by Belle Harper
“I’m feeling the same, but I don’t know how I will sleep knowing K’Tem is down there… I can’t lose him.”
I reached over to Jessica, opening my hand too her. She shuffled closer and held my hand. I had wanted to comfort her, but this… this was comforting me as well, more than I’d thought it would.
After a while our hands got sweaty and gross, so we dropped the hand holding and all I could do was think about Sanza. Was he okay? Was K’Tem talking to him? Making him feel at ease? Were the spaceships coming back, were the M’Mori going to kill us? I had started to freak out, and had worked myself up so much that I was no longer tired just stressed out. Maybe I could think about my mates? That will make me relax. Zurcov was beside us now, so that was easy.
I closed my eyes and I concentrated until all I could see was my mates faces. Marin with that goofy grin, Zurcov and those lips and Sanza…. My heart started to race. I wanted him as my mate, I knew that I didn’t want to lose him. He was mine as much as I was his. I couldn’t stop replaying the words he’d said to me…
“Don’t stop, it feels so good,” The fuck? My eyes flashed open and I looked over to where Tomlee had spoken to Jessica. I smiled and chuckled slightly.
“Can you not fuck on this tree? I already have the fear that we will all fall to our deaths,” I could see Jessica was going to laugh. Which was what I was aiming for, it was nice to see her smile like that.
“The Aashi are like cats, they have nine lives and always land on their feet.” She joked back. I chuckled. That was so true.
“I’m really freaked out and I haven’t slept at all. Tell me a story… something funny so I can stop thinking about falling?” I asked Jessica. I was hoping she could tell me something funny from back on earth, that I could giggle to and relax.
“Don’t worry, my love, we have you,” both Marin and Zurcov spoke at the same time. I smiled and rolled my eyes a little. I knew they had me, I just needed a joke or something.
“Well… when the assholes kidnapped me, they wanted me to mate bond them.” I worried that this was a bad story, maybe she hadn’t heard me when I’d said funny, I didn’t want her digging up bad memories.
“Well, I kicked the closest one in the nuts. And that dumbass, Benzen, thought I had chosen that dude first to mate bond, then he practically begged me to kick him in the dick and nuts.”
I snorted and the chuckle came out sounding all weird. She kicked him in the nuts?
“Wait… hold up. You kicked him in the nuts and they thought that was mate bonding?” I asked hoping this was what she meant because holy hell this was funny.
“I’m not joking. They actually lined up to be kicked in the nuts.” I cracked up and so did Marin and Zurcov. Actually, I could hear a bunch of guys laughing. They thought that was mate bonding, fuck that was the funniest thing I had heard. They really needed to teach better sex ed. in that clan. They were dumb as all hell.
Chapter Twenty
Carub
I had followed Elle to Clan Wolf, I had watched as the Chosen from Clan Ariaan held her and her mates against their wills. They were cruel like most males were. This was why I never joined other outcast males, I kept to myself.
But I had been working myself up to join Clan Wolf. I was getting ready to speak to the warrior Daku when the ships above came again. In all the haste to leave the area, the clan didn’t notice that I’d joined them. I was fleeing with them. We had rested for a short while one evening but we had been traveling nonstop now towards the goddess arena. I knew that it wasn’t their intention to go through the bare open grasslands there, but it was a center for all Aashi. Once there you knew where everything was. The clans and the mountains.
“Halt,” was called out through the trees and I stopped. I watched as every male stopped and looked around them. There were ships in the sky again. What were they doing here? I thought they had left already.
“The clans are picking up more females in the Goddess Arena, more human females.” The males beside me spoke. More females? The males were all very excited. The clans were picking them up, but these males spoke as if their mate had just arrived. I knew where Elle was, she was in a tree with her other mates. The blue mate was down below. I had been watching him for days, she’d seemed worried about him so I’d wanted to make sure I protected him.
I looked to him again, the blue one with no tails. He paced now, he was speaking loudly to K’Tem and none of us understood his language. But K’Tem the M’Mori did. I watched as he yelled and it looked like K’Tem was trying to speak to him. But he was either too angry to listen or had already made his mind up, when out of nowhere he let out this loud roar.
Everyone jumped to defend the females but they didn’t know what from. It was Sanza, and he wasn’t running to attack the females. He was running towards the goddess arena. A loud scream pierced the air, I turned to see the beautiful Elle screaming out to Sanza
The M’Mori ships had left for now. They had dropped off the females and returned to the skies where they lived, they would return again with more females. I was sure of that. More females for the Aashi.
“We will camp below, and wait for the males that were sent out to warn the clans. They shall return in a day,” Vallyn announced to everyone. I knew some would be grateful to be sleeping on the ground, but I preferred the trees. It was safer up here.
I noticed now that some of the girls had started to sing, I had not heard singing since I was just a small kit. This was not in Aashi, but in the human language of the females. Listening to them sounded like the sweetest melody on the wind.
Elle didn’t partake, she was with her mates and crying, Marin was stroking her arm and telling her she would be okay. That the clan would find him. But the thing was… no one was looking for him.
