Radiant

by Naomi Lucas

  I could always find my way back to the Concord. But that thought depressed her. Choosing captivity was not in her nature, not after she knew what true captivity felt like.

  She wasn’t a saint. That ship had sailed years ago. William had broken her, piece by piece, until she became an entirely different being. Until she bowed down to the devil in reverence and found enjoyment in doing so. She didn’t care about the others, the corrupt doctors, the pervish guards, the brutality of those who lived on the Concord. She cared a little bit for the girls who had suffered beside her, but she didn’t know them, she knew nothing except the fact that they did something that landed them in the highest security prison in the history of mankind.

  Even if Charlie and Preta were innocent, I’ll never know now. Liars were bred, not born. Her parents hadn’t begotten a liar, at least they tried not to.

  She would stay with Quist. But even as the thought swelled in her mind, she realized how easy it was to choose an alien and leave behind her own race.

  “I don’t want to die,” she admitted after Quist began walking, his hand still forcing her to face him. “I want to live.”

  “You no longer had that choice.” He glanced away, breaking the beguilement he had on her. She sucked in an easier breath, knowing she had come to a decision. One she wasn’t happy about, but one that would increase her odds of survival.

  “What upon Sonhadra do you need for nourishment?” he asked, turning back toward her.

  Her stomach caved at the thought of food. She couldn’t remember her last nutrient bar. “Fruit, vegetables, meat. If you kill a creature and can make a fire, I can cook the... meat.”

  He made a face but sat her down gently next to a crystal brook. “I have no control over fire. The blazings have dominion over it, gifted to them by their Creator, sister to Lusheenn.” Quist stepped into the water with a flinch, his loose pants swaying and swirling to the flowing water. He crouched down, soaking himself, and slowly lowered her torn foot into the water.

  It didn’t feel like the swamp water from the night before; it felt like bliss, and she leaned forward to watch him handle her. The dirt and blood fell away from her wounds, lost to the stream while probing fingers cleaned them. There was no pain, only numbness, and she wondered if she had an infection.

  “Lusheenn isn’t sovereign?” she asked.

  “Only to the light.”

  Yahiro brushed her fingers through her tangled hair while Quist slipped off her remaining shoe and lowered her other foot into the water. She knew she was going to take advantage of it soon and bathe, whether or not he kept her in his sight.

  “Like a god of light?”

  “God?”

  “Errm, deity? No? Muse?” She tried to find the right word to translate to him. “Divinity?”

  “Divine, yes. Lusheenn is divine. My eldest brother is made in his image.”

  “I don’t understand? Made?” she tasted the word, not liking it. “Like out of clay from the Earth, like Zeus and his bronze humans?”

  “I don’t know this Zeus, but yes, like clay but with sunlight, he formed us whole. He said he made us out of loneliness but I never believed him.”

  This was getting weird. “He made you. Then you didn’t believe him? Doesn’t that go against... his ability?”

  “I told you he left us to die!”

  She flinched as he shot up, releasing her feet. Quist stepped out of the water and stormed back and forth. She had upset him.

  “Why?” she couldn’t help but ask despite his sudden anger.

  “I don’t know!” he roared, his wings thrusting out and crackling. The clouds thickened overhead, allowing only scattered sun rays to shine behind him. “He left,” Quist spat. “Without a word and vanished like the sun does at dusk! He gave us his loneliness and subjected us to bear its burden until his power fades from our veins and we return to the abyss from whence we came. Only cruelty would do that. And I have vowed to hunt him down and destroy him.”

  Yahiro threaded her fingers in her lap and forced herself to ignore the growing pain of hunger and lightheadedness. “That’s why you want to kill him?”

  “Yes!”

  “A god?”

  He shook his head. The band at his nape fell to the ground. His hair spilled over his shoulders and caressed his skin. Yahiro pressed her fists into her belly and tried to stop the knot of arousal that formed. The knot only tightened as his wet pants plastered to his legs and groin, leaving little to the imagination. Her eyes dropped to his apex, trying to see what she had felt but he was no longer erect.

