by Bertina Mars
“That’s horrible,” Maya gasped, fighting back a sob.
“It is life on Raja-kell,” Vron said flatly. “The Prince Consort will keep sending men to find us. I was a fool to think we could live in freedom. Sooner or later they will find the shrine. I will make contact with the smugglers and arrange for you to get back to Earth.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I must stay,” Vron said numbly. “I have been asleep too long. The Prince Consort must be overthrown. I will try and connect with the scattered rebel groups out here and form some kind of coherent resistance.”
“I could fight with you,” Maya said hotly. “We can do this together!”
“I won’t lose you like I lost Seema,” Vron replied, his voice deep with meaning. “If you love me you will go back to Earth. Please.”
Maya felt her own world crumbling. Tears sprang in her eyes, but she didn’t argue. She knew he was right. This wasn’t her world and he couldn’t abandon his duty. Though it ripped her heart out, she would agree with his plan, even though it meant parting with him forever. There was no other choice.
* * *
The ragged smuggler eyed Maya suspiciously as he ran the scanner over her body. She ignored him and stared down at her feet, wishing that she was anywhere but his rank-smelling metal shed that was the smuggling gang’s hideout.
As part of the deal to get her off the planet, the smugglers had insisted they do a scan with their equipment to make sure she wasn’t implanted with any kind of tracking device or contraband before they agreed to take her aboard their ship.
The smuggler finished his inspection and looked at the results on the scanner’s tiny monitor. He gave a satisfied nod. “We will take her to Earth’s nearest frontier base,” he said in a gruff voice, “but it will cost six thousand rubies.”
“That’s twice than what we agreed,” Vron growled from where he stood in the shadows. “Why the increase?”
The smuggler gave Maya a knowing look. “That was before we knew we’d be taking two of them along?”
“What are you talking about?” Vron snapped, coming forward to join Maya.
Her heart did a somersault as she guessed what the smuggler was saying. “Vron, I think he means the baby.”
Vron looked at her, baffled. “What?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she said, her legs trembling. “But something felt different.”
“See for yourself,” the smuggler said, showing him the scanner. “Two passengers mean twice the price.”
Vron stared at the device for a long time, and then something happened to his face that Maya had never seen before. He was grinning with joy.
“No,” he said sharply. “You will be taking three passengers.”
Maya stared at him, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “You mean?”
“I can’t send you off on your own now,” Vron replied.
“You’re, you’re smiling, are you not mad?”
Vron let out a booming laugh that startled everybody, and scooped her up in his arms. He squeezed her in a protective bear hug and she got her answer there and then.
Chapter 7: A New Beginning
The stars outside the window of Frontier Base Olma seemed to glow with a softer light than those in the sky of Raja-kell, Maya thought to herself. Ever since leaving that planet she had felt a lightness of spirit, as if the sinister presence of the Blood God had faded away.
Her heart still ached for Tia and the other girls, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She had a new life to protect, and besides once they got back to Earth they would approach the Unity Government for help. Vron had brought quite a sizable fortune with him, and with it they hoped to try and bring freedom to his home world.
Vron.
She still couldn’t believe that he’d come with her, or that she was carrying his baby. It was like a dream made real. She had the man she truly loved and was going to start a family with him. To think, none of this would have ever happened if she hadn’t been thrown out of the army and then kidnapped.
Behind her, the sound of the running shower stopped and she heard Vron pad into the bedroom of their quarters while they were on the station. She turned to feast her eyes on his gorgeous body, wrapped only in a small towel, and smiled at him.
“I know that look,” he said with a chuckle. He came over to her and slipped his arms around her waist, caressing her skin through the skimpy, silk night gown that she wore.
She leaned forward and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips. “You should do that more often,” she said.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Smiling,” she replied breezily, “acting like you’re actually happy. It makes a nice change.”
“I am happy,” he said, trailing kisses down her neck. She felt his hardness pressing against his towel. “I can’t be anything else with you around.”
“I’m happy too,” she replied, caressing his still wet back. “I never want this to end.”
“Neither do I,” he whispered. “I want to be with you and our child for always.”
She kissed him again, harder more urgent and picking her up carried her to the bed. The towel fell from his waist, and now naked and magnificent, he laid her gently onto the bed. She squeezed her breasts with aching need and his hands ran along her soft thighs, before hitching up the short nightgown.
His eager tongue enveloped the moist swell of her triangle, and he pushed in deep, pleasuring her the way she liked. She lay back and closed her eyes, stroking his jet-black hair with her fingers.
He brought his own hands up to cup her breasts, tweaking her bullet hard nipples with his fingers. She breathed heavily, losing herself in the moment. The wild rush of orgasm came through her and her sweet nectar slipped into his mouth.
She sat up and forced him to face her, kissing him hard on his cunt wet lips. Hungry for more, he pulled off her nightgown and sank his face into her breasts, while his fingers pushed into her wet hole, caressing its tight walls until he found the rough patch of her g-spot.
She clawed his back as he found her pleasure point and brought her to climax again, one orgasm spiralling into another until she was an exhausted heap on the floor.
