by Zara Starr
“Did they actually say that?” Karr asked in disbelief. “I suppose it should not surprise me. Was it Funi who suggested such a thing?” Karr asked.
“Yes, and I have told him I will see to ending him if he stands by this ruling. We cannot banish her—she will die, and what does that mean for this tribe?” Arh asked.
I had remained silent, watching for a few moments, but glancing back toward my brother I felt compelled to speak.
“I think that telling Mikaela the truth is most important here. We can discuss our thoughts on the elder who seems against the females later. Now, is hardly the time for it,” I muttered.
“I agree, brother. I found it best to be honest with Ella, too. It seems these females prefer that,” he advised.
Karr turned and began explaining more to Ella—whose own expression gave away her thoughts. She was just as appalled by the suggestion of banishment as the rest of us were.
“Mikaela, I do not know how to tell you this without offending you, but I know it must be said. There is a council presiding over the Eilahasans and that council makes the major decisions for the best interests of the tribe. In your case, they have ruled that like me, you must have your triad selection ceremony. If you look at it in the right way, it is an invitation to be taken care of here in the tribe for as long as you are here—to have safety and asylum,” Ella explained.
“What? I’m not a freaking refugee! And what if I don’t want to be involved with three purple men? I mean, I don’t know about you or anything but that’s not exactly what I had planned for my life when it comes to partners,” Mikaela said.
“Mikaela, I know you are upset and I know you want to leave here but you have to realize that it is dangerous here and you need the sanctuary. You need the safety net they’re offering,” Ella said.
I could sense things were getting volatile from the way Mikaela’s face contorted from the confused expression she held earlier to a look of pure disgust. She was definitely not happy.
“I don’t want to engage in this. I’m not interested in selecting three males to mate with. It’s just not my style. You know, on our planet people choose if they want to be poly, or monogamous or into threesomes. To be frank with you—that ain’t my kind of kink. I don’t see why I have to participate in something I have zero interest in being a part of,” Mikaela said.
Karr interjected once more as he said something to Ella and I sighed as I listened closely, leaning in toward my brother with a sigh.
“This seems to be going nowhere,” I muttered.
Dew frowned. “I don’t know—Ella has told her the truth so far, in what little I do understand. She hasn’t told her about the banishment yet though,” he confessed.
“Mikaela,” Ella began, and I turned to look toward her as she kept speaking. “If you do not comply with the ceremony and their customs it is very possible that the council will have you cut off from food supplies and other necessities,” she said.
Mikaela’s fist balled up at her sides suddenly and she flexed her hands, lifting them as I watched and drawing them up to both sides of her face. She pushed against her temples, clutched her eyes closed and began shaking her head vigorously.
“What? What bullshit are you putting in my head now?” Mikaela asked, as she lowered her hands and scoffed.
“This is unbelievable!” She burst out. “You’re honestly telling me that they want to send me back out into the jungle after they dragged me here! Now they think that because I got transported here I owe them something? That I owe them my body and to be a part of their kinky weird-ass customs? Who are you people?” Mikaela raged.
I sighed as Arh groaned.
“I told you she wouldn’t take it well,” he muttered. “I don’t even know what she just said to Ella but she’s not happy. I know that much.”
I sighed. He was right, and it seemed Mikaela was only growing angrier with every passing second.
“Mikaela, please don’t shoot the messenger,” Ella said, her voice pleading though I did not understand everything she was saying.
“Honestly, I don’t want to be anything but a friend for you here, which is more than I had when I first arrived,” Ella continued. “And, you never know, you may find that having mates makes things easier. You can even pick these three guys if you wanted since they seem to be your regular entourage. It wouldn’t be that different, except for the added benefits of having a mate. They’ll ensure that you eat and are properly provided for. They’ll make sure that you survive the seasons here.”
“If I have to go foraging on my own to keep myself fed, so be it. And what do you mean by ‘ensure’ I’ll survive? You mean I’ll be their kept woman. You call it mates—but what if I don’t want any kids?” Mikaela asked.
“It’s like women’s rights aren’t even considered at all,” Mikaela said. “Like I’m just supposed to sign off in agreement to whatever they insist just so that I can eat! What is this, old-world Egypt before the Exodus? God, how do I get the hell off this hellhole of a planet?”
Without skipping a beat, Mikaela turned and began running toward the footpath—her hair wispy in the wind as she disappeared into the darkness.
Ella’s mouth dropped and she began shaking her head as a sigh of disbelief escaped my lips. Arh had been right—and now Mikaela was heading off into the jungle as quickly as her legs would carry her—despite our best intentions.
There wasn’t anything we could do about it.
Twelve
Arh
I growled as I glanced around at the others. “See, this is what I was afraid of! There is no convincing this female of anything,” I muttered in disgust.
Mikaela had completely balked at everything Ella had told her and I had a feeling that she wouldn’t be returning any time soon—just as I had done when Ella had rejected me.
