His hands grab hold of my waist, and he begins tearing my clothes off.
"I am Philos," he says, "and you are my fertile prize."
I scream and thrash against him. I slap and punch his face, but he pins my right hand down to the ground with his wrist. I hit him as hard as I can with my off hand, but he just laughs as he rips my shirt off. He gropes my breasts, and I try to bite into his forearm. He slaps me upside the face. Hard. I reel back in pain, and then I feel his disgusting hands all over me. He pulls my panties down but doesn't remove my skirt. I force my legs tight together, but he rips them apart.
I look up and see that he's naked now. His cock is massive, but it's hanging flaccid between his legs.
He presses himself on top of me. His lips find mine. His tongue goes into my mouth. I bite it, and he starts to choke me. He squeezes my neck hard, and only when I stop biting his tongue does he let off. He forces the kiss as his hard and naked body presses against mine. I feel his disgusting dick between my legs, but it's not hard. It's still soft.
He pulls away from kissing me, and I spit in his face.
He snarls and looks down at himself. He grabs hold of his soft dick and starts stroking it, but it's like a wet noodle flapping around.
I laugh at him. "You keep talking about a 'fertile' prize, but that's all you've got? All this obsession with breeding, and you can't even get hard?"
"I used all my energy growing my body. I need to eat. Once I do, I'll grow my dick so big that you'll regret ever insulting me. I'll split you open from the insides, you fertile whore."
He takes a step toward me, and I see an opening. I remember having this thought with Raiska, that I couldn't hurt him no matter what I did, but there was one thing that might have hurt even Raiska, and I expect it will hurt Philos too.
I fling my leg up and kick Philos in the balls. The pointy wedge of my shoe hits true, and he doubles over in pain.
I turn and run, and that's when I see a cloud of dust in the distance, and a single figure riding toward me. Six-dimensional light flares from the shadowy visage, like a beacon in the night. The light is shaped like a crescent moon. A scythe.
Twenty-Four
Raiska
I see her. And Philos.
He's writhing on the ground, and she's running toward me. Shirtless.
Anger flares in me. If he laid a hand on her, I'll cut his fingers off one at a time. Revenge can wait though, I need to get to my Muru first. She's all that matters.
I dig my heel into the destrier, and it whirrs louder. It runs faster than it has since I first mounted it. It senses my urgency. I feel at one with the mechanical being, as if I was always meant to ride it. Maybe it has fully felt how dire my situation is, and it can relate to me. Perhaps destriers mate for life as well, and as another being that takes lifemates, it knows what I feel.
I leap off the destrier as I reach Annabelle. I land on my feet in a cloud of dust, and I pull her up against me. I hold her for a brief moment, because I have another matter to attend to first. "Are you okay?"
She nods and says "yes," but I know that she was not fully unharmed.
"Stay behind me," I order, and I bring my scythe back as I step toward Philos.
He looks up at me and laughs. "You got lucky, Valittu."
"She's chosen me," I say. "You should have respected that, you fucking mongrel."
"You're a mongrel too," he spits, and he pulls himself up to his knees. "You've had her for days and still haven't gotten her pregnant. You're fucking pathetic."
I shake my head, and then he sees it. Well, he senses it.
The Ulkar. They are coming.
I let my scythe fold up into the higher dimensions. I was going to torture him. I wasn't thinking clearly, because what would Annabelle think of me if I tortured someone? Even a man who laid hands on her?
Now I don't have to make that decision, because the Ulkar are coming. They will give him a more agonizing end than I ever could have. I wouldn't dare to stop them from doing that, but that torture is on them now, not on me. It's out of my hands.
I turn my back to him.
"What's happening?" Annabelle asks me. "You're going to let him live?"
I put a hand on her belly. "The Breeding Games have ended, Muru. You're pregnant."
She gasps, and I look back over my shoulder.
The Ulkar are swarming in the air above Philos. Their bodies are grey masses, but their tentacles are pure higher-dimensional color. They pulse just like my cock or my scythe. When they move, they move in all directions, not just the directions of our lower three dimensions. This means that their tentacles disappear and reappear, or their bodies grow smaller or larger as they move in and out of cross-section with our lower dimensions.
