I took a deep breath and then followed it down the slope.
The diseased ground was also soft, and each footstep caused my boot to sink in a good ten centimeters. The sloppy terrain under the diseased grass made my going slow, but I finally made it to the floor of the valley and turned left to follow the direction the shadow had flown.
The sky was no longer blue, it was a dark gray, and the wind blew cold across my cheeks.
I walked for what felt like hours, and the clouds only grew darker. I could feel that the wind was chilling, but each blast only caused me to shiver for a brief moment before my body returned to its comfortable state. The armor I fell asleep wearing wasn’t on me anymore, but my tight flight suit was, and I guessed that the technology in the weave of the cloth was keeping me warm. It was getting almost too dark to see now, and I reached for the light controls on me left sleeve, but as soon as I pressed the button to activate them, I heard a growl up ahead, and the sound made the monster in my DNA scream.
There were two massive black panthers crouched in front of me.
Their eyes glowed red like dying suns, their tongues rolled from their mouths like pink snakes, their maws were missing all but two fangs, and their muscles were bunched taut as if they were ready to pounce.
Then they did pounce toward me.
They were positioned at my ten and two o’clock, so I threw myself forward into a roll that I hoped would bring me out of their range. I felt one of the monster’s claws part the air behind my leg, and I guessed it had missed me by only a few centimeters. I popped out of my roll sprinting, stumbled a bit in the soft ground, and then pumped my legs hard to keep myself from tripping. I risked a quick glance behind my shoulder to see if the giant cats were chasing me, and I wasn’t surprised to see them closing ground.
I reached my hands to my hips while I sprinted, but I’d forgotten to bring my pistols down to the planet’s surface.
I was going to have to shift if I wanted to live through this.
The beast in my soul screamed with joy when I let it free of its prison. I was expecting the usual agony of my transformation, but the change was painless and almost instantaneous. I was a man one second, and then a weretiger the next.
But then the change didn’t stop, and I was running on all fours.
“No!” I tried to scream, but my voice came out as a roar instead. This running felt natural to me. It was how I was supposed to exist. The man shape was just a lie. I had never been human. I had always been this hungry beast who needed to kill to exist.
Now it was time to kill the two chasing me.
I pressed my front paws into the soft ground and pivoted my rear legs around with a twist of my shoulders and tail. My sprint stopped instantly, and one of the black creatures tumbled past me as he tried to stop himself. The other dug his front limbs into the dirt, and I saw his muscles bunch up impossibly large as they absorbed the forward momentum. His position meant that he couldn’t attack me with his claws, so I leapt for his face, and latched my front toes into this skull above his eyes.
The black cat screeched with surprise, but I didn’t waste any time bringing my rear feet into play. My weight was entirely on his skull, and it drove his face down into the mud while my other two sets of claws tore into him. Even though my opponent was almost twice my size, his skull wasn’t indestructible, and the razor-sharp blades of my claws tore his nose apart before it cleaved tears into the bone beneath.
My third round of scratches actually broke open his skull, and my claws blenderized his brain half a moment before he fell to the ground. I leapt free as soon as we landed, and I dashed to the side to keep the other giant panther from landing on me. He growled with frustration when I evaded, and I sensed him lash out with his paw. I was a bit quicker though, and I managed to tuck my tail and ass in so that he missed.
I pivoted around and we circled each other. The monster was too large for me to risk a head on attack. I was going to have to wait for him to either pounce or swipe at me. My enemy must have figured the same because he hadn’t made an immediate move to attack.
Even though my body was that of an animal, I still had my mind and combat training. I was still a Marine. My shoulders bunched as if I was going to pounce, and the other cat prepared himself to bite me in half. Instead of pouncing, I darted forward and slashed my paw across his face. He hadn’t expected the move, and he screamed when my claws sprayed his blood across the poisoned grass.
