‘Walk.’
I turned around. Red ice stretched for miles.
Is it safe? I wondered.
‘Go,’ he said.
Hearing the stirrings of menace in his tone, I jerked my feet into motion. The leather wraps on my feet crunched over a layer of snow.
I snuck looks to either side of me and my stride widened.
Other women inched across the glacier.
Was Cristina out there somewhere?
Wind pushed from behind me sending my hair forward in a cascade that obscured my view. I tucked wads of it behind my ears while thinking I should have braided it. I shuffled forward with reluctance in each step. My eyes scanned the horizon looking for…
I didn’t know what for.
The further I walked, the deeper my unease.
Gusts of wind swirled across my skin then flooded towards the mountains.
Wild animals would smell me coming.
My stride stuttered.
I began to feel an awful lot like a lamb trotting towards the abattoir of its slaughter.
‘I am a wolf,’ I said aloud to make it true.
The gales of wind died often enough I could hear my panting breath as I trudged along. I grew warmer at my core from the effort it took to travel though such rough terrain. Designed to keep my skin from frostbite, my improvised clothes were cumbersome, and the cold air meeting my hot skin left a film of clammy sweat all over me.
The Horde could travel between galaxies.
Couldn’t they figure out lightweight cold-weather wear?
At least my body felt lighter than usual. It took less effort to lift my legs than it had on Earth. Vøtkyr had reduced gravity. That would give me a physical edge. Right? Heavier gravity built denser muscle fibres. Enough of an edge against my captor?
The musculature of the Azteka was formidable.
Having seen their strength, it disturbed me how strong being born on Earth would have made them.
I glanced behind at the First. His form grew smaller until I just distinguished his silhouette against the technicolour blur of the backdrop.
‘Asshole,’ I hissed, knowing he couldn’t hear.
A fair amount of time passed. He remained in place, tracking my movements, waiting for an unknown signal or marker. I chafed my hands in their wrist warmers and did heel to bum kicks to shake off the worst of my stiffness.
Where was the Testing he’d described on the ship?
Is this it?
There were dangers all around. I could fall through a patch of ice. Run off and get lost, succumbing to exposure. My body would not withstand the harsh landscape or its climate, not without help.
I supposed by walking until he said stop, it proved he had mastered me. Showed he could control me.
That he’d “claimed” me.
Maybe he would track me down as a show of hunting prowess? Imagining how that ended for me, I shivered. I doubted a pat on the shoulder would be his reward.
A female was the prize.
A breeder.
He’s going to fuck me.
I needed to be prepared for when it happened.
It behoved me to take the advice I’d given Cristina; let it happen and ensure my survival, no matter how much it stuck in my craw. Better that than becoming a victim.
A whoop echoed down the mountain. It skipped across the tundra. My leg skidded as I jarred to a stop.
The wind died, and the atmosphere turned electric.
10
Indira
The line of women that ranged either side of me stopped. They looked for advice a long time in coming.
We were as clueless as each other.
I eyed the distance between me and my closest fellow human. It would be a jog to reach her. Another handful of minutes for us to reach the next if we were to band together as a group.
There was safety in numbers, but large groups also made for an easy target.
Again came the strange animal call. Its laughing cadence sent chills across my scalp and lifted the hairs on the nape of my neck.
Spinning so fast it made me dizzy, I tried to pin down the noise. ‘Screw this.’ My muscles tensed, readying to launch me into a sprint.
The First’s instructions forced their way past my growing panic. It will not run. It will do nothing but walk. He’d taken the time to impress I do nothing but walk.
My body relaxed in increments. This was it. Unseen beasts would harangue me until I freaked out enough to act irrational. All I had to do was walk as commanded, proving my kidnapper could control me despite my primal fears.
Tossing my head to flick my hair back, I lifted my chin.
Whatever.
Let him play his twisted mind games. I wanted the farcical tradition over.
I wanted out of the cold.
