by Presley Hall
But I need to clear my head, and I know this is the best way to do it.
I tread carefully through the Nuthora foliage, careful not to upset the lush leaves and strong vines that creep across the forest floor. This place is so unlike my home planet, and even though it’s been almost five years since we were banished from Vox, I still long for the sand. There are different climates on different parts of the prison planet, but it’s almost always humid in our quadrant. The sticky air can be downright oppressive during the hot season, but at least this place is home to a great many beasts that taste delicious over the cook fire.
I stop and kneel in the middle of a thick cropping of long leaves. It’s as good a spot as any to hide from my quarry. If I’m lucky, a large yallao will happen by in search of some wild berries.
Just as I press my spear into the ground, the filtered sunlight from overhead disappears, blocked by a large form. It only lasts for a moment, the massive shadow traveling quickly across the land.
When I look up, I see the culprit immediately.
It’s a gicnuk, and a very big one at that, which is saying something. Its wingspan must be at least two of me, and if a regular-sized gicnuk can feed a handful of men for a week, then this one should be able to feed twice that many. I wouldn’t be doing my duty to my people if I didn’t hunt it down.
That, and I’ve always wanted to try my prowess against one of these beasts.
Excitement fills me, my blood rising with the thrill of the hunt.
I heft my spear and run through the forest, trailing the bird’s large shadow through the crowded trees and brush. I can’t throw my spear until I get a clear shot, but there’s a large break in the canopy not far ahead.
Perfect.
My legs pump faster, air rushing past my bare skin. I dart around a large tree and put on a sudden burst of speed as I reach the break in the trees.
The gicnuk flaps its huge wings overhead, and I race toward a cluster of boulders, leaping from one to the next with practiced speed. When I reach the highest point on the large rocks, I bend my knees and push off, launching myself into the air.
Leveraging my spear, I hurl it at the massive bird. As the spear leaves my grip, I notice that the gicnuk has something dangling from its talons.
The weapon strikes before I can see what it is that the gicnuk is carrying. My spear flew wider than I intended, and it goes through the wrong part of the bird, burying itself in the wing. The gicnuk lets out a piercing screech as it careens sideways through the air.
It flaps its powerful wings harder, letting out another loud call as it rights itself.
Akhi. I bare my teeth in a frustrated snarl. I injured the beast, but not badly enough to bring it down.
As the gicnuk struggles to fly away, it releases whatever it’s been holding in its talons—and for the first time, I realize what that is.
A person.
Whoever it is, they’re probably dead already, but I don’t think about that. All I see is a falling body, and I race to catch it before it crashes to the ground.
Plants and trees whip by me as I sprint flat-out, managing to put myself directly beneath the falling body just before it hits the forest floor. I stretch out my arms, and when the weight of it hits me, I fall backward and land with a grunt.
The body on top of mine is splayed bonelessly, limp and soft.
I have no doubt that it is dead, but I roll it off me and sit up to look anyway.
My breath stops.
It is a female.
A small one, of a race I don’t recognize. My chest aches as I set eyes on her. She has dark hair, like the aged wood of a tree. The messy strands cover her face, partially obscuring her features.
As I stare, I see her pulse fluttering in her neck. She’s alive.
She probably passed out from the shock of the fall, or maybe she was unconscious even before that. She made no sound as she was carried by the gicnuk.
My stomach rolls and tightens, as if I were a nervous youngblood on his first hunt again. Carefully, I gather her in my arms and lay her on her back.
My hands are moving without my conscious effort, and it’s almost as if my body is in complete control of my mind. I push her tangled hair back and stare at her face.
Her features are delicate, small enough that I can cup the entirety of her jaw with one hand. Her nose is long and straight, and her skin is white like the sand on Vox. She has faint markings on her face, tiny dots falling across her nose and the tops of her cheeks.
She looks so different than me, so different from anything that I’ve ever seen before. I haven’t been to many planets other than Vox and Nuthora, but I’ve visited the crime-ridden cities that have sprung up on this planet enough times to have encountered a variety of different species.
She is unlike any of them.
This woman is delicate and soft, as if the wind has taken form. Stunningly beautiful. So impossibly perfect that I feel chills running down my arms.
I keep touching her face, running my thumbs over her fragile cheeks, tracing along her neck. I don’t know why, but I can’t stop. She feels so soft, and I feel so warm. That warmth, the strange sensation I felt when I looked into the sky and saw the blowing smoke from the crash, is back.
It’s a slow leak, spreading from my chest to my belly and then to all of my limbs.
Carefully, I examine the rest of her, scanning her form. Everything else about her body is as delicate and finely shaped as her face.
Her clothing is unfamiliar to me, nothing like what my people wear. On Vox, the warriors wear loincloths or tunics, and the women wear something similar. Perhaps this woman is royalty from somewhere far away. The purple shift she wears is of a fine, soft material, hanging from her shoulders by two flimsy threads and dropping to her mid-thigh. It’s dirty and torn, but I can tell it was once lovely.
