved a hand in the air, like shooing away a pesky fly. “There are stories. Myths, no doubt. That’s what we were discussing this morning. Their cravings can be stronger than a purebred—and erratic.” He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “But powerful.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because it seems relevant at the moment. Now, go get dressed.”

  “What for?”

  “Prepare for your bedding day. It’s in an hour.”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no. No way. You can’t do this.” He pushed past his father and raced for the kitchen door. Once he crossed that threshold, he was gone, baby, gone. Reaching for the doorknob, he twisted it and yanked, just as his father’s fucking tongue noosed around his neck, wrenching him backward, to slam, unconscious, on the hard, cold, tiled floor.

  END

  Want to read more? Red Rex is scheduled for release in September 2014.

  End of the Line

  Jit’Suku Chronicles

  Bianca D’Arc

  Enemy Captain Val downs a female fighter pilot out near the Galactic Rim. Her name is Lisbet and she’s about to rock his world.

  Their attraction is mutual and explosive. She can’t resist him, but she hates being a prisoner. Lisbet doesn’t know a lot about his culture and it’s clear he doesn’t understand humans. It’ll be fun educating him about just how fierce... and loving, a human woman can be.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  More from Bianca D’Arc

  Chapter One

  She saw the incoming fire too late to save her ship. The one-man fighter was going down, and if she didn’t pop her canopy in the next five milliseconds, she was going with it.

  Lisbet realized she had no choice. Hitting the CATASTROPHIC FAILURE button, she checked herself out of her ride split seconds before it blew into a million little weightless bits. Out in the nothingness of space near the galactic rim, she was in no man’s land where rescue was hard to come by. She had either a long wait or a slow death to look forward to in the next few hours.

  The enemy jits had won this battle, though hopefully not the war. Skirmishes on the rim had escalated in recent years as the jit’suku empire looked for ways to gain a foothold in the Milky Way galaxy. The expansion from their home galaxy was fueled by the comparative ease of travel via an inconvenient wormhole and several jumpoints that had been created before humans had realized how the jit’suku truly viewed the human race.

  Inferior. That’s what the jits thought of humans. Inferior in every way to their war-mongering race. Though they looked very human in appearance—if built on a bit larger scale than most humans—jit’suku society was one that most humans had a hard time understanding.

  They prized warriors and seemed to scoff at diplomats or anyone who wanted to negotiate peaceful coexistence. The only thing the jits understood was conquest, it seemed.

  Which was why they’d been fighting so long and so hard out here, on the rim of the Milky Way galaxy. Lisbet was just the latest in a nearly endless rotation of human fighter pilots who had drawn the dreaded duty of patrolling the rim.

  Vast reaches of emptiness between nearly lawless stations, dangerous jumpoints, and the occasional star system, rim duty was enough to drive anyone crazy. But she welcomed the emptiness of space and the loneliness of her own thoughts after the humiliation she’d been through.

  She’d been on this patrol for over a week with nothing to report. Then this.

  A jit’suku battle cruiser had appeared as if from out of nowhere, and blasted her before she could even get a message out. It had been lying in wait behind an asteroid. Lisbet had known to be cautious, but honestly, her thoughts had been elsewhere. As soon as she spotted the giant ship zipping out from behind cover of the asteroid, it had already been too late. Her signals had been jammed and a blanket of weapons fire had been sent the distance between the two ships in all her possible trajectories. She’d been dead already, and she’d known it.

  Popping her canopy and stranding herself in the middle of nowhere in the emergency pod had been her only choice. Not a great one, but there had been no other way to get clear of all the incoming fire. The bastard giving orders on that battle cruiser hadn’t been taking any chances that she would get clear and report back. He had thrown everything but the kitchen sink at her and she hadn’t stood a chance.

  “Human, this is Captain Fedroval of the battle cruiser Fedroval’s Legacy. Warrior to warrior, I give you the choice. Would you prefer the fast death of missile fire or the slow death of suffocation when your air runs out?”

  For a moment, Lisbet thought of ignoring the short range communication from the cruiser. He was still blocking her long range transmitter, but he had allowed her enough bandwidth to broadcast to his ship. Big of him. Damn, jit’suku bastard.

  “How do you know I’m not the advance scout of a much larger force? Could be my battalion is hot on my heels and will pick me up after they blow you to kingdom come.” Oh, how she wished that were true. She’d get a lot of satisfaction right now at seeing the jit’suku ship blown into a million pieces.

  There was a slight delay in the answer she’d expected would come back right away. He probably knew she was bluffing. If he’d been hiding out behind that asteroid for any length of time, he had to know hers was merely a patrol craft on a regular route.

  “Who is this? What is your name, rank and gender?”

  He sounded mad now, for some reason she couldn’t imagine. And why would he ask her gender? That seemed odd in the extreme. But she’d play along. She’d be alone out here for a long time—if he let her live after this encounter—and she was going to have a lot of time before her air ran out with her own thoughts. Might as well talk to someone while she had company, even if he was a damned jit.

  “Lieutenant Lisbet Duncan of Earth. And I’m female, not that it should matter to you. I’m a qualified pilot who graduated at the top of my class from pilot training.”

  While there had always been a lot more males drawn to military life than females, Lisbet wasn’t too much of an oddity. Many women had the natural skills needed to fly shuttles and other spacecraft. She was unique in that she’d requested fighter duty. She liked shooting at things and would have tried for a gunner position on one of the big battleships if she hadn’t qualified as a pilot.

  “Prepare for retrieval.” The order was brusque and he sounded even angrier.

  “Now just wait a darn minute! What?”

  He didn’t answer, but a moment later she saw two small craft launch from inside the battleship and head straight for her. The bastards were going to pick up her pod. She was going to be a prisoner of war.

  Dammit!

  Although… it was probably better than dying alone in the vastness of space, she had to admit. At least if they picked her up, she might have a chance to do some damage to them before she died. She didn’t like the idea of possibly being tortured, but she’d trained for it, like all the other pilots, and thought she was mostly prepared. She didn’t know much that they could get out of her. She wasn’t privy
to any battle strategies or troop deployment information. She only knew her current mission and those she had been on previously. Not much of value to the jit’suku empire.

  Sure enough, the two craft flanked her and deployed some kind of netting that encompassed her pod. As soon as she was secure, they flew back toward the cruiser. The ship was even larger than she’d thought. It had the latest in jit technology, from what she could see of its outboard arrays. This was no battered old warhorse. This ship was battle ready and gleaming, though she could see a few spots where repairs had been made—after engagements with human forces, no doubt.

  The two patrol craft deposited her inside a spotless hangar bay, bumping her only once as they set her down. Their nets retracted and they parked on either side of her. She waited patiently inside her pod, gathering what little information she could. Her instruments told her the hangar bay was pressurized with a breathable atmosphere and she saw big jit’suku men working on various other craft parked nearby without breathing gear.

  The hangar bay had a giant force field at one end, keeping the air in. Nice. On most human battleships, the hangar bays were kept at zero atmosphere. Pilots loaded into the canopies above and were dropped down and secured to the fuselages below via a small chamber that was sealed, then evacuated of its precious air before opening to the hangar deck below.

  The pilots who had caught her pod and brought her here climbed out of their cockpits and moved closer to investigate. One made the sign for her to pop her lid and she shook her head, refusing. They went on like this for a few minutes, arguing via sign language through the window until suddenly everyone on the flight deck jumped to attention.