Chapter 5
The cell is stifling at night. I’d never really had much chance to notice before, almost thankful now that I had always collapsed on my bunk after exhausting myself with work and the rebel efforts. But I haven’t seen the others in seven weeks. It’s been almost two months since I’ve been down to the machine, since I met Yves. Taylor has been avoiding my eyes in the canteen, and apart from a stilted apology from Keith at the printing press and an accusatory look from Briana in the corridor, I’ve had no contact with anyone but my cellmate for the entire time. Briana is evidently trying to make me feel guilty for not turning up to our nightly meetings, Taylor is shouldering most of the guilt of leaving me by himself, and they’re all blissfully unaware of my newfound connection with the Axylans.
I have no desire to share with them, either way, not since the cold truth of reality has settled in again. Seeing the Axylans in action, their “natural” attitude—that is, looming over us at our workstations, on patrol while we shovel gruel down our throats, clanging on cell doors purely for the sport of waking us in the middle of the night—has revived a resolute sense of anger within me. And the memories of one of them strolling beside me in a darkened forest, soothing my swollen ankle, kissing…
I don’t let myself think about the kiss. Instead, while I’m lying in my bunk at night, staring at the ceiling, the oppressive heat of thousands of bodies suffocating me, perspiration streaming down my face, I think of the Axylans’ cruelty. The heavy snores of my cellmate keep me grounded in the present, each snort chasing away the haunting feeling of Yves’ lips on mine.
My agreement to meet with him is forgotten, the moment lost. I have to concentrate on my own species. We’re resilient, us Humans, ready to fight until the bitter end. It fills me with a strange calmness, a gratitude so deep it cannot be contained. They cannot keep us down; we will not be confined to a single space on this planet—our home for the entirety of our own evolution.
It’s this feeling, and this feeling alone, that spurs me into action in that moment. Our efforts are not working, clearly. If all it takes is a single sacrifice—that of my own life—to aid the rebel efforts to save billions of lives, then perhaps it really is for the best. If Yves was insincere, if he is real intent was to get me executed, isn’t it worth the risk? I rouse myself to action and check to see if the coast is clear.
Worth the risk. I repeat these words to myself like a mantra as I make my way back to the basement. It’s almost 0200, and the barred dirty windows set high in the cinder block walls let in only the palest glow of moonlight. It’s somehow comforting that our own solar system remains intact, oblivious to the wreck Earth has become. The Moon is indifferent to our struggles.
I tap in the coordinates Yves showed me. It is not with the memory of his lips on mine that I strap myself in, nor with the sensation of marble bleeding into flesh that I brace myself to be hurtled forward in time. My focus is on my own species, on the feeling of rough alien hands gripping the flesh of my upper arm when I was dragged from my hideout. The pure debilitating fear of having the barrel of a ray gun jabbed in my face for the first time. The running and hiding, under the cover of darkness, just to be able to show a little free will.
The machine grumbles beneath me, and I am falling.
Chapter 6
When I emerge from the machine at his coordinates, the world is on fire.
Upon closer inspection, I realize that isn’t entirely accurate. It’s hard to squint through the flames that I can feel licking the skin of my throat trying to make their way into my lungs. The source of the fire is a formation of Axylan guards, flamethrowers pointed in a direction a little to my right. At first I assume they’re aiming for me, because my hair is so hot I fear it will spontaneously combust. I can’t breathe. Then a blurred movement from the corner of my eye draws my attention. A hunched figure lies crumpled on the ground, arms thrown over their head to protect their eyes, knees drawn up to a chest that looks strangely like marble…
I make the connection a moment too late and the guards turn on me. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to grab my weapons before I made the time jump, although my handgun is stowed in the pocket of my overalls and my own flamethrower landed somewhere behind me as I made my landing. I scramble for the handgun, feel a hand curl around my bicep as I dig. My fingers grip the handle just as the hand moves to yank me out of the machine, and I squeeze the trigger in the Axylan’s face. With him dispatched, I face the rest of the troop.