Giving her time to recover, he sat her on his lap and kissed her passionately as his aching dick pushed in deep. In this sitting position, they made love, he thrusting up from the pelvis deep into her until a geyser of come rocketed deep into her. They made eye contact as he climaxed, and the connection she had with him was unbreakable.
He was her one true soul mate and the father of her child, and probably the father of more of her children if they kept this up. She could never bear to be without him. Her life was complete now, and as they drifted off into blissful sleep a little while later, she finally felt content.
* * *
They found her in the courtyard, covered in the Prince Consort’s still fresh blood. After one beating too far, Tia had finally snapped. Taking up a dagger while he lay in a dream mushroom daze, she finally ended the tyrant’s reign.
Lost and confused, she had managed to wander outside and stood under the night sky staring up at the frightful visage of the Blood God. The House Matron and some of the guards came out shortly after, shocked at the discovery of their master’s body. First the Chief of Security had turned rogue and now their ruler himself was dead. Only chaos could ensue now.
Grim-faced, the House Matron ordered the soldiers to shoot Tia as she herself tried to figure out how she was going to survive this new crisis. Tia didn’t care about them. Her eyes were on the Blood God.
She could hear Him speaking to her, filling her with visions of glory and power. Just as the soldiers raised their energy weapons, a beam of scarlet light came down from the Blood God Himself, enveloping her in His protective embrace.
The soldiers dropped their weapons instantly, and fell to their knees along with the House Matron. They grovelled in the dirt, begging for forgiveness, as their new queen stepped forw
ard to begin her reign.
***
PREVIEW OF “THE ALIEN’S CAPTURED MATE” BY BERTINA MARS
Chapter One
Mira Hawthorne used to love the stars. She remembered when she was 7 years old, laying out on the grass in her backyard, staring at the night skies. Pointing at a random glittering orb, she would ask her parents to tell her another story about the adventure they had on this one or that.
Twenty years later, this was the kind of thing that Mira tried not to think about. Now, she focused on the memories, thinking it better than what she was actually doing, looking out the window of the shuttle. The transportation ship started to shake and rumble, causing Mira to jump. Embarrassed, she looked around her quickly to see if anyone had caught her being afraid at them probably breaking the atmosphere of the destination planet. Then she remembered she was one of the only passengers.
I shouldn’t even be here, she thought to herself with a sigh, I should be in the lab. It was Mira’s favorite place to be. And Zethrad? It was a planet that nearly no one visited, and the only people who ever did were war buffs.
The Zethradans had a reputation as a military planet, and a military planet only. From what Mira had researched before her trip, and what she had heard from others, the people there were barbaric and primitive. As it was, they had something that her research team needed, though, and it was Mira’s job to get it.
Jak Newson’s voice still stuck with her. “It’s an in-and-out job, Hawthorne,” he had told her, “Not like you’ll get much of a chance, but be careful not to fuck up even in the slightest. Relations with Zethrad are tense enough, as is. We don’t need the meat heads in military going and cutting our funding, got it?”
In and out, she reminded herself, trying to make it more easy. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, but nothing was easing the nausea or making her palms less sweaty as they broke through the atmosphere and neared their destination, Q’talik, the capital city of Zethrad. She wondered how loosely they were using the word “city.” Just in and-
“Everybody out!” the pilot yelled as he went through the aisles, grabbing and handing over peoples’ carry-ons to speed up the process of getting the few passengers off his shuttle. He said it in four different languages, starting with English, moving onto Spanish, and then finally in Zethradan.
She started to grab her things, heading for the exit with the pilot hot at her heels. Her nerves reaching a new height, Mira stopped right at the doorway of the shuttle, staring wide-eyed at the new planet.
She didn’t even see another Earthling, all appearing to be natives. She didn’t get much of a chance to look from afar before the pilot sighed and pushed on her shoulders to continue guiding her outside. “C’mon, out,” he told her as he ushered her out.
Zethrad was a planet with many biological similarities to Earth, Mira knew from her studies of the planet, which was really just a beginner course on their language, some independent internet research that she had done for the past couple nights before, and small folder saved on her digital watch that the secretary, Niki, had put together.
All of it was fun facts, nothing actually useful as far as Mira had seen so far. But what she was seeing was something vastly different, something she had never expected. It was beautiful.
Glass towers spiraled up towards aquamarine skies, twisted with delicate pieces of metal to hold it all in place, yet somehow adding to the beauty of the skyscrapers as well.
It contrasted starkly with the star shuttle port. It was made of glass like the rest of the buildings in the city, which really did earn the name “city,” much to her surprise, but it wasn’t ornate like the others. It was a simple block, and much smaller than any other shuttle port that she had been to.
Ping. Mira looked down at her watch. It was 2097’s latest and greatest piece of technology, a telecommunication device that you could use intergalactically, work around the wrist. There was almost nothing it couldn’t do. Right then, the ping meant that it was doing its most basic function: picking up a call.
