Melody Embraced

by Serena Simpson

  “Most is not all. One wrong race and the balance of the universe changes.”

  “Aww, I’m that wrong race.”

  “Prepare to die.”

  “Have you ever watched Princess Bride?”

  “Yeah, and I will succeed.” Her sabretooth jumped at her even as Jade turned to run. Jade crashed to the ground rolling over the soft grass even as her sabretooth came within an inch of pouncing on her.

  “I want to go on record as saying that as a species you guys suck.” Jade stood, “I want to make some last heroic speech, maybe something from Hamilton, history is so much better if you can sing it. Unfortunately, all my witticism has left the building. I will miss Lyrek.” Jade looked around for a weapon but found nothing except the soft grass. Not that a weapon would help. Her sabretooth was part of her if one died, they both died.

  “Let’s do this.” For the last time, she met a sabretooth in the air. This time the battlefield was her mind when she jumped it was with kung fu precision. Yes, she broke into a song of everyone was kung fu fighting. How could she not?

  They crashed midair Jade dug her fingers into her sabretooth while she felt claws dig into her. They entwined becoming one before both of their voices screeched in pain, they plummeted to the earth beneath them. Darkness covered her like a shroud.

  “I think she’s coming around,” Rial’s voice was hushed as he spoke.

  “Does she do anything the easy way?” Lyrek wondered as he watched her.

  “I hear you.” Her throat was scratchy, and she was moving down a dark corridor, but it looked like light was at the end of it.

  “Then open your eyes so we know your fine,” Lyrek said.

  “Working on it.” She raised her hands slowly touching her face then her body. “Can I open my eyes?”

  “You can,” Rial told her.

  She was lying on her back in the room that she shared with Lyrek. “It didn’t work.” The desire to tear up was close at hand. It had all been an elaborate dream.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I’m in bed and I’m human.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Lyrek sat next to her while Rial recorded what she said. She told them everything she experienced and how she thought she would be dead by now.

  “This is what we saw happen.” Lyrek placed a pad in her hands and turned it on. It showed him stepping back to allow his byema freedom. Then he called to Jade’s byema. She saw herself fall to the floor, but she also saw herself change.

  “You're beautiful.”

  The stripes on her body were brown, but they looked good with her fur that was tinged with orange.

  “That’s me?”

  “It is.”

  “Why am I just lying there?”

  “This may have been when you were having your mental challenge.”

  “Why am I still alive?”

  “Neither you nor your byema can live without the other. We are integrated at birth, but you didn’t have that privilege. The two of you needed to become one. That wouldn’t happen unless you found each other worthy.”

  Their belief that the loss of life on Porakay and the loss of life on earth was something neither of them could condone. That fact bridged a gap between them.

  “You can feel me, can’t you?”

  “I can, I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “It was necessary for you to allow your defenses to slip enough for us to integrate.”

  “What are we?”

  “We are cull. As if I would go against the order you gave.”

  Jade found herself laughing as she remembered talking to her sabretooth.

  “Are you communicating with your byema?”

  “I am and she informs that we are cull.”

  Rial laughed. “The important things of life. She is correct you are cull. Almost the same age as you are in human years. Still young but old enough.”

  Jade felt her body relaxing. She had been bitten and survived having her body pumped full of venom. Then she changed and survived the alien sabretooth that now lives within her. She didn’t want to think of herself as invincible but she did like the thought of her name going up in lights. She lost herself in the drama of her life where they begged her to play herself and gave her ridiculous amounts of cash to do it. “Let the sabretooth out.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t hurt herself when her head hit the wall?”

  She smacked Lyrek on his arm. “I’m fine. What’s next?”

  “We go for a walk.”

  “Walk?”

  “I had a feeling that’s what you meant by walk.”

  “It’s not as hard as you're making it. Picture yourself stepping back as your byema steps forward. That easily you’ll change places. She will be in charge, but she is just a different part of you. Neither of you will do something the other opposes because you’re one person not two individuals.”

  That sounded good until she thought of the fact that her body was going to change shape and size. She did it once maybe. Who was to say she could do it again? What if this is the time she turns inside out and becomes bait for all the other sabretooths? Do they eat their own? Human’s ate their own. This line of thought wasn’t helping.

  Lyrek stepped back and became his byema within a blink of an eye. What happened to his clothes? She stepped back trying to imitate him. Her line of sight changed as she turned into the animal, she might be a little scared of.

  Her paws were against the grass, not as soft as the grass in her mind but she could work with this. She stumbled when she stood unable to coordinate four limbs that all needed to work at the same time. Lyrek rubbed his big head against her giving her encouragement like she was a kit. When he licked her with his large tongue, she gathered her courage together and sprung at him. They rolled on the grass as she made sounds that translated to laughter in sabretooth.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “I can, I didn’t know you could talk to me like this.”

  “I can communicate with all my people like this, but you’re my melody, I will always be able to contact you.”

  “I like that. You and me for…”

  “Forever Jade, you and I.” He led her to the garden by passing the entrance to the maze.