There was a familiar feeling about her, and the way that she had taken off reminded me of myself at my angriest—there was no swaying me when I hit that mindset and I could tell Mikaela was the same.
“All Ella did was tell her what you asked to be said, Arh,” Karr said in a warning tone.
I perked my brow. “I am not here to cause any harm to you or yours, as I said already. Someone needs to go after Mikaela. I guess there’s no better person than I, right?” I hissed in annoyance.
“It shouldn’t be that hard to find her—all you have to do is listen for her pet’s yelping,” Dey reminded me. “And, yes, you’re right. You should definitely be the one to go after. Nobody knows the jungle as well as you do.”
“Like the back of my hand, and then some,” I reminded him.
I had to hand it to him, as much as I had initially hated the creature Mikaela was willing to nearly die over, his barking had been one thing—incessant.
It never seemed to stop, except when Mikaela reprimanded it, of course. I had learned that the creature was called Tremor—though I often heard her reference it as Trem.
It seemed to me, the creature was also male and had a habit of quaking visibly whenever frightened—which seemed to be the one time it barked the most.
Well, where Mikaela had chosen to run off to would be full of both smells, sights, and alarming possibilities that were sure to send it into a frenzied state—both quaking and yelping crazily, which was both good and bad at the same time.
Bad because I knew that Karr had seen the ruby-eyed dragon slithering through along the tree line when Ella had arrived. Karr had told all of the tribe members all about it shortly after his triad mating with Ella.
He may have gotten rid of the creature that night, but the dragons were persistent. Almost as if they kept vendettas against those who injured them—a fact that I knew had to have occurred—lest Ella would not exist to this day.
Tremor posed the problem of both alerting me to their location and alerting the beasts that were searching for a prime meal on a night just like this one.
Scar pursed his lips nervously. “I would go along with you, but it seems
it would be best if you go alone so that you could move quicker,” he muttered.
I stared at Scar. I had never understood him. It almost seemed as if he had a defeated aura that I could never make any sense of. He was virile, strong, and capable, even if he was a bit of an unlucky hunter.
I had seen what he could do over the many years he had assisted my mother. As odd as it was for him to be there with her so often, I couldn’t imagine him not being there. As if he were a brother I needed.
I had never felt pity for anyone, but somehow at that moment, I did sympathize with Scar’s position. His willingness to put aside his own ego for what was best for Mikaela was both honorable and observed.
I only wished I had noticed him for his wisdom before, but then admittedly my own ego had gotten in the way of that. Perhaps, there was more to see around me than I cared to realize.
“There’s no more time to waste,” I said, running toward the trail—my eyes flickering out across the footpath as I began to search for Mikaela’s.
She had her animal, so I inhaled the air to see if I could pick up the stench of it in the distance. Sure enough, I picked up a faint hint of the creature’s scent and began to chuckle to myself.
“Ah, well at least you are smart enough not to leave the paths. That will make this a little easier, of course,” I muttered, thinking she had made things so easy for me that it almost seemed unbelievable.
I had expected her to dart off into the first thicket she found herself able to penetrate. The fact that the animal’s scent trail remained hot on the footpath was the last thing I had anticipated.
Mikaela
I was livid to the core.
These people, if that’s what they should even be considered, honestly thought that they had the power to determine my survival?
They wanted to banish me from the tribe like I was some sort of burden on them—a public charge or some crap. To think that they wanted me to give up the autonomy over my own body and just agree to their sick perversions was beyond me.
I was beginning to think that I should have just allowed myself to die out in the forest. I knew from the beginning something wasn’t right about this place and now I theorized that Ella was the victim of some sort of sick, twisted brainwashing that I wasn’t about to become a part of.
That was almost exactly what she had said to me, to the T. Implying that somehow, I would be rewarded like a queen for popping a kid out of my crotch after allowing these purple men to put their hands all over me.
I wasn’t a thin woman and I knew it, but that didn’t mean I had zero standards for myself. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
I was beside myself with so much anger that I could not stay one more second in that meadow with any of them. Now, I trodded down along the network of footpaths—my eyes darting out and finding nothing but darkness all around.
It wasn’t just darkness, it was stark darkness—like no moonlight could penetrate the thickness of the forest where I now stood.
I pursed my lips, determined to keep walking. There was no way in hell I was going back to that meadow or Veruka’s—ever!
If their council was as unjust and misogynistic as they were suggesting, I wanted no part of their tribe! I would never blindly give in to sleeping with anyone just for food. I wasn’t a prostitute and I wasn’t indebted to them.
If anything, I felt like I had been repeatedly violated by them and something about the darkness of the jungle felt safer.
Snap!
I whirled around.
“Hello?” I called out, wondering if someone were following and accepting the likelihood that Arh had probably was—one-hundred fucking percent. Of that, I had no doubt.
Nothing responded. I perked a brow and turned back toward the path—or at least, what I thought was the path. Slowly, I began walking forward again, keeping Tremor tucked tightly beneath my arm.
