by Maia Starr
"What? Why?” I asked.
"Because that is why I brought both of you here for: for him. He needs a human female mate, or he will die," he said.
I sat down, sad, confused, and drunk.
"Is she happy?” I asked him.
"How would I know that?” he said to me.
I began to cry. “I need to see her, please. I am begging you, Duron. I just need to talk to her to see if she is all right. It is all that I ask,” I said, unable to control my tears.
"I do not like to see you cry. You are stronger than this. I do not want to watch this,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards my room. He opened the door and pushed me in as he said, “You have had too much of the formula. Take a shower and sober up.” The door closed.
I was drunk and angry with myself. Why did I drink too much of the liquid that he called the formula? It ruined everything. I was going to have a serious talk with him.
It didn't matter. I just needed more information about what was going on because I was going to go crazy if I didn't know. I had the mind of a scientist, and because of that, I needed to know what was going on in order to make sense of it. I needed to know more about the Corillion and why I was there. He said that Alexis and I were brought here to be the forever mate of his leader Baradur, but why? Why us? Were we just randomly chosen? I needed to know more, and I needed to know everything. Why did he say that his leader would die if he did not mate? None of that made sense to me.
Chapter 4
COMMANDER DURON SPAUNOK
Being in charge of the human female known as Shia Heton was growing harder and harder every day. I stayed away from the living quarters as much as I could and I began to regret Baradur's decision to hold me accountable for her. I was to watch after her so that she would not fall into the arms of any other warrior on the moon base Altid.
Yet I found myself becoming the biggest threat to Shia. The longer she stayed in my quarters, the more I wanted her. I was growing angrier by the day. Looking at her and knowing that I could not have her the way every Corillion wanted to gave me great frustration and made me lash out at her. Yelling at her and leaving her presence was the only way that I could cope with the growing attraction I had for her. But I found myself lashing out at her more and more, and I was in a state of constant anger. I could only speak to her for a few minutes before I had to leave again, otherwise I would grow aroused. I had to grab her and forcefully put her in her room and lock the door so that I would not look at her. So that I would not want her. It was all that I could do. But seeing her drunk was very charming and it disarmed me a little. Seeing her that way touched me somewhere deep within that I did not understand. She even made me smile with her sloppiness.
But when she broke down her strong façade in front of me and cried, it was hard for me to not scoop her into my arms and console her. It was so unlike me. I was the high-ranking Commander Duron Spaunok! I was a ruthless and fierce warrior that captured human females and took no male prisoners. I was the best of the best warriors in the Corillion worlds. I did not give in to a crying human female, and yet here I was, having to force myself from the distraction of her. I didn't know what was happening to me.
She wasn't the first human female I had met; my entire warrior career relied on me capturing human females and taking them to our great leaders all over the Corillion world. I had met many human females over the years, and yet none of them had grown on me like this one. She had stunned me from the very first moment that I laid eyes on her. She was unlike any human female I had ever encountered, and she was put in my care. For some reason, being with her for short amounts of time only made me want her.
But she was off-limits to me. I was not a leader; only the leaders of the Corillion world were able to claim a human female for mating at this time. Shia would eventually be given to another Corillion leader on another base. I, as a Commander, would get a human female mate whenever we caught a large bounty of them, and that was rare, especially now that we were at war with the humans of Earth. This was the system, and many Corillion warriors died waiting for a mate. I always assumed that this would be my fate. But now that I had met Shia, I was not satisfied with that destiny; I wanted more. I wanted her.
"How much longer are you going to avoid me? How much longer are you going to avoid my questions? I'm going crazy here,” Shia said to me when I walked into my living quarters after a long day of work on the base.
"You are not going to give up, are you? Why can't you just be docile like the other human females?” I said, walking in to pour a cup of formula. I was going to need it if I was going to listen to her cry to me once more.
"No, I do not give up. On Earth, I am known as a scientist. I study and search for answers. That is what I was doing on the vessel that you blew up so ruthlessly, killing those I knew and cared for. You took so much from me. I think you owe me this,” she said to me.
I knew what a scientist was. I was impressed that she was one, but it made sense. This was why she was so inquisitive. But hearing her say that I murdered her people stung me a little. I didn't know why. I had been killing humans for years without any remorse. Why did it bother me that she was hurt by my actions?
"What do you want to know, scientist?” I said, taking a big gulp of the formula.
She had a surprised look on her face. I did not think she expected me to reply in such a way. I enjoyed shocking her with my behavior.
"Everything. I want to know everything. What are you? Why are you stealing females from Earth? Where are your females? Why am I here? What is to be done with me? Where am I?" she rambled on and on with questions.
"Wait. Stop. That is enough. Slow down,” I said to her.
