by Lula Monk
Thinking of the Earth woman’s fragile vessel, Ignis turned on his heel and returned to walk to the cleansing chamber.
“Yeah, well you stink anyway!” she shouted, her voice thick with too many emotions for Ignis to register. But he knew she was crying, and that was enough to add shame to the great wealth of emotions he too was feeling.
Tears, Ignis thought angrily as he slammed the door to the cleansing chamber.
He turned the combustible fuel to full-force and let his flames loose, growling and roaring as they burned around him.
Chapter 9
Clea
She sat on the floor trembling, watching the small metal cubicle the alien had stomped into begin to glow dark blue and then white. Sweat bloomed across her upper lip. The temperature in the room was definitely hotter by several degrees. Hell, she would bet by ten degrees, easy.
Her fingers were tracing the outline of her lip. She shuddered and lowered her hand. She had not enjoyed that kiss. Not at all.
But she knew she was lying to herself.
Well, enjoyed it or not, it won’t be happening again.
But that was also a lie, and she knew it.
Afterall, her sole purpose in life now – as Ignis and Samantha seemed to think, at least – was to breed. To have Ignis’s little half-Ardan baby. To help Samantha in her revolution.
Clea rose from the floor and wondered over to the one of the two chairs sitting by a low table. She sniffed, her nose wrinkling at the gasoline smell clinging to her sleeping clothes. Could she even call them that anymore? They were kind of her every-day, all-the-time clothes, now.
She longed for a bath. For the chance to be clean.
Once more, she eyed the strange cubicle Ignis had stormed into, secluding himself and shutting her out. Perhaps that was the shower? He had been naked when he answered the door, after all. Maybe the Ceph guard had brought her back in the middle of the alien’s shower, and that was why he was such a raging dick.
But not likely.
Something else was bothering the flame-clad alien, something dark and painful. Part of Clea wanted to know what thoughts plagued him, but the larger part of her really didn’t give a shit.
Her muscles felt coiled and knotted, the stress and the lack of genuine physical activity weighing on her body and soul. Sure, she’d just walked five miles chained to the red-eyed pregnant woman, but that wasn’t real exertion. She longed to run, or climb something, or fight.
Especially fight.
The metal cubicle on the other side of the room returned to its normal color, the temperature in the room cooling as quickly as the metal. A moment later, Ignis stepped out. The smell of gasoline pierced Clea’s nose again.
“Well that answers that,” she mumbled from behind the hand cupped protectively over her nose and mouth. The smell was permeating the room, crowding into her brain and giving her a raging headache.
“What?”
Clea lowered her hand. “I said ‘that answers that question.’”
Ignis gave her an irritated, confused look as he wrapped a towel around his waist.
Thank God.
“What was the question?”
“I was curious about whether that cubicle was meant to serve as a shower, but judging on the rank smell coming off you, I’m going to hazard a guess that that is a no.”
Ignis lifted his arm to his nose, taking in a long, deep whiff. “Smells clean to me.”
Clea gagged. “You must be broken, man. You smell disgusting.”
Thin flames bloomed from the creature’s navel, creeping up his torso in sensual, flicking tendrils.
Whoa.
She averted her gaze. “I was only curious because I wanted to take a shower.”
“Water?” Ignis asked indignantly.
Clea whirled back around, her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, water. Ever heard of it? You could use a nice dunking in water right about now.” She’d been trying to breathe through her mouth, but the smell in the room had a taste to it as well, and the fumes were coating her throat and making her feel heady. “Can we open a window or something?”
Ignis barked out a laugh, though there was no mirth in it. “No windows in space, love. And I’ll be damned if I open the portal and give you a chance to run.”
Clea flared her nostrils, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. As the still-heavy smell of gasoline assaulted her nose, she regretted the choice.
“Look, does that metal box thing produce water or not? I’d really appreciate the chance to get clean.”
Ignis shrugged. Then, seeing the discontented look on Clea’s face, he sighed and marched to the other side of the room, lifting a bundle of papers from the floor. When he was standing before Clea again, he locked his eyes on hers and tossed the papers onto the table.
“Feel free to look in there. Maybe there is a manual that will help.”
Clea looked at the stack of papers three inches thick. Her irritation grew. “You don’t know how to turn on the fucking shower? Really?”
Ignis shrugged, dropping the towel. The thick fabric fell to the floor, revealing his well-sculpted buttocks. The alien was ripped, even his backside. “Don’t have much need for water, as you can imagine.”
“Because you hate being clean, right?”
“Ha ha,” he said, faking a laugh. “No, because water is like poison to my species. Didn’t we just go over this?”
“We did,” said Clea, “but I just assumed you were fucking with me.”
“Nope.”
“Hmm.” Clea lifted the stack of paper from the table and began thumbing through it. After a moment, she set the papers back down and looked at Ignis, her gaze hard. “So, you really don’t understand why your avoidance to water is a detriment to this whole mating business?”
Ignis bent over to pull his breeches up. Clea glanced between his legs and quickly looked away.
“No. Can’t think of any reason at all.”
