“Hear me out.” This is so bizarrely human in its delivery that I have to blink to make sure I’m still staring up at a seven foot Axylan. He’s walking backwards now to continue looking me in the eye as I limp along. “I have contacts, higher-ups. I can get to people, see? We can help each other.”
“Help each other how?” My incessant questioning is getting on my own nerves—I wish he’d go ahead and explain himself so I didn’t have to keep being so vulnerably Human. “And I’m still not entirely sure why you’ve decided to go against your own species, so forgive me if my trust isn’t exactly flowing in abundance.”
“I’m not like them.” This admission is so quiet I almost miss it. “There are several complicated factors which I’d rather not get into right now, but let’s just say helping you would be helping me. You might just need to find some of that trust you were talking about.”
The whole scenario is bizarre—limping through the woods with this huge Axylan. Agreeing (Have I agreed, is this an agreement, some sort of treaty?) to help each other. Fraternizing with the enemy.
“I’m guessing I don’t have much choice, here,” I say, slowly. “So say I agree. We just, what, use your so-called ‘contacts’ to infiltrate the main troops? It’s that easy?”
“It’s a much quicker and efficient plan than your original one.” There’s a chuckle in Yves’ voice. And—I must have hit my head—there is a smooth, reassuring quality. For some very strange reason, I think of liquid chocolate… Come on! Snap out of it! I try to concentrate on the bracken crunching beneath my boots. “So you’re with me?” He sounds eager.
“If I get some more answers, then I guess I am.”
“You’re not going to like them,” he says, perfectly cheerily. “The answers, I mean. I’ll be lucky if you don’t go running for the hills.”
“I don’t think I’ll be running anywhere with my leg in this state,” I mutter. The ground rises steeply ahead of us, as if to highlight that fact, and the pain doubles in intensity.
“You are hurting,” he says simply, and suddenly we’ve stopped in our tracks and he’s bent over raising the pant leg of my overalls to get a closer look at my damaged right leg. Pain flares briefly at his touch, and then calms, soothed by the ice of his skin. I hadn’t expected his touch to be so cold (Wait, had I been expecting his touch at all?) but the temperature of his fingertips match the texture, and it is hard to believe he isn’t actually carved out of marble. I don’t miss the flicker of concern in Yves’ eyes, although I put the look down to the fact that he knows I’ll most likely slow him down rather than any worry for me personally.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me. Again he surprises me, leaves my mind racing to catch up…
“For what? You didn’t twist my leg up under me.” I try to sound matter-of-fact.
“It might not be my fault directly, but it is because of my people that this happened. My fault that you don’t feel safe enough to share your first name with me, that you’re forced to spend your days in prison. I didn’t want any of this to happen, but Ayla’s plans…”
“You talk as though you know her personally,” I venture. There’s a wary, haunted look in his eyes that speaks volumes of the contempt he appears to hold for himself, all because of the situation his species have found themselves in. So much loathing in those dark eyes, loathing for himself and loathing for his species. It makes me want to offer comfort, somehow, maybe slide an arm around the back of his neck to pull him close. The thought startles me, because it’s ridiculous, of course. His loathing is probably for me: after all, I am the one who has been killing his “innocents”, blowing up settlements that he claims are harmless.
“I did,” he echoes, and I’m jolted back to attention. Yves knows Ayla IX. Only those of a high rank get to come into personal contact with the leaders, and those of a high rank… let’s just say nobody tends to question their loyalty. They won’t hesitate to eliminate a threat. The fear I managed to outrun back at the settlement catches up to me now, flows icy and smooth through my bloodstream. My sluggish mind connects the dots: the loathing has to be directed toward me. He has dragged me this far into the forest so that he can kill me himself, uninterrupted. I would turn to run, but the incline has tired me, and his fingers are still locked around my ankle. Vaguely, I register that his thumbs are stroking up and down my skin, so gently now that the cold of his flesh is almost imperceptible. A tingling feeling spreads up my leg, bringing a stream of warmth with it.
