by Kate Rudolph
Aldyn looked determined. “We need to get him here. Then we need to get the portal opener and the force field device. And we need to destroy them both.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
10
Aldyn
I wasn’t a fighter. No one would call me a warrior. There hadn’t been a need for it back home and I had never considered myself the violent type.
But of the four of us, I was the best option. Especially since I was the only one with a weapon, my retractable claws. I had to win. Or at least hold out long enough for Jody and Wendy to do what they needed to do.
I had to keep our captor distracted.
The claws that lived under my skin itched to come out, but I had to hold them in. I didn’t want Evil Santa to get a look before it was too late.
We thought we were going to need to start a commotion, to do something outrageous to get him to come by us. But in the end, he came back on his own.
Then all I had to do was stand up. He didn’t wait for me to say anything. It was on.
He charged at me, ready for the fight. Ready to push me back down alongside the others.
But this time I was ready, wasn’t willing to back down. Now it was time to battle.
I pushed back, and he was so surprised that he fell back two steps before he remembered to fight. And unlike me, he was a fighter. He caught me on the shoulder with a punch that was strong enough to make my entire body ache. I bit back a groan. I wasn’t going to cry out from one punch.
But it hurt.
Ouch.
Evil Santa had both the force field generator and the device that would open the portal. I had to get both of them to Jody and Wendy, or at least to get him to drop them. Then Jody and Wendy would do their best to destroy them. We each had our part to play.
Jeff was too injured to do much, so he just had to try and stay out of the way.
The portal opening device was in Evil Santa’s hand. Once he got close, I unsheathed my claws and swiped across his skin. It was thicker than I expected, kind of leathery and tough to get through. But I must’ve hit him just right. His fingers spasmed and opened, sending that device clattering to the ground. And before he reached for it, I was on again, punching and scraping and slicing and inflicting as much damage as I could.
I tried to keep an eye out for Wendy or Jody, to see if they had made a move to recover the device, but the second I stopped paying attention, Evil Santa was on me. He hit me hard enough that my vision went blurry for a second. And after that he had my full attention. We exchanged blows and it became clear that he didn’t need a weapon. He was a weapon. His fists were stronger than I’d ever encountered and he knew how to use them. I didn’t think I could win.
The second time he swung for my face, my shoulder didn’t save me. He got me right in the jaw and I went down. I heard Jody cry out. I wanted her near me. Wanted her right beside me, offering me comfort. It was selfish. She didn’t even know me. Didn’t know that I needed her. Didn’t know that we were meant to be together.
My body wanted to stay curled up in a defensive ball on the ground. I didn’t want to get hurt anymore. But I need to stay strong. I needed to survive. I needed to defend Jody. If I didn’t survive this, we would never see what we could be together. She was my mate, my denya, and I needed to do this for her.
With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed myself up. Evil Santa had turned away from me and was moving to the women. I couldn’t let him have them.
“Is that all you got?” I taunted. I tasted blood with every word. But it was just a split lip. I hurt, but I wasn’t injured. Not yet. Not badly.
Evil Santa turned toward me. His robe gaped open and I saw the force field device sitting precariously in one of his pockets. We needed that if we were going to get out of here.
“Come on, big boy.” I wiggled my fingers, inviting him to come my way. He charged.
Something possessed me, the spirit of victory, the need to defend and win. I didn’t let myself worry about what he was doing to me, about the pain, about anything like that. I just had to get that force field device.
I got up real close and managed to slide my arm into his cloak and brush my fingers against the device. I didn’t get a hold of it, but it was enough to knock it out of place from where it sat in his pocket and send it crashing to the ground.
Evil Santa let out a roar. He was not happy about me doing that. Good. I didn’t want him happy.
But he hit even harder, and I was doing all I could to block the blows and defend myself. I got in a few hits of my own, and one even made him grunt and stumble back. But it was clear who was winning this fight. And it wasn’t me. I wished I had a weapon of some kind, something even sharper than my claws. But wishing for something in the middle of a fight like this was just going to get me dead.
He charged me again and I took a step back. My foot landed on something and I heard a crunch. The force field device. Santa didn’t hear it. He kept charging until he had me flat on the ground, where I landed even more fully on the device, shattering it.
At first I thought it did nothing. At first I thought we were okay. But a breathless second later, a shockwave punched through me and out through the rest of the store.
Something started to buzz as the force field went down. I heard Jody cry out as a large portal began to open in the middle of the room.
11
Jody
I winced every time I saw Evil Santa hit Aldyn. It was barbaric. Horrible. And a little hot. Not Evil Santa hitting Aldyn. But when Aldyn hit back.
Were his eyes glowing red?
I couldn’t look away, but I had to. Wendy and I needed to find the devices that were the key to our freedom. Aldyn was distracting Evil Santa. It was our job to get us out of there. Jeff couldn’t do much but stay on the floor and try not to groan. I felt bad for the guy. He looked kind of gray, and he clearly needed a doctor. But with the force field around the building, there was no way we could get a doctor in here. We had to stop Evil Santa.