  “God. No, one of the Creators. I won’t stop until either I or he is dead. I want to feel his pulse melt like wax under my fingertips until he feels what he had excreted so long ago from his ass. What I am now!”

  She lifted her feet out of the water and tucked them beneath her legs. “Do you know why he left?”

  Quist caught a fallen feather in his hand and crumpled it. “No.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t by choice then?”

  “Human. Whoever made you did poorly in giving you Sonhadra’s history. The Creators did nothing that wasn’t by choice, and Lusheenn, beloved of the sun, was never told no. His men never uttered the word in his presence, knowing what it would cost them.”

  “You spoke his name last night when you found me? Why? I thought you were going to kill me so I ran, but the tone of your voice was raw.” She continued to rub the ache in her belly. “I’m not even from Sonhadra,” she added, wanting to remind him again.

  He stopped and looked at her sharply, his eyes roving over her huddled form, smoldering yet questioning. He plucked a feather that still floated in the air and stalked toward her until he kneeled at her side. “Last night, the dead inside me returned to life, and I was pulled to you. You held that stone, our fabled heart, one that Lusheenn often goaded us with but never showed us. I felt it and him again. When I came upon you in the dark,” he bit out the last word, “all I saw was my vengeance coming to completion. If you are on Sonhadra, you are from Sonhadra, human Yahiro. We’ll find who made you and get the answers.”

  She shook her head, but Quist ignored her as he retook her aching foot and placed his feather over the wound like a bandage, plastering it with water. She immediately felt better, however, the knot of arousal now had a fish hook through it and pulled. Each tug begged her to open her legs to touch herself... and touch him.

  “What stopped you from killing me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Yahiro deadpanned.

  “You weren’t him.”

  “No... I’m not a man or a god.”

  “Divinity,” he amended, saying it in her language, but it came out coarse. “You had my heart.”

  “It’s gone now...” she whispered, uncertain. “I couldn’t find it. It’s gone.”

  “I still feel it.” Quist reached forward and pushed back a lock of her hair, freeing her face for his perusal. The simmering emotion within his gaze was too much. Too much and too fast. She tried to see herself in the glassiness of his eyes but couldn’t, and didn’t know if she reflected the emotion. The ropes of her knot pulled. “We’ll see it again. But first, you need nourishment.” His hand left her and she missed it.

  Yahiro watched as the alien looked around them as if the food she needed would magically appear. She followed his gaze, disheartened not because a cheeseburger didn’t sprout from the ground, but because he’d only protected her because of the stone.

  He stormed around the glen, tugging and pulling any and all berries, roots, and flowers into a pile under his arm. A damning thought presented itself: there are other humans. They could be nearby. They could’ve also found stones that called to him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that but quipped up, “I’m not the only one.”

  Quist dumped his gatherings by her side and she moved to pick through them although keeping her eye on the alien.

  “You weren’t created alone?”

  “Ehh. We weren’t created.
We fell. And no, I didn’t come here alone.” She eyed a purple globule that looked rotten but smelled sweet, deciding whether or not to risk more stomach pains. “Before you found me, I was with the others but we were scattered, chased down by these monsters that screamed—”

  “Ak’rena?”

  “Sure. We got split up but there are others. Men and women, some old, some not, that survived. We fell together.”

  “From what?” The curiosity was back.

  Yahiro looked up at the sky, seeing only clouds but pointed up anyway. “The sky.”

  “Hmm.” He sounded like he didn’t believe her. She grumbled inwardly and out, the strange fruit poised at her lips when she turned back to the flowing water and saw something akin to a fish. Yes! Food. Any longer without it and she’d be a zombie, one that would look at Quist and his honed, tight skin in an entirely different fashion. She didn’t want to find out what alien angel flesh tasted like.

  “Quist! Can you capture that, that... swimming creature and give it to me?” She pointed at the silver streak before looking around for two sticks she could begin a fire with.