“Your ankle should feel better now,” Yves says, a glimpse of concern flickering over his pale face. He releases me, a cautious hand proffered in case I stumble.
“Wait. You can’t just drop something like that on me without explaining. Are you taking me back to her? Are you going to have me publicly executed, is that it?”
“I’m not going to hurt you, I told you,” Yves says, sounding slightly frustrated with my paranoia, however well-founded it might be. “Besides, Ayla and I are not close anymore.”
“But you were?” I push. We’re on the move again, almost at the top of the slope. The pain has abated, only a numb twinge when I move wrong suggests it was ever even there. I’m grateful for this, at least. Maybe the Axylans are useful for something…
“We used to be close, yes,” he admits, then exhales shakily, as though preparing for an argument. “Ayla IX is my sister.”
A beat passes in which neither of us speaks, and I’m having a hard time coaxing breath into my lungs. Yves slows to a stroll, twisting his fingers together in a manner I’d be tempted to call anxious, if he were Human. Somehow, I can’t picture him standing next to Ayla IX on her throne, in a silver crown and the flowing violet robes of the leaders. A realization dawns: I’ve been comparing him to a Human this whole time. And he’s nothing like the sociopaths back at the bunker, the guards who won’t hesitate to shoot a stun ray into the back of anyone who is working too slowly, who pluck the supposed slackers up, like they were rag dolls, by their throats and slam them against heavy stone walls. It’s bizarre, that they and he are so unalike. I want to class Yves as “enemy”, but with him looking at me through eyes awash with guilt, it’s difficult.
“Your sister,” I echo, pointlessly.
“I don’t agree with what she’s doing.” Yves’ words run over each other in their rush to escape the confines of his lips, “I tried to stop her, at first, but she’s stubborn. She was the youngest of our siblings and I always felt like it was my duty to protect her. Our brothers were awful to her, ever since she was a kid.” I stop cold as I try to reconcile the child he is describing with the image of Ayla IX I know so well. Powerful, entitled, mercenary—the propaganda darling, always photographed with jaw open in a roaring, mocking laugh. I never imagined her to have a past, never imagined anything before the dictatorship our world’s been crushed under.
“So how did she get all this power?”
“Our parents were the rulers of our home world. They were killed in the war that destroyed our planet and the crown automatically reverted to our oldest brother.” Yves leaves a pause for effect; my stomach churns when I imagine how this story will unfold. “She killed him. She killed every kind of opposition to her reign, tired of being overlooked her whole life. She’d always been determined or maybe ‘defiant’ is the better word. She gave back as good as she got, but in the end she was the youngest, and a woman in a patriarchal society, so she thought it the only way to get what she desired. She would’ve killed me, too, but I escaped before she had the chance.” Another pregnant pause, in which Yves bites down on his bottom lip just hard enough to draw a drop of violet blood to the surface. “I just want my sister back, safe, but I’m not sure she can ever be the person she was. She’s changed so much.”
The ghosts I saw previously in his eyes have returned, swimming to the forefront of that piercing gaze. His guilt weighs heavily on me somehow, so heavily that it’s hard to breathe.
“Let me see your rank tattoo.” Even coming from my own lips, the de
mand is so sudden that it startles me. The acknowledgement of his rank will confirm or juxtapose what I have been trained to believe, deep in my subconscious—he is the enemy. If he’s as high up as his sister, there’s no way he could ever bring me to safety. There’s too much at stake. In that case, it’s more likely that we’re heading to one of the public gallows, so that I can be branded a rebel and executed in front of an international television audience and a few public spectators for good measure.
A hush falls over the forest as Yves bares his neck to me. He doesn’t look happy about it —his expression exposes his dread, the wary look in his eyes growing and his lip curling in reluctance. He looks braced for rejection, braced for a fight, braced for me to run screaming.
There’s a lot of chestnut hair to sweep out of the way, and the height difference means he has to bend his knees for the nape of his neck to be on eye-level with me. The tattoo is stamped into ivory flesh, over the taut muscle. A single digit: I. He’s the highest rank there is. By all rights, he should be the one on the throne, not Ayla.