If I close my eyes, I can see their full bodies on the higher dimensions, but I can never see their true form all at once. Even as an Ulkar-hybrid, the true essence of the Ulkar is beyond my comprehension.
I realize Annabelle is watching on in horror, and I take her by the chin and turn her face toward mine. "You don't want to see this, Muru."
I still have a hand on her belly. She looks down at it. "I'm really pregnant?"
"The Ulkar are here to exterminate the losers. The ones who couldn't spread their seed. That means my seed found its home. I've put a baby in you."
We walk away, and we try to ignore the sounds of Philos’ screams behind us as the Ulkar tear him limb from limb.
Soon his cries are gone, but an Ulkar is coming toward us. I grab Annabelle, wrapping her whole body protectively in my arms. I can kill an Ulkar. I can kill dozens of them if it comes to that.
"Relax," it says, floating over our heads and stopping in front of us.
I summon my scythe and hold it at the ready. If it makes any movement toward Annabelle, I will cut it to pieces.
"The fertile prize is yours," it says.
"You will not so much as touch our child," I growl.
"You've proven yourself, Valittu. We won't interfere with you anymore."
Annabelle is trembling in fear. The Ulkar is close to her.ay.
"Swear it," I say, holding the scythe toward it. “You will never touch our baby. You will leave my Muru and me alone. For good.”
"We need make no promises to lower beings. Believe us or not, the fertile prize is yours, and so is your child. Goodbye, Valittu."
It disappears into the higher dimensions, and then it moves even further away, until I can no longer sense it.
She wraps her arms around me and buries her face in my broad chest. I hold tight to her. "We're going to have a baby."
"It sounds too good to be true. We're finally safe. And together. And pregnant."
The destrier looks at me, and I gesture for it to come closer to me. Annabelle takes a few steps back, but I stop her.
"Try petting it," I suggest.
It stops short of us, and Annabelle moves nervously toward it.
"This is my Muru," I tell it.
Annabelle smiles as the Destrier raises its mechanic eyebrows at her. It lowers its head down, and she puts a hand on its metallic mane. It lets out a satisfied whinnie as she pets it.
"Have you ever ridden a horse before?" I ask.
"Uh," she says. "A pony. Not a robot horse."
"They call it a destrier. This one is gentle. I think it likes me. And if it likes me, it's going to like you."
The destrier bobs its head and comes nearer to us. I help Annabelle up onto it. Even though I'm nearly certain it will accept her, I still keep a firm grip on its back in case it tries to buck her off like it did Kula. It doesn't though, it just stands patiently and waits for me to mount it.
I throw my leg over and get on top, behind Annabelle. I don't even need to guide the destrier. It knows where we need to go, and it turns toward the mountains and breaks into a steady trot. We galloped at full speed to reach Annabelle, but now that we have her, it knows that there's no rush to get back the way we came.
I spot Kula in the d
istance after twenty or thirty minutes. I see the light of his axe before I see him.
When I reach him, he looks up at us. The destrier stops. "I assume it's done?" Kula asks.
I nod. "He's dead, and she's pregnant."
I cover Annabelle’s nakedness with my hands. Kula keeps his eyes down.
Kula grins and puts his axe away. "Welcome to the family, Annabelle. Wait until I tell Ellie that our little one is going to have a cousin."
"Half-cousin," Raiska says.
Kula gives a dismissive wave of his hand. "Come now, after all we've been through, Raiska. We're no longer half-brothers. We are brothers."
Twenty-Five
Annabelle
We reached Kula's house around dawn. I took a shower and collapsed into bed with Raiska. We just held each other, as we were both too exhausted for anything more.
A med bot had taken care of both of us as soon as we reached the border of Thrace, and a car came to take us to Kula's house.
With Philos dead and the Breeding Games over, Kula said that Ellie would be happy to have us stay with them until we got a place of our own.
