What little of her features I could make out through the smoke when I had found her I could now see with great clarity. She was beautiful. Thick tresses of bister hair swirled around her heart-shaped face, flowing over the pillow behind her and coming to rest near the uppermost curves of her ample bosom. The edges that fell upon her chest were charred and uneven, but it did nothing to detract from the allure of her locks. Deep, emotive eyes identical in color to her hair rested beneath a feminine brow-line, the corners of which smoothly transitioned into rounded cheeks and an arcing jaw. Her lips were as full as I remembered, but I was now able to see the hewn details of her Cupid’s bow, as humans called it. As they puckered and thinned in her failed attempts to speak, I was unable to tear my gaze from them, enchanted by the contrast between her mouth’s petal-pink hue and her skin’s wintery glow.
“I—what?” Her voice was harsh, crinkled by the effects of the smoke she had breathed, but through it, I could hear a note of sweetness and a touch of temper that piqued my interest.
“You belong to me,” I repeated.
She was staring at me in such disbelief that I very nearly questioned what exactly it was I had said. Her mahogany eyes pressed into mine, desperate for understanding. I saw something flicker in the depths of her mind, and I was certain by the downturn of her luscious lips it was panic. “Am I…a slave?” she asked in horror. “Did you buy me?”
In an instant, I grasped the reason for her troubled reaction: she feared she had not been brought to Albaterra as a colonist, but rather as chattel in a medieval trade. Had it been anyone else, I likely would have sneered at such a notion. Seeing the anxiety marring her lovely face, however, I felt a sudden and unexpected bout of pity for her.
“No,” I said. “The alliance agreement dictates each human be assigned an A’li-uud as a mentor during the early stages of the integration process. It eases the transition from life on Earth to Albaterra. I assumed you had been told.”
The immediate relief she felt was visceral. It radiated from her eyes to her mouth, lighting up her expression and lifting her cheekbones. “They probably cover that during orientation.”
“I would imagine so,” I replied dismissively.
She just looked at me. It was unnerving to have such a creature watching me so poignantly, analyzing every move I made and absorbing my words like they were a life force, but it filled me with a strangely pleasant warmth to have her devoted attention. I tried not to stare back quite as boldly, though it was difficult not to drink in the sight of her.
“The captain said you’ve been asking to see me for hours,” she said. There was still a shadow of anxiety in her voice, but I could see her confidence building, speaking to me with each passing second. “Why?”
It would have been easy to brush the question off, to offer her a vague answer that actually answered nothing at all. The warrior within urged me to do so, as the best warriors were those who could disconnect emotionally. But her eyes burned me with apprehension and curiosity, and I found myself telling the truth at a time I would have preferred to lie.
“I was concerned,” I admitted, fixing my stony gaze on the wall behind her head. “You were in a very bad condition when I found you. I needed to know you had survived.”
There was something akin to awe in her tone when she whispered coarsely, “You’re the one who saved me?”
“Yes,” I replied. I kept my eyes glued to the wall. “I went into the wreckage and found you in flames. At the urging of your friend, I freed you from your bindings and left the others to the ERT while I brought you here.”
“Donna?” she asked sharply, pulling my attention back to her. “Is she okay?”
“She is well. It is my understanding she suffered a mild concussion and whiplash but is otherwise fine.”
The woman, again, was drowned in relief. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply, but, as she raised her hands to her face and the heel of her palm brushed against her chin, she abruptly let out a high-pitched shriek. I instinctually moved into a defensive stance beside her, prepared to protect us both, before realizing in the next breath she had cried out with pain. Her hands shot outward, and I saw her jaw clench as her teeth gritted.
“It hurts!” she groaned, writhing slightly on the cot.
I heard shuffling noises behind me, and I turned to see the uniformed doctor bustling in our direction. He drew up to the available side of her bed with a stern expression.
“What happened?” he demanded. His gaze darted to me, but he appeared too intimidated to hold it there long before looking back to her.
“I-I touched my chin,” she whimpered. There was moisture gathering on the lash-line of her lower lids, and the whites of her eyes—which had already been rather red from so much exposure to smoke—were practically scarlet in color. I realized she was crying. It was a practice foreign to A’li-uud, as our methods of grieving and relieving emotions were unique to our race. However, I had become familiar with the funny practice after seeing a colonist soldier lamenting to another about missing his wife and children back on Earth.
The captain took the woman’s temples in his hands and gently tilted her head back, revealing a delicate, porcelain neck blighted by crimson blotches of such vibrancy they could have passed as pools of fresh blood. They seemed to be restricted to the underside of her chin and the throat, but she had a thin blanket drawn up to her shoulders that prevented me from seeing if the damage descended further. I felt a sudden stirring in my lower region at the thought of what lay beneath that blanket and shifted my weight from foot to foot in an attempt to regain my composure.
“Yes, I think it’s time for a redressing,” the doctor intoned somberly. He straightened up again, easing her head back into a comfortable position for her, and shot a quick glance at me once more. “I think that’s enough visiting for today.”
I lifted a brow, chafing at his address of my authority, but thought better of it as I realized the suggestion was in the best interest of his patient rather than a posturing of dominance. To my surprise, however, the blemished feminine voice rose again from the cot.