Searching for any sign of injury, my hands move lower, running along the material of her dress, brushing lightly along the sides of her breasts and her stomach. The heat in my belly spreads lower and lower, into my groin.
It’s been a long time since I’ve lain with a woman. More than five years. I have no taste for going into the cities like some of the others do on occasion, and even less taste for brothels.
My hands run up her chest again, and I lower my face to brush my nose along her neck, inhaling her strange, sweet smell.
She makes a noise as she exhales, and I freeze, but she doesn’t awaken. Instead, she arches toward me. My hands are still on her chest, and I brush my fingers along the hard pebbles straining against her dress. At first, it’s just an experiment, but she makes that little noise again, so I do it once more. The animal hide around my waist feels too tight.
It’s wrong to touch her while she is unconscious, I know that, but something about her draws me to her so strongly that it’s almost impossible to resist. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to draw my hands away from her body, but I force my muscles to obey. I can control myself. I’m no wild beast.
Sitting back on my heels, I stare at her.
I should be trying to wake her up to get some information out of her, but it’s almost as if my mind has decided to take leave of me, because my gaze keeps running over her body as if I’m trying to memorize every single line and curve.
This woman is no one to me. A complete stranger.
And yet, I can’t stop imagining what it might be like to hold her, to feel her arms wrapped around me, to bury my aching length inside of her and hear those perfect little noises again.
What is it about her?
7
Charlotte
I’m really dead this time. I’m sure of it.
It makes sense. I’ve faced more danger in the past twenty-four hours than I’ve encountered in my entire life up to this point, so my luck was bound to run out eventually.
My consciousness floats in an intangible space. I remember being plucked up and carried by the massive bird, then I remember the bird screeching and p
itching sideways. I remember it releasing me from its talons, and I vividly remember my plummet toward the ground.
Then darkness swallowed everything up again.
Now I’m drifting in this space. I can’t see or feel anything, but I gradually become aware of a strange sensation spreading through my… my essence.
My spirit, maybe.
The very heart of me.
It’s like a flower blooming at the very center of my being, and it’s nothing but pure warmth. It feels like home, like love, like an unspoken promise.
Then the feeling changes.
It rolls through me, spreading and growing hotter, filling me up until it consumes me. My nerves are on fire, and with every passing second, something I can’t even name floods my veins with liquid heat. When the sensation starts to intensify, I let out a low groan. A thrum pulses between my legs, an ache that needs pressure.
As my eyes peel slowly open, it occurs to me that luck must’ve been on my side one more time. I’m not actually dead.
Everything around me appears hazy and barely there as I shake off the cobwebs in my mind, trying to focus. There are colors above me, the bright blue and green of the sky and foliage. And the strange ache in my body is still there, although it’s dulled to a low burn.
I blink again as something moves into my field of vision. Instead of staring up at trees, I’m staring at a man, and he’s staring back at me.
Well… maybe “man” isn’t the right word.
Male, yes, certainly.
But human? Definitely not.
From his cat-like blue eyes to the way his skin has an almost pearlescent blue-gray tint, it’s obvious that he’s not the same species as me. His hair is dark and long, and a few strands of it slip over his shoulder and tickle my nose. As they do, I realize with a start that our faces are so close together that I’d only have to lift my head a few inches for our noses to touch.
He’s… beautiful. Strange and alluring. The light falling behind him makes him look almost ethereal, as if I’ve dreamed him up.
Maybe I have.
Maybe this is all a dream, the last images conjured up by my unconscious mind before death claims me.
His large hand is on my knee, and his breath fans against my mouth. For some reason, the feel of his skin against mine reignites the heat that’s still lingering inside me. Unable to help myself, I shift my leg a little, and his hand slides a few inches up my thigh. Goosebumps dance along my skin, my nerve-endings tingling with awareness.
Then, like a rubber band snapping back into place, reality comes crashing in around me.
What the fuck am I doing?
This is definitely not a dream.
My entire body jolts, and I shove the alien man away.
He leans back, and I scramble out from under him so fast it makes me dizzy. Pivoting on the balls of my feet, I begin to run.
Or at least, I try to run.
My legs are poised to sprint, but apparently I’ve used up all of my adrenaline reserves for the day. The now-familiar wet string feeling returns to my muscles, and I almost face plant in the dirt.
Before I can hit the ground, strong arms wrap around my waist. Big arms. Solid. Grey-blue and decorated with swirling white patterns.
When the alien grabs me, I yelp like a wounded animal. It’s part fear at being caught and part surprise at the reaction in my body. That weird feeling of arousal that woke me up returns full force when he holds me against him, and I have to work to shove it down.
Holy shit. What is happening to me?
It takes a lot not to panic, to stay still and just breathe. I don’t know if he can tell how weirdly turned on I am, but I’m not too worried that he’ll try to take advantage of it. The way he holds me is gentle and careful. Almost… tender.
As if I mean something to him, even though I’ve never met this alien man before in my life.
I should be terrified. That would be the logical thing, but for some reason, I can’t quite work up the level of fear I know I should feel. Something in my gut is telling me that it’s okay, and despite the facts of the situation I find myself in, I listen to that quiet instinct inside myself.