  They ran chasing each other until thirst took over. They moved to the fountain that she was sure was frowned upon drinking from and they drank. When they were down Lyrek used his massive paw to get her wet. Before she knew what was happening, they were having a water battle. When the gardener ran out with a hose in his hands, they both howled and took off. Jade stopped when she was panting and laid down on a beautiful stretch of grass.

  Lyrek laid next to her wrapping his body around hers. She felt safe, comforted, the whole world may come after them, but together they would be a united front. She laid staring at the flower with the blood red petal and the vibrant blue center. An alien plant planted in earth soil it was thriving. The same way she thrived having become a hybrid in her desire to protect the planet she lived on and the male she loved. That was a little too much, a nap was all she could handle right now.

  She woke up in human form in their bedroom. Lyrek was still holding her tight. This was supposed to be the part where she threw parties, but as she thought about her journey, she wasn’t sure she was halfway there.

  What was the downside? There was always a downside.

  Besides, of course, leaving her sister. She ached again wondering how Em was. Then there was the fact that she left her friends. Were they mad at her? Nope, they were royally pissed off. That’s how she would have been if one of them pulled this shit. You can never go back, but she was gonna find a way. They were her family as much as and even more than Lyrek and her guards, besides they needed abraza’s yes? Who’s to say that it’s not her friends.

  She’d let that idea stew in the back of her head until the time was right.

  “You think any harder and I’ll have a headache.”

  “You're awake.” She to
ok a minute to think about what she wanted to say. Which meant taking advantage of the fact he was naked and she could touch his skin. She pressed a kiss to his chest before she stroked it with her hands.

  “I’m cull.”

  “I noticed and so did my byema. Is that what you want to talk about?”

  “No. I was asking myself what’s the downside of what I’ve already experienced. I need to know what’s coming next. I can’t shake the feeling that this is just starting.”

  “I’m not sure I have the answers for you. Remember I told you that the ability to open the door was in the royal line? That’s the truth. It means it’s been shrouded in secrecy longer than I’ve been alive.”

  “So you’re winging it?”

  “To some degree. My ship was being converted to a science vessel. That means there are archives with ancient knowledge that was downloaded. How much is real and how much is myth is something that I have my males working on.”

  “Then we wait?”

  He shifted on the bed allowing his body to elongate taking her eyes off his face to trace his torso.

  “I wanted you from the minute I saw you. I also rejected you immediately.”

  “If you’re trying to comfort me or assure me, you’re doing a bad job of it.”

  He chuckled before he went on. “I wanted, hoped, that someone else would see you and feel the call of abraza. I thought that maybe the fire you lit in the bareness of my soul may be lit in another. After you came here, I tried to give others ample opportunity to hear the melody that clearly resonated within your body. The only one who heard the sweet sound was me.”

  He stopped to run his fingers down the side of her neck and then over her shoulder where his bite was apparent in her brown skin.

  “I wanted to spare you this.” His hand waved around the room then it clearly indicated him. “The future with me in uncertain. The royal family never talked about opening the door. We, the people never asked, we accepted what had been known as truth for all of our lives.”

  “I knew when I made the choice to be with you that life was going to be uncertain. I’m not disappointed and I don’t want to go back. I do have one question to ask. Has anyone who’s not royalty ever opened the door?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you become royalty?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  How do you become royalty? That thought plagued her for the last week. Lyrek didn’t have an answer for me. In some ways, it was like asking how Meghan Markle became a duchess. Some people knew that answer to that question. Others like me had no idea, it just happened. Lyrek spent his life fighting a war not following behind the royal family. His ship was a cross between military and science. None of them had been following the royal family either.

  Consequently, she had an iPad in front of her with downloaded history lessons on what it meant to be royal on their planet. She even had a book of fantasy about a girl who wanted to grow up to be queen. Her guards laughed at her when she decided to read it over the history books. All she could say was at times there was more truth in fiction than in non-fiction.

  She finally met the prince. He was slumming around town trying to be ordinary. Actually, that wasn’t fair of her. He wanted to understand what the people in his cities were going through. He didn’t understand poverty and couldn’t relate to it. To stand in the middle of hunger and depression tore him apart, but he knew the truth. Soon he would be back in the palace and this wouldn’t affect him.

  Jade read on falling under the spell of the prince until he revealed himself and asked his princess to marry him. That’s where the book became interesting. The princess needed to conquer several hardships to become officially a princess and marry the prince.

  If Jade was waiting for some magical trials to go through, she was out of luck. The book was rather good. It was a look at a different world through the eyes of an alien.

  She’d start on one of the textbooks tomorrow. Tonight, she was promised a date with food and dancing. This needed a nice long soak in the tub followed by pampering to remind her just how feminine she was.

  She loved their tub. It felt Lyrek entered her dreams to have the perfect tub made for her. She turned on the hot water, then placed two bath bombs in because the more the merrier.