I decided then that I needed to do this for her. That I needed to find Sanza and bring him home to her. She would thank me as I had thanked her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Elle
He left.
Sanza left. He didn’t say goodbye, he’d just charged after the M’Mori. Something he had told me many times he was here to do. He was going to avenge the deaths of his family and mate.
I’d just felt like we had something special.
I guess it was only one sided. He didn't feel the same as me and now he was off on a suicide mission. He was going to get himself killed and there is no way he could get up close enough to the M’Mori for his revenge. They would kill him on sight.
The tears came, I couldn't stop them. I just had this deep ache in my chest and I felt that I had lost Sanza forever. I had finally started trusting large males, I felt comfortable around him. Marin and Zurcov were trying to comfort me. Stroking my hair and telling me that he will be okay and that he would return. But how did they know that? They didn't. Now he was all alone out there, trying to fight a force that was impossible to defeat.
I couldn't stop these tears from flowing, my throat was tight as I sobbed into Marin’s chest. It was like nothing they could do or say would make this feel any better. It was like my heart was breaking, because it was missing a piece, a big blue piece.
My mates moved away slightly as the girls came in close, I didn't know how to tell them that I wanted Sanza to return. Although I think they already knew, it was easy to tell from the way I was reacting. The tears wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. I also think that the pregnancy hormones were strongly to blame for how inconsolable I was.
“Girl talk time,” Luna said to Marin and Zurcov, who looked at me before completely moving away. Luna sat beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.
I tried to stop the tears, knowing I was being over dramatic. That there were worse things going on here than Sanza going on some suicide mission. I sniffled a few times and wiped the tears from my eyes. Jessica moved in and sat beside me, her hand reached forward and took mine.
Jessica started singing. Like really singing. Holy shit, how had she been hiding that amazing voice for so lo
ng. I couldn’t hold back, I loved this song. The tears continued to roll down my face as the words for Ed Sheeran’s Perfect rolled off my tongue. I smiled and bumped shoulders with Jessica and Luna as we all started singing. I knew the words to most of Ed’s songs, so it was just too easy to get lost in the feels.
How had we not thought of singing before this? I had hummed and sang quietly to myself on occasion, but it was like this was something that I hadn’t known had been missing from my life. I loved music, and the Aashi didn’t have any.
Quinn rushed in and gave Jessica a bear hug and she laughed. We all did as I wiped the tears that had fallen after singing. “You’re an amazing singer. We need to do concerts… can I request songs?” Quinn asked Jessica. Quinn was wearing a huge grin and I fully agreed with her sentiment.
“I’m not that good, and I don’t know many… I mostly listened to Ed. But we can all sing and have fun anytime, I would love that.” Jessica replied. I smiled and squeezed her hand. I knew Ed songs too.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Luna asked me, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. There was nothing to talk about… I’d shared a kiss with Sanza and I’d thought I meant more to him than killing himself. Because he knew it was a suicide mission. He had told me that if he even took down one of them, he would have felt like he had succeeded. I looked around at all of us sitting here in a circle. We were the first humans here in Aarzyn, but from the sounds of it, we weren’t the last.
No one spoke for a while, I laid my head on Luna’s shoulder and smiled over to Hadley. She smiled and winked at me. Then she winked again and I saw her make a fucking gesture with her hand and I felt a small laugh build. Dirty mind. I shook my head a little and tried not to laugh at her. Then Jessica spoke up.
“Maybe… we can sing and the new girls will hear us? They might come to us?”
That was a great idea. Daku said we couldn’t call out to them, I guess he was worried about starting a fight… well it would be more like a war between us and six clans. We couldn’t take on that many, even though our clan was huge now. Oh god… Sanza was out there with other Aashi. They might kill him. My chest started to hurt again. They were going after him. They will find him and bring him back. He will be okay.
Luna must have sensed the change in me and she held me closer to her side, patting my knee while talking to Jessica.
“That is a genius idea, Jess. Daku is going to be angry but we need the girls to know we are here. We need to help them. And I know he is protecting the clan, but someone has gotta protect them to.”
Jessica had this huge smile on her face, I could see in her eyes that she was really excited that we’d loved her idea. Because it was a really good one. The Aashi didn’t know we could sign, and after that small little performance we had already drawn a little crowd
“Well, I would like to have an all-out concert, but we need to jazz it up a bit. Can we have a more harmonized type of song? Like The Supremes do? Or do you all know Please Mr. Postman?” Hadley was so excited as she spoke up. I was being drawn into this now and it was helping to keep my mind off things… I didn’t exactly know this postman song, but I knew some of the types of songs she was meaning.
“Oh… I know some of that one. Can you start singing it and maybe we can really blow these Aashi out of the water with it?” Brooklyn bounced around and was super excited. I guess this wasn’t just cheering me up. This was cheering everyone up.
We practiced… well, I tried my best. Turns out I knew more of that postman song more than I thought. It must have been in a movie or something. I giggled more than sang as more males started getting closer to us. They were listening to us singing and it was drawing them closer.