Unclenching my fists, I waited for my legs to straighten from their bend. I forced myself to walk. I checked on the other women, and they waddled on, although with more caution than before. I was the point of the spear, forging into the unknown. Nothing but an alien’s word to keep me safe.
‘Keep going, Indie.’ I talked to myself to keep my spirits up. ‘Noises can’t hurt you.’ The eerie whoops and squeals grew louder and more frequent.
A startled yelp made me freeze. The woman on my left had fallen. She started to rise, then stopped, peering between her legs. She said something.
I strained to hear.
‘It’s moving… under….’
It took me a moment to decipher the faint shout.
Something is beneath us.
My gaze dropped to search under my feet.
The woman straightened from her arms and legs akimbo crouch. The jerkiness of the movement spiked my pulse.
She wouldn’t.
Don’t run, I mouthed.
She broke into a flailing run. ‘Help. Oh, God, please.’
A shadow glided under the rime. Its shape grew defined as it rose from the depths.
Sucking in a breath bigger than my lungs could take, I opened my mouth to scream a command for her to run faster.
Shattering like glass, the ice beneath her split.
A monster exploded from the crack and landed on her back. It took her down like a lioness takes down a gazelle on the savannah. Red erupted from her throat as a talon slit it from ear to ear. Her head flopped, limbs twitching before she ceased to move. It had happened fast. Seconds. The thing atop her loosed a croaky howl then dismembered her with slashes of its flippers.
Its bulbous body wriggled as blubber shifted under its frantic movements. Mucus slicking its shell glistened and reminded me of pupated larvae. A coiled tongue lapped steaming organ meat from the torn cavity beneath it. Its slurps and gulps were audible across the shrinking distance.
My jaw wrenched open to scream. I slapped a hand over it, choking on my tongue as a moan whistled past my fingers.
Blood soaked the ice in a splatter gore. The hot stink of it rolled towards me. Rusted metal, rotten egg and brackish water stirred from the bottom of a swamp.
Foamy spit slicked my tongue until I swallowed, keeping my hand pressed to my mouth as my tears turned to icy flakes. I wanted to run. My skin crawled and itched with the need for it. Instinct told me scurrying movement would incite its bloodlust and set it on the hunt once again.
Next time for me.
The woman whose guts were being pulled out through her spine would be me.
Triumphant yowls came from all around.
Hysteria overtook the women up and down the line, but I could not afford to draw the thing’s attention. Heart slamming against my ribcage, I looked behind me, towards the woman to my right.
Hunched under the weight of her fear, she walked, without screaming or running.
The woman beyond her was a smear on the landscape.
That one ran.
A voice inside howled for me to throw myself on the ground and curl into a ball. Another urged me to flee until I found a hole deep enough to hide. A saner
voice ordered me to do nothing but walk.
Keeping my eyes fixed ahead, I put one foot afore the other. After a minute, I found myself in a shuffling jog.
‘Shit.’ I slowed into a stiff-legged stride.
Goosebumps rippled across my face when something’s attention snapped to me.
A spill of ink, a dark void appeared below my feet.
I sobbed. ‘No.’
The ground shuddered and heaved as the ice splintered.
Snapping, crackling sounds battered my eardrums, sharp, and concussive.
I staggered past the spiderweb of cracks.
Unwilling to have a monster kill me from behind, I spun.
My eyes were white and rolling, lips pulled back in a rictus of fear-fuelled-fury.
My world shrank to a yawning maw ringed with glistening spikes. The creature slithered to a stop in front of me, stinking. I gagged. My nostrils burned, plugged with the acidic stench billowing from its sucking throat. Ropey saliva oozed from its jowls and spread towards my boots.
It lifted a serrated flipper to slice me in half.
This can’t be how I die.
I cringed away even as I squealed defiance and swung for it with a balled fist.
Heat rushed past me, shunting me aside. There was a meaty pop and a wet suction my brain refused to process.
