by Zara Zenia
My father leaped down the stairs, crashed onto me, and pried open my mouth so he could insert his miniature plasma cannon. “Lover?”
I bashed him in the temple with my gun flipped him over, knocking the plasma cannon out of his reach. “I've delivered the secret to reproduction as promised.”
He stopped and stared up at me.
“If my request is not granted, I will destroy the planet housing our future mates.”
He didn't say anything. What I was saying was far beyond heresy.
“All of the infected will be set free, including those who are being punished. They are to be allowed unlimited free passage throughout the entire universe without ever facing interference. You will never destroy Earth or interfere with it in any way.”
He reached his hand out, and I threw my leg off him so he could stand up. “Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
“You may leave.”
The jolt of finding myself back on the bridge sent me to my knees. I hunched and started. I didn't care how may Fiori learned to love, or whether or not I could go back to Earth, she was gone. How was I going to live? Would I just fly around, never bathing, never combing my fur, looking for food and recreation? Would I slip back into Fiori life and try to lose myself in my instincts? I didn't have anything without Lainey.
My life before her was nothing but a string of meaningless tasks.
Epilogue
Lainey
“Oh, dear God! Ple-e-e-ease!” Somehow I knew that woman was falling to her knees in the darkness. I wanted to run, hold her and tell her that it would be over soon, but there was a sharp, clawed hand pressing into my shoulder blade leading me through the darkness where the screams poured in all around me.
One woman was howling and banging her head against something, presumably trying to bash her head in.
Off in the distance I heard a group of women praying the rosary as if it could help them. Dying people say the rosary every day and nothing happens. If God existed, he didn't live on Hermes, and he definitely didn't believe in divine intervention.
The farther down I went, the more I started to hear a pattern. The Fiori torture their victims to a beat, playing their sinewy muscles and aching nerves much like a singer plays a guitar. They seemed to like harsh beats, growls and wails rather than high pitched screams, and they loved begging. To them it was lyrical verse. They knew how to draw our pleas out and play with us just like a human moving a piece of meat in front of a dog's face to get their heads to swing from side to side.
They could produce vibrato shrieks, alto moans and deep base gushes signaling the end of a victims of life. I heard it once when passing what sounded like a jail cell. I'll never forget the sound of blood spray, like vomit, but with a finality to it, like there's nothing left. The water balloon popped. It was time fill up another one and see what happened.
The claw dug under my skin and pushed me to the right, where the air was closed off, and a door was slammed behind me. I would've ran, but the sound of the women begging in anguish was all around me.
It was debilitating. I knew those voices, that seemed to hover around my head, would be extinguished, and that they weren't going to be able to escape. Neither was I.
“I loved him!” A woman's voice burst out above the rest. “I took care of him, I held him. I kissed him! I don't deserve this. He was mine.” The last word rattled out of raspy lungs, shaking and falling. “No! No! You can't do this! You can't! I love him! Don't you care!?”
This must've been her first meeting with the Fiori.
“This was supposed to be a place for us to get away!”
“It is.” That voice spoke of ruby lips and tall blonde hair. “We thank you for the sacrifice you've made for your lover.” I had no idea the sound in that room could reside, but she had the answers, and we all knew it. This time she was going to tell the truth. “We no longer have any need for your species. Be glad to have the chance to live a while longer. The rest of your race will not.”
She walked out and the room erupted in one synchronous cry of agony that sliced my vocal chords and rubbed what was left of my throat raw. I wasn't screaming for Earth or humanity. I was screaming for Markathus.
I curled up on the floor, ignoring the tough carbon digging into my bones, and covered my ears as best I could. It didn't help. The music began again as soon as the screaming stopped. It was easy to figure out. Four measured beats timed just like human music. The only difference was that the notes weren't based on pitch, they were based on volume and the type of sound the victim made.
I was surrounded by a macabre symphony, imagining a bloody violin made from hardened human skin and throat strings, a trumpet that had once been neck bones and a harp with a frame made of human vertebrae.
The Fiori methods were more complex, of course, but in my hazy state that's how I saw them. They moved through the cell block, a deadly procession celebrating bloodshed and torture, until the screams started getting louder. They were closer.
When they walked in, I'd have no choice but to become a part of their symphony. They'd have complete control of me, my vocal chords, my nerves, and limbs. They'd move like trained musicians, artfully playing my body while gauging my pain level so they could create the perfect sound effect.
Markathus said that they enjoyed it. Killing gave them a sense of satisfaction. They weren't going to satisfy themselves with me.
“I'm gonna die,” A voice in the corner squeaked. She didn't sound older than 16 or 17.
“I have a gun.”
“It won't matter. We're trapped.”
“What's your name?”
“Jane.”
“Jane, are you pregnant?”