Clea fanned the papers wide on the table, a diagram of the human female reproductive system glaring back at her, the ink dark and thick on the page. She lifted he sheet with two fingers, somehow finding such a thing in a place like this dirty and menacing.
Rotating the paper, she held the diagram up to Ignis, tapping at the words written across the bottom.
“See this?” she said, tapping the words again. “There’s your problem.”
Ignis skimmed the words as he shrugged into his thick leather coat. He frowned. “I don’t see a problem.”
Clea scoffed, turning the page back around so she could read from it. “Human females are aroused before intercours–”
“Yeah, one should hope so,” said Ignis, his tone the perfect marriage of bored and sarcastic.
“A fact,” Clea said loudly and with emphasis, continuing reading from the transcription at the bottom of the page, “that is evident by the presence of natural lubricant, namely moisture.”
Ignis had been sitting in the chair opposite her across the table, lacing his boots. At hearing the last words, he darted upright.
“Your body produces water,” he said, his eyes wide. “For mating?”
Clea tried not to look at him like he was a dumbass. Even though it was very, very evident that he was. “Of course we do. Friction would make the whole thing unbearable otherwise.”
Ignis glowered at her. “We Ardans enjoy the friction.”
“Well, we Earth females most definitely do not.”
Ignis furrowed his brows, as if contemplating her words. Finally, he said, “Well, you do not have to enjoy the act of mating, I suppose.”
Clea squirmed in her seat, trying desperately to hem in her rage. Obviously, she didn’t want to fuck this fire alien warrior. She’d made that quite clear. But at least he could give her the dignity of pretending to care whether or not she enjoyed it. “Anyone every told you that you’re an asshole?”
He looked hurt for a moment, as if her words had been weapons and she’d stricken him wi
th them. But he recovered quickly.
“One person, once. But that was long ago.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to tell you more frequently. It’s obvious you need someone to.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
Clea scoffed. “Well, I’d rather not get dry fucked by an egotistical alien prick. Guess we don’t all get what we want, do we, asshole?”
Ignis leapt from his chair, closing the space between them in less than the span of a heartbeat. He leaned down low, his nose pressing against Clea’s. Thick flames darted from under the collar of his coat, running through his hair like thick spikes of flame.
When he spoke, his voice was tight – constrained – as though he were barely able to contain his rage. “Do. Not. Test. Me.”
Clea quaked.
“Fine,” she managed to stammer out.
With that, Ignis stomped to the door, slapping his palm to the wall to open the portal. When he was gone, the portal sealed behind him, Clea gathered her wits and fortified her resolve.
She would not let that fiery son of a bitch mess with her. Not mentally, and damn sure not physically.
Fuck him.
She shivered knowing that ‘fucking him’ was definitely on the itinerary for some point in the very near future. The Quadra had given her fertility hormone injections while she was passed out, a fact Ignis was soon to recall, most likely. Clea needed to prepare herself for the moment when the Ardan would demand that she mate.
With a sigh, she grabbed the papers from the table and rifled through them until she finally found a diagram labeled ‘hydro chamber.’ She chuckled to herself, knowing the given name of the device must piss Ignis off.
She went to the metal cubicle and surveyed the many, many knobs. Cross-referencing what she saw before her with the diagram, she tested a knob and was pleased when piping-hot water flowed out onto her open palm. She quickly stripped down, discarding her clothes on the floor. Hopefully a shower would help ease her muscles and her aching mind.
Chapter 10
Ignis
The urge to fight sat thick and heavy in his belly, churning his guts with a need as desperate and as intense as the need to fuck after hours of battle. His muscles twitched under his flesh, rapidly contracting and releasing, quivering with the rage the Earth woman had brought upon him.
He stormed down the corridor, unsure of his intended destination.
Lies.
He had no intended destination. The only imperative thing was movement.
The dark woman’s words played over and over in his mind.
Guess we don’t all get what we want, do we, asshole?
The words wounded him once more, but not for the reason the Earth woman probably thought.
No, the words cut through his heart like a blade, leaving the organ shredded and raw, for they had been identical to Gylenda’s dying words. The dark details of that day sprung up from where he’d kept them buried in his memory, crystal clear and sharp as though he were living that moment anew.
On the war scorched battlefields of Incenda, all those annum ago, Ignis had cried out in rage as Gylenda’s great war ax sliced through the chest of Cyndar, the bastard prince of the Smolds. As ruler of Incenda, Ignis had thought it his proper place to have delivered the killing blow to the bastard heir of the Smold throne. But his war-hungry and eager wife had taken that kill for herself.
Gylenda had grinned at him, ripping her ax free from the lava lord’s chest, Cyndar’s molten fluid dripping from the sharp blade.
“He was my kill,” Ignis had screamed again, glaring down at the love of his life, his heart’s flame.
His soulmate.
Gylenda had walked towards him, reaching up a forearm to wipe the sweat from her brow, her azure flames flaring out behind her like great wings. She’d been preening, her white teeth flashing in the crimson glow that shrouded the battlefield, reveling in the kill she’d just stolen from her mate.
Perhaps if his consort had been less cocky, less willing to show off her skill by slinging her bright flames wide…
Maybe if he had accepted her kill with a victory shout instead of cries of rage, she wouldn’t have felt the need to gloat.