I wake up with Raiska's hand on my stomach. He's out cold. I slither out of his arms and go to get a drink of water. It's light outside. I check the time and see that it's already late afternoon.
We've slept a long time, but we both must have needed it. I smile at Raiska. It seems like he needs the sleep even more than I do.
I consider staying with him, but I can't sleep anymore. I need to move around. I also feel weird sleeping in Ellie's house without even saying hello to her. I don't at all feel annoyed at her for kicking us out the first time. I'd have done the exact same thing. I put a hand on my belly. I really understand her now.
I get dressed and head out into the kitchen. Ellie and Kula are both in the kitchen. Pots and pans are everywhere, and there are all kinds of fresh and delicious smells wafting through the air.
“What’s this?” I ask.
They both stop and look up at me.
“You’re up!” Ellie says. “Congratulations.”
I smile. “I still feel like I should get a pregnancy test. The Ulkar are not exactly what I want to trust to know I’m pregnant.”
Ellie smiles. “I hear that.”
“You two don’t have to do all of this. I can just eat some synthesized stuff.”
Kula glares at me. “We have a rule in my house. Food may never be synthesized.”
He opens the oven and pulls out a freshly baked loaf of bread.
“That does smell delicious, Kula.”
“Where is my brother?” he asks. “Sleeping in?”
“I didn’t want to wake him.”
“I will wake him,” Kula says.
Kula doesn’t even take his apron off. He marches toward the guest bedroom, disappearing down the hall.
“Are you excited?” Ellie asks me, testing some sauce on her spoon.
I nod. “It’s...overwhelming.”
“I just heard that the Council is making contact with Earth. We’ll be able to go back soon. Apparently when you guys had that battle in the library, it more or less forced their hands. There were too many witnesses. Too many YouTube videos. I think they were going to do it soon anyway, but the Breeding Games accelerated the process.”
“Are you...going to go back?”
Ellie nods, but it’s a cautious nod. “I want to have my baby here. After I do, I’ll go back. For a short trip at least. I need to tell my family and friends that I’m still alive. Once everyone has seen me and the baby, and met Kula, I’ll come back here. Lakria is my home now. What will you do?”
“Umm,” I mutter, “I think Raiska likes it here.”
“Do you?”
“I do. I wouldn’t mind staying here, but would we be able to go to Earth whenever we wanted?”
“Yeah,” she says, “you would. Raiska can teleport, so it would be a very short trip. I’m pretty sure you could even keep working in the library. Work on Earth, live on Lakria.”
“That sounds insane.”
Ellie shrugs. “Isn’t this all insane?” She puts a hand on her belly. “I never thought I’d get knocked up by an alien.”
I laugh. "Alien or not, I never thought I'd intentionally have a baby with a guy that I'd only know for just a few days.
That hits me hard when I say it aloud. I really have not known Raiska for even a week. I feel like I know him so well, so deeply, and I am glad to be having his baby. If I had told myself even a few weeks ago that I was going to meet a guy and get pregnant with him within a few days, I'd probably have slapped my future self upside the head in hope of knocking some sense into her.
"It was a bit longer for me," Ellie says. "Sounds like you might have set some kind of record."
"I doubt it's a record for the Breeding Games."
I shudder every time I say or hear "The Breeding Games."
Ellie holds up a cookie. It's fresh out of the oven. She breaks it in half, and the chocolate chips are still warm and gooey. The chocolate pulls apart like a gooey string, and Ellie hands me half of the cookie. "Try it."
I take a bite. It's wonderful. It's not just a chocolate chip cookie. There's definitely chocolate in there, but there's something else too. It's some kind of spice. It tastes familiar. I think I ate this spice in one of the dishes from Kula's restaurant, but I never tasted it in something as sweet as a chocolate chip cookie.
"Wow." My mouth is still full, and the cookie is a bit too hot to eat, so I have to play a bit of hot potato with it in my mouth to stop it from burning my tongue.
"I bet you set another record in the Breeding Games," Ellie says. "You were probably the only woman to ever get willingly pregnant during the games."
