|
Our Earth is on the edge of destruction, our cities are pocked with missile craters, and beneath the surface the alien factory queen lurks.
Four women of power may be our saviors. The last is Talia. Gifted by earth magic with a mastery of edged weapons, she’s a katana-wielding, geek chick with a loathing of alpha men. Although mating enhances magic, she knows bonding with aliens must surely be wrong. Besides, her destined bond mate, Brask, is an Igrakk warrior of the caveman persuasion. One dominant male is bad enough. Dassenze, the alien man-god in the flesh, also desires her and no isn’t a word he appreciates. As they near their target, Talia’s man problems become the lesser of many evils, for the factory queen awaits them with her nerve chewers and her drills. The price for being avenging, kickass heroines could be a messy death. Warning: Dominance and submission themes, dubious consent, hot aliens, and violence. Mild horror too if you're squeamish. |
Some Teasers and graphics created for Defiler.
Feel free to share these
|
|
Chapter One
Ally was helping dry the dishes when she felt him coming, walking through the cane field, the stalks rasping as they brushed his armor. It was a novel experience, having an alien warrior coming for her.
When she looked through the kitchen window, the sun was burnishing his shoulder armor a bright lollipop red. Not a good camouflage color. Maybe in space it worked, but in the middle of green cane? Not so great. She hurried to the door and opened it. The outer fly-screen door squeaked on its spring, as she toed that open too and held it there with her shoulder. No one with him, though the click of Mrs. Stewart arming her pump action shotgun said she wasn’t so sure.
“He’s okay, Mrs. Stewart, he’s a good guy.”
“You sure, love?” Then she stepped out from behind Ally and onto the porch. At times like this, when she wore apron and dress, the contrast between her prim-and-proper appearance and her no-nonsense armament both awed and amused.
Ally swung her gaze back to their visitor.
The man had his helmet off. Man, he was a sight. Like some prince from a fairytale story or one of the badass soldiers from an online MMORPG game. How many nights had she dreamed of a fair-haired warrior arriving on her doorstep to whisk her away? Many...too many lonely nights trapped in her house. She’d been Snow White in her glass coffin, Rapunzel in the tower, Cinderella cleaning the house while the ball raged on at the castle, only without the abundant hair, or the dwarves, or the kissing prince.
As a late afterthought, she tugged down the cloth of her white Minions Rock T-shirt, where it had caught up on her boobs, then the hem of her shorts. Twenty-three and her boobs still did stuff she didn’t expect. Sucked.
But back to the kissing prince. He was leaving dents in the dirt from his weight. She could totally see this alien guy ripping off the lid of a glass coffin.
What a pity the Bak-lal were here as well aiming to take over the Earth to enslave and bioengineer everyone. What a pity she had some motherfucker nerve chewer in her head trying to make her a Bak-lal soldier or something else she hadn’t figured out yet. Kind of took the shine off the good days.
“Hellooo!” She waved, grinned then gestured sideways. “This is Mrs. Stewart. She won’t hurt you.”
The grumble from Mrs. Stewart gave the lie to that. The woman was remarkably protective considering they’d only known each other three weeks...ever since she’d teleported in that day – with her foot missing a toe and her screaming from the head pain. Mrs. Stewart had barely blinked.
At her words, the man had kinked an eyebrow, then he stopped before them, his own weapon still holstered across his back. His heavy boots stirred up dust. Only a little machinery whine from his back begged one to question how fast he could draw that weapon and shoot. Pretty fast, she’d bet.
His gaze had stayed on her the whole walk in, except for a microsecond when he assessed Mrs. Stewart. As if she, Ally, was all he wanted to look at. This alien man was an Igrakk warrior. He had the same facial markings, resembling parallel claw marks, as some of those who’d visited her and Willow’s house just before the Bak-lal burned it down. Yellow claw marks in this case.
That day, they’d only come to decorate the bedroom so Willow and Stom could have their cute fucking ritual, and this Igrakk too, he was...Ally cocked her head, thinking at him, assessing his aura, his mind.
Yeah, he was nice. Really, really nice. He didn’t send scraping, screeching, fingernail sounds through her head like most people did. For an alien that non-effect seemed common, for a human, like Mrs. Stewart, it was rare.
Porting herself here, to this farm, had been the best luck ever.
“You’re Ally?” he asked, his voice low and non-alarming, except to her insides. The timbre was all that a male voice should be. Warm. Sending a tingle of excitement through her.
More than nice.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat, subtly. “I am.”
“My name’s Rimmil. You know you’re in danger?”
“Yes. Thank goodness you’re here. Now we don’t have to explain all the Bak-lal bodies in the shed.”
“Oh?” Both his eyebrows shot up this time
“Two this week.” Mrs. Stewart lowered her shotgun until only the floorboards were at risk of perforation. “We thought the locals might get worried, so I kept it secret.”
“Yes.” Ally nodded. “I think she’s looking for me especially, the Bak-lal factory queen.” Her voice trembled a little.
Learning about the factory queen, from the Bak-lal who’d held her captive, had been as horrible as anything in her life, including when they’d cut off her toe. So she brushed past that bit of the discussion, even knowing it would come up again. She couldn’t ignore forever something that wanted to have her brain for breakfast, or whatever experiment the queen aimed to do to her.
“Invite him in for tea, dear.”
The whispered prompt from Mrs. Stewart made Ally glance nervously at her.
Tea? She’d never wanted to invite anyone into a house. People did it in sitcoms, though, and in stories. This was normal behavior.
Inviting a man into her house just to be polite was so out there the air felt pregnant. She stared at him and Rimmil stared back. Being an alien, he mightn’t know normal, or that she wasn’t it. Thank god. The tension cracked, lessened.
I can do this. I can do normal.
“Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee? I need to know how Willow is. I need to know what you’re planning to do, as in you, umm, the aliens.”
Was that rude? Saying it like that? Aliens. She’d heard the news these last days. Everyone knew about them and how they were here to defend the earth against the evil Bak-lal. She wasn’t going to argue the evil label as she had first-hand experience of that.
“And...” She sucked in a breath, cleared her throat again. “And I guess I need to know how I can help.”
“Of course.” Then he went past her into the house, brushing her breasts with his arm. Probably didn’t even know he’d touched her due to the armor. Still...
She remembered to exhale and followed him into the kitchen.
The house breathed too, and let him past. She’d set up defenses, same as at their last house. Only small ones, so far. Ally had a feeling she wasn’t going to get time to do more. There was an air of destiny about what was happening to her, around her. Sometimes she could almost reach out and pluck her fate from the air. She was pretty certain she could help against the Bak-lal.
But Willow – she prayed her cousin was okay. She’d have known in her gut, if she wasn’t. Wouldn’t she?
So they, she and Rimmil, with Mrs. Stewart opposite on a chair, sat on the sofa, with the cushions pressed down by his weight, sipping from Mrs. Stewart’s tea cups, while Rimmil enlightened them about the surveillance of the farm by other Igrakk Preyfinders. She and Mrs. Stewart were being kept safe and Willow was fine and had told them not to stray too close. They knew that would drive Ally into a crazy panic attack.
She clutched her tea cup and nodded at Rimmil. Their thighs touched, now and then, and though his was armored, it seemed too close. Difficult to avoid when he was like a gravity well on the sofa, bending the cushions inward, sucking her in. Having never ever been close enough to a boy, or man, to touch them, excluding doctors, this was a novel situation. Ally figured she might explode any minute. He smelled like nothing else she’d smelled before. Doctors and nurses, male ones as well as female ones, always smelled like antiseptic. Being bombarded with their thoughts had always put her off any appreciation of them as people...or boy or girlfriends.
This was too much.
She swallowed the tea, calmed her shaking hands, and tuned in again. Thinking straight with this alien man beside her wasn’t simple. Instead of thoughts she was being bombarded by scents, sights, the curve of his hand, or the muscles at the side of his neck. She imagined herself putting her nose there.
Ally sighed. She was definitely still crazy.
“...so she should be here soon. In a few hours,” Rimmil concluded, putting his cup on the small table before the sofa and turning to her.
“What?” She blinked. “Willow is really going to be here? Today?”
“Yes. She’s coming down from the orbital platform with Stom, her Feya mate. You know Stom?” She nodded. “We’re going to work out a way to keep you safe without smothering you in warriors. Dassenze thinks you’re important.”
“He does?” She was being a parrot but this was so revelatory, that the aliens’ god-in-the-flesh Dassenze should agree with her own visions.
Fate, it was fate. Something big was going to happen, and she was going to be a part of it.
Ally smiled. A key, that was what she was. All her life things had been missing. Now, this moment in time, seemed right, and a purpose arose from within.
“Bring it on.”
It was Rimmil’s turn to stare. He shifted on the sofa. “He also thinks you and I are destined to be mates just because I could track you.”
“Oh.” Her mouth stayed open. Fuck. Emergency, emergency. Where was the red button for ejecting from a room when the ultimate embarrassment occurred?
His mouth twitched, once. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They seem to have neglected to check my records. I’m of the Peson sect.” When she only stared back, he added. “It means I’m celibate until I find the perfect mate. Even then, I can’t do what the Preyfinders did with the other earth women, like Willow. Nanochem.”
“What?” She frowned. Seemed as if she was condemned to answering in single words.
“Nanochem. A special chemical that induces mating, arousal, obedience even.”