The portal device fell first. Wendy was way faster than me and managed to scramble inside, right near the fighting aliens, and grab it. Then she ran right back to me and we took a look at it. There were a bunch of buttons and some flashing lights. No instructions. Definitely nothing in English.
“Should we smash it?” I asked.
“What if that makes things even worse?” She grimaced as she asked.
Yeah, that was a risk. One I didn’t want to take. I took the device from her and stared at it for a while. No ideas came to me.
And while all that was going on, Evil Santa and Aldyn kept fighting. I heard something else fall to the ground, something small, maybe plastic.
The force field device.
But before either Wendy or I could make a move, Aldyn was being flung down.
I didn’t realize what happened first. How could I have known? But then a shockwave rocked through the store, sending both me and Wendy stepping back a few feet, and then a horrible buzzing sounded. I looked down at the device in my hand and then up to just behind where Evil Santa was standing.
It started as a little pinprick of light, something that might have been an optical illusion. But after just three seconds, it was clear that whatever it was, it was real and growing. The portal.
After less than thirty seconds, it was big enough for a person to crawl through, but it wasn’t a person that was coming out of there. Huge tentacles flopped out and flailed around, one wrapping itself around Evil Santa. At first he seemed confident, but as it tugged on him, his expression shifted. “What’s going on? What’s this?” he demanded.
“It’s your portal thing!” I was afraid to press any buttons, afraid to make anything worse. And I wasn’t about to hand this thing over Evil Santa. Even if he was the only one who knew how to use it.
“You fool! You shifted the settings. Who knows what you have unleashed.” He might’ve had more to say. He might have had more insults or ideas. But the tentacle
thing pulled him back through the portal, and for a moment, it disappeared.
I thought maybe we were safe. I took a breath and looked at the device. There had to be a way to turn it off. Or make it bigger. Once it got to two meters wide by two meters tall, it seemed to stop growing. That was good, at least. But I didn’t know what was going to come out of it. We couldn’t just leave a huge portal open in the middle of the store. It was a danger to everyone.
“Figure out how to turn it off!” Aldyn yelled as he scrambled to his feet. He looked like he was about to come my way, but then another tentacle flopped out of the portal and he let out a curse. He took off toward it, those claws in his hands out and ready to do damage.
He had protected us enough. I had to figure this out.
There weren’t many options. Two big buttons and one dial. There seemed to be a few other settings on the side, but I ignored them.
Aldyn let out something like a war cry as he threw himself at the tentacle, slashing at it without any mercy. It retreated, but a second later a second one joined it, and then a third, and then a fourth. Too many for one man to fight. Even a man with claws.
I had to hit something. I punched down on one of the buttons and squeezed my eyes shut, afraid of what it would do. I didn’t hear anything happen, so I had to open my eyes.
Shit.
The portal had definitely grown.
I wasn’t hitting that button again.
Wendy had run up to Aldyn carrying a giant pole that she must have found somewhere. It looked like it was something used to arrange products that were too high up for a person to reach. She jabbed it in towards the tentacles and it seemed to help for a moment. Then one of the tentacles grabbed onto it and tore it out of her hands. There was only one more button.
Either it worked or I screwed us all over.
“Close it, Jody. Do it now.” The tentacles were wrapped all around Aldyn, and they seemed like they were about to pull him through the portal. If they pulled him through there was no getting him back. I didn’t want to think about what was happening to Evil Santa right now. Sure, he had kidnapped us and that definitely wasn’t cool, but being tortured by tentacles was not a fate that anyone deserved.
Okay, well from what I’d seen on the Internet, some people did really want that fate. But this was not the time to think about that.
I pressed the button.
There wasn’t a shockwave this time. Instead, it was like a gust of wind as a door slammed shut. My ears popped, and when I was brave enough to open my eyes, I looked over and saw that Aldyn was standing there with two tentacles wrapped around his arms. But those tentacles didn’t go anywhere. They had been chopped off by the portal closing.
I set the device carefully on the counter. I didn’t want to accidentally open up another portal. But Aldyn looked ready to drop. I rushed over to him and helped pull the tentacles off.
His face was bruised and green blood was splattered over his split lip. His? He was an alien, after all. Maybe his blood wasn’t red.
“Good job,” he told me with a smile, and I didn’t think it was even sarcastic.
“You’re the one who did all the work,” I said.
“I think I need to sit down.” And before he could step towards a chair, he crumpled down to the floor.
12
Aldyn
I could feel every bruise and scrape and cut from the fight. And it was only getting worse by the second. But the portal was closed and Jody’s arms were tight around me.
For the first time that night, things were looking up.
“Don’t you die,” she said, warning clear in her voice. “If you die, I’m going to freaking kill you.”
It hurt to smile. Everything hurt. But I forced myself up from where I had fallen on the ground. I could manage to sit. But I would appreciate some medical attention soon. At least a painkiller.