Ichor sprayed my face.
Hot metal flooded my mouth as a stray drop bathed my tongue in foulness.
Doubling over, my stomach kicked, back bucking as my insides did their best to become my outsides. Vomit bubbled into the back of my throat, but I belly breathed past it.
My watering eyes opened.
The First crouched before me, hooked blade in hand.
The creature’s severed head rocked at his feet. Its swollen body slid to the ice with a dull thump. Blood streaked with green clots gushed from the ragged opening at its neck.
The First straightened, head tipping back to the darkening sky. ‘This warrior passes the Testing.’ He flicked the blade towards me. Black droplets scattered. ‘His line will endure in this humble chalice of Creation.’
‘Are you fucking nuts?’
My heartbeat was an orchestra of clanging cymbals and thunderous drums.
Freezing air fled my lungs in startled pants. I clutched at my chest, blinking to clear the darkness creeping from my peripheral vision. ‘I feel faint.’
‘Though it interrupts my communion with God, it has done well. It did as I told it.’ His attention lowered from the sky. His alien eyes narrowed, but somehow, I swore it meant he smiled. ‘It obeyed its master and see how it survived.’
I struggled to focus past my horror. ‘A woman was torn in half.’ I looked around. I then wished I hadn’t. ‘Did you see what those things did? I’m going to die!’ I was screaming. ‘We’re all going to die!’
‘Vibrations attract the beastfish.’ He was calm. ‘Walking does not stir them. Jarring movement sends tremors through the water and acts as a beacon. The blood of this one will keep the others at bay.’
‘Fish?’ My voice ripped through the higher octaves. ‘Those were not fish. Those were some kind of carnivorous dinosaur. Prehistoric. Jurassic. You had me wandering around out here like I was like prey. You sadistic psychopath!’
He stiffened. ‘Kneel.’
‘No.’ I was in his space. Jittery. ‘What the hell you were thinking? You sent me out here on my own without so much as a toothpick to defend myself.’
He bellowed. ‘Kneel,’ and it echoed off the distant mountain.
My hindbrain quailed and my knees hit the ice, a surge of fury making my cheeks hot. My back molars ground together, frustration and humiliation battling my sense of self preservation.
Exhaling hard through his nose, the First adjusted his grip on the gore-smeared knife.
He unbound the hidden tie of his breechclout.
It fluttered to the ground.
My eyes locked onto the thickening flesh between his thighs. A dark-veined cock protruded from an orifice.
Flushed purple and slick, it pointed towards me. Ridges ran down its length, connected by thin membranes, and it bulged at the base as if something throbbed in there. His dick was so erect, the swollen hook tipping it angled towards his trunk, leaking whitish fluid.
‘Take off its clothes.’
In panicked jerks, mute, I shook my head.
The First took a step.
I scuttled back, kicking at his ankle.
A hard yank sent pain shooting across my scalp when he grabbed my hair to hold me steady. I whimpered. He eased his grip, making a noise of irritation. ‘Stop moving.’
The flat of the blade swiped across my forehead and across both cheeks.
I stilled as the sharp edge slid past my eyes.
The blood was sticky, holding heat despite the cold.
The knife swooped between my cleavage. It sliced through the furs protecting my breasts. He smeared the animal blood across my twitching skin.
A swooping pattern looped around my bellybutton, spiked symbols pointing at my womb.
Anointing me.
Do something right now.
I shuddered and scrabbled to find a hold on his hard body to shove him away. He tossed the blade aside and lowered into a crouch behind me.
I fought harder. ‘Don’t.’
Where was my eloquence? Where were the words?
I knew what came next.
This time, it wouldn’t be his fingers inside me.
Do something.
Rough hands pushed aside the rest of my clothes, leaving my bare ass naked. The chilled air was a slap that stole my voice. I scrambled forwards on all fours but an iron grip clamped onto my nape as a hand delved between my legs.