“What. The. Fuck?” She’d known Willow had succumbed rapidly to Stom’s attractions, but a chemical?
He frowned.
“I mean...that’s insane and ridiculous, all at once.”
“Uh-huh. My translator lost the meaning entirely.” Rimmil nodded. “Okay. Yes, I agree. It isn’t my way of courting at all. To use an earth expression though – to each, their own.”
She closed her mouth. Mating, arousal, obedience? It sounded like a date rape drug. Still, the rest of his words wandered in and made her think.
“What will you do when you find this perfect mate?”
Shallow, Ally, very shallow.
The room sat on pause.
“I would,” Rimmil said softly, “Court her with flowers and trinkets and words that were as beautiful as she was. I’d take her to a quiet place where we could talk about us, and I’d never forget how blessed I was to have her as mine. It’s the tenet of our sect.”
Oh damn. Swoon time. Who was this alien? Romeo in disguise? Maybe she should check him for hidden glass slippers and ask about hair-climbing skills?
Say something.
“That would be amazing.” If only it could be her.
Then he smiled and she could see, to the nth degree of exactness, how his gray-blue eyes focused in...on her. These last words were even quieter, but she heard every inflection, every syllable. “Yes. It would.”
The tiny crease in the center of his forehead spoke of puzzlement.
She was dreaming. He didn’t really want her. He’d said as much. If there ever was anyone who wasn’t perfect, it was her. There was some weird alien bug in her head, she was moderately mentally incapacitated, minus a toe, and she had no idea what to do in normal society.
Klutz R Us. A crocodile at a sheep party had more chance of a date than she did. But, putting aside all that, she almost wished he wanted to use some nanochem on her.
Her face felt flushed; her heart was hammering away.
Falling for the first man she ever sat next to was stupid. Though she wasn’t, really, it was more lust. She wasn’t a complete virgin – if you counted fingers and a vibrator. Was this what Willow felt for Stom that night? Maybe Rimmil had slipped something into her cup?
Mrs. Stewart brightened and leaned forward. “More tea? A Tim Tam biscuit?”
“Thank you. Then I must get back to the squad.”
The man was so polite. From anyone else, this would make her nauseous.
“I’ll get those bodies in your barn disposed of too, Mrs. Stewart.”
And so practical and rugged. Ally shuddered, bounced into recalling the last super-big man with the stomach so round he’d wobbled onto the property. Snarling and vacant-eyed, teeth bloodied from eating some recent kill, he’d seemed less interested in pretending to be human than those before him. She prayed whatever he’d killed had been only a rat.
“Call me Betty, son. You too, Ally, from now on.” She caressed the shotgun propped on the footstool at the side of her chair. “I figure I’ve got things to do from here on that require a Betty and not a farm owner called Mrs. Stewart.”
Wow. She’d never heard the woman’s first name before. A name made this more serious? If she thought Betty was better, so be it. Names had power.
When he left, Rimmil bowed to them both, the breeze playing with his blond curls as he paused, head down, then he marched away.
She fanned herself. “Mrs. Stewart...Betty, am I stupid to be lusting after him?”
Betty chuckled and her carefully arranged coiffure barely moved – a white monument to hairspray. “If we ignore that he’s an alien? No dear, if I was younger, I’d have pounced on him too. Lust away. I figure we may not have long to live in this current climate of animosity anyway.”
*****
The factory queen preened as she watched her latest batch of Bak-lal soldiers, with their suits and dresses and briefcases, leave her nest and take the tunnels leading upward. She needed them airborne, on their planes, and at their destinations soon. Because soon there would be problems for humans wanting to journey long distances. These were the pluses and minuses of war.
Beneath the earth, she flexed her hundred-yard-long legs. Cakes of dirt crumbled. Tremors would reach above, where humans strolled oblivious to her presence.
In days perhaps, she would emerge from her decades-long cocoon.
The taste of the earth had changed during recent times, as if some spice had been added that sizzled on the receptors on the surface of her metal bioskin. It reminded her of the taste of witches.
Witches. These creatures could not exist, yet they did. They would be her triumph for she was mere micrometers from unraveling their powers, from deciphering their intent, and from harvesting the output of their souls.
Nothing escaped her. She focused on one of the many bioengineering rooms within her belly. Here the latest catch wriggled in restraints. Her pink hair waterfalled over the edge of the metal table. This one had such promise.
We Bak-lal have cloned and adjusted to new specifications every species we’ve encountered across the universe.
The witches would be next.
The mythologies and stories of this planet gave her such novel ideas. Scales and tails, serpents and trolls, cats with toothy smiles.
If she had hands, she could’ve rubbed them together with glee.
Instead, her many legs squirmed in the earth. The taste of the stirred-up earth made her shudder. As an afterthought, she searched in her audio files then sent a small cackle echoing throughout the cavities of her body.
It seemed appropriate considering the circumstances.
She directed all her lenses at the table and sent in a second rover, just to be a voyeur. Her video feed blurred for a millisecond, as if with excitement.
Be still, be still, she told herself. A factory queen was never more than distant and objective and logical.
The little spider-legged rover that doubled as her surgeon started the drill to insert the nerve chewers into the pink-haired woman. The whine ramped up. She’d found a way to inject the nerve chewers without the drilling at wrist and ankle but had not yet weaned herself off watching the process. The wriggling of the humans as the drill bored in was far more interesting.
When she looked through the kitchen window, the sun was burnishing his shoulder armor a bright lollipop red. Not a good camouflage color. Maybe in space it worked, but in the middle of green cane? Not so great. She hurried to the door and opened it. The outer fly-screen door squeaked on its spring, as she toed that open too and held it there with her shoulder. No one with him, though the click of Mrs. Stewart arming her pump action shotgun said she wasn’t so sure.
“He’s okay, Mrs. Stewart, he’s a good guy.”
“You sure, love?” Then she stepped out from behind Ally and onto the porch. At times like this, when she wore apron and dress, the contrast between her prim-and-proper appearance and her no-nonsense armament both awed and amused.
Ally swung her gaze back to their visitor.
The man had his helmet off. Man, he was a sight. Like some prince from a fairytale story or one of the badass soldiers from an online MMORPG game. How many nights had she dreamed of a fair-haired warrior arriving on her doorstep to whisk her away? Many...too many lonely nights trapped in her house. She’d been Snow White in her glass coffin, Rapunzel in the tower, Cinderella cleaning the house while the ball raged on at the castle, only without the abundant hair, or the dwarves, or the kissing prince.
As a late afterthought, she tugged down the cloth of her white Minions Rock T-shirt, where it had caught up on her boobs, then the hem of her shorts. Twenty-three and her boobs still did stuff she didn’t expect. Sucked.
But back to the kissing prince. He was leaving dents in the dirt from his weight. She could totally see this alien guy ripping off the lid of a glass coffin.
What a pity the Bak-lal were here as well aiming to take over the Earth to enslave and bioengineer everyone. What a pity she had some motherfucker nerve chewer in her head trying to make her a Bak-lal soldier or something else she hadn’t figured out yet. Kind of took the shine off the good days.
“Hellooo!” She waved, grinned then gestured sideways. “This is Mrs. Stewart. She won’t hurt you.”
The grumble from Mrs. Stewart gave the lie to that. The woman was remarkably protective considering they’d only known each other three weeks...ever since she’d teleported in that day – with her foot missing a toe and her screaming from the head pain. Mrs. Stewart had barely blinked.
At her words, the man had kinked an eyebrow, then he stopped before them, his own weapon still holstered across his back. His heavy boots stirred up dust. Only a little machinery whine from his back begged one to question how fast he could draw that weapon and shoot. Pretty fast, she’d bet.
His gaze had stayed on her the whole walk in, except for a microsecond when he assessed Mrs. Stewart. As if she, Ally, was all he wanted to look at. This alien man was an Igrakk warrior. He had the same facial markings, resembling parallel claw marks, as some of those who’d visited her and Willow’s house just before the Bak-lal burned it down. Yellow claw marks in this case.
That day, they’d only come to decorate the bedroom so Willow and Stom could have their cute fucking ritual, and this Igrakk too, he was...Ally cocked her head, thinking at him, assessing his aura, his mind.
Yeah, he was nice. Really, really nice. He didn’t send scraping, screeching, fingernail sounds through her head like most people did. For an alien that non-effect seemed common, for a human, like Mrs. Stewart, it was rare.
Porting herself here, to this farm, had been the best luck ever.
“You’re Ally?” he asked, his voice low and non-alarming, except to her insides. The timbre was all that a male voice should be. Warm. Sending a tingle of excitement through her.
More than nice.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat, subtly. “I am.”
“My name’s Rimmil. You know you’re in danger?”
“Yes. Thank goodness you’re here. Now we don’t have to explain all the Bak-lal bodies in the shed.”
“Oh?” Both his eyebrows shot up this time
“Two this week.” Mrs. Stewart lowered her shotgun until only the floorboards were at risk of perforation. “We thought the locals might get worried, so I kept it secret.”
“Yes.” Ally nodded. “I think she’s looking for me especially, the Bak-lal factory queen.” Her voice trembled a little.
Learning about the factory queen, from the Bak-lal who’d held her captive, had been as horrible as anything in her life, including when they’d cut off her toe. So she brushed past that bit of the discussion, even knowing it would come up again. She couldn’t ignore forever something that wanted to have her brain for breakfast, or whatever experiment the queen aimed to do to her.