In a matter of minutes, I get the upper hand. I quickly move to shield the injured figure, grab the fallen flamethrower and wield my two weapons simultaneously. The smell of burning flesh rises with the clouds of smoke and the wails of the Axylans. Sweat pours down my face and I’m panting with exertion by the time they have been silenced. I collapse to my knees, trembling from rage and adrenaline.
“You came,” a shaky, gravelly voice behind me says. My heart is thumping so loudly in my chest that I can hear my own blood pounding in my ears. I turn to face the crumpled form of Yves.
“I wasn’t going to,” I blurt immediately. He nods, a pained expression crossing his face as he gingerly unwraps his arms from his chest, as if wary of broken ribs. His marble skin is covered in soot, and I can make out several nasty burn marks on his hands. His shirt has holes burned into the shoulders and chest, and falls open revealing a lobster-red patch of abdomen; his combat pants are filthy with ash and dirt. He looks on the verge of passing out.
“They knew I was coming,” he explains as I rush to him, intent on relieving his pain as he did mine in the forest that day. Desperate hands clutch my forearms; his eyes water with pain and relief. “I made contact with Ayla last month. She was wary, at first, but I made her trust me again, slowly. She became my sister again—time after time I wondered whether I could really do it, whether I could kill her when we’d become so close again, just like we used to be. She made me her third in command. I had the power that was always rightfully mine, finally.”
I imagine him in his purple robes, arms crossed over his chest as he reveled in the power he’d had to fight so hard for. The spoils of an Axylan triumph. I wonder, at that moment, if he’s going to desert me after all? The look in his eyes is so wistful it’s jarring.
“The last bout of public executions were what made my final decision. It was barbaric; a throwback to all those deaths on our own planet. When I found out they had been ordered by Ayla, I couldn’t keep the disgust off my. She knew I was not with her any longer.”
I remember the executions he was referring to being on the news. I’d been in hiding then, living in the empty shell of an old apartment block, waiting it out until they found me. That period of my life is grey and hazy in my memory, the details not quite solid. I do remember the cold that worked its way under the doors and through the floorboards, eating raw beans out of the can and huddling around a crappy campfire in the gutted remains of the living room. I remember jumping at every sound that made its way into my little filthy haven: the creak of a step, the whistle of the wind through the cracked windows, a tank rumbling past outside. Living in fear that chipped away at my resolve, and by the time they found me and bundled me into an armored truck, I was past fighting.
I’d managed to repair a tiny digital radio that had been left behind in one of the kitchen drawers, and each night I’d sit rigid, facing the front door, trying to catch a signal. The rebels who were free had set up a broadcast on one of the higher frequencies, a news channel to catch up on all that we’d missed while running or while in captivity. The executions themselves had been aired one night in late October, the biggest mass genocide by the Axylans so far. Ayla had strung up a huge set of gallows in what used to be the center of some burned out city, unrecognizable by its skeletal remains. The gallows spanned five miles of streets, and were manned by a thousand Axylan guards. Two thousand rebels had been murdered that day, stepped up one by one to hang by the neck until dead. The broadcast had sickened me then, and it sicke
ns me now, to know that I haven’t been able to prevent it.
“That’s not the only thing that made me do it, though,” Yves mumbles, snapping me back to the present, or to whatever can be counted as the present in my current situation. A fresh reminder of his pain arrives in the form of his wince upon moving. He shuffles toward me on bent knees, closing the gap between us. Sympathy stabs me in the gut as I realize what he’s getting at. This was for you, something in the back of my head reminds me. His being here to meet me, despite his sister’s suspicions. His pain. His sacrifice was for me.
“You’re hurt,” I say, unnecessarily, just so I don’t have to hear him explain. He only shakes his head as if to scold me for changing topic.
“No. Yes. It doesn’t matter,” he tells me, urgency making his voice deeper than usual. “I’m trying to tell you the reason I did this, Amy. The reason I risked everything—my sister’s acceptance, the power I’d finally earned, my own life—it was you.”