We circled each other again, but the panther still wasn’t making an attack. I moved as if to pounce on him again, and he guessed I would go for his face. It was the result I wanted, and he brought his claws up to tear into me when I went for him.
Instead, I leapt high and landed on the scruff of his neck.
I latched on with my front claws and tore into his back with my rear. He roared and tried to roll, but I sprang free easily and landed to his side. The monster was insane with pain now, and he pounced at me with his fangs opened. I threw my bulk backward as the fangs snapped a half meter in front of my face, and then I raked my front claws across his eyes. They both came free from his skull, and the beast screeched with agony.
He didn’t last much longer after I took his eyes. The beast might have been able to use his nose to track me, but his face was pouring thick blood. He might have been able to hear where I stalked, but his ears were torn, and he wouldn’t stop screaming with his own agony. I circled around him until I found a good position, jumped on his back, and then sank my teeth into his neck. My jaws crushed his spine instantly, and his massive body stopped twitching a few moments later.
I pulled my jaws off the panther after I was sure he was dead, and then I glanced around the area where we had fought. I didn’t see my suit on the ground anywhere, and it wasn’t on my furry tiger body. Fortunately, I could see without the lights, and I continued on the path through the valley.
My paws were wider than my human feet, so I didn’t sink into the mud when I ran. The sensation was pleasing, and I soon found myself loping along at a brisk pace. Soon I was running up another slight hill, and I paused once I reached the apex.
There was some sort of temple at the bottom of this next valley. It was made of dark metal, stone, and red lights that whirled around the base of strange looking pillars in slow circular motions. The design of the building looked similar to one of the pictures of the ancient Earth Indian temples I had seen in the info terminals, only the dark coloring combined with the red lights gave me a feeling of dread instead of wonderment.
I counted nine pillars around the main structure and guessed their height to be five meters. The black and steel temple they surrounded rose some twenty meters off the ground, and the front entrance was at least five meters tall. It looked like an open maw of a hulking beast, but while my human mind felt a twinge of fear, the tiger part was just angry that its run had been interrupted by something so ugly.
“Eye yah…” a woman’s voice whispered from beside me, and I turned. She stood there like an angel with shimmering pale skin, silvery-gold hair, and wings deeper than the night. Her hand came down to me, and her fingers rubbed the sensitive parts around the base of my left ear. I couldn’t help but purr, and the temple below me was almost immediately forgotten.
“Yah. Yah. Eye,” she whispered as she stopped scratching my ear. I looked up at her beautiful face, and she gave me a wonderful smile before she took a step off the lip of the valley and began to walk down the slope.
I followed her.
“Eye yah. Yah. Eyeee. Yayaya,” she was speaking quickly, and I tried to tell her I had no idea what she was saying, but my own words came out like a purr, and I gave up after a few attempts. I didn’t particularly want to go into the evil-smelling temple, but she did, and I wanted her to scratch my ears again. Or maybe my tummy, or maybe the spot at the base of my tail. I had never been scratched there, but I guessed it would feel divine.
We reached the entrance to the temple after a half minute of walking, and the
beautiful winged woman took a deep breath. She looked at me and then sighed before she gave me a half smile. She squared her shoulders and stepped past the threshold of the dark temple. I walked at her side, and her right hand rested on my back.
The floor of the place was made of a dark metal. The walls were crafted out of a strange dense ebony stone that looked like obsidian, and the ceilings were covered with thousands of rubber tubes suspended in the air like a massive spider’s web. Dark stone columns held up the ceiling, and red lights ran up and down them like blood pumping from a heart. I could tell by the hesitating steps of the women next to me that she was terrified, and this cause an angry growl to rumble from my chest.
“Eye yah.” She patted my back and then let out a forced breath. Then she nodded and gestured up ahead of us. The room we were in was enormous, but there was a raised dais some two hundred meters in the distance. The network of tubes descended from the ceiling there, and it all connected into the top of a wide stone cylinder. The setup looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen something like it before.