“Invite him in for tea, dear.”
The whispered prompt from Mrs. Stewart made Ally glance nervously at her.
Tea? She’d never wanted to invite anyone into a house. People did it in sitcoms, though, and in stories. This was normal behavior.
Inviting a man into her house just to be polite was so out there the air felt pregnant. She stared at him and Rimmil stared back. Being an alien, he mightn’t know normal, or that she wasn’t it. Thank god. The tension cracked, lessened.
I can do this. I can do normal.
“Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee? I need to know how Willow is. I need to know what you’re planning to do, as in you, umm, the aliens.”
Was that rude? Saying it like that? Aliens. She’d heard the news these last days. Everyone knew about them and how they were here to defend the earth against the evil Bak-lal. She wasn’t going to argue the evil label as she had first-hand experience of that.
“And...” She sucked in a breath, cleared her throat again. “And I guess I need to know how I can help.”
“Of course.” Then he went past her into the house, brushing her breasts with his arm. Probably didn’t even know he’d touched her due to the armor. Still...
She remembered to exhale and followed him into the kitchen.
The house breathed too, and let him past. She’d set up defenses, same as at their last house. Only small ones, so far. Ally had a feeling she wasn’t going to get time to do more. There was an air of destiny about what was happening to her, around her. Sometimes she could almost reach out and pluck her fate from the air. She was pretty certain she could help against the Bak-lal.
But Willow – she prayed her cousin was okay. She’d have known in her gut, if she wasn’t. Wouldn’t she?
So they, she and Rimmil, with Mrs. Stewart opposite on a chair, sat on the sofa, with the cushions pressed down by his weight, sipping from Mrs. Stewart’s tea cups, while Rimmil enlightened them about the surveillance of the farm by other Igrakk Preyfinders. She and Mrs. Stewart were being kept safe and Willow was fine and had told them not to stray too close. They knew that would drive Ally into a crazy panic attack.
She clutched her tea cup and nodded at Rimmil. Their thighs touched, now and then, and though his was armored, it seemed too close. Difficult to avoid when he was like a gravity well on the sofa, bending the cushions inward, sucking her in. Having never ever been close enough to a boy, or man, to touch them, excluding doctors, this was a novel situation. Ally figured she might explode any minute. He smelled like nothing else she’d smelled before. Doctors and nurses, male ones as well as female ones, always smelled like antiseptic. Being bombarded with their thoughts had always put her off any appreciation of them as people...or boy or girlfriends.
This was too much.
She swallowed the tea, calmed her shaking hands, and tuned in again. Thinking straight with this alien man beside her wasn’t simple. Instead of thoughts she was being bombarded by scents, sights, the curve of his hand, or the muscles at the side of his neck. She imagined herself putting her nose there.
Ally sighed. She was definitely still crazy.
“...so she should be here soon. In a few hours,” Rimmil concluded, putting his cup on the small table before the sofa and turning to her.
“What?” She blinked. “Willow is really going to be here? Today?”
“Yes. She’s coming down from the orbital platform with Stom, her Feya mate. You know Stom?” She nodded. “We’re going to work out a way to keep you safe without smothering you in warriors. Dassenze thinks you’re important.”
“He does?” She was being a parrot but this was so revelatory, that the aliens’ god-in-the-flesh Dassenze should agree with her own visions.
Fate, it was fate. Something big was going to happen, and she was going to be a part of it.
Ally smiled. A key, that was what she was. All her life things had been missing. Now, this moment in time, seemed right, and a purpose arose from within.
“Bring it on.”
It was Rimmil’s turn to stare. He shifted on the sofa. “He also thinks you and I are destined to be mates just because I could track you.”
“Oh.” Her mouth stayed open. Fuck. Emergency, emergency. Where was the red button for ejecting from a room when the ultimate embarrassment occurred?
His mouth twitched, once. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They seem to have neglected to check my records. I’m of the Peson sect.” When she only stared back, he added. “It means I’m celibate until I find the perfect mate. Even then, I can’t do what the Preyfinders did with the other earth women, like Willow. Nanochem.”
“What?” She frowned. Seemed as if she was condemned to answering in single words.
“Nanochem. A special chemical that induces mating, arousal, obedience even.”
“What. The. Fuck?” She’d known Willow had succumbed rapidly to Stom’s attractions, but a chemical?
He frowned.
“I mean...that’s insane and ridiculous, all at once.”
“Uh-huh. My translator lost the meaning entirely.” Rimmil nodded. “Okay. Yes, I agree. It isn’t my way of courting at all. To use an earth expression though – to each, their own.”
She closed her mouth. Mating, arousal, obedience? It sounded like a date rape drug. Still, the rest of his words wandered in and made her think.
“What will you do when you find this perfect mate?”
Shallow, Ally, very shallow.
The room sat on pause.
“I would,” Rimmil said softly, “Court her with flowers and trinkets and words that were as beautiful as she was. I’d take her to a quiet place where we could talk about us, and I’d never forget how blessed I was to have her as mine. It’s the tenet of our sect.”
Oh damn. Swoon time. Who was this alien? Romeo in disguise? Maybe she should check him for hidden glass slippers and ask about hair-climbing skills?
Say something.
“That would be amazing.” If only it could be her.
Then he smiled and she could see, to the nth degree of exactness, how his gray-blue eyes focused in...on her. These last words were even quieter, but she heard every inflection, every syllable. “Yes. It would.”
The tiny crease in the center of his forehead spoke of puzzlement.
She was dreaming. He didn’t really want her. He’d said as much. If there ever was anyone who wasn’t perfect, it was her. There was some weird alien bug in her head, she was moderately mentally incapacitated, minus a toe, and she had no idea what to do in normal society.
Klutz R Us. A crocodile at a sheep party had more chance of a date than she did. But, putting aside all that, she almost wished he wanted to use some nanochem on her.
Her face felt flushed; her heart was hammering away.
Falling for the first man she ever sat next to was stupid. Though she wasn’t, really, it was more lust. She wasn’t a complete virgin – if you counted fingers and a vibrator. Was this what Willow felt for Stom that night? Maybe Rimmil had slipped something into her cup?
Mrs. Stewart brightened and leaned forward. “More tea? A Tim Tam biscuit?”
“Thank you. Then I must get back to the squad.”
The man was so polite. From anyone else, this would make her nauseous.
“I’ll get those bodies in your barn disposed of too, Mrs. Stewart.”
And so practical and rugged. Ally shuddered, bounced into recalling the last super-big man with the stomach so round he’d wobbled onto the property. Snarling and vacant-eyed, teeth bloodied from eating some recent kill, he’d seemed less interested in pretending to be human than those before him. She prayed whatever he’d killed had been only a rat.
“Call me Betty, son. You too, Ally, from now on.” She caressed the shotgun propped on the footstool at the side of her chair. “I figure I’ve got things to do from here on that require a Betty and not a farm owner called Mrs. Stewart.”
Wow. She’d never heard the woman’s first name before. A name made this more serious? If she thought Betty was better, so be it. Names had power.
When he left, Rimmil bowed to them both, the breeze playing with his blond curls as he paused, head down, then he marched away.
She fanned herself. “Mrs. Stewart...Betty, am I stupid to be lusting after him?”
Betty chuckled and her carefully arranged coiffure barely moved – a white monument to hairspray. “If we ignore that he’s an alien? No dear, if I was younger, I’d have pounced on him too. Lust away. I figure we may not have long to live in this current climate of animosity anyway.”
*****
The factory queen preened as she watched her latest batch of Bak-lal soldiers, with their suits and dresses and briefcases, leave her nest and take the tunnels leading upward. She needed them airborne, on their planes, and at their destinations soon. Because soon there would be problems for humans wanting to journey long distances. These were the pluses and minuses of war.
Beneath the earth, she flexed her hundred-yard-long legs. Cakes of dirt crumbled. Tremors would reach above, where humans strolled oblivious to her presence.
In days perhaps, she would emerge from her decades-long cocoon.
The taste of the earth had changed during recent times, as if some spice had been added that sizzled on the receptors on the surface of her metal bioskin. It reminded her of the taste of witches.
Witches. These creatures could not exist, yet they did. They would be her triumph for she was mere micrometers from unraveling their powers, from deciphering their intent, and from harvesting the output of their souls.
Nothing escaped her. She focused on one of the many bioengineering rooms within her belly. Here the latest catch wriggled in restraints. Her pink hair waterfalled over the edge of the metal table. This one had such promise.
We Bak-lal have cloned and adjusted to new specifications every species we’ve encountered across the universe.
The witches would be next.
The mythologies and stories of this planet gave her such novel ideas. Scales and tails, serpents and trolls, cats with toothy smiles.
If she had hands, she could’ve rubbed them together with glee.
Instead, her many legs squirmed in the earth. The taste of the stirred-up earth made her shudder. As an afterthought, she searched in her audio files then sent a small cackle echoing throughout the cavities of her body.
It seemed appropriate considering the circumstances.
She directed all her lenses at the table and sent in a second rover, just to be a voyeur. Her video feed blurred for a millisecond, as if with excitement.
Be still, be still, she told herself. A factory queen was never more than distant and objective and logical.
The little spider-legged rover that doubled as her surgeon started the drill to insert the nerve chewers into the pink-haired woman. The whine ramped up. She’d found a way to inject the nerve chewers without the drilling at wrist and ankle but had not yet weaned herself off watching the process. The wriggling of the humans as the drill bored in was far more interesting.