“Shit,” I breathe, unable to do or say anything else. Yves swivels slowly to look at me, jaw set and expression carefully void of any emotion.
“I can tell you don’t trust me, Human,” Yves says. He straightens up, and for a second he is completely the kind of creature I know his people to be, stoic and cold. “And you have no reason to. You see us as polar opposites, which may be true, but you need me. And I need your help.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to be helping,” I mutter, still taken aback by the awful realization that he’s a head Axylan. “You’re as powerful as they come.”
“You know, you remind me of her,” Yves says, barely audible. He looks lost in thought for a moment, settled back on his haunches, staring off at a spot just above my left shoulder. “Of Ayla, I mean. Before…all this. Feisty. Determined. Wary.”
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the description, but I stay silent anyway. Yves looks distant, as if anything I might choose to say would only get lost in the void between us.
Chapter 4
“Everything hurts, all the time.” I’m not certain he intended this admission to be voiced aloud, because he appears startled when the words leave his lips. The sound is so pained that before I have chance to consider the consequences, my body has moved of its own accord, and my hand is resting on his shoulder, rubbing soothing concentric circles. I can feel the primal strength emanating from him.
“Talk to me, then. Make me trust you.”
It’s as though my body has been taken over by some metaphysical presence, because these words are surely no longer my own. My voice, soothing and inviting, surely doesn’t belong to me.
“She tore our family apart. It might not seem like it, but Axylans take family bonds very seriously. Our families are our hearts, our souls. Human attachments, in comparison, are…feeble, at best. What she did was— is—unforgivable. I watched my brothers die, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. I was too concerned with the possibility of sharing Ayla’s power—I thought if I hung around long enough she’d share some of it with me. It’s how we were raised, to believe power is the ultimate prize. The only worthy goal.”
“I should have talked to her more. I should have been there when they weren’t, but I was just as useless as the others. I was her oldest brother, I should have done something…”
“It doesn’t sound like there was anything you could have done,” I coo sympathetically, surprised at the display of Axylan tears when he glances up at me.
Yves moves before I can do anything to stop him (that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it). So suddenly that it steals my breath away, his lips are on mine, softer than I’d ever imagined marble could feel. His flesh comes alive under my fingertips as I instinctively touch his cheek. What was once cool stone is replaced by warm silk. Yves’ warmth is familiar somehow, as comfortable as a handmade sweater, a broken-in jean jacket or a blanket tucked around my shoulders.
At the same time there’s another kind of heat there, a feeling of intention, enough that it sets my blood alight. I can feel it coursing through my veins, burning me up from inside. He is no longer solid—he is all around me. I find myself kissing back with everything I have. His lips on mine are the center of the universe, spiraling out of control around us. His body is my only constant, a rock to cling to in a growing storm.
All too soon, it’s over, and he pulls away from me, panting slightly. It is surreal. How is it I’m the one who’s done this to him, stolen his breath and brought color to his cheeks? A strange sense of pride swells in me, irrational and probably somewhere in the boundary of insane, but fantastic nonetheless. I watch as he becomes solid once more, the translucent figure knitting back together so his skin is like marble once again, solidifying around the edges. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
“I’m sorry,” Yves apologizes immediately, swiping with the back of his hand at the sensory vestiges of the kiss that cling to his lips. I’m so dizzy with adrenaline that my vision swims and it takes three tries to raise my voice to above a whisper.
“What was that for?” My words are an octave too high, my shock all too apparent. Yves only glances guiltily at my face for a moment before returning his gaze to the ground.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he admits. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a twinge of hurt at this, that my stomach doesn’t churn knowing what felt so unexpectedly beautiful has been reduced to a simple mistake in his eyes. Rejection is like a stab in the gut, sharp pain flooding up my abdomen and into my chest. “You caught me unawares. Nobody has offered me anything close to comforting words in a long time.”