“Why?” My voice surfaces in a croak; humiliation rises in the form of a blush. His gaze drops to his own lap, at the blood pooling on the left thigh of his pants.
“It’s difficult to explain in human terms,” he whispers.
“Try me,” I manage, wishing more than anything that I could just run back to the machine and leave before his next words have a chance to extend their grip on me, before he finds another way to tug me back to him. As if the memory of him wasn’t enough.
“You… imprinted on me,” he says, slowly. The words are so bizarre they startle a laugh from my raw throat, but the look in his eyes is so earnest the laughter trails off quickly. When Yves continues, I’m deadly silent, so quiet I can hear our shared breaths. “That’s why my skin changes. Why I become so very Human when we’re together. Since that night in the woods, when you trusted me, when you opened up to me, you left a mark on my soul.”
It is fairytale bullshit, just another way to tie me to his schemes, the cynic in me thinks. But perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps the words spilling from him are the truth. Maybe that’s why his teeth are worrying his bottom lip, why his blinking has become more rapid, why I suddenly can’t breathe for wanting him.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” I blurt, and the truth of it comes flooding back. The sleepless nights thinking about his lips on mine, the distractions at my workstation, the stilted conversations with my cellmate trailing off into nothing as my mind was overcome with the ghost of his breath on my skin.
“We’re soulmates, Amy,” Yves murmurs. He rises to his feet, hissing with the effort, his shirt slipping off one shoulder to reveal yet another raw mark. I rise on tiptoe to press my lips close to the damaged skin, feeling it melt beneath my lips. Healing him. Once the marble has bled into flesh the wound begins to knit itself back together before my very eyes. My touch is balm to his blistered flesh.
“It’s killed me, being away from you,” Yves breathes into my neck, his lips hovering just along my jawline. “Once one of our species imprints, it causes us physical pain to be away from our mate for too long.”
“That’s incredibly romantic,” I purr in my most seductive voice, only the hint of a giggle in my tone. I can’t help wondering if he understands what word. “But maybe save the science for after?”
Chapter 7
It’s Yves’ turn to laugh this time—a delightful rumble that I can feel all the way down to my toes, before he asks with a smile in his voice. “After what, exactly?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” I grin, sliding my lips further down his shoulder. The shirt drops to the ground in a flurry of fabric, revealing a disarmingly chiseled Human-like torso. His muscles are so perfectly defined he doesn’t feel entirely real beneath my fingertips as he allows me to trace a reverent pattern into his skin.
When I reach his stomach his flesh twitches beneath my touch, ripples with ticklishness. His pants join the torn shirt on the ground, and all that’s left is the expanse of him, naked in front of me, all mine to tease and touch. His skin is flawless now, no trace of scorch marks, no pain as he moves to greet my lips with his.
There is a palpable buzz when our lips meet. Electric. As he presses closer still, I can feel every inch of his perfect body against my own. The smoldering carnage of the ruin around us fades. He pushes me to the wall of the time machine for better leverage. The breath that leaves my lungs in a whoosh is not just from the force of his passionate gesture. My every reaction is attuned to him. He draws the very breath from me with his lingering kisses; his exploring fingers trailing down my abdomen and ever lower drag a sigh from me. It’s exhilarating, the hold we have on each other, the connection. It goes right down to my bones, into my very being.
“You’re perfect,” he moans, lust flaring in those dark eyes as he reaches to cup the mounds of my breasts. I can’t even bring myself to reply. I’m delirious with the feeling of him, with the slow play of his fingers into the most intimate part of me. When his slender fingers are replaced by his firm manhood, a shuddering exhalation leaves me, my heart racing in time with his.
Yves eases inside me, slowly, as if afraid he will hurt me. He’s so gentle—how can someone so strong and so powerful handle my body so delicately? I grab his hips to let him know he has no reason to fear. I let my body pulse to match his even rhythm, my soul flowing into his as he increases the pace. I can’t catch my breath, torn between the sensation of his desperate thrusts and the cool press of his lips to my burning flesh. The world spins until we’re the only ones left, the only solid beings in a swirling vortex. So much like spinning through time, only now time falls away and we are not so much being ripped apart but fixed together.