Chapter Two
Willow threaded the belt of her jeans through the loops. It seemed odd, and yet also normal, to be wearing human clothing after all these weeks on this orbital platform, miles above the Earth. Her brain switched back and forth. Simply being able to live here, way up in the sky, made her feel disturbed.
Stom was due to report back to duty at the Doomslagger in Australia, and she was going to visit Ally. They’d found her in North Queensland. From what Stom had told her, the alien god Dassenze thought this could be a turning point. The Bak-lal factory queen placed great importance on capturing what it called witches and Ally seemed the most powerful of them all.
Strange how they brought their gods with them, and had more than one.
She needed to get down to the Earth’s surface, fast, and make sure no one harmed a hair on the head of her cousin. Telling them about her panic attacks wasn’t the same as seeing them first hand. Maybe the Igrakk didn’t register to Ally in the same way as people, but all it would take would be for a few of them to get inside her head to set off a chain reaction.
Ally had never been off medication, until now. The results of an attack might be devastating.
She fluffed her hair up then shook out her hands, watching the small fires puff into being at her fingertips. No longer just a bartending, waitressing nobody, she could do badass with the best of them.
Willow grinned.
“Stop admiring the pretty fire.”
Stom’s hand connected with her ass with a loud smack and she whipped around to mock glare, her still unbuckled belt tinkling as it bounced on the denim. “Mister...”
“Yes?” With a grip on her forearm, he hauled her toward him. Indulging her rebellion was one of his favorite things and they both knew it.
“You’re playing with fire there, Sir.”
“Am I?” Now a foot away, the clear-as-ice, blueness in his eyes mesmerized her. “Just remember who owns you while we’re apart.”
“Oh?” She tongued her lip then let one hand meander down to open the fly of her jeans and slip inside, teasing him. “Or?”
“This.” He dropped to his knees and managed to whip her half-zipped jeans down her legs, despite her wild grab at them. After shoving apart her thighs, he buried his face between her legs then bit down on one inner thigh while his fingers probed for her slit through the panties.
She almost hopped away at the pain but his teeth were still holding her and the other, feeling, my oh my. Panting she alternated squeaking and gasping. “Fuck, let go. With the teeth.”
“Please, Sir,” he said, his voice muffled by her legs.
Willow giggled. “Please, Sir.”
“Fine.” He pulled away yet kept his hand where it was, stroking between her legs. “I just need to see evidence of my possession one last time...after I make you all...” He looked up at her and smiled. “All wet and swollen.”
“I think I’m that already. You’re so evil,” she choked out. “I’m going to need to change before I leave.”
“You’re right. You are wet...and very red with my marking. The red shows through the white cloth.”
She felt Stom pull aside the crotch of her panties then his fingers found her entrance and delved upward, wriggling up inside her by an inch or two. Willow bit back a moan, her head rocking back as she moved her legs apart some more.
Her words came out slow. Feeling what his fingers were doing were a serious priority. “If I have to change anyway, want to do it against the wall, again?” Last time had been amazing. “We have time.” She slid her hands into his hair and tried to pull him to her. His tongue on her there would be heaven.
“No. You keep this little red cunt ready for me. I’ll see you later today, or tomorrow. You can wait.” Then he stood, carefully slid her jeans up her legs, and zipped them up before kissing her once. “Don’t forget me.”
“Huh. As if I could.” Long ago, when he had first mated with her, she might have been appalled at her reaction and blushed at his words, but not now. Stom was as obsessed with her as she was with him.
“And don’t set your shuttle on fire.”
She smiled. When they got back together there’d be more than a little combustion going on.
*****
“You can come in the shuttle to see your sister.”
The unexpected booming words made Talia start. A few yards down the hallway, the humanoid with the bronze-scaled body, the one these aliens liked to call a god, had emerged from the hotel room door. Even when he ducked, the top of his head just cleared the frame.
He beckoned. “Come. I will not hurt you. The Bak-lal is loaded on the shuttle. There is room for us all.”
“Told you.” Brask’s accompanying smile said more than triumph at being correct, it said he wanted to do nasty sexual things to her...still. Not that he’d said nasty but she doubted he wanted to sing love songs and plait her hair.
She resisted rolling her eyes.
Brask stood there, straight and tall, feet apart in readiness to jump this way or that, and with that Edo period katana in his fist, sheathed and tapping at his leg. His heavy black coat, black pants, wide shoulders, and those chunky boots all said masculine. In a human, the gold flecks at the tips of his darker blond hair would’ve said narcissist too – a man who visited a hairdresser way too often.
She doubted he dyed it then wondered, for a second, what it would feel like to be kissed by him.
Fuck it. Stupid. He’d done something to her and it was warping her brain. Her memories of him rendering her unconscious were scary. To her shame, the shiver that ran through her wasn’t all about fear. Lust threatened on the horizon of her thoughts.
This man...this arrogant Igrakk, never gave up. Her enhanced reaction speed was good, far better than his, but with a ‘god’, or whatever Dassenze was, a few yards away, she needed to take care. The Edo period katana Brask had offered her as a gift was looking tempting. Without a sword, her hands felt empty. Yet again she wondered why a gun didn’t even register on her list of wants.
An edged weapon was just right.
“I guarantee that Brask will not hurt you.”
This god rocked her confidence. She shook off the stunned feeling. Fuck them both. Brittany was at the other end of this shuttle ride? Going with them, in a craft that had a squad of alien soldiers as well as these two? No.
“I’d rather meet her somewhere else. In a place that’s neutral territory.”
“You must learn to trust me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you will.” The words ground from Dassenze’s throat – a sound as potent as a small avalanche.
The answer didn’t quite make sense. It made her attitude change a fait accompli, a done deal, but for no reason at all. While she was muddling through that, he stepped past Brask, toward her. Not fast, not slow, measured.
Back away, she told herself.
His feet made dull thuds as they met the carpet.
She should’ve moved but couldn’t. That sun-brilliant golden gaze didn’t waver, capturing her as thoroughly as if her feet had melted to the floor.
Was he paralyzing her with some alien method? When he settled his large hand around her throat, using the grip to keep her gaze locked to his, she recognized why she’d reacted as she did and as she still was.
Raw sexuality reverberated through her body. With Brask it was there, she knew it, saw it coming, could resist. This was another level of intensity entirely.
“You’re coming.”
It wasn’t really a question.
She swallowed past his hold. The scales on his hand were smooth and warm on her skin. The power in his fingers was obvious even though he was being gentle.
“Answer me.”
Saying no seemed unwise. Not leaving with Dassenze was probably impossible.
“Yes?” she said grudgingly.
“Good.” His mouth curved into a restricted smile, barely denting the corners of his lips. “Brask thinks I want you. I don’t, little human, but I am willing to make sure you become our ally. Do not think you can avoid this.”
Mind reader, she was not. Nevertheless, his little speech prompted a refrain of liar, liar to run through her head.
Were her instincts right? His proximity and being the absolute focus of his golden eyes made it hard for her to breathe and even harder to think straight. Were they fogging the air with male pheromones or something? She could see herself purring and wrapping herself around his tree-trunk-sized legs.
She could resist Brask, but when this god had her throat, it was excruciating to attempt to seem unaffected.
“Interesting...” His smile flat-lined.
Talia blinked and willed her heart to slow down. “What is?”
“How you’re reacting to me.”
Shit. “I’m not.”
“The blood flow to your breasts and lips, and the lubrication elsewhere says otherwise. I have more senses than you can imagine...Talia.” Then he released her throat.
Though her cheeks flushed hot, her first thought was, he said my name. She staggered a little, gulping, and put her palm to the wall beside her to steady herself.
Witty reply ASAP. “Lucky you. You’d get on well with my cat.”
“Yes, I’m sure your pussy would like me.”
What...did he just make a crass joke? While she stood there open-mouthed, he turned away.
“Come.”
This time she followed, ignoring Brask’s smirk. When she passed him, she tried to take the sword. He shook his head.
“Uh-uh. You had your chance.”
“Spoilsport,” she muttered.
Having Brask behind her as she stepped from the balcony of this twentieth-floor room to the hovering chrome and sky-colored shuttle made her feel fidgety. Then he went and sat next to her in the second from the front row of seats. A corridor she’d seen, leading to the back of the shuttle, must be where the Bak-lal was being held.
Beneath Brask’s coat, she glimpsed black armor and the butts and handles of weapons.
The katana lay across his lap, inches away. She itched to take it.
“Mine, until you behave.” Brask nodded, eyes slitted.
For an intense second, snarling was highly likely but she only smiled and snuggled back into the seat upholstery.
Dassenze said I was safe.
So be it.
She should’ve brought a pin to stick herself with. The shuttle looked large enough to transport a squad and heavy equipment but Dassenze was in the row ahead and his and Brask’s pheromones were making her crazy. The god was right, she was wet and horny, as well as homicidal.
Hopefully, homicidal would win out.
Talia sighed.
If she drew a blood sample from herself, would it reveal anything odd? Probably not. Whatever they might use to arouse females, it was likely higher tech than anything she could detect.
A few minutes later, the engine sounds flared into a higher pitch, the shuttle tilted, and through the still open side door, she saw forest below. The Botanical Gardens? She recognized the surroundings before they dropped below tree height.