I laugh. "I wasn't exactly gunning to get pregnant from the start. By the end though...yeah, I guess I was. And not just to end the games."
She takes another bite of her cookie, chews with her eyes closed and a big smile on her face, then swallows. "I'll be honest with you, Annabelle. I didn't like Raiska."
I laugh. "You think? I could tell that as clear as day. I'm not as socially stunted as Kula or Raiska. You've seriously been away from other humans too long if you think I couldn't have read that on your face, your words, your body language—"
"Okay, stop," she says. "I get it."
"It's fine, Ellie. You and Raiska had some bad blood, as did Raiska and Kula. I'm glad we're all over it now though. It feels a lot better to be close to people who you have already aired out your grievances with, you know?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, think about the annoying Uncle at Thanksgiving. You're close to him because he's family, but you only see him once or twice a year, and he always gets on your nerves—"
"For me, it's a cousin," Ellie says.
"The point being, Kula and Raiska hated each other at first. You hated Raiska too—he didn't hate you, by the way."
"He did hate Kula."
I just smile. "He did. Now that we've worked through that though, we're closer than ever. The annoying uncle or cousin was always just kind of there. Even if Kula annoys me in the future, I went through a lot with him, and that will always color our relationship. My annoying uncle or your cousin, probably you never had any significant shared experiences or ordeals with them."
"Interesting," Ellie says. "I hadn't thought of it like that."
"Like what?" Raiska asks, stumbling into the kitchen and yawning wide. He stretches his hands up into the air, then wraps an arm around me. "Feeding Little Raiska cookies?"
"Freshly made food for the baby," Kula says. "That's key! No synthesizer crap for my Little Kula either."
"Wait, wait," Ellie says. "What is this 'Little Raiska' and 'Little Kula' crap? When did I agree to name the kid that? What if it's a girl?"
"This is Aparan tradition," Kula says, putting a hand on Ellie's belly. "Regardless of gender, our child will be called Little Kula."
"This is tradition?" Raiska asks, "re
ally?"
"Of course," Kula says. He gives Raiska a look to let him know he's trying to pull one over on Ellie, but Raiska doesn't pick up on the meaning. He even winks, but that confuses Raiska even more.
"Perhaps I never learned of this," Raiska says. "I am less connected to Aparan history than you and your brothers. What is wrong with your eye, Kula?"
"We're not naming our daughter 'Little Kula,'" Ellie says flatly.
Kula starts laughing. "I tricked you, Muru."
Ellie rolls her eyes at Kula and shoves a cookie into his mouth to stop him from laughing.
"You really don't know the gender of your baby?" I ask Ellie. "You were wearing some kind of ultrasound shirt when I first met you."
"We want to be surprised," she says. "None of us know enough about medical stuff to be able to tell. I think I saw the baby's little pee-pee though."
Kula glowers. "I think it's a girl. If what Ellie saw is the penis, it's much too small. My son will not have such a small cock."
"God!" Ellie shoves Kula. "Do not call our child's pee-pee a 'cock,' you big barbarian."
"What is wrong with calling it a 'cock?'" Raiska asks me in a low voice.
I narrow my eyes at him. "Don't you do that either."
"What's wrong with it?" Kula and Raiska both ask in unison.
"It's a baby!" Annabelle says. "Babies don't have cocks. And Kula, babies aren't supposed to have big dicks. They are babies. Do you not remember what you looked like when you were younger?"
"I always remember mine being large," Kula says.
Raiska nods. "Same here."
Ellie and I groan at the same time. I start to hope that our kid is going to be a girl, because I can only handle so much stubborn cockiness at once.
Then again, what would Raiska's stubbornness look like on a teenage girl?
Now I'm starting to understand why Ellie wants to keep it a surprise. I could definitely lose sleep thinking about this.
We sit down to eat when all the food is ready. We all cheated and ate too many cookies before the rest of the meal was ready. I'm very pleasantly surprised to see Kula come to the table with what looks like a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches.
The Breeding Prize: A Scifi Alien Romance (The Breeding Games Book 2) Page 14