  “A phena? Why? They’re unable to live outside the wet.”

  “I know. I know,” she mumbled, dragging her exhausted body across the moss, gathering supplies. She once made a fire during one of her drug-induced states; if she hadn’t, the gremlins would come out of the shadows and eat her. She still had burn scars where she had gotten to close to it.

  “What will you do with it?” he asked, and she heard him step into the water. She found two choice sticks, one with a divot, and using the random foraging he brought her, began to rub the wood together. Her fingers shook but she could already smell the cooked fillet. It’s either that or gnawing on Quist’s neck... or something else. She squeezed her thighs together, refusing to look at the alien splashing around in the water behind her.

  “Eat it.”

  A spark came forth and she almost squealed with laughter. A phena fell on the ground beside her, flapping chaotically on the moss. She reached for her switchblade but her hands closed over nothing. Her lips quirked, wondering how she was going to sacrifice the creature for food.

  When she turned her attention to Quist, he stared, eyes wide in wonder at the small fire simmering at her side. His mouth parted.

  “Quist?”

  He dropped to his knees in the dirt and the excess water shook off him, hitting her face.

  “How’d you do that?” he asked in wonder.

  Her stomach grumbled. “I rubbed the sticks together...”

  “And it created the blaze?”

  “Is that so strange? Did you never discover fire? Cause, like, humans discovered it an eternity ago. Do you know what a wheel is?”

  “I know what it is. Are you a blazing valos, Yahiro?”

  She sighed, annoyed. “I’m a human. I said this several times. I came from the sky.” She pointed her finger back up.

  Her vision grew hazy as she returned her attention to the suffocating phena-fish. She saw food but she felt a barrier erect itself between her and what she needed. Her energy waned rapidly and it took more willpower than she thought she had left to ask Quist for a blade.

  When he handed her another feather, she didn’t ask, only took hold of it carefully and positioned its threads against the creature’s neck. With barely a thrust, its head came clear off. Yahiro, with shaking limbs and a one-track mind, gutted and skinned the beast before spitting it over the weak fire. After washing her hands, she lay down on her side to wait.

  The alien continued to watch the phena cook. She wondered if her customs disgusted him when a hand with long, strong fingers threaded through her hair. She found comfort in the petting.

  Her hand was too heavy to lift before long, and hunger clawed at her belly.

  “What do you need?” he asked softly, bending over her suddenly, his voice hoarse against her ear. Shivers struck down her limp body. Even starvation hadn’t ebbed her arousal.

  “You,” she murmured sleepily. “Food. You.”

  “You have me.”

  Her eyes closed and she gave in.

  When she next opened them, the sky was completely overcast and the pings of raindrops filled her ears. Giant wings covered her from the rain and Quist held the semi-cooked fillet to her mouth.

  She took it in her hands and ate like nobody was watching. Especially the alien who saved her life. When the meat was gone, she slurped on the bones, never having tasted something so delicious. That was until her stomach decided to fight her and punched her in the gut. A wave of nausea knocked her back on the ground and she curled into herself.

  “Tell me what you need, human. I promised you your life!” Quist cursed somewhere behind her and she moaned in answer, refusing to let her body win.

  “Just... a stomach ache,” she gasped as another wave clutched her by the throat demanding release. Yahiro refused to let the food go to waste.

  “Why does it ache? I see no flesh wounds.” She felt his fingers on her foot, checking her feathered bandage.

  She laughed softly. “Eating too fast made it hurt. I don’t remember the last time I ate meat.” Already the cramps were subsiding.

  “Does this always happen when you do?”

  “No. Thank god.”

  “Hmm.”

  She sat up slowly, feeling twice her age, her stomach bloated but no longer clawing at her. She looked at her alien. His hair fell like silken snakes over his broad shoulders. She wanted to touch it but held back. Yahiro had to remind herself she knew very little about his culture.

  “How do you eat?” she asked, diverting her thoughts.