Neutral territory after all. Not that it helped her, seeing she was outnumbered and out-willpowered. You’ll trust me, because you will. After he’d said that, she’d just walked onboard. Idiot.
When she disembarked, there was Brittany, waiting in the middle of a crescent of alien men.
She choked up, tears spilling before she swiped them away with a finger. She strode to Brittany, met her halfway, and engulfed her in the hug to end all hugs. More tears, with their arms wrapped around each other and her sobbing. “You’re safe. You’re fucking safe.” It was all she could manage for ages.
“Course I am, silly. I’m sorry I worried you.”
She kissed her sister’s cheek then leaned away. “Are you really okay? I mean really?” She managed not to stare at Dassenze, Brask, or the warriors with their big-ass guns.
“Yes.” Brittany smiled, then broke into a grin. “I’m married even, sort of. Bond mated, they call it.”
Holy fuck.
Angry, she was angry but she really shouldn’t show that.
“Why?” she said urgently but quietly. They might hear her but this could be her only chance to say it. “Did you know they have something that they use to induce attraction to them? I’m convinced of it. Your reaction is likely false. Brittany...”
God, how did she get her away?
“Yes, I know.”
“What? How...why –”
Brittany’s forehead creased. “I know to begin with, it was maybe fake. It’s what the Preyfinders do. Nanochem, they call it.”
Nanochem? “That’s rape, kidnapping, even. Jesus, Britt. You can’t stay with him.” Ironic, since here she was throbbing with fucking arousal herself. Difference was, she knew why and what and how, and she was strong enough to say no.
Beyond, the alien Britt had been standing next to growled. They could hear. Damn.
“Oh my.” Brittany took a deep breath, let it out. “Okay. Here goes. This whole war against the Bak-lal, it’s real. These men, my man too, are fighting, some are dying, have been for decades. They used us and other women on other planets for like...rewards. I know! I know it’s morally wrong but to them we were...” She shrugged. “Pets.”
Talia managed not to swear out loud.
“The difference is that we, earth women that is, are making them as crazy about us as we are about them. It’s nothing like they’ve seen before.” She paused, eying Talia. “They think we can help them fight this war. This may sound incredible to you, but I have powers. Ever since I mated with Jadd.” She smiled back over her shoulder at her warrior, the one with markings on his cheeks like Brask.
“And you think that makes it right?” She tsked.
“It makes it love.” Her eyes softened. Brittany looked away for a moment and made a rueful grin. “I love him. I do. And I’m so happy! I need you to see that. Okay? I don’t want you worrying about me. The...the powers thing doesn’t freak you?”
What could she say? The truth. She couldn’t hold back from Britt. Besides, her partner would probably tell her.
“No. I have powers too. They’re trying to get at me too.”
“Oh.” Brittany’s eyes went round and bright.
“But I won’t let them.”
“What can you do? I mean, what powers?”
She sighed and took Brittany’s hands in hers, squeezed them. “My sword, you know I was always good with it? Well, now I’m damn good. Freaky is definitely the right word. You?”
“I can heal.” She lowered her voice. “I think I brought one of them back from almost death. Stom. He wasn’t quite dead but it affected me for days. Exhausted me.” She shook her head. “It was amazing, though. Jadd helped me. We’re like a team. I could never be without him. I need you to understand that. Please? Please?”
Fuck. “I’ll try, Britt. I will. Come over here, away from this lot, and talk to me.”
No one stopped her so she drew her sister to a low stone wall beneath a stand of weeping willows and sat next to her.
Brittany added excitedly, “With you as well, that makes four of us with powers. There’s Ally too. And Stom, he’s the bond mate of Willow and she can control fire.” She shook her head, stirring the leaf mulch with her foot. “Ally’s odd. I’m not sure what she does but it has Dassenze puzzled.”
Whatever else they’d done to Brittany, she looked at ease. The colors of the light dress and leggings she wore reminded Talia of the forest they were in. Her joy didn’t seem drug induced. She placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder and clasped it.
“You sound happy, Britt. However, I want you to think about where you are. I’d prefer to take you with me when I go.”
“Oh no. Never. I’m not going anywhere.” She shut her eyes. “There’s something else unusual about our bond mating.”
“What?” Her stomach stirred, queasy. “What? It’s bad isn’t it?”
“Not really. Just that if we get separated, we get sick. Stom almost died when he went up to the orbital without Willow.”
If true, this added a whole other dimension. Did Brask know this? If it was that two-way, the dependency, why the hell would he want this?
“They really do want you, love you back, the same?”
“I...I think so. Me and Jadd, yes. Willow and Stom are like crazy in love too. I know this isn’t a lie.”
“Right. Okay.”
It didn’t make sense. No way could she ever see this Brask in love with her. Or vice versa. It was scary to contemplate.
“The war is real?”
“Yes. They need us. At least here, on Earth, they need us.”
She bet they did. The bastards had probably drawn the other bad guys down to the planet in the first place. “You ever thought that maybe these Bak-lal would’ve flown straight past Earth if the Preyfinders hadn’t been here first?”
“No. No, no, no. No one’s told you? The Bak-lal have been hiding on Earth for twenty, thirty years, at least.”
“Crap.”
Absentmindedly, Brittany fingered a stray lock of Talia’s red hair where it draped over her arm. “When did you last get this cut? All these split ends. Tsk.”
“Ohmigod. The hairdresser emerges.” She twitched her hair from Brittany’s grasp. “No. Focus. Tell me about this Brask.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. The shuttle had been gone a few minutes, presumably taking the Bak-lal to the Preyfinders’ ship, which all the tabloids had decided was under a local lake. Secret base, not. Left behind were Brask, Dassenze, and two other Preyfinder warriors.
“And Dassenze, tell me about him, it, the god person.”
“Why?” Britt eyed her suspiciously then added, in an amused whisper, “Don’t tell me! Have you got the hots for one of them? You have haven’t you?”
“No. Fuck no. Hell no. Say that again and I’ll –”
Brittany’s giggle cut her short. Exasperated she waited, then frowned as Britt launched into another burst of laughter.
Why did this seem like a conversation from high school or university about boyfriends?
When the shuttle returned and Jadd walked up to declare there was no time left, she still hadn’t convinced Brittany that leaving was the right path to take. Face facts, she wasn’t sure anymore either. Terrible things were happening and Brittany had seen some of them first hand. If she hadn’t been deceived, the Earth was in a bad, bad place.
“Take care, sis.” She gave her a last hug.
As the shuttle rose into the air and zoomed off, she realized there was now only her, Brask, and Dassenze in the clearing. The distant traffic, the bird noises, and the chirrups and buzzing of insects only reinforced the isolation of this place. They ambled over, an action that would seem innocent under normal circumstances. Having these two massively built males approaching her was as menacing as being a rowboat with an ocean liner about to run her down and plow her under the waves.
She could fight but that wasn’t enough.
“Stop right there.” She raised a brow, trying to act nonchalant. “Why are you still here?”
“As in, why are we here alone when I said you could trust me?” Dassenze, despite his milder manner was the one she needed to watch. Dangerous. Ominous as the low grumbling of a storm.
“Yes. Why that?” They didn’t stop in their advance until they were two yards away and she tensed.
“Because I’ve learned that Earth is now in communications quarantine, as decided by the other Ascend gods. There is a battle a half a galaxy away being waged to stop the Bak-lal from arriving here and consuming your planet.”
True? False? She had to know more. “Why?”
“Because the Bak-lal here managed to send off one signal and it told the others that you are important. That if they capture you, the war that we have fought for what seems forever will end here.”
“By you, you mean –”
“What the factory queen calls witches. You as in you, your sister, and the other earth women with these awakening powers. While allies fight this space-torn battle, while ships are ripped apart in mammoth explosions and men die with their last air frozen and fracturing their lungs, we must win here. For if we don’t win here, there will be oblivion. The Earth must be, will be, destroyed rather than let the Bak-lal possess the arcane knowledge contained within it.
“Perhaps they are wrong. I think your powers are not as significant as this factory queen believes, but we cannot afford to take that chance.”
Death poetry. The man needed an Oscar. How easily this could be a lie. She took a step away and her leg bumped the edge of the stone wall she’d been sitting on. There was a three foot drop past that.
“Sounds bad.”
“It is. There are no reinforcements at present. No one else I can call to our assistance. If we are to win against what I believe is the last factory queen here on Earth, your powers are needed at their peak. I believe that to do this, you must bond mate. It’s the way the other witches found their powers.”
“First. I’m not a witch. Neither is Brittany.”
Brask shrugged and rested his hand on his hip, pushing aside the coat, revealing his armor, all gleaming black and ivory curves. “It’s a convenient term. It’s what the factory queen calls you.”
“Second, who will destroy the Earth?”
“We will,” Dassenze said. “The Ascend and allies from the many planets. If we do not, and the Bak-lal gain the upper hand here, they will enslave your people and warp your minds and bodies until you fight for them. The population of this planet would be theirs or dead. If they can understand your powers, if they can clone witches, or multiply these strange powers, the universe will be theirs. Understand?
“That is what we are truly afraid of, and why Earth cannot be allowed to become a Bak-lal planet.”
Her mind hit a blank for several seconds. She swayed, feeling disorientated. Had there ever, ever been a seduction line as weighty as this one?
A wind stirred, rustling through the trees and making Brask’s coat flap. He reached for something beneath it.