Of course, from the way Jeff was groaning, he needed way more help than I did.
“No risk of dying,” I told her. Not anymore. But that was probably a conversation for a later time. I glanced over and was surprised to see how small the tentacles looked. When they had been wrapped around me I was sure they were as big as a building. But they were tiny things.
I couldn’t quite circle my hands around their girth, but it would be close. They definitely didn’t look as threatening now that they were cut off from whatever body they had been attached to. And I was beyond grateful I would never see that body or determine how many tentacles it normally had.
Jody and I didn’t say much. After the excitement of the night, it was hard to figure out what to say. I needed to talk to her. Needed to explain who she was to me. Needed to ask her to dinner. But for several moments, I was just basking in being alive.
Sometime later, police busted through the front door, yelling a warning with their weapons drawn. But when they saw us, they seemed very confused.
“The fight’s over,” Jody told them, leaning her body in front of me a little as if to act as a shield. “The guy who held us captive got sucked in through a portal.”
She pointed to the tentacles on the ground. “That came out of it, if you want to bag that for evidence. The portal opening mechanism is on the counter.” Then she quickly added, “Don’t press the button. I don’t know if the portal will open back up.”
The last thing we needed was to deal with that portal reopening. I much preferred Earth to whatever world we had caught a glimpse of.
The police had questions for all of us and we answered them quickly. It became clear they weren’t interested in pinning the blame on anyone who’d been held hostage, and pretty soon an ambulance arrived to see to us. By that time I was feeling better, but I had lost track of Jody. Where was she? Had she disappeared? Gone home?
Had I lost my chance already?
Most of my aches were going away, but they were replaced by one in my heart. It couldn’t be over so quickly. Could it? Before we had even had a chance to talk? I started looking around wildly, but I didn’t see her. Maybe the cops would give me her information. Hadn’t she said something about being a school teacher? I would go to every school in the city until I found her.
I had to do something. She was my denya. My mate. We hadn’t gone through all of this trouble for me to lose her so quickly.
“Are you okay?”
I spun around at the sound of Jody’s voice. She had two steaming mugs in her hands and offered one to me. “Where did you go?” I asked as I took the mug, the answer evident in the warm drink.
“I thought we could use something like this. It’s just cider, and it’s not even spiked. But it’ll be good.” She took a sip and sat down on the bench. I quickly joined her.
She was right. The drink was good. Sweet with a hint of spice. It was nothing like what we had back home, but I was getting used to the tastes of Earth. “So is this a favorite drink?” I asked.
“I like it well enough,” said Jody. Then she laughed. It was a bit frantic, as if she was just realizing everything that we had gone through. “I feel like I’ve been around you my entire life,” she said. “Is that weird? It feels weird. Especially since you don’t even know if I like apple cider.”
Apple cider was irrelevant. I knew the important things. Things that went beyond the recognition of our mating bond. “I know you’re brave. Strong. Resourceful. You faced off against that alien in ways that many people wouldn’t have been able to handle. I’d like to know what your favorite drinks are. But I think I’ve seen hints of all the important stuff. Preferences for snacks and beverages will come in time.”
“You seem certain of that,” she said with a smile. “We might never see each other again after tonight.”
“No, that’s not happening.” It probably wasn’t the right thing to say. Too forceful. Too absolute. Most humans still didn’t understand the denya bond. They didn’t know how we could know that we were meant to be together. They didn’t sense this thing the same way that we did. But luckily for me, J
ody seemed into it.
“I’d ask you to dinner, but I’m kind of afraid to go to any other public place right now. Like there are other aliens just waiting to capture me. I think I just need to head home.”
I didn’t want our night to end. But I could feel exhaustion nipping at me as well. It had been a hell of a night. “I want to see you again.”
She looked at me for several moments, and I thought she might offer me her communicator information. Then she placed her hand on my thigh. “Want to come back to my place?”
It was more than I could hope for. But we hadn’t talked. I knew some Detyens would be happy to take her up on her offer without ever explaining what it could mean. But I wasn’t one of them. Even though joining with her would save my life, she needed to know what it meant. I couldn’t take that choice away from her.
But she did not seem to sense what I was thinking about. Her fingers curled in and I hoped they would leave a mark. “I don’t sleep with guys on the first date anymore,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure tonight counts for like ten dates. So we can figure out the rest of that later.”
I could just kiss her. Could do everything before sealing the actual act. Then I could explain the importance. Both of us needed it. We had survived. It was time to celebrate.
“Lead the way.”
13
Jody
I really didn’t sleep with guys on the first date. Really. I promise.
But Aldyn was different. And that night was at least ten dates combined. Maybe a lifetime. Excitement sizzled within me as I led him back to my apartment. I was glad I had just cleaned. I could be messy at times. But the gods must’ve been smiling down on me that night. I wanted to kiss him. Wanted to reach out and hold his hand and tug him close.