The woman continued her approach and her hand continued to pet my back. The pace was a bit frantic now, and the terror was clear on her face. We made it to the base of the steps leading up to the stone cylinder, and the woman gestured up toward it as she looked at me.
“Eye yah? Eye yah?” I still couldn’t understand her words, but it was obvious she wanted something from me.
“Lady, I don’t know what you want, but I really want you to pet me,” I said, but my words just came out as a long purr that I was sure she couldn’t understand.
But then she took her hand off my back, looked at her fingers, and shook her head. Her long silver-gold hair bounced over her shoulders when she made the movement, and I realized that she actually did know what I was trying to say.
“You want me to go up the stairs?” I asked, but of course, it came out like a cat purr.
“Eye yah!” She nodded and then pointed at the stone cylinder.
“You want me to open that?” I meowed with disappointment. This wasn’t at all like being petted on my tummy.
“Eye yah!” She nodded again and then gestured with her hand.
“Alright,” I purred and padded up the stairs to the black tube. It was probably three meters wide in diameter, and a good five meters tall. The bottom quarter of it sank into the metal floor of the dais as if someone had screwed it in there. The tube might have actually been longer than I thought since I didn’t know how much extended down into the floor.
I circled the stone cylinder, but other than the tubes descending from the ceiling to connect to the top of it, I saw nothing else of interest. I turned to look down the stairs at the woman, but she was now standing on the other side of the tube from me. I padded over to her side and brushed my flank against her leg, but her hands were moving across the surface of the cylinder, and she didn’t pet me.
“Eye yah. Eye yah.” She shook her head as her hands moved, and I looked up to see each of her fingers leaving glowing red lines across the surface of the stone. The red glow then spread across the cylinder, and it formed a rectangle shape. The stone there faded until it was clear, and I saw that the interior of the tube was a gray liquid.
Then a hand reached out of the liquid and grabbed the edge of the door the winged woman had painted in the stone.
“Eye yah!” my friend stepped away from the opening, and the terror was plain on her face. I positioned myself between her and the tube, and a growl filled my body.
The creature in the tube pulled against the stone where it grabbed, and a leg slid out of the liquid. Then the other leg followed before the form kind of fell out of the container. It landed in a crouch and then stood erect. It was a woman, with long legs, a narrow waist, and full breasts. Her skin was white, but the gray slime that covered her combined with the red pulsing lights to give a sickly glow to her nude form.
Her hair was a dark black, as dark as the wings of the woman who stood behind me, and if flowed down her back past her ass like a horse’s mane. She opened her eyes, and they glowed red like the lights pulsing inside of this temple.
Then she opened her mouth, and she had two long fangs like the panthers I just killed.
“Ohhhh gaaah.” Her voice sounded deep and dark, and she raised a finger to point at the woman behind me.
“Eye yaaaah!” the winged woman screamed, and it was the first time I actually understood what she said.
I dove toward the woman who just came out of the tube. My intent was to attach my front claws to her shoulders and then cut her open with my rear claws, but she disappeared as I was about to claw her, and I found myself flailing against the air.
“Adam!” I heard a voice cry, and I opened my eyes with a startled gasp.
“Are you alright?” Eve’s hands were on my left shoulder, but I couldn’t really feel her touch because of the armor.
I was in my bedroom aboard Persephone. I was still wearing my armor.
“Ahh,” I gasped and then pulled away from Eve.
“You were having another nightmare.” She shook her head and frowned.
“Yeah. Fuck.” I wiped the palm of my hand across my face and let out a shudder. I remembered a dark temple, and a stone tube that looked a lot like the glass tube I once found my friend in. I remembered the woman who stepped out of the tube. She looked somewhat like Eve with her pale skin, dark hair, red eyes, and fangs, but Eve’s face was kind, and her beauty filled my heart with warmth. The woman I attacked in my dreams had a face painted with sharp lines of cruelty.