“Wait. Wait,” she croaked. “I can’t tell how much of that is true.”
Fuck though, they wanted to force her to mate? Or the Earth died? It could just be one big, huge lie, and Brask couldn’t move faster than her, only Dassenze.
“You can’t make me do this bond mating.”
“With another dose of the nanochem, you won’t care. Let it happen.” Brask took something from his pocket.
Another dose? She’d guessed, deduced, but still. Fuck. “My powers are already here. You don’t know all this. The statistics are flawed, insufficient. You may fuck up my so-called powers instead of awakening them.”
He grunted. At least the bastard wasn’t leering. Just intent on his actions, as if she were a job that had to be completed.
“And whatever happened to your trust me?” She glared at Dassenze. It was a minor thing, considering what was at stake, but still, it seemed to hold great significance. Why was that so? She pushed that question away. Later.
“You’re correct.” Dassenze gestured at Brask without taking his gaze from her. “Desist, for the moment. From what the other witches have told me, both parties desired the other deeply, with complete abandon. Her mind does not wish to mate with you, even if her body urges her differently.”
She snorted. “You agree with me?”
“I do. For now. We can’t afford to ruin your powers, though I don’t as yet understand them.”
Emboldened, she ventured closer, wary but intrigued. Her orneriness, now that she felt safer, pushed her into what was possibly, haha, probably, a taunt.
“It’s been proven in studies that women of our species become...aroused by many odd things. After being shown pictures of monkeys mating even.” She looked pointedly at Brask. He didn’t wince. Stupid alien didn’t see the insult. “It proves nothing if you measure blood flow or the moisture of my sexual parts.”
At that, Brask raised an eyebrow.
The crinkling lines about Dassenze’s eyes made her wonder what he thought.
“I’m glad you, at least, agree with my logic.”
“Yes.” Dassenze took a step closer and loomed over her.
His scales gleamed. Her mouth dried. She really should learn to move when he came close. Then he raised a strand of her hair and tugged.
“Ouch.” She had to tilt back her neck to see him properly.
“Also, I don’t wish to lose your trust, Talia.”
“Huh.” Now that, that was something.
She blinked at him, mouth open, uncomfortably aware of how he was making her hyper-alert. She registered him as male yet she wasn’t even sure he had the necessary bits to, uhhh, mate with her. And that thought was so bad it sent her into a hot flash of a fantasy where she found out exactly what he did have.
Her mind was seriously in the gutter.
Then, inexplicably, she went up on her toes and kissed him on the mouth. A shiver of guilt, dread, and arousal ran all the way down to those same toes, pausing along the way to make her aware of how close her own female parts were to whatever he hid, under those scales.
Hot. Insane...but still hot.
She almost wanted Brask to know how turned on she was. Man. What was to become of her?
And his response? She watched him as she lowered herself to the flats of her feet. Nothing. Except he didn’t blink at all. Normally he blinked, didn’t he?
“Frack,” Brask rasped out.
Yes. It was worth it just to stir Brask. That was her reason, wasn’t it?
Her racing heart begged to differ.
Dassenze gripped both her shoulders. Startled, she looked up.
“Are all human females this deliberately disturbing?”
“Umm. No?”
Dassenze made a tsk sound. “I didn’t think so. My previous two were much more complacent. You are lucky I can’t afford to be vulnerable and indulge in mating you here on this grass. It’s soft enough to cushion you from my force.”
Oh crap. Brask had said Dassenze was interested in her.
His lips curled. “Do I frighten you?” His hands squeezed in, until her shoulder muscles twinged with pain. “Speak the truth.”
What did they say to do when facing an aggressive lion? Retreat slowly while maintaining eye contact? She didn’t have any choice. The Ascend had pinned her with his gaze like a butterfly collector with a new specimen, and retreating wasn’t an option.
“Answer.” He shook her. When she remained mute, he shifted his grasp to beneath her arms and lifted her onto the stone seat. Done as easily as a man might lift a kitten.
Being elevated didn’t help... Though they were eye to eye, it made her feel like a slave girl on a block being auctioned off with Dassenze a potential buyer.
Her mind was dredging up all the dirty sexual connotations it could find. No wonder, with this massive specimen of alien man-god before her. Plus, his hands had slid down to her waist and were holding her there, firmly. It was a definite panty-wetting situation.
Was she a kick-ass forensic pathologist or a slave girl? Dammit, feminism. The two were surely impossibly opposite?
She heard Brask chuckle. The bastard.
What was the question? Was she scared? Answering Dassenze honestly was somehow a must. “A little?”
“Good. Remember that before you try to kiss me. I may change my mind and do... What was that human word?” Though he paused, she was sure it was just to prolong the torture. “I may fuck you anyway.” Then he winked and released her shoulders.
Brask wore a lopsided grin. She glanced from one to the other. She had no clue which way to turn. Backing away slowly was not going to work here.
Stom was due to report back to duty at the Doomslagger in Australia, and she was going to visit Ally. They’d found her in North Queensland. From what Stom had told her, the alien god Dassenze thought this could be a turning point. The Bak-lal factory queen placed great importance on capturing what it called witches and Ally seemed the most powerful of them all.
Strange how they brought their gods with them, and had more than one.
She needed to get down to the Earth’s surface, fast, and make sure no one harmed a hair on the head of her cousin. Telling them about her panic attacks wasn’t the same as seeing them first hand. Maybe the Igrakk didn’t register to Ally in the same way as people, but all it would take would be for a few of them to get inside her head to set off a chain reaction.
Ally had never been off medication, until now. The results of an attack might be devastating.
She fluffed her hair up then shook out her hands, watching the small fires puff into being at her fingertips. No longer just a bartending, waitressing nobody, she could do badass with the best of them.
Willow grinned.
“Stop admiring the pretty fire.”
Stom’s hand connected with her ass with a loud smack and she whipped around to mock glare, her still unbuckled belt tinkling as it bounced on the denim. “Mister...”
“Yes?” With a grip on her forearm, he hauled her toward him. Indulging her rebellion was one of his favorite things and they both knew it.
“You’re playing with fire there, Sir.”
“Am I?” Now a foot away, the clear-as-ice, blueness in his eyes mesmerized her. “Just remember who owns you while we’re apart.”
“Oh?” She tongued her lip then let one hand meander down to open the fly of her jeans and slip inside, teasing him. “Or?”
“This.” He dropped to his knees and managed to whip her half-zipped jeans down her legs, despite her wild grab at them. After shoving apart her thighs, he buried his face between her legs then bit down on one inner thigh while his fingers probed for her slit through the panties.
She almost hopped away at the pain but his teeth were still holding her and the other, feeling, my oh my. Panting she alternated squeaking and gasping. “Fuck, let go. With the teeth.”
“Please, Sir,” he said, his voice muffled by her legs.
Willow giggled. “Please, Sir.”
“Fine.” He pulled away yet kept his hand where it was, stroking between her legs. “I just need to see evidence of my possession one last time...after I make you all...” He looked up at her and smiled. “All wet and swollen.”
“I think I’m that already. You’re so evil,” she choked out. “I’m going to need to change before I leave.”
“You’re right. You are wet...and very red with my marking. The red shows through the white cloth.”
She felt Stom pull aside the crotch of her panties then his fingers found her entrance and delved upward, wriggling up inside her by an inch or two. Willow bit back a moan, her head rocking back as she moved her legs apart some more.
Her words came out slow. Feeling what his fingers were doing were a serious priority. “If I have to change anyway, want to do it against the wall, again?” Last time had been amazing. “We have time.” She slid her hands into his hair and tried to pull him to her. His tongue on her there would be heaven.
“No. You keep this little red cunt ready for me. I’ll see you later today, or tomorrow. You can wait.” Then he stood, carefully slid her jeans up her legs, and zipped them up before kissing her once. “Don’t forget me.”
“Huh. As if I could.” Long ago, when he had first mated with her, she might have been appalled at her reaction and blushed at his words, but not now. Stom was as obsessed with her as she was with him.
“And don’t set your shuttle on fire.”
She smiled. When they got back together there’d be more than a little combustion going on.
*****
“You can come in the shuttle to see your sister.”
The unexpected booming words made Talia start. A few yards down the hallway, the humanoid with the bronze-scaled body, the one these aliens liked to call a god, had emerged from the hotel room door. Even when he ducked, the top of his head just cleared the frame.
He beckoned. “Come. I will not hurt you. The Bak-lal is loaded on the shuttle. There is room for us all.”
“Told you.” Brask’s accompanying smile said more than triumph at being correct, it said he wanted to do nasty sexual things to her...still. Not that he’d said nasty but she doubted he wanted to sing love songs and plait her hair.
She resisted rolling her eyes.
Brask stood there, straight and tall, feet apart in readiness to jump this way or that, and with that Edo period katana in his fist, sheathed and tapping at his leg. His heavy black coat, black pants, wide shoulders, and those chunky boots all said masculine. In a human, the gold flecks at the tips of his darker blond hair would’ve said narcissist too – a man who visited a hairdresser way too often.
She doubted he dyed it then wondered, for a second, what it would feel like to be kissed by him.
Fuck it. Stupid. He’d done something to her and it was warping her brain. Her memories of him rendering her unconscious were scary. To her shame, the shiver that ran through her wasn’t all about fear. Lust threatened on the horizon of her thoughts.