His own pleasure is groaned into my ear as he nibbles the lobe, shifts downward to swirl his tongue around my nipples. Mine spikes in response; he pushes me all the way to the edge before bringing me back again. It is dizzying. Eventually we cry out in unison, caught in each other’s arms, swirling and twisting and falling. Together.
“That was amazing,” Yves whispers. We’re lying together in the dark, his strong arms clutching me to his chest, which rises and falls with his own languorous breaths. I can feel our connection even now, with his skin so Human underneath me and our hearts pumping an identical rhythm. It feels like we’ll never be apart. Now his skin doesn’t turn to marble when we grudgingly separate—it is living, breathing flesh, and it will stay that way until we’re apart again. Which isn’t going to happen any time soon, I tell myself.
“Yeah,” I agree, “I almost don’t want to think about the rest of the plan.”
This prompts him to roll a little away from me, something gentle and close fading from his expression to be replaced with that steely concentration of before. “Ayla’s waiting for me.”
“Don’t go,” I find myself pleading. Something akin to shock registers on his face before he moves to reassure me. This small thing reminds me again of his bigger sacrifice; cold hands grasp at my heart as I picture the guards rounding on him with their flamethrowers while he waits for me to arrive…what if I hadn’t come in time?
“I need you with me,” he says. “If Ayla sent the guards, it’s only a matter of time before she comes looking. She’s expecting them to bring me back alive, so she can string me up at the gallows with the other traitors. We might still have the element of surprise.”
We dress quickly, in silence, allowing me to get a better look at the area I’ve landed in. I’ve been so distracted I barely noticed where the machine dropped me. We are just outside what looks like a rarely-used basement entrance. Not just any basement, however—it is the foundation for Ayla IX’s palace.
We hastily collect our clothes and enter. I find we are now in a small, clearly Axylan room, only a dim fluorescent light strip overhead serving to illuminate the space. It’s a storage space, filled with collapsed shelves and cardboard boxes, office supplies, and building materials scattered across the stone floor. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re a few floors beneath the main throne room. It should be easy
to get to Ayla.
“Ayla’s upstairs,” Yves informs me, reading my mind, “If I were still in her good books, I’d dress in my robes and present you as my prisoner, but…” He flashes a grin at me, which I return.
“You’d have to catch me first,” I shoot back, reaching to grab my fallen weapons before jumping to my feet and darting for the door. He reaches out an arm to catch me, his fingers just connecting with my elbow before I throw myself up the small set of stairs in front. He brings up the rear, there to protect me. So much hope…
And then we’re pressed against the wall again like a couple of human teenagers of old. Carried away by the adrenaline, the possibility of this being our last moment. It’s so comfortable here with him that it’s difficult to imagine that we had just narrowly escaped death, or that we’re heading up to a battle. In his arms I feel more secure than I’ve felt in more than a decade; all the hiding and the fear and the degradation of being imprisoned falls away until there is only the two of us left.
“We should really get moving,” I mumble, reluctant to let him escape the circle of my arms, “Can’t keep the mighty Ayla waiting too long, can we?”
Yves, in a gesture so tender it breaks a little bit of my heart, kisses the tip of my nose before straightening up. “Moving. Yes. Onward.” A somber feeling hits us now that we’re faced with the heavy fire-door ahead. There is the slim possibility that Ayla might be standing on the other side of that door, waiting for her brother to arrive comatose in the arms of her guards. I shake off an uncomfortable chill down my spine.
We ascend silently. Yves clutches the door handle in two hands and looks to me for resolve before summoning the remaining strength in his arms, and pushes.
Romance: Scifi Romance: Mated by the Alien (Abduction BWWM Paranormal Romance) (Interracial First Contact Space Romance) Page 9