"I am waiting,” she said, crossing her delicate arms across her chest.
"I am a Corillion. I am from an asteroid known as Spaunok. All Corillions that spawned on that particular asteroid are called Spaunok. My name is Duron Spaunok. Baradur is Baradur Spaunok, and so on."
"Wait, did you say spawned? Not born,” she asked in surprise.
"Exactly. We are not born like humans are. We grow on the asteroid the way plant life on Earth grows."
"That is incredible. How?” she asked as she came toward me with interest in her eyes and fascination.
"We do not know what starts the spawning. We are dormant for thousands of years, and then suddenly we will begin to spawn once more. Now is the time of spawn.”
"But what does it look like? Do you grow like trees?” she asked.
"No. I do not think so. Not what I have seen of trees on Earth. It is a spore, like a mushroom on Earth. It is covered in a film of sorts until we are this size,” I said pointing to my own body. “Then we wake up and tear through the film and we are Corillion.”
She stared at me with her mouth wide open and she was silent for some time. She paced back and forth in front of me, thinking. I was turned on, watching her move. Her ample breasts bounced with each step. I restrained the urge to swoop her into my arms.
"But, if that is how the Corillion are created, then why do you need us? Why do you need human females?” she asked.
"Because the spawning has come to a stop. The only way to continue our Corillion race is to create hybrid offsprings with humans."
She gasped. “Offspring? Mating with human females creates offspring?”
"Yes. It does. I have seen it with my own eyes. And more than that, a Corillion only has twenty-two years of life; after twenty-two years, if he has not mated, he will die."
She stopped pacing and looked at me. “How many? How many will die?”
"Millions,” I said to her. Perhaps I was telling her too much. But this human female was never going to return to Earth, so it wasn't like she could tell the Earthlings our secrets. For some reason, I wanted to tell her. I wanted to share the burden that I had on my shoulders with her.
"And you? What about you? How much longer do you have?”
My face fell. I wasn't expecting her to ask me t
hat. In truth, it was something that I ignored. I was a warrior, pledged to my leaders. To keep them alive at all cost, to keep their seed going. I did not think of myself. But now she was making me, now that I had known her and had something to lose I was very aware of it.
"I have one more revolution around our sun, and that will be the end of me,” I said to her.
She walked closer to me, putting only a couple of inches between her body and my own. She put her hands flat against my bare chest, running them over my scales. It was a move that I was not expecting from her. She looked up at me and said, “Are you not afraid? Are you not afraid of death? Why are you not attempting to mate with me then, if that is the only time you have left? Why do you not have a human female if that is what you do for work?”
"I have sacrificed my time as a Spaunok in order to keep my leaders alive. Baradur is not the only leader; there are over a hundred leaders spread across the asteroid belt. They have the right to mate with human females first. Not all of them have found one; that is part of my mission as a Commander. There are many of us scouring space and abducting from Earth; it is our mission. It is my mission that is worth dying for," I said to her.
She was so close that I could not stand it any longer. I pulled her into my arms, placing my hands around her small back, and pulled her to me. I planted my lips on her trembling pink lips. She moaned inside of my mouth. We kissed passionately. I was inexperienced in this, but it seemed to take over me. My body knew want to do before my mind could even understand what was going on.
I kissed her with soft kisses. Then her lips parted, and so did mine. I pushed my tongue slowly into her mouth, feeling around. She intertwined her tongue with mine and kissed me deeply. I felt my body responding to hers. My large hands ran up and down her back. She was small and delicate; I did not want to hurt her; I felt like she would crush underneath the pressure of my hands.
I was growing very aroused and could feel my staff harden as it pressed against her belly. She moved her hands up and down my chest and over my scales. She was breathing hard as she did so. She seemed to be enjoying it, turned on by the fact that I was an alien warrior. I knew that I was unlike the human male species that she was used to. I knew this must be exciting and exotic to her especially because she was in such a dangerous and unfamiliar place. I had just shared so much information with her that it must be overwhelming, and the only way she knew how to respond was allowing me to kiss her. Perhaps it was pity, because she knew that I would soon be dead.
Ping!
"What is that?” she asked breathlessly.
I was annoyed as I pulled away from her. I did not want to. She was having an intoxicating effect on me. I had never been with a human female before. I had never held one in my arms in such a way. I had never laid my lips on one. It was the most glorious feeling. That's why I was very annoyed when I heard the sound at my door. Someone was here for me.
"Just wait right here,” I said to her.
I moved to the door and opened it.
"Commander Duron Spaunok, sir, leader Baradur is requesting your presence,” the warrior said.
"I will be right there,” I said, closing the door.
I turned to Shia and looked at her up-and-down. I didn't want to leave her, not now. Not after I had such a taste of her. I wanted to know more, I wanted to experience more. I did not want to leave her.