  Every day felt special except for the fact that he only gave her orgasms using his tongue. It was a very experienced tongue. He used it better than some men used their dicks, still, she found herself wanting, needing more. The question of why they hadn’t gone all the way was more important than how you became royalty. She slipped into the hot water practically moaning when she enveloped in the water. This is what she needed. Her muscles relaxed one by one. She turned the jets on and the lights down low. She laughed this could be the start of porn or her own sexy movie. There was a discrete cough that had her lifting her head.

  Lyrek was leaning against the door his thick legs crossed his arms resting against his chest.

  “You’re welcome to join me.” The tub was big enough for four maybe five comfortably seven if they crowded in.

  “No thank you, but I am enjoying the view. Some of us like the water boil your skin off hot.”

  She tried not to laugh she really did. He had taken a shower with her once and declared loudly as he got out that she was trying to kill him so she could rule on her own.

  “Are we still going out?”

  “Maybe.” His voice got deeper as he followed every move she made as she washed. “You are beautiful. I wonder what I ever did to deserve an abraza such as you.”

  His gold eyes were lit up. She found herself having a hard time breathing as he looked at her.

  Jade stood up allowing the water to run off her body as if she were some siren come to lead Lyrek to his destruction against the unforgiving rocks.

  He helped her out the tub before using the plush towel in his hand to dry her off.

  “I tell myself to stay away from you. That being your abraza means I must control myself. This is not your world, then I see you warm, wet, and beautiful. I want to touch you, to bury myself deep within you damn the consequences.”

  “Let’s flaunt the rules, break them, rewrite them.” She stepped closer dropping the towel he wrapped around her breasts. Her lips pressed against his tentatively as she waited to see if he was going to reject her.

  “Only a fool would keep saying no to his heart song. I hear you loud and clear, the melody is life-affirming. When I want to give up, I hear your song thrumming through my veins giving me life like it’s tied to my will.” He placed his arm under her knees and picked her up cradling her closer to his body. The walk to the bedroom happened while she cuddled into him. Having a male strong enough to pick her up was on her wish list from the time she was a teen. Watching movies where guys carried their wives over the threshold to their new lives didn’t help. She wasn’t sure when she had given up on that little fantasy. It had gone the way of the rest of her desires. Women like her didn’t get the dream. It was so easy to say and believe all you had to do was fill in the blank. Black women like her, thick women like her, women with hair like her, while women like her, women who were friends with other women like her. Women who believed in equal rights, women who were butch, women who were feminine.

  Just the words woman like me or a woman like her became open season on women all you had to do was pick the category you didn’t like and insert it here. That was an eye-opener she hadn’t been ready for but it meant something else. It meant that women like her could love or be carried or have children or live thrilling lives. It meant that women like her didn’t have to be compartmentalized or stuck in a box that didn’t fit.

  It meant that women like her had the same chances of success as any other women. It meant that when Lyrek pressed his lips against her, she was ready to receive everything he had to give and she would give all that was within her. Damn women like her had it good.

  Her lips opened inviting him in. His touch fired her synapses and made he
r nerves tingle. The feel of his tongue on hers, the way she sucked her tongue into his mouth making it sensitive was enough to keep her wanting more.

  “You make me feel soft and fragile while making me feel hard and strong. I don’t understand how they go together, but in your hands, I know they do.”

  “You enchant me. At first, I thought you were this fragile being from a fragile race that wouldn’t survive in the galaxy. Then you throw your lot in with mine and soon you’re living with me. My males both warriors and scientists respect you. If Jayton tells the story one more time of how you stepped in front of him, I may have to lock him away.” His laugh turned into a sensitive moan as he sucked the skin on her neck.

  She rubbed her body against him like a lithe cat. “You and I seem to always have a problem. Why am I naked while you are dressed?”

  “Let’s take care of that.” He pulled back to take off the blue Henley he was wearing. Then he stood up and opened the button on his jeans. The sound of the zipper competed with her labored breathing. He kicked the jeans off standing there in nothing but his boxers. They were black and silky and she hated them because they were hiding the prize she longed to see. Her tongue ran over her lips wetting them. They plumped up in need as she watched his hands slowly lower his boxers. He was the center of her attention and he knew it.

  “You’re killing me,” she groaned.

  “But the reward,” he whispered sinfully as the front of his boxers hung on his already rising cock.

  “Don’t make me tear those boxers off you.” The light in his eyes told her he was up to the challenge. She went to her knees crossing the bed until she was kneeling on the edge. Using the top of his boxers she pulled until he was closer. Her hands went around the material tearing it apart. Somewhere in her head she thought she shouldn’t be that strong. The only thing that mattered to her at this point was his cock. It was thick and long she wanted to taste him, to have him spill over in her mouth bathing her tongue in his seed so that his taste would always be inside of her.

  “You’ll get a chance to taste,” he pushed her down. “Right now, I’ve denied myself too many times to deny myself again.” He jumped on the bed making it shake as it bounced her up and down. “My little cream puff.” His hand went out to steady her. Her fingers were flexed wide as she placed them over her abdomen.