This man...this arrogant Igrakk, never gave up. Her enhanced reaction speed was good, far better than his, but with a ‘god’, or whatever Dassenze was, a few yards away, she needed to take care. The Edo period katana Brask had offered her as a gift was looking tempting. Without a sword, her hands felt empty. Yet again she wondered why a gun didn’t even register on her list of wants.
An edged weapon was just right.
“I guarantee that Brask will not hurt you.”
This god rocked her confidence. She shook off the stunned feeling. Fuck them both. Brittany was at the other end of this shuttle ride? Going with them, in a craft that had a squad of alien soldiers as well as these two? No.
“I’d rather meet her somewhere else. In a place that’s neutral territory.”
“You must learn to trust me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you will.” The words ground from Dassenze’s throat – a sound as potent as a small avalanche.
The answer didn’t quite make sense. It made her attitude change a fait accompli, a done deal, but for no reason at all. While she was muddling through that, he stepped past Brask, toward her. Not fast, not slow, measured.
Back away, she told herself.
His feet made dull thuds as they met the carpet.
She should’ve moved but couldn’t. That sun-brilliant golden gaze didn’t waver, capturing her as thoroughly as if her feet had melted to the floor.
Was he paralyzing her with some alien method? When he settled his large hand around her throat, using the grip to keep her gaze locked to his, she recognized why she’d reacted as she did and as she still was.
Raw sexuality reverberated through her body. With Brask it was there, she knew it, saw it coming, could resist. This was another level of intensity entirely.
“You’re coming.”
It wasn’t really a question.
She swallowed past his hold. The scales on his hand were smooth and warm on her skin. The power in his fingers was obvious even though he was being gentle.
“Answer me.”
Saying no seemed unwise. Not leaving with Dassenze was probably impossible.
“Yes?” she said grudgingly.
“Good.” His mouth curved into a restricted smile, barely denting the corners of his lips. “Brask thinks I want you. I don’t, little human, but I am willing to make sure you become our ally. Do not think you can avoid this.”
Mind reader, she was not. Nevertheless, his little speech prompted a refrain of liar, liar to run through her head.
Were her instincts right? His proximity and being the absolute focus of his golden eyes made it hard for her to breathe and even harder to think straight. Were they fogging the air with male pheromones or something? She could see herself purring and wrapping herself around his tree-trunk-sized legs.
She could resist Brask, but when this god had her throat, it was excruciating to attempt to seem unaffected.
“Interesting...” His smile flat-lined.
Talia blinked and willed her heart to slow down. “What is?”
“How you’re reacting to me.”
Shit. “I’m not.”
“The blood flow to your breasts and lips, and the lubrication elsewhere says otherwise. I have more senses than you can imagine...Talia.” Then he released her throat.
Though her cheeks flushed hot, her first thought was, he said my name. She staggered a little, gulping, and put her palm to the wall beside her to steady herself.
Witty reply ASAP. “Lucky you. You’d get on well with my cat.”
“Yes, I’m sure your pussy would like me.”
What...did he just make a crass joke? While she stood there open-mouthed, he turned away.
“Come.”
This time she followed, ignoring Brask’s smirk. When she passed him, she tried to take the sword. He shook his head.
“Uh-uh. You had your chance.”
“Spoilsport,” she muttered.
Having Brask behind her as she stepped from the balcony of this twentieth-floor room to the hovering chrome and sky-colored shuttle made her feel fidgety. Then he went and sat next to her in the second from the front row of seats. A corridor she’d seen, leading to the back of the shuttle, must be where the Bak-lal was being held.
Beneath Brask’s coat, she glimpsed black armor and the butts and handles of weapons.
The katana lay across his lap, inches away. She itched to take it.
“Mine, until you behave.” Brask nodded, eyes slitted.
For an intense second, snarling was highly likely but she only smiled and snuggled back into the seat upholstery.
Dassenze said I was safe.
So be it.
She should’ve brought a pin to stick herself with. The shuttle looked large enough to transport a squad and heavy equipment but Dassenze was in the row ahead and his and Brask’s pheromones were making her crazy. The god was right, she was wet and horny, as well as homicidal.
Hopefully, homicidal would win out.
Talia sighed.
If she drew a blood sample from herself, would it reveal anything odd? Probably not. Whatever they might use to arouse females, it was likely higher tech than anything she could detect.
A few minutes later, the engine sounds flared into a higher pitch, the shuttle tilted, and through the still open side door, she saw forest below. The Botanical Gardens? She recognized the surroundings before they dropped below tree height.
Neutral territory after all. Not that it helped her, seeing she was outnumbered and out-willpowered. You’ll trust me, because you will. After he’d said that, she’d just walked onboard. Idiot.
When she disembarked, there was Brittany, waiting in the middle of a crescent of alien men.
She choked up, tears spilling before she swiped them away with a finger. She strode to Brittany, met her halfway, and engulfed her in the hug to end all hugs. More tears, with their arms wrapped around each other and her sobbing. “You’re safe. You’re fucking safe.” It was all she could manage for ages.
“Course I am, silly. I’m sorry I worried you.”
She kissed her sister’s cheek then leaned away. “Are you really okay? I mean really?” She managed not to stare at Dassenze, Brask, or the warriors with their big-ass guns.
“Yes.” Brittany smiled, then broke into a grin. “I’m married even, sort of. Bond mated, they call it.”
Holy fuck.
Angry, she was angry but she really shouldn’t show that.
“Why?” she said urgently but quietly. They might hear her but this could be her only chance to say it. “Did you know they have something that they use to induce attraction to them? I’m convinced of it. Your reaction is likely false. Brittany...”
God, how did she get her away?
“Yes, I know.”
“What? How...why –”
Brittany’s forehead creased. “I know to begin with, it was maybe fake. It’s what the Preyfinders do. Nanochem, they call it.”
Nanochem? “That’s rape, kidnapping, even. Jesus, Britt. You can’t stay with him.” Ironic, since here she was throbbing with fucking arousal herself. Difference was, she knew why and what and how, and she was strong enough to say no.
Beyond, the alien Britt had been standing next to growled. They could hear. Damn.
“Oh my.” Brittany took a deep breath, let it out. “Okay. Here goes. This whole war against the Bak-lal, it’s real. These men, my man too, are fighting, some are dying, have been for decades. They used us and other women on other planets for like...rewards. I know! I know it’s morally wrong but to them we were...” She shrugged. “Pets.”
Talia managed not to swear out loud.
“The difference is that we, earth women that is, are making them as crazy about us as we are about them. It’s nothing like they’ve seen before.” She paused, eying Talia. “They think we can help them fight this war. This may sound incredible to you, but I have powers. Ever since I mated with Jadd.” She smiled back over her shoulder at her warrior, the one with markings on his cheeks like Brask.
“And you think that makes it right?” She tsked.
“It makes it love.” Her eyes softened. Brittany looked away for a moment and made a rueful grin. “I love him. I do. And I’m so happy! I need you to see that. Okay? I don’t want you worrying about me. The...the powers thing doesn’t freak you?”
What could she say? The truth. She couldn’t hold back from Britt. Besides, her partner would probably tell her.
“No. I have powers too. They’re trying to get at me too.”
“Oh.” Brittany’s eyes went round and bright.
“But I won’t let them.”
“What can you do? I mean, what powers?”
She sighed and took Brittany’s hands in hers, squeezed them. “My sword, you know I was always good with it? Well, now I’m damn good. Freaky is definitely the right word. You?”
“I can heal.” She lowered her voice. “I think I brought one of them back from almost death. Stom. He wasn’t quite dead but it affected me for days. Exhausted me.” She shook her head. “It was amazing, though. Jadd helped me. We’re like a team. I could never be without him. I need you to understand that. Please? Please?”
Fuck. “I’ll try, Britt. I will. Come over here, away from this lot, and talk to me.”
No one stopped her so she drew her sister to a low stone wall beneath a stand of weeping willows and sat next to her.
Brittany added excitedly, “With you as well, that makes four of us with powers. There’s Ally too. And Stom, he’s the bond mate of Willow and she can control fire.” She shook her head, stirring the leaf mulch with her foot. “Ally’s odd. I’m not sure what she does but it has Dassenze puzzled.”
Whatever else they’d done to Brittany, she looked at ease. The colors of the light dress and leggings she wore reminded Talia of the forest they were in. Her joy didn’t seem drug induced. She placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder and clasped it.
“You sound happy, Britt. However, I want you to think about where you are. I’d prefer to take you with me when I go.”
“Oh no. Never. I’m not going anywhere.” She shut her eyes. “There’s something else unusual about our bond mating.”
“What?” Her stomach stirred, queasy. “What? It’s bad isn’t it?”
“Not really. Just that if we get separated, we get sick. Stom almost died when he went up to the orbital without Willow.”
If true, this added a whole other dimension. Did Brask know this? If it was that two-way, the dependency, why the hell would he want this?
“They really do want you, love you back, the same?”
“I...I think so. Me and Jadd, yes. Willow and Stom are like crazy in love too. I know this isn’t a lie.”
“Right. Okay.”
It didn’t make sense. No way could she ever see this Brask in love with her. Or vice versa. It was scary to contemplate.
“The war is real?”
“Yes. They need us. At least here, on Earth, they need us.”
She bet they did. The bastards had probably drawn the other bad guys down to the planet in the first place. “You ever thought that maybe these Bak-lal would’ve flown straight past Earth if the Preyfinders hadn’t been here first?”