“It’s okay,” I breathe. Yves shakes his head, once again raising his face to lock eyes with mine.
“It’s not even close to ‘okay’,” is the only thing he’ll say on the matter, before snapping to attention, suddenly the epitome of action and decision. “I know another location of one of your machines. It’s not far from here. I can take you there, if you trust me enough to do that.”
“Yeah, I…” I trail off. He obviously isn’t expecting a reply, as he is already headed off deeper into the forest. My lips still tingling with the memory of his, I follow, my steps shortened and awkward. Everything feels awkward now. In that brief moment we were so at one with each other and just as quickly we’re detached from each other. The world seems fuzzy. Something is wrong. I feel disjointed. I’m surely coming apart at the seams.
“What happened back there…” I begin, trying to catch up, “something changed. Something’s different.” It seems like an obvious statement, but Yves’ head snapped around to look at me, mouth pressed in a thin line.
“Nothing has changed,” he spits, too harshly. It’s difficult to imagine that mere moments ago those same lips were treating me with such unadulterated tenderness.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Yves, and I don’t like that. Could you please slow your processing to a more Human level? Help a girl out.”
“I’m sorry,” is all he will say. The rest of the walk is taken in silence, and by the time we reach our destination, both of my legs are aching and I feel like a complete idiot, unable to keep up. All of this feels ridiculous, traipsing after the huge alien like a lapdog faithful on the heels of its owner.
The machine is half-hidden in a narrow alleyway on the edge of another rundown city. A large tarpaulin has been dragged to cover the entrance, and if Yves didn’t know the machine’s precise location I’m sure I would have mistaken it for a large pile of trash, the remnants of some long-forgotten furniture.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Yves says, once the tarp has been pulled back to reveal a single seat with restraints and a green control panel. I’m not sure if he’s talking about the planet invasion or the kiss. Either way, I can only shake my head as I slide into the seat, eager to get out of here.
“Will you meet me?” he suddenly exclaims as I�
��m clicking my safety harness into place. At my look of confusion, he hastens to explain, “In the future. I can give you a date, we can meet Ayla. A month from now, okay? It’ll take me that long to establish contact, to convince her that I’m not a threat to the throne. You have the resources, the backup, and I have the connections, remember?”
“Yeah,” I agree unenthusiastically. “Okay. A month from now. Same location?”
“Yes. Here. I’ll program the coordinates in now; try to bring the others. You can bring this machine and they can travel in the bigger one. I’ll be waiting.” He taps a couple of buttons on the control panel and tries to slide the door shut, halted only by my hand on his arm. I’m once again surprised to find his skin go from cool to melting like soft wax beneath my touch. My eyes narrow in confusion, my grasp tightening on Yves’ arm.
“Your skin is amazing,” I murmur, awestruck. I can see color rising in the pale flesh, as if blood is rushing to the surface to greet my fingers. He takes in a shaky breath, the now-familiar wary, guilty expression lighting his features. He’s beautiful in this light. The dim streetlight is shielded by a building to our left, so only a patch of the orange glow reaches us, illuminating Yves’ ivory features and casting shadows over his left side. He looks mysterious, an enigma. Beautiful.
“Does it always change at someone’s touch?” My voice is still a whisper, contrasting the curt reply that accompanies another jab of the control panel.
“No.” He goes to slam the door shut on me but I stop him by grabbing his hand and interlacing our fingers—there it is. Cool to the touch at first, but heat begins to spread as I loosen my hold. He isn’t going anywhere just yet.
“My name’s Amy, by the way. Amy Cross.” The admission is an even quieter whisper, and the only thing that prompts his reply.
“My skin changes only for you, then, Amy Cross,” he tells me, indicating our joined hands. My brow crinkles in confusion, but his fingers slip from my grasp before I can protest, and the door clangs shut. All I can do is hold on for dear life as I’m hurtled through time, Yves’ name fading on my lips.
Romance: Scifi Romance: Mated by the Alien (Abduction BWWM Paranormal Romance) (Interracial First Contact Space Romance) Page 8