“Two days ago, when I arrived, I was brought into this cold room and laid down on a metal gurney where I gave birth to my son. He lived, I know he did, because I could hear him crying, but they wouldn't let me hold him. I'm never going to. They probably killed him just to hear him scream like they're doing now. I saw a lot of women go through it. All of them lived through the pregnancy, but most of them were taken away after.”
I felt something snap, like a tendon. I saw myself laying on the gurney in the freezers holding Markathus's hand while my body tore in half just to push the baby out of me. I'd be ready to see my son, and he'd be the excited dad, ready to do whatever it takes
Then he'd disappear and a Fiori silhouette would take its place. It'd rip the child out of my body and bite the umbilical cord. Then it'd throw the child against the wall and start using its razor claws to play my nervous system like a guitar.
“I've been told that I'm the key to saving the Fiori race from extinction. When my boyfriend Greg saw that I was pregnant, he told me what he was and took me on his ship. We stopped on a nearby planet and they told us about this place, said it was a sanctuary for human and Fiori couples.”
“Why are they killing all of us, though? I thought we were supposed to be the ones keeping them from going extinct.”
“Earlier today, the woman came by and told some of the Fiori that they needed to hurry up, because the mating cattle would be coming in shortly. The way they talked about them, they didn't sound human. The room had to be filled with a special gas and it had to be kept below 20 degrees at all times. I think they found another species to use, and they're going to kill us and destroy our planet for the resources.”
“The walls and the floor are made out of the recycled bodies of victims like us. I'd risk my life to stop them, but I'm going to go into labor soon, and it's getting harder to walk.”
“I want them dead,” she said. “I want to shoot every last one of us, but there's no way in hell somebody could get a gun in here, and it probably wouldn't do anything to them.”
I reached back and pulled the gun out of my pants. “Can you promise me that you won't leave me?”
“W-what are you talking about?” The girl sounded weirded out.
“You can't do anything dumb. You can't hurt me or another huma
n, not even yourself, and if it comes down to it, you will give it right back. It belongs to me.”
“I promise.” She seemed to have caught on. I didn't think it would be safe to say the words, 'I have a gun.'
I directed Jane to let me lean on her so she could face the door and shoot whatever opened it. We waited, until we heard the epicenter of the symphony begin in the cell to the left of our own. They were going to torture us and probably kill us, but we had a gun, and so long as we had a gun we had a chance.
“Are you sure this can effect them?” Jane whispered, her voice barely carrying over the shrieks of the poor woman lying just a few feet away.
“Yes. It was given to me by a Fiori that I trust.”
The sound stopped, and we both froze. I could hear their soft feet padding across the floor. There were three sets, each one getting closer and closer until I started to hear the door opening and barely had time to cover my ears before the gun went off just a few inches away from my face.
Three shots, three Fiori, but now there were dozens of feet moving fast in our direction. Jane helped me up and I struggled to match her pace as we ran blind through the darkness in the general direction we'd came in from.
Eventually there was a sliver of light, enough for us to see five Fiori ready to pounce. Five shots and they were down. The girl was uncanny. I pressed my hand against the door and nothing happened.
“Shit!”
“It's not working?”
“No.”
“I've seen these before. They only work with Fiori hands. She reached down undaunted by the black red fountain pouring out of the creature's chest, and lifted its hand so she could press it against the doorway. It opened up just like normal, giving us a clear path to the hangar.
Jane started in that direction. Then she stopped and looked back at me. I couldn't move. “I don't care who he is or how much you love him. He's not worth dying over.”
“Yes, he is.”
When I got a good look at the woman, I saw that she was my age with white pixie hair that'd been encrusted with blood. “We need to go.” She grabbed onto my hand with the full force of her strength and started dragging me.
“No.” I started blubbering. “Please, you can't take me from him. You can't. You just can't. He can stop this.”
“He's dead.”
“No, he's not!
She dragged me toward a ship and opened the hatch.
“No!” I managed to break free and started running. Then I stopped when flecks of carbon flew up where her bullet landed.
It was just to scare me.
“You're gonna die if you don't get in here.”
I stared down the hall, through the cathedral arches and imagined what it would've been like to run out of there with him holding my hand rather than a strange woman I'd never met before. Jane had to help me get up the steps. I could walk, but stairs were too much for me, and the child seemed to be growing larger every minute.
He wasn't going to get to know his father. When I landed, I wasn't going to have any money and no place to stay. The aliens took my purse when they abducted me. It had my ID, my bank cards and my house keys in it. How was I going to raise my son like that?
If Markathus was alive, he'd find a way. He'd take us somewhere beautiful and print a house or pull one out of a black magic ball, but all of that was over. We were on our way to Earth, and his corpse was in another galaxy.