"I must go. The leader is asking for me. I will return," I said to her. She nodded her head to me, and I left.
Chapter 5
SHIA HETON
I was in complete shock over my behavior. How the hell did I go from hating this ruthless warrior that had no empathy toward human life to making out with him? It was wrong! I was betraying my own species. I wished that I could take it back.
After he walked out of the living quarters, I was able to get my emotions in check. I guess I kissed him because I had been feeling lonely, lost, and terrified of my situation. Then when he told me about the spawning of the Corillion race, I was completely captivated. I was not expecting to hear something like that from him. But it was the way he was saying it that caught my attention. For some reason, I did not see a ruthless warrior; instead, I saw a sad and sacrificial warrior that had no control over his own destiny, so it was a lot like my situation. He would be dead in a year, and he was willing to sacrifice that in order to keep his species alive. I found some sort of chivalry in that notion. There was honor in it. His self-sacrifice was attractive to me. His lack of fear of death was magnetizing to me.
It made sense why he treated death so casually, how he found it so easy to kill my colleagues on the space station. For him, it was just a part of the cycle and death was very near for him. These Corillion warriors were not born, but were spawned, like some sort of fungus. It was absolutely insane, but it made sense. It made sense why they wanted to spread like a virus.
But it was his looming death that made me want to kiss him. His face had changed when he told me, and I sensed some sort of sadness in him—if the Corillion were capable of sadness. It was that moment of emotion that made me have pity for him. I gave him a pity kiss. But once his lips touched mine, that kiss turned into something more, and that frightened me. It was strange to know that I had the power to keep him alive; all I would have to do is have sex with him. I had one-night stands that meant way less than that in my life.
I couldn't really describe exactly what was going on when he put his arms around me and pressed his lips to mine, but I felt something deep within me. Something sparked inside of me. I began to wonder if the Corillion had some sort of power over human females after kissing us. If they were in fact spawns, then maybe they transferred some sort of spawn particles through their kissing that attached to us, making us want them. It would make sense. It was very much what a viral fungus would do in order to attach itself to a host. It is what it would do in order to make that host carry its offspring. Shit. What had I gotten myself into? This was a lot scarier than I had expected it to be, and now I was in deep.
The rest of the day, I waited around, feeling extreme internal conflict over what I had done. But it was about to get more complicated. Swoosh! The door opened, and Duron walked in fast.
“Hey, look about earlier I was just—” I began to say.
"Let's go,” he said to me.
"What do you mean? Am I being taken to one of your leaders to be a mate?” I asked with fear in my voice.
"No, not that,” he said as he quickly moved me out of the living quarters. He was very tense and quiet as he quickly walked me down the hall. I didn't know what was going on. Finally, he pushed me into a very large room and said, “I'll be right outside.”
I was very confused until I heard, “Shia?”
I turned to see Alexis sitting in a chair and in a beautiful maroon dress. It was luxurious and tied behind her neck, like the green dress I still wore. She was wearing lavish jewelry made of polished rocks, and her hair was tightly braided. She looked clean, refreshed, and happy.
"Alexis!” I said as I ran to her. We hugged each other.
"I was so worried about you. Are you all right? What has happened to you?” I asked her.
"I was worried about you too. I couldn't get any information about where you had been taken. I didn't know if you were still alive or not,” she said to me.
"The same with me too. I am so glad to see you now. I've been so alone,” I said, hugging her again.
"Shia you do not have to worry about me. I'm fine. Actually I'm better than fine,” she said with a big smile on her face.
"What do you mean?” I asked her.
"Baradur. He took me as his mate. At first I was very scared, confused, and of course refused him. He was very patient with me, and we got to know each other. Soon I found myself falling for him more and more each day. Now we are lovers. Now, I love him,” she said to me.
I was completely shocked. “Alexis, are you sure? Have they drugged you? What if they've done something to you to make you fall in
love with Baradur without you realizing it?” I said to her.
"No, it is not that. I would know. I am a scientist too, remember? I have been very cautious; it was only once I got to know Baradur that I began to have feelings for him. I am fine, Shia. But as soon as I found out that you were in the care of the commander that took us, I knew that I had to see you. Commander Duron Spaunok arranged it so that I could meet you in private. Not even Baradur knows that I am meeting with you. Tell me what has happened to you. Have you been hurt?” she asked me, looking at me up-and-down.
"No. I have not been hurt. After I left your side, I have just been locked up in the commander's apartment. It is very comfortable and I am treated well and fed well. It is a bit boring, but other than that, I have no complaints,” I said to her.
"And the commander? What has happened with him? What has happened between the two of you?” she asked with the smile on her face.