“Just another minute,” she appealed. “I have one more thing to say.”
The doctor hesitated for a split second before holding up a single finger. “One minute,” he said seriously. Then, he offered me a polite nod and strode away, leaving us to only one another once more.
She turned her rich orbs up to me, careful to leave her head as it was. I was able to see the inflammation beneath her chin now, unlike the beginning of our meeting, but it failed to distract me from the gripping strength of her gaze. She was luminescent, an ethereal work of a goddess’s hand. Her very presence had me riveted in ways I had never experienced before, and it unsettled me, made me lose control of myself despite a lifetime of adamantine self-control. Her lips parted to speak, but I interrupted before she had a chance to begin.
“You have not told me your name,” I said softly.
A shy smile flitted across her mouth as she replied with equal softness, “Celine.”
It was a lovely name, very foreign to the tongue and unlike the A’li-uud in its melodic flow and silken caress, but I admired it for all of that. “Celine,” I repeated, trying it out. It tasted as sweet as it sounded. “It has been a pleasure to meet you.”
She lifted herself slightly to better look me in the eye. “Thank you,” she said, suddenly very serious and earnest. “For saving my life. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
A pang stabbed my gut, and I frowned with deep displeasure. “Do not thank me yet. It seems your life is still in danger.”
6
Celine
“Oh my God!”
The shriek was so high-pitched and penetrating I jumped, but, before I could react to it, I was hit full-frontal by a force so jarring I was thrown backward. I stumbled over my heels in a desperate attempt to keep my balance, but arms wrapped around my waist and kept me upright. When I finally gathered my bearings again, I saw the sun-kissed face of Do
nna staring back at me.
“You’re okay!” she cried delightedly. She rocked me from side to side with excitement, and I groaned in slight pain. Immediately, she released me and stepped back, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh, crap, are you still hurt?”
“Second-degree burns take more than a few days in the hospital to heal,” I told her, lifting my chin to show her the wounds on my neck.
Donna bent at the knees to peer at the injury. “Wow, that looks awful,” she said. I snorted, but she waved a hand around and added, “You know what I mean. It looks like you lost a couple inches off your hair too. I guess you’re lucky that’s all it is, though.”
“Believe me, I’ve counted my blessings,” I replied. I motioned to her right arm, which was in a soft sling and held close to her body. “What about you? I heard you only had a concussion and a whiplash.”
“Well, yeah, that was the worst of it. This is just a precaution,” she said, jerking the arm at me pointedly. “They’re pretty sure it’s a mild sprain, but, without x-rays, they can’t be sure.”
“I don’t know why, but I kind of expected there to be electricity,” I mused as I glanced around.
For the first time since walking out of the infirmary, I took in a proper gaze of the Fifth Ward, my new home. Wide stone streets extended and wound in neat blocks, lined with buildings of all shapes and sizes. Some were standard cabin-style, constructed from stacked logs of strange alien wood with pitched roofs and four-faced windows. Others were reminiscent of fantasy novels and appeared to be massive, hollowed boulders or squat, stone-walled forts. And then there was the largest building of all. Towering above everything else and equally as spacious as the immense infirmary, it boasted walls of the same purple geodes I’d seen from my hospital cot and windows large enough to frame two full-grown people standing one on top of the other. It twinkled and winked in the glare of the white midday sun invitingly. I pointed to the grand architecture.
“What’s that?” I asked with interest.
Donna twisted to follow my finger. “The Colonist Headquarters. They just finished it. That’s where they do the orientations and meetings and legal stuff, I guess.”
“It’s lovely,” I murmured appreciatively. It truly was. Set against the backdrop of colossal snow-capped mountains and smatterings of unusual pine trees, the Headquarters was like a vision from a mystical fairyland.
Having spent my first three days on Albaterra in the infirmary, this was my first opportunity to take in my new surroundings. Donna and I began walking down the center of the cobbled street together, and I repeatedly swung my head from left to right to drink in the sights without much care for the shooting pain it caused to my neck. Somehow, it was as if I’d never seen properly before. Everything was so vivid, so vibrant and colorful, that it made me wonder if I’d spent my entire life in black-and-white. Even the snow bordering the road was brighter and alive with chromaticity, each teeny snowflake defined and blinking curiously at me as I passed. The air was crisp as winter air often was, but it was cleaner, purer, and clearer. Inhaling was like breathing in a salve to cure my smoke-damaged lungs. There was a blend of intoxicating aromas I both smelled and tasted with each breath, but all were too foreign to identify. My senses had never been more animated.
The sun hanging straight overhead was as white as the snow, and the heat it sent down was all-encompassing rather than in streams. The sky, as well, did not seem to just linger above. Rather, it hugged me from every direction in brilliant swaths of turquoise. The clouds were not like Earthen clouds; the lavender swirls I had seen from space were equally as visible from the ground, but they were soft and whispery and more reminiscent of smoke wisps than puffs of cotton candy. Where the lavender flourishes were absent, speckles of angelic stars winked enthusiastically in droves, something that took me by surprise given it was smack in the middle of the day. Even if the entire planet of Albaterra had been a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland, the mystical perfection of that sky would have made it Eden.
