Radiant

by Naomi Lucas

  “Unless you’re dumb and your species can’t grip language.” She laughed and squatted in front of him. Her dark eyes shadowed within the silhouette of the rising sun.

  “I—” he coughed out the translated word, “understand.” It was all jarring but the less he fought it, the easier it became.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “What have you done to me?” He didn’t like how sour his mouth was or the pain streaking straight to his head from his shoulder. “What have you done?”

  “Shot you in the shoulder. Knocked you out soon after. Then I dragged you back to the ship and damn fucking god, it was hard... Might’ve kicked you a few times in frustration. After that I got some... help... tying you up. Once that was done, I sourced out Brailen’s translator, and daaamn was digging through his brain gruesome, cleaned that shit up as best I could and stuck it in you. Well,” she waved her rod at him, all of him, “then waited for you to wake up. That’s if, if you would.”

  Galan squinted his eyes against the headache breaking open his skull. “You stuck what in me?”

  “A not-so-tiny microchip that attaches to your ear canal and brain tissue right here.” She pressed the tender spot on his head and he groaned. “That little piece allows you to speak my language so I wouldn’t go pulling it out if I were you,” she said as he tried to rub his shoulder into the spot. “Understanding is a privilege and right now, human-alien-moth whatever-the-fuck-you-are, you’re the only alien who understands me at this moment. That makes you important, cause, well, you see, when there’s one bug, there’s another. And when there are two bugs, you might be in for an infestation and I don’t like infestations. You get me?”

  He didn’t. Not quite. But he got the gist. Galan nodded.

  “Good.” She rose and looked about her with a sigh before facing him. “Sorry about shooting you.”

  He narrowed his eyes in response.

  “Brailen’s had his prick in me a few times now but damn was I getting sick of it, ya know? So thank you for that as well. And,” she showed him her rod, “thank you for this! I haven’t had one of these bad boys in over four years. Came in handy when I got you back to the ship—er—ship parts.”

  Words and pairings for those words flew through his head as she spoke. Between listening to the female, trying to understand her, and having to deal with the translations behind his eyes, he was falling from the sky. One word kept coming back to him. One he didn’t understand but wanted to.

  “Infestation?”

  A thickly shadowed smile appeared across her darkened features. “What about it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She could lie to me... but that was a chance he had to take.

  “It means when there’s a lot of something, like,” she looked around and shook her head, “like those screeching monsters in the forest. An infestation is when there are so many of them in one place, they overwhelm that place. It usually takes a fair amount of effort to... get rid of that infestation. Are you part of an infestation, moth?”

  Galan studied the wiry female as she shifted from foot to foot, the stench of blood and body odor came off of her in waves. “And if I am?” he shot back.

  Her eyes briefly widened before the shadows fell back into place. “Then you and I have a problem.”

  “Let’s say I’m not,” he coughed out, his voice gruff. “Would you let me go?”

  “No.”

  “And if I am?”

  “I’d come to an agreement with you for safety.”

  He laughed, oddly charmed. “If the roles were reversed? Would you help me out?”

  “Only if I could gain something from it, from you.”

  “Hmm...”

  “Hmmm indeed. So what’ll it be, Mothman? Are me and my fellow lackeys in danger from you or could we work something out?”

  The morning light speared directly at them through the canopies of the trees. His headache vanished when one delectable bolt washed him in gold.

  He had cause to harm these valos but the longer he stayed in their presence and the more he was able to interpret their electric language, he began to have doubts. Doubts that valos, even within their many races, may not be alone in the world. Nothing around him was familiar.

  “I won’t harm you,” he hissed out, shifting against the stiff bonds that contained him.

  The female released a long, stale puff of air. “Great. So what happened to the crew that went foraging two nights back?”

  Crew? Team. Group. Party. He and his brothers comprised a crew.

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

  “You don’t do you?” The rod was raised to point at his arm below his shoulder wound. “You sure about that?”

  He eyed the weapon with frustration, scissoring his feathers to cut his bonds, but they were stronger than mere rope and he still didn’t have enough light to power him.

  “Yes. I saw your temple first. The smell, its smell drew me. And the girl...”

  She pressed her rod into his arm and dug it in. He waited for a burst of pain but none came. “What temple? And what girl? We’re missing more than one.”

  Galan bared his teeth, hating the patience he didn’t have. “This temple. Your Creator’s house. It smells like rot,” he spat, muscles bulging, feathers hardening. “The scent carried to my city and I followed it here to find your people, and you off in the woods being punished. Let me go.”

  “I don’t think so, Mothman.”

  “I’m not a Mothman.” An image of a fuzzy, shivering creature came to mind. One that was clearly of her world and not his. “I’m a valos.”

  The female snickered but it came out with fear. She’s afraid. She should be.

  “Will others like you smell us? And what did the girl look like?”

  He flexed his fingers behind his back, ignoring the pain that sliced up his arm. “If they notice it.”

  She pressed the rod harder against him. “That doesn’t help.”

  “Then do something about it!”

