The skin around the scar starts turning blue. It’s a blue with a slight hint of violet more than a Cookie Monster blue, but it’s most definitely blue, as in the color no human’s skin should ever be.
The color pulses out from the scar, covering his bulging and cut abs, his muscular chest, and his breathtakingly wide shoulders. Just when I think I’ve seen enough, horns grow from his head, shimmering like holograms, but then solidifying. The scar changes too. It becomes a shimmering mess of real and impossible colors.
He looks up at me again with those green eyes, and they no longer look so out of place on him, because as far as I can tell I’m looking at an alien, or maybe a blue-skinned devil. He smiles at me.
“Do...do you have a tail?”
“Of course not,” he says.
Every neuron in my brain is telling me to run as far away from Kula as I can. But every cell in my body is telling me to trust him, and that he’s the only thing keeping me safe right now.
The battle between brain and body rages on, paralyzing me as if my feet were glued to the asphalt.
“I am what you would call an alien,” he says. “An Aparan. The things chasing you are the Ulkar. My job is to protect women from the Ulkar. I had to bring you here so no one could see what I’m about to do.”
Oh, God, what is he going to do?
But then, in the distance, I see one of the things that is chasing me for the first time. It’s grey at first, but as it moves it shimmers like a rainbow or a prism. It’s full of colors like an oil slick in a parking lot. It’s a different color every moment I see it, and sometimes it even flashes in colors that I’ve never seen before. Colors that shouldn’t exist.
It’s writhing like a worm, and as it comes closer, I see that it’s made of tentacles. Each time it moves, tentacles shift in and out of reality. Sometimes it has dozens of them, other times it only has two or three. Occasionally I can see some hint of its body, but it’s always a shape that makes no sense and hurts my brain.
“I won’t let them touch you,” Kula says.
He runs forward and reaches his hand out. An axe flashes out of nothingness and into his hand. The metal of the axe shimmers the same colors as the Ulkar, and it even changes shape in the same way they do.
He charges at the one coming for me and swings his axe. Purple blood gushes out as dozens of tentacles hit the ground and writhe. He swings again, seemingly at thin air, but more blood appears on the axe, and more tentacles and chunks of grey flesh appear on the ground.
I look behind me and see another one coming. Kula growls and runs toward it. He leaps into the air and swings his bloodied axe. Again and again, until the street is covered in purple blood.
Something wraps around my leg. It’s wet and pulsing. It slides up my calf and my thigh. I look down and see a shimmering tentacle clutching me, going up under my skirt.
Kula grabs hold of it with his bare hand and tears it from my leg. He bites the thing as he swings his axe into seemingly thin air. It comes back bloody, and the tentacle he’s biting onto writhes and squirms.
“Run!” he shouts. “Into that cabin!”
He points toward a house just up the hill.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he yells.
I obey. He’s been right about everything so far, though I’m still waiting for the moment I jolt awake in bed, covered in sweat, realizing that this is the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. Even though Kula pulled it off me, I can still feel the wetness of that tentacle on my leg. I’m shuddering and hyperventilating. I look back over my shoulder as I run, and I see Kula’s axe slicing off another set of tentacles.
I jiggle the doorknob. It’s locked, of course. I’m sobbing as I fight with the doorknob. “Please just open. Open. Let me in!”
I don’t understand how a flimsy cabin can protect me from flying tentacles that shift in and out of thin air, but being inside feels like it would be much better than being out in the open.
Kula comes up behind me and kicks the door in. He grabs my hand and pulls me inside. He slams the door behind us.
Something else is grabbing me though. I look down and see a tentacle shimmering the brightest, most vibrant color I’ve ever seen. It squeezes my breasts. The tentacles are even more wet than before.
I scream, and Kula rips the tentacles from my body and swings his axe around in a frenzy until his horns and face are covered in blood.
As terrified as I am, I feel a rush of exhilaration. This monstrous, savage man—this horned alien whose body is built like a weapon has sworn to protect me. He’s sworn to die before harm comes to me.
Kula removes a small sphere from his pants and presses something on it. It whirrs, and suddenly everything feels very still. Impossibly still and quiet.
“We’re safe. For now. The stasis bubble will hold the Ulkar at bay.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“The stasis bubble, or the Ulkar?” he asks me.
“Everything.”
“The Ulkar are multidimensional beings. You and I can never actually see what they truly look like, because we only see their three-dimensional cross sections. If you were a two-dimensional being, could you see a human? No, you could only see one sliver of it at a time. Ulkar’s bodies occupy six physical dimensions. We cannot fathom their true form.”
“So their three-dimensional cross sections are a bunch of slimy tentacles that want to rape me? How does that make any fucking sense?”
“The Ulkar are incomprehensible. The only thing that is certain is that once they choose a mate, they will not back down.”
“A...mate?”
He looks at me and nods.
“I’m their chosen mate?”
“The stasis bubble,” he says, pointing at the whirring sphere, “has suspended time and space around us. It has enough power to keep us safe for about two hours. I am happy to answer any questions you may have, but we don’t have much time.”
“What happens after the bubble runs out of power?”
“The Ulkar will try to take their mate.”
“You said you were going to protect me! Do you have a plan for doing that?”
“My axe also occupies six dimensions. As you saw, it can kill them. I will cut down every last one of them. As I promised, even if I die, I will die fighting them to protect you.”
I want to say that I can’t understand why he’s so dead-set on protecting me, but that would be a lie. I can see the way his eyes look at me. He’s trying to be as gentlemanly as a horned alien can be, but from the way those green eyes keep falling down from my face and drinking in my body, I’d say he’s most definitely not just a horned alien, but also a horny alien. The tentacle monsters may have chosen me, but it sure as hell feels like he’s chosen me too.