Was there someone else in the dream? My memories were fuzzy, but I seemed to recall someone else there. Someone had stood behind me, and I tried to protect them from the dark woman.
“I see,” Eve whispered.
“Huh?” I asked as I looked at her.
“I am sorry. I am feeling your thoughts. Adam, I would never hurt you. I love you so much. I--”
“No,” I said as I grabbed her hands with mine. “It wasn’t you in my dream. It was someone else.”
“But she looked similar to me. She was a vam--”
“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t think it was you.” I wrapped my armored arms around her shoulders and pulled her into my chest. She had taken off her armor attachments and was only wearing her skin-tight flight suit, but I still couldn’t feel her body because of my armor.
“But your subconscious mind is--”
“No,” I interrupted her. “You know how I feel about you. My dreams weren’t warning me about you. It was someone else. It was something else. I feel as if I keep having them, but I can’t remember them all.
Eve didn’t say anything as I held her, so I looked down to her face to gauge her reaction to my words. Her eyes were closed, and she had her cheek pressed against my chestplate. She seemed to guess I was looking at her, and she opened her red eyes halfway.
“I like being held by you,” she whispered.
“I could hold you every night after I make love to you,” I said.
“That sounds wonderful.” She sighed and wiggled a bit into my arms. “I would like that, but…”
“Z,” I said.
“Yes, but, you as well. You say you want me as your love, but I know your heart is complicated by your feelings for both of us.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It does not have to be complicated. We all love you. You love us.”
“It isn’t that simple,” I said. “I just can’t turn off my sense of honor. I feel as if I am betraying both of you.”
“I can understand, but what if Z says she is fine? What if she tells you it is what she wants? Would that change your opinion?”
“I don’t know, Eve.” I sighed.
“What if you were holding Z in your arms right now instead of me? What if she asked you to make love to her?”
“Uhhhh, I’m not sure what I would do,” I said, but I knew what would probably happen.
“Hmmm,” s
he sighed and looked up to my face. “I am happy being here with you. I am happy being here with Z, Persephone, and Paula and Kasta. Our passions excite me. My life is better than I could have imagined, and it is all because you saved me.”
“You were the one who took off my collar,” I said as I leaned down toward her mouth.
“But now we are bound together. I would not want it any other way.” She pressed her lips into mine, and I felt my head spin. Her kiss was tender, and our tongues danced together for a blissful half minute.
We both sighed when our lips finally parted. I thought she would pull away, but instead, she pushed against me, and my head fell back onto the pillows of my bed. Her left leg slid across my hips so that she was straddling me. Then she bent down to kiss me, and I leaned up into her mouth. Her hands cupped my cheeks while we kissed, and I could hear her heart race in her chest.
“I want you,” she gasped after our lips parted again.
“Yesss,” I hissed as my hands came to circle her narrow waist.
“I see what you want to do to me. Your desire excites me.” She bent down to kiss me again and one of her fangs lightly bit my lip.
“How much time do we have?” I asked as my hands slid up her back to the nape of her neck. The release for her suit was there, and my fingers pinched the fastener.
“Ahhh,” she sighed with frustration. “I came to wake you because it is time to go.” The beautiful woman rested her palms on the armor plates of my chest guard, and then let out another exhale of frustration.
“Now?” I moaned.
“A bit ago actually. You were experiencing the dream, and I tried to peer into it.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
“Yes, but not with the ones you have. It was as if there was a wall preventing me from reading your thoughts. It is a puzzle. Once you were awake I could see your memories of it.” Eve’s eyes met mine again, and I could see the desire plain on her face. She shifted to get off my hips, but my hands closed around her stomach again.
“After we get back,” I said.
“I let my passions cloud my judgment,” she said as she shook her head. “I would make love to you now. I would sleep in your arms every night, but you and Z have not come to terms with your relationship. I can wait. I have waited for many years to have these friendships. I can wait a few more days.” Her fingers moved to stroke my cheek.
Binary Pair Page 8