Jak’s face appeared as a three-dimensional hologram displayed just an inch from her watch. Mira used to joke with him that she felt at risk from getting stabbed by his holographic, messy hair. Since she’d known him, it was always a mess, sticking up in the most random places. He spruced it up for fundraisers and board meetings with the stockholders, but that was about it. Mira refrained from making the joke now as his face appeared.
Jak wasn’t in the joking mood as much as he used to be. It was a pity, one of her favorite things about him. “Mira, hey,” he said, just as Mira slipped ear piece on to take him off of speaker, “You should be in Zethrad already. You are, right?”
“Just got here, boss,” Mira replied, then cocked an eyebrow, “Almost eerie timing… Do you have all your lab technicians tapped with location devices?”
“Yes, I can hardly afford to pay for my 5-year project to find the Fountain of Youth, but dammit, I found enough money in the budget to make sure I could find you monkeys at whatever bar holes you sink down into when you’re off the clock,” Jak retorted dryly, “Or maybe I checked the times.”
Mira wasn’t surprised. He had been obsessing about this trip for the past few months, since he had first asked her if she could go with him. She had been slightly disappointed that he hadn’t been on the star shuttle with her. “Obviously not, because I don’t see you here.”
“I know, I know. I missed the shuttle. Got caught up with a last-minute thing at the lab,” he sighed, sounding tired. Jak was always tired these days, but Mira expected nothing less.
At 41 years old, Jak Newson was the only one to come even close to curing old age. He was the new face of biology and life sciences. Mira was just his favorite lab technician, mostly because she had the most drive and ambition, plus he was a fan of her parents.
He was assistant to head of the department of sciences when she had first started as an intern. His passion for the subject and easy smile back in those days had made her fall head-over-heels in love with him, though Mira never admitted it to him.
“I already talked to that Zethradan biologist guy, Tyroc. He’s a hotter mess than I am, I can tell you that. He completely forgot about our meeting, so it’s going to be about an hour late.”
Mira looked around herself and then back at Jak. “And I just sit around here and wait for you?” she asked sarcastically. They both knew she didn’t want to be there in the first place, and now she was here on her own.
She watched the hologram of his face let out a slow sigh, looking down at something that she couldn’t see. “About that…”
It was obvious. Mira frowned deeply. She knew Jak too well to know where was going with this. “You’re not coming, are you?”
His eyes looked back up into hers, and she hated the fact that those were the same eyes that could make her heart skip a beat. “You’re my number one lab technician,” Jak said, “We can’t have you and me leaving at once. These idiots wouldn’t know what to do without us… I’m sorry; it was poor planning on my part. When I came back her to check up, they’d already broken two nanoscopes.”
The lab technician couldn’t help but be irritated. She was 27 years old, and yet she had still acted like a young girl, dreaming of this as more of a romantic getaway with her boss that had never once actually admitted his feelings for her besides when he was drunk and said she had the best breasts in the lab, even better than the skinny secretary that all the guys flirted with.
The compliment of being his “number one” fell to the wayside. “Great, so I’m stuck on a foreign planet all by myself, surrounded by strangers. Funny how this didn’t make it into your initial pitch, Jak.”
He scoffed. “You know how many people would kill to be in your position, traveling to a new planet and negotiating peace and all that shit?”
“I’m not negotiating peace. We were supposed to negotiate letting us harvest some of their wildlife.”
“You’ll do fine, Hawthorne.” He was getting
impatient with her, Mira could hear it in his voice and at the fact that he used her last name. Jak didn’t like to argue, hated it in fact. He was much better at staying completely detached, working behind the scenes and then having someone else deal with whatever mess was caused by it. This time, it was going to be Mira.
“You’ll be getting a ride to your hotel any minute now, so wait outside. If you need anything, contact the office line. I’m turning mine off until I fix the havoc going on around here.” And that was it, him avoiding her being angry with him.
She had her mouth open with her retort, but Jak hadn’t given her the time to reply back, hanging up his call as soon as he’d asked his final question. The woman sighed, giving one last look around her surroundings before she decided to fix herself up before the meeting.
Mira weaved in and out of the people in the shuttle port with ease, what with there being so little people there. The only hard part was when she got to the restrooms themselves.
The symbols weren’t the restroom symbols she was used to, one being a red circle with a white outer ring, the other a single slash of red. Mira paused, then tried to look through her folder, but there was nothing in Niki’s ridiculous files that helped her with deciphering them. Luckily, a couple of male Zethradan came out of the one with the slash mark, making the process of elimination pretty easy.
With Zethradans, they were mostly humanoid, so it wasn’t hard to tell which gender was which. The only real cosmetic differences were with the faces. Zethradans had sharper cheekbones that jutted out, which always made them seem so regal, intimidating, to other races.
And while human hair color could range from black to brown to blonde to red to white, naturally, the only natural colors for Zethradans were white and black, and then every shade between the two, no correlation with age.
And that was one thing that had interested Jak, as well as Mira and the rest of their group. The Zethradans matured until they looked about 30 years old, though they would be about 70 years old at that point. Once reaching full maturity, they just stopped aging, kept living until something else killed them.