“How many more are out there?” I ask.
“There are dozens more, but they have a gate somewhere near here. More could come. My brothers are searching for the gate and trying to destroy it.”
“So we wait here until your brothers break the gate?”
He shakes his head. “The field has put us outside of time. Nothing is happening outside this bubble. It’s why the Ulkar are not already taking you, but it also means my brothers are making no progress on the gate.”
“So when that bubble thing’s batteries run out, the tentacle aliens are going to swarm in here and try to rape me again? And you think you can take them all out with that freaky axe?”
“I will fight to keep them off you until my dying breath.”
Every time he says stuff like that, I get this butterfly feeling in my stomach, but then I start reading between the lines.
“You keep talking a lot about dying.”
“I won’t lie to you, Ellie, my chances of success are not very high, but be rest assured I will give it everything.”
“Not very high...like 40 percent?”
His frown tells me it’s much lower odds than that.
Four
Kula
My brothers Soturi and Mieka were nowhere near finding the gate when I activated the stasis bubble. More Ulkar will pour through the gate even as I fight off the ones already in the forest. I may be able to buy Ellie another few minutes, but if Soturi and Mieka can’t find and destroy the gate before more Ulkar come through, our chances of survival are almost non-existent.
“I need a number, Kula,” she says. “I like numbers.”
I don’t want to lie to her, but I exaggerate our chances slightly. “We have a 2% chance.”
“Fuck,” she says, putting a hand over her mouth.
It feels like my heart is being torn to shreds. I swore on my life to protect her, and already I’m failing her. Logically, there is no shame in dying in battle to hundreds of Ulkar, but there is no logic when it comes to my feelings for Ellie.
I’ve already broken all of the non-interference oaths by revealing my true form to her and by holding her hand. If the council knew just how strong an effect she’d have on me, they’d never have sent us to Earth.
It took just one look at her for me to decide to give up everything for her. Knowing the Ulkar had a gate open and were watching her was intolerable. I’d rather forsake all of my oaths and die defending her than letting an Ulkar come anywhere near her sweet mouth or even sweeter…
No. I can’t think of these things. She may be mine to protect, but she’ll never be mine.
And yet, there’s one other option that has popped into my mind. A way to protect her with a 100% chance of success. The problem is, the mere thought of it is intolerable and goes against every fiber of my being. I could never do that to her.
“Two percent?” she says, sobbing. “So I’m going to get raped by tentacle monsters? I’d rather die. You have to promise to kill me if it comes to that, Kula. Kill me before they do that to me.”
My hands are shaking. I could never hurt a hair on her head. I could never draw her blood. “I can’t hurt you.”
“What are the Ulkar going to do to me?”
Even though I shouldn’t, I tell her. Lying to her feels physically painful.
“When an Ulkar spills its seed into its mate, she is brought back into the higher dimensions. It’s unknown what happens to her after this. The only certainty is that the Ulkar can reproduce, so their mate does not die. Most likely she is transformed into something else entirely.”
“Kula,” she says, “please, I’m begging you. Please think of a way to get me out of this. I know that you don’t really know me and that you don’t really owe me anything, but there has to be some option other than just trying to cut through them all with your axe and hope they don’t rape me into some other dimension.”
I grip the handle of my axe so hard with both hands that my veins bulge and my arms shake violently. I can’t stop thinking about the way to truly protect her. I want to hate myself for even thinking of the idea, but at the same time, it’s the only way to truly keep her safe.
She puts a hand on my arm, and her warmth acts as an elixir. I release all the air from my lungs and throw my head back. I look up as I exhale, and the tension melts away from my body.
“Try to relax,” she says. “Think. You must be able to think of some other way. Maybe you have more high-tech gadgets. Maybe your axe can teleport us into some dimension they can’t see us in…”
She rests her head against my arm as she begins crying again, but I pull away from her.
It feels too good. I don’t deserve her touch. Not after the horrible thought has infected my mind. I’d rather die than do that to her, but would I rather let her be taken by the Ulkar? Is it really even my decision to make?
“Kula,” she says, “I’m sorry I touched you like that. It’s just that if this horrible thing is going to happen to me, I wanted to not feel so alone in my last moments.”
“There’s a way,” I say. “A way to protect you.”
I shouldn’t have said it. It can’t be unsaid. She’s going to eventually get it out of me, and once she does, she’ll never see me the same way again. Even if she only has an hour or so left on this Earth, I’ll have to endure her hateful gaze for those last minutes of our lives together.
“What is it?” Her eyes are wide and hopeful. She’s looking at me like I’m her fucking savior, but she wouldn’t look at me like that if she knew what I’m about to say.
I look up at her with intense shame washing over me. I look down. I can’t meet her eyes. “What I would have to do...it’s unforgivable.”
“Come on,” she says. “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than getting raped into the tentacle dimension. Please, Kula, out with it.”
“You have to mate with me instead,” I say.
She bursts out laughing, tears streaming down her eyes.
“The Ulkar won’t take what’s already been claimed, Ellie. I’m just as drawn to you as they are. They are bringing such numbers after you because they are competing with me. If I claim you as my own, they will have no attraction to you. They will leave you be.”
“I should have just walked home.” Her lip trembles as she sobs. “Why the hell did I follow you?”
“If you’d have gone home, they’d have followed you inside. As soon as you were alone, they’d have had their way with you.”
She curls up on the ground, holding her knees against her chest.
“I cannot take what is not offered, Ellie. If you cannot offer yourself to me, then we can take our chances with the Ulkar.”
This ends the sneak peek. Click here to read the full story or download the audiobook.
The Breeding Prize: A Scifi Alien Romance (The Breeding Games Book 2) Page 17