“No. No, no, no. No one’s told you? The Bak-lal have been hiding on Earth for twenty, thirty years, at least.”
“Crap.”
Absentmindedly, Brittany fingered a stray lock of Talia’s red hair where it draped over her arm. “When did you last get this cut? All these split ends. Tsk.”
“Ohmigod. The hairdresser emerges.” She twitched her hair from Brittany’s grasp. “No. Focus. Tell me about this Brask.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. The shuttle had been gone a few minutes, presumably taking the Bak-lal to the Preyfinders’ ship, which all the tabloids had decided was under a local lake. Secret base, not. Left behind were Brask, Dassenze, and two other Preyfinder warriors.
“And Dassenze, tell me about him, it, the god person.”
“Why?” Britt eyed her suspiciously then added, in an amused whisper, “Don’t tell me! Have you got the hots for one of them? You have haven’t you?”
“No. Fuck no. Hell no. Say that again and I’ll –”
Brittany’s giggle cut her short. Exasperated she waited, then frowned as Britt launched into another burst of laughter.
Why did this seem like a conversation from high school or university about boyfriends?
When the shuttle returned and Jadd walked up to declare there was no time left, she still hadn’t convinced Brittany that leaving was the right path to take. Face facts, she wasn’t sure anymore either. Terrible things were happening and Brittany had seen some of them first hand. If she hadn’t been deceived, the Earth was in a bad, bad place.
“Take care, sis.” She gave her a last hug.
As the shuttle rose into the air and zoomed off, she realized there was now only her, Brask, and Dassenze in the clearing. The distant traffic, the bird noises, and the chirrups and buzzing of insects only reinforced the isolation of this place. They ambled over, an action that would seem innocent under normal circumstances. Having these two massively built males approaching her was as menacing as being a rowboat with an ocean liner about to run her down and plow her under the waves.
She could fight but that wasn’t enough.
“Stop right there.” She raised a brow, trying to act nonchalant. “Why are you still here?”
“As in, why are we here alone when I said you could trust me?” Dassenze, despite his milder manner was the one she needed to watch. Dangerous. Ominous as the low grumbling of a storm.
“Yes. Why that?” They didn’t stop in their advance until they were two yards away and she tensed.
“Because I’ve learned that Earth is now in communications quarantine, as decided by the other Ascend gods. There is a battle a half a galaxy away being waged to stop the Bak-lal from arriving here and consuming your planet.”
True? False? She had to know more. “Why?”
“Because the Bak-lal here managed to send off one signal and it told the others that you are important. That if they capture you, the war that we have fought for what seems forever will end here.”
“By you, you mean –”
“What the factory queen calls witches. You as in you, your sister, and the other earth women with these awakening powers. While allies fight this space-torn battle, while ships are ripped apart in mammoth explosions and men die with their last air frozen and fracturing their lungs, we must win here. For if we don’t win here, there will be oblivion. The Earth must be, will be, destroyed rather than let the Bak-lal possess the arcane knowledge contained within it.
“Perhaps they are wrong. I think your powers are not as significant as this factory queen believes, but we cannot afford to take that chance.”
Death poetry. The man needed an Oscar. How easily this could be a lie. She took a step away and her leg bumped the edge of the stone wall she’d been sitting on. There was a three foot drop past that.
“Sounds bad.”
“It is. There are no reinforcements at present. No one else I can call to our assistance. If we are to win against what I believe is the last factory queen here on Earth, your powers are needed at their peak. I believe that to do this, you must bond mate. It’s the way the other witches found their powers.”
“First. I’m not a witch. Neither is Brittany.”
Brask shrugged and rested his hand on his hip, pushing aside the coat, revealing his armor, all gleaming black and ivory curves. “It’s a convenient term. It’s what the factory queen calls you.”
“Second, who will destroy the Earth?”
“We will,” Dassenze said. “The Ascend and allies from the many planets. If we do not, and the Bak-lal gain the upper hand here, they will enslave your people and warp your minds and bodies until you fight for them. The population of this planet would be theirs or dead. If they can understand your powers, if they can clone witches, or multiply these strange powers, the universe will be theirs. Understand?
“That is what we are truly afraid of, and why Earth cannot be allowed to become a Bak-lal planet.”
Her mind hit a blank for several seconds. She swayed, feeling disorientated. Had there ever, ever been a seduction line as weighty as this one?
A wind stirred, rustling through the trees and making Brask’s coat flap. He reached for something beneath it.
“Wait. Wait,” she croaked. “I can’t tell how much of that is true.”
Fuck though, they wanted to force her to mate? Or the Earth died? It could just be one big, huge lie, and Brask couldn’t move faster than her, only Dassenze.
“You can’t make me do this bond mating.”
“With another dose of the nanochem, you won’t care. Let it happen.” Brask took something from his pocket.
Another dose? She’d guessed, deduced, but still. Fuck. “My powers are already here. You don’t know all this. The statistics are flawed, insufficient. You may fuck up my so-called powers instead of awakening them.”
He grunted. At least the bastard wasn’t leering. Just intent on his actions, as if she were a job that had to be completed.
“And whatever happened to your trust me?” She glared at Dassenze. It was a minor thing, considering what was at stake, but still, it seemed to hold great significance. Why was that so? She pushed that question away. Later.
“You’re correct.” Dassenze gestured at Brask without taking his gaze from her. “Desist, for the moment. From what the other witches have told me, both parties desired the other deeply, with complete abandon. Her mind does not wish to mate with you, even if her body urges her differently.”
She snorted. “You agree with me?”
“I do. For now. We can’t afford to ruin your powers, though I don’t as yet understand them.”
Emboldened, she ventured closer, wary but intrigued. Her orneriness, now that she felt safer, pushed her into what was possibly, haha, probably, a taunt.
“It’s been proven in studies that women of our species become...aroused by many odd things. After being shown pictures of monkeys mating even.” She looked pointedly at Brask. He didn’t wince. Stupid alien didn’t see the insult. “It proves nothing if you measure blood flow or the moisture of my sexual parts.”
At that, Brask raised an eyebrow.
The crinkling lines about Dassenze’s eyes made her wonder what he thought.
“I’m glad you, at least, agree with my logic.”
“Yes.” Dassenze took a step closer and loomed over her.
His scales gleamed. Her mouth dried. She really should learn to move when he came close. Then he raised a strand of her hair and tugged.
“Ouch.” She had to tilt back her neck to see him properly.
“Also, I don’t wish to lose your trust, Talia.”
“Huh.” Now that, that was something.
She blinked at him, mouth open, uncomfortably aware of how he was making her hyper-alert. She registered him as male yet she wasn’t even sure he had the necessary bits to, uhhh, mate with her. And that thought was so bad it sent her into a hot flash of a fantasy where she found out exactly what he did have.
Her mind was seriously in the gutter.
Then, inexplicably, she went up on her toes and kissed him on the mouth. A shiver of guilt, dread, and arousal ran all the way down to those same toes, pausing along the way to make her aware of how close her own female parts were to whatever he hid, under those scales.
Hot. Insane...but still hot.
She almost wanted Brask to know how turned on she was. Man. What was to become of her?
And his response? She watched him as she lowered herself to the flats of her feet. Nothing. Except he didn’t blink at all. Normally he blinked, didn’t he?
“Frack,” Brask rasped out.
Yes. It was worth it just to stir Brask. That was her reason, wasn’t it?
Her racing heart begged to differ.
Dassenze gripped both her shoulders. Startled, she looked up.
“Are all human females this deliberately disturbing?”
“Umm. No?”
Dassenze made a tsk sound. “I didn’t think so. My previous two were much more complacent. You are lucky I can’t afford to be vulnerable and indulge in mating you here on this grass. It’s soft enough to cushion you from my force.”
Oh crap. Brask had said Dassenze was interested in her.
His lips curled. “Do I frighten you?” His hands squeezed in, until her shoulder muscles twinged with pain. “Speak the truth.”
What did they say to do when facing an aggressive lion? Retreat slowly while maintaining eye contact? She didn’t have any choice. The Ascend had pinned her with his gaze like a butterfly collector with a new specimen, and retreating wasn’t an option.
“Answer.” He shook her. When she remained mute, he shifted his grasp to beneath her arms and lifted her onto the stone seat. Done as easily as a man might lift a kitten.
Being elevated didn’t help... Though they were eye to eye, it made her feel like a slave girl on a block being auctioned off with Dassenze a potential buyer.
Her mind was dredging up all the dirty sexual connotations it could find. No wonder, with this massive specimen of alien man-god before her. Plus, his hands had slid down to her waist and were holding her there, firmly. It was a definite panty-wetting situation.
Was she a kick-ass forensic pathologist or a slave girl? Dammit, feminism. The two were surely impossibly opposite?
She heard Brask chuckle. The bastard.
What was the question? Was she scared? Answering Dassenze honestly was somehow a must. “A little?”
“Good. Remember that before you try to kiss me. I may change my mind and do... What was that human word?” Though he paused, she was sure it was just to prolong the torture. “I may fuck you anyway.” Then he winked and released her shoulders.
Brask wore a lopsided grin. She glanced from one to the other. She had no clue which way to turn. Backing away slowly was not going to work here.
Copyright Cari Silverwood 2015. All rights reserved. No part of these publications may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.