None of our dreams were realized, not the ones that mattered. I landed on Earth in front of my old house, too incapacitated to walk. Jane led me up to the door with a red eviction notice attached to it. It didn't matter.
My keys were under the mat where I always left them and I didn't legally have to leave the property for another three weeks, and that was only if I couldn't come up with the rent. So I found my bed upstairs, surrounded by alien artifacts in a world that I'd long since forgotten and huddled under the covers while the sun set and I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, the bed was still empty. I don't know what I expected. They probably killed Markathus first, but I guess I couldn't be blamed for hoping. He was another species, one that seemed all powerful. It didn't make sense for them to be victims of their own mortality.
I got undressed, took a shower and let the water wash over my face to hide my tears. I saw things. I traveled past a nebula faster than the speed of light and hopped from galaxy to galaxy.
I was never going to leave that experience behind.
Then there was the boy rolling around in my stomach. He was the wild card, the one part of my fate that had yet to be determined.
I needed Markathus there holding my hand when it happened.
I turned off the water and froze. Something stomped against the floor and now they were walking fast up the stairs and into my room. The door flew open, and I jumped back instinctively to hide behind the shower curtain.
The footsteps stopped near the bed. Then something crashed to the floor and I grabbed my gun out of my jeans on the bathroom floor. I cracked the door just enough to see a trembling Fiori hand and the sound of it whimpering in its language. That didn't seem like a normal gesture.
The gun fell out of my hands when I walked out of the bathroom. It hit the floor and fired a bullet into the wall.
Markathus jumped up with his eyes stretched wide. Then his Fiori form peeled away as he ran into my arms. His touch was a sweet release from the screaming music, the thoughts of raising my son on the streets and the silence that had haunted me ever since I returned home.
I looked back down at the bed when he sat down with me and remembered what it was like to live under the covers dreaming of him coming back to tell me that he loved me.
We talked for hours about what had happened. He told me about how the Fiori had been separating quietly into two different factions. They were so desperate to mate that the men kept coming down to Earth and falling in love with the women. Now they were fighting their cruel nature and expressing their desire to love.
He also told me about the dhurka, a species of animals that could mate with the Fiori seamlessly. “I believe that our race will split off into two branches. Those who mate with the humans will be able to love, and evolve into an advanced race that respects life. Those who mate with the dhurka will live same way we've always lived.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“I think we'll buy a beach house and raise our son together on Earth without have to worry about any of this.”
About Zara Zenia
Zara Zenia writes steamy, sexy, and suspenseful sci-fi romances! You will find her writing alien romances from intergalactic planets, bionic romances, superheroes and time travel romances too.
Please see her Author Central Account on Amazon for a full list of her titles.
Sign up for her mailing list and find out about her latest releases, giveaways, and more. Click here!
For more information, be sure to check out the links below!
AuthorZaraZenia
zarazenia.com
[email protected]
Also by Zara Zenia
Warriors of Orba Series:
Benzen: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Book 1)
Jarick: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Book 2)
Voland: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Book 3)
Bionic Outlaw’s Baby: A Secret Baby Sci-Fi Romance
The Blue Alien’s Mate: A Sci-Fi Romance (Celestial Mates)
Roxy Sinclaire
Zara Zenia also writes steamy, suspenseful romantic stories as Roxy Sinclaire. This includes a variety of different sub genres. Some of these include dark romances, action packed romances, mafia romances, and many more. She currently works in customer relations in New York City, but is trying to fulfill her passion in writing and eventually have her dream job become a reality.
Please see her Author Central Account on Amazon for a full list of her titles.
Sign up for her mailing list and find out about her latest releases, giveawa
ys, and more. Plus, get a FREE book! Click here!
For more information, be sure to check out the links below!
@RoxySinclaire
RoxySinclaireAuthor
roxysinclaire.com
[email protected]
Also by Roxy Sinclaire
Pass To Win Series:
Touchdown: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 1)
Line of Scrimmage: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (Book 2)
Between The Tackles: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 3)
Fourth and Goal: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Book 4)
Game Winning Catch: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (Book 5)
Mafia Romance Series:
Dirty Indiscretions: A Dark Mafia Romance (Book 1)
Dirty Money: A Dark Mafia Romance
Object Me: A Bad Boy Lawyer Romance
Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance
Fast and Loaded: A Bad Boy Sports Romance
Tempting Me: A Bad Boy Romance
The Devil’s Dream: A Dark Romance
Trapped In His World: A Dark Romance
Deceived By The Hitman: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance
About Juno Wells
Juno writes steamy love stories featuring hot alien men and saucy human women. You can find out more about her on her About Me page. Wanna be the first to be notified of her new releases or be a super awesome ultra elite member of my ARC list? Sign up here!
Author Page—click here!
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junowells.wordpress.com
[email protected]
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