And if she hadn’t been gloating, her flames flaring brightly and filling his field of vision, he might have seen the bastard prince rise to his knees, spear in hand.
But he hadn’t.
“Guess we don’t all get what we want, do we, asshole?” Gylenda had asked, propping her ax across her shoulders, her hands clasping it at head and hilt.
She leaned forward, intent on kissing Ignis, expecting her mate to congratulate her on her death blow.
But he’d been so filled with rage, the betrayal of her stealing what was rightfully his so fresh and hot on his tongue. Searing his throat like bile.
Like lava.
Gylenda had tilted towards him, her lips puckered expectantly, her dark blue flames filling her eye sockets and shining up at Ignis.
Like a fool, he’d turned his face from her.
When the blood burst forth from her body and splattered across Ignis’s face, he’d thought for a moment that acid rain had begun to fall over the war-torn mountains.
Cyndar’s triumphant scream drug Ignis’s eyes back to Gylenda’s face, just in time to see the flames in her eyes flicker then falter.
He caught her as she fell, her double-headed ax falling to the ground and disappearing in a cloud of smoke. That was the moment he knew, though her flames still burned dimly in his arms, that the warrior he’d claimed as his own was gone. Ardans’ weapons are tied to their souls, and when Gylenda’s faithful ax extinguished, he knew his wife was not long for this world.
There were no thoughtful last words from her lips, no final testaments of love and longing for Ignis.
She was just gone.
And it was as though his life from that moment on was patterned after Gylenda’s final words.
Guess we don’t all get what we want, do we, asshole?
Ignis fled blindly through the core of the Hub, bumping and jostling into whomever had the audacity to be in his path. His spine burned, his flames demanding to be released. He needed to rage. He needed to fight.
He needed to mourn.
In the endless passing of time since Gylenda’s flames had burned their last, Ignis had been primarily consumed with one goal: revenge.
With his flames barely hemmed in and the desire for retribution hot in his heart, Ignis looked up.
It was as if the universe stopped existing for one bright, shining moment. For there, across the great sea of creatures both gross and sinister who bustled about the core of the Hub, stood a being whom Ignis had longed to see since his comrades had pulled him from the battlefield and away from the reach of Ignis’s broadsword.
Cyndar.
In one fluid movement, Ignis shrugged off his leather coat – the last gift Gylenda had ever given him – the feel of the worn leather sliding over down his arms reminding him of the way his woman’s hands had once done the same. Sorrow flooded his soul, piercing his mind and washing over his heart like an acid bath. Adding combustible fuel to the fire of his rage.
“Baca!” He shouted, his commander’s voice traveling over the wide and vast expanse of the core of the Hub.
Ever so slowly, Cyndar turned, the human form he’d cast his lava into barely able to maintain the façade. The left side of his face smirked, the pale flesh smeared with a boy’s beard, full and lush and well-groomed. But the right side of his face sizzled and smoldered, the flesh blackened and blistering.
Ignis grinned, his lips curling into a feral smile. This was going to be easy.
And then the insolent bastard had the gall to wave. To fucking wave.
Ignis stretched his arm wide, smoke swirling out of his palm. His broadsword took shape in the air over his hand, hovering and consolidating into its physical form.
When it was solid, it landed neatly into Ignis’s expectant palm.
Cyn
dar was flanked on either side by two large Smolds, neither of which had even tried to cast their forms into that resembling a human. The stood sentinel to the bastard prince, great hunks of partially solidified molten rock, haphazardly shaped by nature into the form of warriors, with two legs and two arms and a head. But there, the similarities between Cyndar and the aliens at his side stopped.
The three of them walked across the core, the creatures around them dispersing like air. Like smoke.
Like Gylenda’s ashes.
Ignis roared, charging ahead. Fuck the heir and his pathetic retinue. He would have his vengeance, and he would have it now.
The metal beneath his feet began to vibrate, the space station booming with a loud and all-consuming noise. Creatures everywhere began to panic, a thousand screams escaping from innumerable mouths, each uplifted in terror.
All save that of Ignis, Cyndar, and the bodyguards who flanked the Smold prince.
Great metal gates fell over the sector entryways, trapping them all in the core. Ignis groaned, a pleasing sound that rumbled in his chest. It wasn’t the sound of despair. It was the sound of longing. Or arousal.
It was the sound of a man who knew he would soon experience release, one way or another.
He was close now, so tantalizingly close. His powerful, muscular legs carried him forward, and his arms raised high in the air, his broadsword glinting and flashing in the lights mounted high overhead.
Cyndar smirked, continuing his slow progression toward Ignis.
Ignis took another step, wishing his soul’s weapon had been a spear like Cyndar’s instead of a broadsword. Then he could have taken the cocky bastard down from this distance.
He summoned all his rage and sorrow and madness, plunging on.
The gap was closing. He counted the reducing distance with each inhalation of his breath.
Ten…
Nine…
Eight…
Ignis reared back, both hands gripping the sword’s handle.
Seven…
Six…
Cyndar stopped walking, his hands flashing out to cease his bodyguards’ progress as well.