  The female shot to her feet and he finally caught her features as the light bled across her contours. They were small, dirty, strained, and immensely tired like the raven-haired girl’s, but not alluring. Galan almost felt bad for her again. Almost. The pain in his shoulder was warning enough. His feathers made headway.

  “You look nothing like her...”

  She turned back to him. “The girl you saw? She have curly hair and freckles or a plain-jane brown?”

  “Black,” he said. “Black and long. And eyes that... held shadows within them. Pale skin.”

  His ears filled with shrill laughter, long and self-deprecating, mixed with glee and disbelief. Galan knew that laughter well. Lusheenn laughed like that. Even Sundamar laughed like that on the rare occasion.

  “Psycho bitch! You saw psycho bitch? Of course she’d live, she’s so fucking good at staying under the radar, even the damned guards...” the female trailed off.

  Psycho. Crazy. Insane. Unstable. An unstable mind. Galan repeated the words in his head, unsure how he felt about their translation. He asked, “What’s a bitch?”

  That same horrible, odd laughter filled his ears. He gritted his teeth, deciding any like for this girl was quickly fading. When she caught her breath, heaving into herself, she faced him and snickered. “A female dog. Yahiro. One and the same.”

  Dog. Canine. Domestic four-legged animal. Animal. His feathers snapped one of the bands. He should’ve never left her trail. Somehow he knew that the female was insulting his female but at least he learned one thing: her name. Yahiro. It was unlike any he had ever heard before.

  “Is she safe? Is she here?” he asked, hopeful. He hadn’t seen her from up in the tree but maybe she had been away or inside the ship temple? Although, judging from the rising sun, he hadn’t been out for longer than a full evening and night. She could’ve returned to this very spot. But that meant...

  Quist would be here as well. And his brother was not in his h
ead. They weren’t here. Yahiro wasn’t here.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me everything about you and your kind. If you have ships, electricity, fuck, even soap. Do that, and I’ll get Yahiro for you.”

  His lip twitched but he nodded regardless of the lie. “Fine. But I have one question first.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Earth. The sky. How many of you are there?”

  He ignored her and looked up at the purple and grey sky; the few short minutes each day where the night and the day blended together, and the strange colors those unisons made. What he didn’t see was more of this female’s kind, this Earth place that she mentioned.

  Terra. Planet. World. Gaia. Earth. Sonhadra. His eyes trailed from the colors above and back down to his world. What he saw were trees, moss, the faded outlines of the two moons off in the distance, and the terrain he had grown to know.

  A sinking feeling boiled in the pit of his stomach and he looked at his captor in all her unusual orange garb, and the things she held in her hands; the others hanging off her hips. He smelled the constructed foreign smells that she emitted and listened to the unusual words that made his head feel light.

  We’re not alone. It shook him to the core. He felt more at that moment then he had when his life came back to him.

  “Well?” she prompted. He clenched his hands.

  “It won’t be easy for you here.” He leveled at her, finally understanding the situation, and doing his best to keep his nerve. His eyes calmly went back to the rod she held. She pressed it back into him. This time right into the apex of pain under his bandage.

  “If it’s not easy for me, it sure as hell won’t be easy for you!” She laughed again, humorless, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t think aliens could be so much fun. But,” she pressed closer to him, suddenly serious, “nothing about this is fun or easy. What do you say, valos? Can we strike a deal?” Her weapon clicked.

  Another thick cord fell away. He talked over the sound it made. “That time has passed.”

  “What do you mean? I’m the one with all the cards.”

  The sun streamed through the space and the rest of the bands fell. “And I’m the one that’s free.”

  Galan sliced through everything in his path, breaking free and apprehending the girl. Numerous shots were fired out but this time he was ready for them. Even when they embedded themselves into his skin.

  Gun. Firearm. Weapon. Machine. He was amongst machines.

  SUNDAMAR

  His eyes fell on the female before they found Quist.

  So much smaller than I thought. She had features that were more delicate than any valos he had ever come across and hair so black, so long, that it fell like his, loose across her shoulders and down her back. His heart raced like never before. He wanted to twine their hair together and caress the clash of colors it would make.

  Sundamar took an involuntary step forward, wanting to be nearer to the girl, needing to be closer to her. Even from his position a dozen yards away, he could smell her exquisite scent, so different and more erotic than anything he had smelled before. Every fiber of his body stiffened and went on alert as a horrible, crushing desire to possess her in any and every way that he could overcame him.

  A soft snore escaped her lips and he zeroed in.

  Such soft lips, so feminine, so unlike Lusheenn. They pouted wet and red even in sleep, pliant and well used. His gaze caught Quist’s possessive one and noticed his brother’s whip sliding between them like a golden snake slithering through the brush.

  The determined rage he had felt before came back. Sundamar would fight his brother for the female coiled in his arms. His painfully erect member demanded it.

  “I’m the king,” he leveled at Quist, making his younger brother’s eyes narrow further. Sundamar was the strongest but even he couldn’t brandish his sword before his brother strangled him in the whip.

  “Of what?”

  The taunt did little to hurt him.

  “You,” he said and nodded his head at the female. “Her.”

  “I swore an oath to her, Sundamar. She’s mine.”