“So, what now?” I asked Donna absently, a little too absorbed in my environment to offer her due attention.
“Orientation starts in an hour,” she responded. When I looked at her with a crinkled brow and opened my mouth, she headed me off by answering my next question before I could ask it. “They postponed it. It’s usually the day after landing, you know, but, given the circumstances, they put it off. There wouldn’t have been anyone to, um, orientate.”
I sobered at the thought. “How many casualties?”
Donna’s face became solemn as well as she said, “I don’t know for sure. I’ve heard there were thirteen deaths.” Her glossed lips frowned mournfully. “The infirmary was pretty full for a while, but most of the crew just had whiplash and concussions like me, so they were allowed to go to their dorms after a day of observation.” Our boots scraped the rock beneath our feet as we walked, interjecting her words with scuff sounds that echoed off the expansive landscape around. “To be honest, it’s been really unsettling. Without orientation, we have no idea what’s going on or what to do. I’ve just done a lot of walking. And worrying about you, of course.”
I looped my arm through her uninjured one. “I owe you a thanks, too, for my being here right now.” Stretching forward despite the stinging beneath my chin, I kissed her cheek appreciatively. “I heard you insisted I be rescued even though there were others on board who needed help too, including you.”
“You were on fire, Celine. Of course I would insist he saved you!” she exclaimed, shooting me a look of disbelief at any other notion. Then, curiosity crossed her face as she asked, “Wait, who did you hear that from?”
“The man—well, alien—who rescued me.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, coming to such an abrupt halt that I actually continued for another two steps before our linked arms yanked me backward. I turned to look at her again. She was gaping at me as if I’d just told her I’d married a rabbit or something equally shocking. “He came to see you?” she demanded, unhooking her arm from mine and jabbing a pointed finger back toward the infirmary. “They let him in?”
“Yes, a couple of days ago,” I replied. Her reaction was unexpectedly intense, and I wasn’t sure if there was an answer she was hoping to hear.
She threw her good hand into the air and rolled her eyes back into her head indignantly. “I don’t believe it! I’ve been begging to see you since they released me and they wouldn’t let me, but they sent in some strange alien?”
“He’s not just a strange alien,” I corrected her. “He’s the War Chief, and I guess he’s my mentor.”
“Mentor? He’s going to teach you how to command an army?” she sniggered.
“No,” I said, making a face at her for her sarcasm. “Supposedly, we all get an A’li-uud mentor to help us transition to Albaterran life. He’s mine.”
Instantly, Donna’s face lit up so brightly she could have passed for a human Christmas tree. “Really?” she asked eagerly. “We get our very own ripped, brooding, extraterrestrial teacher to show us the ways of their life?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes as I said, “You’re insatiable.”
“You have no idea,” she grinned. “It’s been torture being so close to all these pent-up soldiers without being able to do anything about it. They’re always busy training or running drills or going into meetings with important people.” Without warning, however, she became very serious. “I feel a little better knowing we get to establish friendly relationships with the A’li-uud, though. They’ll probably be a lot of help when they finally figure out who bombed the Conquest.”
“What?” I cried, stunned. “The Conquest was bombed?”
“Well, yeah. You didn’t think it just blew up on its own, did you?” she replied incredulously. Then, leaning close to me, she whispered, “I’ve heard people talking. They think we were targeted by someone, and they think whoever it was isn’t quite finished. We’re not out of the woods yet, Celine. For all we know, they
could bomb this whole planet next.”
7
Lokos
The hall was full, packed from wall-to-wall with rows of benches and a sea of at least two-hundred human faces. Punctuating the abundance of varied Earthly skin tones, there were heads of white and masks of pale azure to give the audience a truly unique appearance. The number of A’li-uud in attendance was greater than any orientation prior, and I knew it was due to raging curiosity about the identity and status of the Conquest bomber.
It was the first time I had been in the Colonist Headquarters since construction had finished, and I felt a streak of pride for my people as I looked around. We had used a large amount of glittering purple aspex, the nearly-impenetrable geode native to Montemba, for both structure and aesthetics, which cast the vast room in a soothing violet glow each time the blazing white sun hung low enough to cast its rays through the wide, reaching windows. Where aspex was absent, raw and smoothed t’kiel logs offered artistic security with their broad girths and vibrant tawny hues. The ceiling was pitched so high it could have accommodated one of our small incognito shuttles, and from its center beam dangled three chandeliers sporting twenty-six candles each, accessible via a pulley. There was a series of smaller rooms in the rear of the building, but simply seeing the entrance hall in its glorious completion was enough to feel justified in casting a smug glance at General Morgan.
He was in a startlingly good mood. His ruddy face was alight with excitement as he flicked his gaze from face to face, and he even grinned to himself without explanation at random intervals. If we had been intermixed with the crowd, I would not have minded so much, but we were at the head of the hall in seats facing the droves of colonists and Montembans and he was beginning to draw attention to himself.
“You need to comport yourself more appropriately,” I hissed to him through tight lips.
Lokos: A Scifi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 4 Page 3