“We won’t sing in full volume until we are all ready, we want to blow these guys out of the water. And we need to wait until they are all listening in.” Hadley said and we all agreed. Yeah, they needed a show.
“Let’s all get on stage.” Quinn laughed and we all stood up and moved to an area that was large enough to be a stage and have an audience. I could see Marin and Zurcov watching me, I smiled and I pointed to the ground in front of us. They came and sat and so many other males followed. Luna had us all stand up in a row, and I thought I would be nervous. I’m not a singer, I can do some karaoke but I would never make it as a professional. Jessica could have, her voice was unreal.
Luna was on my left and Jessica was on my right, we smiled and I waved to the now much larger crowd than I had expected. There were Aashi hanging out of trees watching us to see what we would do. Oh… I had an idea.
“We should do a little dance move like this.” I placed my hands out in front and did a little shimmy and then swung my hips from side to side. Like those Motown singers did, it felt so real when I did that. Jessica and the girls are started to copy it until we all got the hang of it and stopped. The males in front all clapped and I laughed. That wasn’t even the show.
“We totally need to recreate the Pitch Perfect movies, that would be so much fun.” Quinn suggested. Hell yeah.
“Are you all ready for the Clan Wolf singers?” Luna called out. And my nerves finally kicked in, or maybe it was morning sickness. But when I looked down to see Marin and Zurcov smiling up at me, the butterflies left and I felt really good about this, I couldn’t keep the grin from my face.
“Alright, so far we have one number only. So be prepared for more in the future. We have a whole musical we will put on when we have practiced,” Quinn called out now.
“One, two…” Hadley started the first clap and we were off. Hadley and Quinn clapped and the rest of us jumped straight into the back up singing. Hadley was the lead for half and Jessica lead the other half. By the end I couldn’t believe we had just done that. We sounded amazing. The dancing part was something we could work on, but holy crap. I was on cloud nine.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sanza
They were going to die for their crimes against my people. The M’Mori were so close I could taste their blood on my tongue. I would slaughter all of them.
“What are you doing?” K’Tem asked me as I started to move toward where the spacecrafts had landed.
“I am going to do what I set out to. I will kill them, every last one of them.” My heart pounded in my chest as my muscles flexed. I was ready, I was stronger now. The food the M’Mori had been feeding me had improved when I asked for it raw. I felt my energy reserves stronger than they would ever be.
“That would only be certain death, you could fight them with your fists, Sanza. But they would never let you that close. They would kill you before you even step foot on that ship. Please, reconsider this. I thought you were happy? You seemed happy with Elle.”
I paused for a moment, at the mention of her name. If anything, I was doing this for her just as much as I was for Raina… how could I take on another mate when I had let down my first. This was a way to stop the M’Mori from hurting Elle. I had to protect her from them.
“I must go,” was all I said as I rushed forward on a battle cry. One I had only used twice in my life. The first time was when I found my family murdered and now, when I must do what was right to protect Elle.
I ran swiftly, jumping over tree roots towards this place they call the goddess arena, where the M’Mori were. Waiting for their deaths.
“Inji.” I heard called out in Aashi. I didn’t know the language but I assumed it meant stop. But I didn’t listen to these other males, I continued my charge, seeing only red in my vision as I got closer to where they were. I had been traveling for a while when I heard, “Inji,” again. It was called out from above me and I looked up, slowing my pace to see a dark purple Aashi following me through the trees.
“I cannot,” I told him and tried to out run him, but he was fast. Much faster than me through the trees than on foot. Then he landed with a thud in front of me I tried to run around him, but he was huge. And his four arms reached out and grabbed me.
I was stuck. He was strong,
but not strong enough to throw me to the ground. He tried but I held myself upright.
“Inji…” he growled at me, then spewing more of his Aashi words at me. They were laced with anger. Why was this male angry with me, I wasn’t going to kill him, I was to kill the M’Mori. But if he didn’t let go of me, I would have to kill him. I didn’t know how long the M’Mori would be here. They could leave at any moment and I needed to kill them. If only one was killed then that was one less to hurt Elle.
“Get off me, I will kill you.” I threatened and threw a punch, hitting him in the jaw. My knuckles screamed out at the impact, but I didn’t care. He loosened his grip a little and it was enough for me to land another blow to his head which had him falling to the ground.
“I told you to stop. Inji.” Hoping that was what it meant. I looked down to his crumpled form. I felt bad, I could see he had been injured in the past and now his eyes were closed. I moved around him to see if he was breathing. I didn’t really want to kill him, the Aashi had been good to me so far.
When I saw his chest rising, I knew he would be okay. I would leave him here. Hopefully the M’Mori wouldn’t venture out here and he would be safe until he woke. I started to jog and looking back at him I slowed my steps. I was angry with myself. I couldn’t just leave him there.
I moved back over to him and pushed him over so he was laying on his back.
“Hello, male?” I patted his cheek but he didn’t wake. I must have hit him harder than I thought, it made me feel guilty knowing he was only trying to stop me from going to my possible death. I put my hands under his first set of arms and pulled him over to a tree, resting him against it, his head lolled to the side but he was still breathing.