Besides, even if I did try to shove out of his hold and run, there’s a good chance I’d fall again. My limbs are shaking, and although I don’t think I got hurt badly when I fell from the sky, my body has been through a lot today.
If I can’t escape, then there’s no use putting myself through a cycle of try-and-fail. The alien man isn’t attacking me, so he must be capable of reasoning abilities—if he were a mindless creature in the wild, my only uses would be either food or reproduction. Neither of those things is happening, so that’s good.
Okay, so I’m currently wrapped in the arms of an alien male. Great. First contact, mission accomplished.
He’s an assumed friendly—or at least a neutral—male, which is amazing. Dumb luck. If he has higher thought and complex communication, then I can talk to him. Good thing I listened to my mom when she gently nudged me toward a language major in college. Odds are good that this man can’t speak any language from Earth, but I have the tools necessary to grasp and analyze the basics of his language.
In theory, at least.
He’s still holding me. He hasn’t moved at all yet. I clear my throat and pat him gently on the arm.
Fuck, his forearms are massive. His hands too. He’s tall, towering over me by at least a foot. I didn’t get a good look at the whole of him, but he must be a very big guy, the kind my girlfriends and I used to drool over in college when we went out to the bars.
In response to my wordless urging, the alien sets me down on my feet and unwraps his arms from around me. My legs still feel weak, like they won’t be able to hold me up for long, but at least I can stand on my own now. I turn around to face the man, but words abandon me as soon as I get a proper look at him.
Holy… wow.
I’ve never seen anything like him before. His features, from his sharp jaw to his straight nose, are very human-like. I would almost believe that he is human, but those eyes of his and his strangely marked skin are definitely otherworldly.
He’s wearing nothing but a loincloth, and his broad shoulders taper to a lean waist and muscled legs.
Silence stretches between us. I know I’m staring, but I can’t seem to stop looking at him. He’s breathtaking, and that’s not something I’ve been able to say about a man in a long time.
No, not a man. An alien.
Could it be that we lucked out and crashed on the very planet we were originally meant to arrive at? No, surely not. The charted course estimated a month until arrival, and we’d only been a few days out when we crashed. Plus, I’m pretty sure that strange, swirling tunnel thing was a wormhole. Which means I could be anywhere in the universe right now.
“Um. Hello.”
I speak first because he doesn’t, and we should start somewhere. I raise my hand and give him a little wave. He tracks the movement with his penetrating gaze, his eyebrows raising.
Shit. I’m so not cut out for this.
This whole damn mission was a disaster before it even started. Everything about it was a lie. Everything is fucked up. I need to get back to the ship, back to Earth. I need to expose what the government has done, and what they may still be doing.
How many other Earth women have they traded to extraterrestrials? I thought the Foreigner II was supposed to be humanity’s first contact with alien life forms, but I’m starting to doubt that’s the case. The first government mission that deep into space, maybe. But I have a sick feeling that our government has been trading women away for far longer than that.
Determination fills me, and I square my shoulders as I look up at the alien. I may not be cut out for this, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here. I’ll just have to do the best I can.
“My ship.” Speaking slowly, I make a fist with one hand and move it as if it’s descending from the sky before crashing into the palm of my other
hand. “Crashed.” I place my hand against my chest. “I.” My fingers steeple above my head like a roof. “Want my home.”
The alien tilts his head to the side and squints at me.
Dammit.
“You.” I point at him, then make my fingers walk in the air. “Take.” I point to myself again. “Me.” I puff out my chest, feeling more than a little ridiculous as I hold my fist to my heart. “To your leader.”
The alien doesn’t respond immediately, but his lips part and move, as if he’s tasting the words in his mouth. “Le-der.”
“Le-ee-der. Yes.” I nod, a little too enthusiastically.
“Tuak.” He points to himself, then raises his hand to the forest beyond.
Is he trying to tell me he’s going there? Or maybe he’s agreeing to take me. Shit. I don’t know, it could be anything.
Tuak isn’t a word I know, but it sounds like an Eastern language. Honestly, I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to compare it to anything that’s spoken back on Earth. I highly doubt that languages from completely different planets would have much in common.
I’m lost. Incredibly lost.
I don’t even know what solar system I’m in. And I’m desperate to go home, even if “home” is a corrupt government and a man who couldn’t love me even if he wanted to.
What if I never get back to Earth? How many other women will be sent into space? Who will bring flowers to my parents’ graves on Saturdays?
I’m staring at the alien’s face again, and I watch as his brows knit.
“Urusen gee du?”
He makes a step toward me. His mesmerizing eyes are so full of expression that I feel like I can read everything inside of them. Confusion. Curiosity. Concern.
I don’t know why he would care if I’m upset. He’s a stranger, I’m an invader. If anything, he should be pointing a weapon at me. How is he so sure I won’t hurt him?
Slowly, he reaches out and touches my cheek. I realize with a start that I’m crying, frustrated tears slipping over my eyelids.