Tingling heat exploded across my groin.
My arms lost rigidity.
All my toes curled.
My legs shook from the void at my middle.
Panting, fighting for control, he manipulated my body into a haze of gut-cramping need. My head flopped to the side. The other woman who survived the beastfish was on her hands and knees. Her forehead pressed to the ground as a Horde warrior pumped over her. I could make out the twisted expression of pleasure on her face as she reared back into every thrust.
She rose, threw her head back and cried out. The alien grinding into her palmed her breast and licked her throat.
This isn’t happening.
Tears welled and poured from my eyes. Instead of terror or disgust, I felt an overwhelming need and want.
The First’s inner thighs slid over my outer ones. They held me pinned. Fluids from my heightened arousal slid down my thighs. My exposed pussy clenched greedily at nothing.
I tried to dredge up anything but anticipation.
‘Please,’ I mumbled.
Ashamed, I didn’t know what I begged for.
A timely rescue?
To get fucked within an inch of my life.
His hips tucked against my ass. The head of his sex missed its mark to slip through my nether lips and bump against my pubis. I mewled and writhed, reaching back to grab him closer, then shrieked and slapped him away.
A stroke of blistering heat registered against the line of my neck. I gasped. He drove inside me. The force of penetration knocked the breath from my lungs and shoved me forward. His body was rigid against my back. I tried to think beyond the hardness spitting me open, but every sense was inundated. Pressure behind my eyes and panting in my ears. My nose sucked up air, citrusy and spiced, and my mouth watered, the aftertaste sweet. The crippling ache eased long enough to return with a vengeance. I arched, swivelled my hips. He planted a hand in the middle of my back, then fucked into me in brutal strokes that rolled my eyes into the back of my skull.
Grunts and clicking snarls split the air above my head.
There were no caresses, no soft touches. There was no consideration of me beyond keeping me still. Keeping my hips high enough so he could hammer deeper with single-minded purpose. He thrust
while I rode the edge of teeth-rattling release, held taut in the fiery grip of agony.
It wasn’t consensual, and it wasn’t right. It was the best thing I’d ever felt in my life.
I was helpless, out of control. Nothing stopped him from taking. Nothing stopped each cell in my body shrieking for more. I stopped fighting. Let go until a grey void rose within me. His flanks thudded against mine. He sent jolts down my spine and roughened my knees.
Trapped, fire rolled through my body, and my arms folded. I stared blindly over the bloody ice as the knot in my core bloomed from a spark into a roaring inferno.
The First lifted off my back. He never stopped the steady pound of his hips against my ass. He gripped my cheeks, spread his knees, and then surged deeper.
The flared head of his cock thudded against the hottest, wettest place inside me.
My spine snapped straight as an orgasm slapped up from my cunt and exploded behind my eyes. I came with a cry wrenched from my gut. He came in silence, the thick gush enough to spill from where we joined, flooding the air with sex.
He groaned, grew harder.
Thrust faster.
The loud slaps of his groin against my sweaty skin brought me hurtling back in time to feel him swell. His proportions stretched me enough to sting. I choked. The pain helped. Another climax rolled over me, and I gasped and flailed at the ice as it dragged me under.
He dug that bit deeper inside me to come again, harder and longer with a snarl that seized his entire body.
The First draped himself over me and breathed.
Harsh gusts of air thundered in my ear. His heartbeat drummed between my shoulders and minute shudders rippled down his abdomen.
My mind was blank, then all I could think was he’s everywhere. He nosed the back of my neck, his dry heat scorching along my back and ass, and his cum dripped from where I still ached. His heavy cock lay slack and moist against my thigh, and his long legs tangled with my shorter ones.
A wave of self loathing had me shaking. I bucked. He grunted and rolled to the side, taking me with him.
I was rigid, brittle, as if moving would shatter me.
I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.
Around us was silence.
We were the last pair to complete the Testing.
Bhyr: Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 3) Page 9