  “You swore an oath to me as well and to destroy Lusheenn, I thought those mattered too.”

  “I’ll never leave her side,” Quist hissed in response. “She’s delicate and new and has no way of protecting herself.”

  Sundamar stepped closer despite the deadly aura Quist was giving off and inspected the female closely. She looked exactly as she had in his vision, pale and distraught, except this time, she looked relaxed, safe. He desperately wanted to pull her into his own arms and keep her that way himself but he also didn’t want to wake her.

  “She trusts you,” he murmured. His brother nodded. “She’ll learn to trust me too. We’ll protect her together.”

  “And Galan?” Quist relaxed his whip and spread his wings so Sundamar could move within their circle. Sundamar, at that moment, didn’t even mind that he didn’t have his own; he was happy enough that Quist had them to shield her away from the dangers of Sonhadra.

  “Galan too. We both saw her a full sun cycle ago, through your eyes. She made our members swell with seed and made us both find release after these many quiet eons.” He reached out to take a cluster of her hair and once again craved to see it amongst his golden own; whether it was weaved together or spread out on his bedding, he wanted them to mix. Sundamar spread out the strands he held over his palm and brought his cheek down to nuzzle it. He huffed softly and moaned with pleasure. Exquisite. “Where did you find such a treasure? She’s not a valos of Light. Lusheenn would never create a female... a body that was so unlike his own. Is she perhaps from the shadows?”

  Sundamar hoped she wasn’t but would keep her all the same.

  “I found her miles from here, on the outskirts of the swamps, injured. I was tracking our Creator when he miraculously returned and brought me to my knees, but my senses didn’t lead me to him, they led me to her... and this.” He untucked a thin strand of rope from her chest, hidden behind her arms and Quist’s bicep, and pulled forth the source of light that had illuminated them in the dark.

  Sundamar released the female’s hair and trailed his finger over the heartstone, shocked that he was touching it, that it even existed.

  The Creator’s power flowed through him, igniting every nerve in his body until his eyes glowed with copper fire, strengthening his form. He had never felt more powerful. He tore his eyes away from the stone with a grunt and sat back, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “Lusheenn.” It was the only word he could utter.

  “I felt it too.” Quist’s tone was harsh with hatred. So unlike his own feelings toward their Creator. “I still feel him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” his brother gritted out, drawing the female further into his arms. “But he’s here in Yahiro and that damned stone. I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck and his power in the pit of my stomach. She’s all I found when I followed his presence.”

  “Is she?”

  “No. Yahiro is clean, the stone is not.”

  Sundamar unstrapped his sword and placed it on the ground by his side. It shifted slightly in the grass but pointed away from them, away from Yahiro and Quist and off into the distance. He shared a look with his brother but neither one of them made a move to get up. A pondering silence fell between them in the darkness. It had been a long time since he last saw Quist and although he never missed his third—he never felt anything at all—it was nice to be back within the shell of Quist’s wings.

  His gaze fell on him and the female and he knew he could never take her away from him. The possession in which Quist held her was argument enough. His queen would have three kings to obey. His throbbing member didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Her name is Yahiro?” he asked, at last, turning briefly toward the horizon to wait out the rising sun.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a strange name. Do you
know what race she is?”

  Quist shook his head, the long locks of straight hair slipped like silk over his shoulders. “No. She says she is human. I’ve never heard of them and in all my travels I haven’t seen a valos that looks like her. She says she fell from the sky.”

  “Then she lies,” Sundamar gritted out, spearing the innocent sleep-ridden face with a glance.

  “She didn’t speak our language. Sonhadra taught her over the course of our first night.”

  Quist’s words brought him back to attention. He didn’t like that Quist had a first night with her, one in which he wasn’t privy. “That’s not possible.”

  Quist laughed softly. “Oh. It is. I watched her learn our words... It was strange. No valos was ever born without language and even after she spoke my words, the way she said them was quick. Harsh. But not ugly. The way her mouth shaped them was intriguing. Too much so. I wanted to breathe in her breaths.”

  Sundamar liked none of it. The implications that she was so new, so barely of his world, that her Creator never finished forming her broke him. He gazed down at the sleeping, unusual female, his arms straining to take her from Quist and possess her as he had.

  It fired a new anger through him. The need to protect her quickly became his main focus, even to the point of hiding her behind gilded diamond walls in the center of the City of Noon wouldn’t be enough.

  What kind of Creator would throw such a creation away? What kind of divinity does that? I’ll find out. I’ll find him. I’ll join Quist in his search. Sundamar barely stopped himself before making oaths he wasn’t sure he could keep.

  “Maybe she’s a miscreation.”

  Quist ran his fingers along her orange arm. “I don’t think so. I thought, possibly, she was at first but she knows too much to be so... yet so little as well. She mentioned that there are others.”

  “Others?” He wondered if they all looked like the slight creature before him. If they did, he was doomed.

  “Yes. They fell with her from the sky. I haven’t seen any though.”

  Sundamar’s heart raced. “We’ll find them.” Before the other valos do. He didn’t say it aloud.