  “Not like you, human. We absorb. Our sustenance comes from the light of the sun.” He eyed her. “It’s less messy.”

  “Hah. What about when there’s no sunlight like right now? And at night? Do you just go hungry? Do you feel pain too?”

  Quist absently twirled one of his lip piercings. “We go without but will indulge in second-light from fire if the need comes upon us. The darkness saps our energy, the shadows slime our skin, but pain? No. I haven’t felt pain since I was born... until you.”

  Yahiro looked away and watched the phena swim in circles under the water. She was envious. Pain was part of her daily life, so much so that she could tolerate high levels of it without much effort. Though she knew the difference between real pain and that of a gashed foot.

  When her... family didn’t come to her trial to support her after she had escaped, that was pain. The day her body crawled out of the drug den had been painful, knowing her life would never be the same and that every lurch forward would never get her farther away. That nightmare had slithered up onto her back and bowed her down. It whispered horrible mantras into her ear and when she looked over her shoulder at it, it grinned down at her with sharp, syringe teeth.

  She could never stop herself from looking back, having become addicted to it in a self-harming sort of way. A stomach ache, tired muscles, and a swollen foot were nothing compared to what lurked behind her.

  “I don’t like the dark either.”

  “Are you sure you’re not of Lusheenn?” He smirked down at her, teasing. She smiled back.

  “No, I promise. I’m not. I can even prove it.”

  The coy twitch of his lips deepened, and her eyes fixated on his lips. Quist looks almost human. Almost. Too dangerously beautiful though. He looked like a cosplay angel who led a lurid cult where each member had to alter their appearance with liquid gold, copper, and bronze until every inch of skin was branded by it. His features were too symmetrical, too perfect to be human, and she suspected that his piercings weren't piercings at all. There were rows over his face, star-points and barbells through his nipples, and now that it was day and he was no longer distorted by night, she saw a row of dots that started on each side of his neck and followed the outline of his body down to the armbraces, coming out on the other side to end at the tips of his middle fingers.

  “How?” he asked.


  The question startled her back to the present but his eyes were pursuing her body as she had his. Yahiro shivered, wondering what he thought of her. Dirty most likely. Dirty and gruesomely orange.

  “The crash site will have the proof and the wreckage will have objects from my world intact. Technology not of this world, and even some charged electronics...” Yahiro had come to the conclusion Quist’s world held no modern day appliances. “Guns,” she said grimly. “And the men who caged me.”

  “So your Creator’s temple?” he asked, leaning back. She huddled closer to stay within the shelter of his wings.

  “Sure.”

  “Good. We’ll find this place and make your Creator finish their job.”

  “Job?”

  “To teach and train you in the ways of Sonhadra.”

  Yahiro rubbed her eyes and didn’t stop Quist when he pulled her into the shelter of his arms. His cock swelled and hardened beneath her. She leaned her head against his bare chest, letting the moment happen, too tired to stop it.

  I don’t think I want to go back. I don’t want him to know how messed up I really am.

  She liked the idea of a clean slate.

  Chapter Six

  SUNDAMAR

  His boots crushed the ground, leaving angry footprints behind him. He wasn’t a quiet valos, not by a long shot; those who were powerful didn’t need to hide. Their strength did the work, allowing them to rule over others, and have all their demands met. It was all his and had been since the day he opened his eyes. Sundamar was given dominance before he even knew his name, and he hated it.

  A valos could be born with it but that wasn’t true power: true power had to be earned. He had earned nothing, which was why he was a shadowed dirt leader.

  A twig snapped under his heel, making him bite down on his teeth so hard that his jaw locked. Another snap, another crunch, another thump, each new sound ticked away at him, reminding him that no matter what he did, he would never fly.

  Sundamar barreled through the forest, sending the wild beasts fleeing with his loud approach. Even the ak'rena, the four-legged screechers that infested and feasted on anything in their path, gave him wide berth. It was unfortunate because he itched to draw his sword and send limbs flying. Another part of him wished to pierce something as well...