I had picked him up and kept him near me as soon as I began running back toward the pathway. I knew I could make more ground and put much-needed distance between myself and all of them back in Ella’s meadow. That was the last place I ever wanted to see, ever.
God, why couldn’t I just be back in my apartment enjoying a real shower and some freaking Domino’s? Why did I have to be somewhere in a dark jungle swearing I’d forage for my own food?
I lived in a nice flat! The delivery guy was even kind of cute! Damn it, I could have been watching a movie—a new chick flick or something!
Snap!
Again, the tell-tale sign that something was following me—whether on the trail or off in the brush, I couldn’t be sure. What I did know was that I had heard something.
“Woof!”
Tremor barked loudly, growling instantly and I stopped immediately.
“Hush.” I tried to quiet him but Trem started shaking instantly and the incessant barking began in unison. “Crap!” I muttered as I turned to walk forward.
Snap! Snap!
“What the hell?” I groaned. Suddenly, I felt something grab ahold of my ankle and jerk me, sending me tumbling to the ground.
I spread my fingers out across the earth, forcing myself upward as I tried to start running—but whatever held my leg wasn’t letting go.
Tremor let out an instant whine and I grasped at his leash tightly—my last-ditch effort to keep him from bolting into the darkness.
I sighed in relief as my fingers wound about the leash and sat up, pulling my leg upward as I attempted to feel whatever had caught my leg.
From the feel of it, it seemed like a low-lying vine—easy enough to get rid of. As my fingers slid down my leg, however, the sensation of prickly thorns quickly made me rethink things.
I had already been poisoned by a bug in this jungle. The wisdom of Ella suddenly filled my mind as I came to a crashing epiphany. She was right, out here I didn’t know what was safe and what wasn’t. It wasn’t my terrain—hell, it wasn’t even my home planet!
I pursed my lips, feeling trapped where I was. Suddenly, fear took over me. I clutched my eyes closed and decided to take my chances, ripping the vine from my leg and standing up in one fluid motion.
I adjusted Tremor’s leash in my hand and lifted him up. Whatever had been following me seemed to have vanished because the snapping sounds ceased the moment I pulled myself free of the vine. Eerie, but a relief nonetheless.
“Ain’t nothing gonna hold me down. Nope, I’m always going to keep on moving!” I said in a sing-song voice.
My sense of independence restored, I began walking forward through the darkness and noticed the faint outline of ember that seemed to alight the rest of the path suddenly.
“What?” I wondered aloud as I began walking toward it.
I had sworn I didn’t want to return to Ella’s or Veruka’s meadows, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t venture elsewhere.
I proceeded to walk toward the light, and the sounds of laughter overtook me. Sounding like a woman’s laughter, at first, but I couldn’t be sure. I crossed closer to the light and paused as I glanced into the meadow.
In the middle of the clearing, I saw three purple males and one middle-aged purple female—whose face I could not make out. The three were involved in a tryst that I was surprised to be watching.
I felt my cheeks singe from the realization of it, and turned to walk away. The vision of the four of them was more than I had even imagined when I considered how crazy it was that Ella had procreated with them.
After seeing what I had just witnessed though, I was certain that her joy came from the enormity of their cocks—which was the one thing I couldn’t seem to stop gawking at even as I kept to the shadows.
I had to keep Tremor silent though. If he saw them he was sure to start his yelping again—the very last thing I needed.
Admittedly, my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I found myself slowly moving closer.
As I watched the sensuality in how the males behaved with their mate, I noticed they were all very attentive lovers. Lo
vers that seemed to appreciate and reciprocate what the woman they were making love with was giving to them.
I still didn’t understand why they felt the need to be in trios though. It was something I found baffling. But the more I paid attention, the more I accepted that there were not nearly as many males as there were females in their tribe.
I wondered if the reason had anything to do with population density and if they had even explored the rest of their planet.
What if there were other tribes like them? Why weren’t they interested in trying to expand their tribe by integrating with those who already populated their world?
Instead of waiting for women to magically pop out of the sky and into their lives.
I continued to watch—mystified by the images happening right before me and totally unable to look away. And while I did feel some shame, my intrigue stamped it out quickly.
Who knew I had a fetish for alien sex?
Even I was stupefied.
Arh
I had followed after Mikaela’s dog’s scent for well over an hour now, and not once had I seen her or the creature. I could still make out their smell and I hoped that soon enough I would see some trace of them.
But darkness was engulfing the jungle at this time and it was nearly impossible to see what was right in front of my face, let alone five feet ahead.
I recalled an instance when I had first run away as a boy-into the same dark jungle that I now found myself searching.
Scar and Dey had both been correct that I knew these woods better than anyone else and that was to my advantage for a number of reasons. But mostly, it was accredited to my experience roaming the darkness and acquainting myself with everything that was both dangerous and inviting to me.
The truth was the jungle was very much alive and it recognized intruders the moment they arrived—even if it didn’t make them aware of it.