Barbarian Lover

by Ruby Dixon

  It’s also oddly empty. That makes me incredibly uneasy. Where are all the aliens?

  The door at the end of the hall leads to another hall shaped like a T. I head directly across instead of forward, because I want to narrow down all possible ambushes. The last thing I want is to be close to freedom and then have it taken from me because I wasn’t careful. So I explore the other wing of the ship. I find the medical bay again, and resist the urge to use my gun like a flamethrower and burn everything to the ground.

  I also find the dead body of one of the Little Green Men sprawled on the floor. My poison’s working better than I thought. I push away the twinge of sadness I feel at killing them. They wouldn’t have thought twice about me, and they aren’t worth my pity.

  Two doors over, I find a room with four small, strange doors lined up in a row. They’re rounded, almost like bubbles in the wall, and I can’t quite figure out what they are. I push my severed hand on one of the panels next to a bubble and speak in szzt. “Computer, can you open the door to one of these? What are they?”

  “The doors in front of you are emergency deployment units.”

  “Escape pods?”

  “They are alternate methods of egress, yes. Shall I ready one for you?” The computer’s voice sounds as pleasant as the one back on the surface, despite the guttural tones of the language I’m speaking.

  I get a wild idea. “Ready all of them.” The panels light up, and then flash green. “How do I deploy them?”

  “The unit can be deployed via an interior panel. Alternately, you can deploy a panel remotely from the control panel behind you on the wall.”

  I turn to the wall and sure enough, there’s a flashing schematic of four pods. Writing flashes across the screen, indicating the various system checks.

  “What do I push to deploy?”

  The computer gives me the instructions, and I press the sequence with the guard’s dismembered hand. A door locks in front of one of the panels, and I watch as it moves backward down a tunnel, then shoots out into the air. Sunlight streams in from the place it once was, and I can see snow and the mountains far below.

  Quickly, I deploy two more of the escape pods until just one is left. Then, I grab my hand and my gun and head off to figure out how to take over the rest of the ship.

  • • •

  My badass takeover of the ship ends up not being quite so badass. When I find the bridge, all the aliens are unconscious or dead. There’s three Little Green Men sprawled on the floor and two more guards, and even though they’re the enemy, I can’t find it in myself to put my gun to their temples and kill them in cold blood. So I step around them and try to figure out how to interface with the chip I’ve so carefully smuggled on board.

  It doesn’t work, though. No matter what I do, I can’t figure out how to get the stupid chip interfaced, and no amount of questions I ask the computer itself seem to help.

  Frustrated, I slap the panels with the disembodied hand that is my key-card to accessing the ship.

  The world tilts.

  I catch myself before I can tumble to the ground and stare at the control panel, alarmed. What did I hit that made the ship move like that? Through a little experimentation, I find that one of the panels is touch sensitive, and acts a bit like a steering wheel. I tilt the ship downward, and then figure out how to make it accelerate instead of simply hang in the air.

  Then, with one last slam of the controls, I push it into gear.

  The ship groans and moves forward, and I watch as it begins to pick up speed. It doesn’t move much at first, then slowly, it begins to descend, heading on a crash course for one of the far away mountain peaks.

  That done, I get my gun and hightail it back to the last remaining pod. I slide in to the seat even as I hear the wind whistling and searing. It sounds like an airplane crashing – except I’m in the plane still. I slam the panel shut around me, hating that it feels like I’m trapped in a test tube. I push the alien’s hand on the panel. “Release! Go! Go!”

  “Where do you wish to go?” the computer asks. “Please input coordinates.”

  As if there were any question where I want to go. “Take me back to the surface.” Back to my mate and my new people.

  “Please enter in coordinates or access manual controls.”

  “Um, give me the manual controls, I guess.”

  Two joysticks spit out from the control panel, and I grab them. The moment I do, the pod detaches and slings backward in high speed, and my ears pop a bajillion times as the pod flings itself into the atmosphere, then hovers, waiting.

  I watch as the alien ship tilts even more, listing to one side as it heads for the mountain. I wince, waiting for the collision. It doesn’t seem like it’s moving that fast, but—

  BOOOOOOM.

  The mountain – and the ship – explode in a fiery inferno. I sigh heavily and a weight feels as if it’s been lifted from my shoulders. Those aliens won’t bother us again.

  Also, damn. I’m kind of a badass for taking down the bad guys. Who knew that little, shy Kira had it in her, huh?

  HARLOW

  I need two poles for a travois. Okay. I can do this. Aehako’s instructions ring through my mind, over and over. My heart races wildly in my chest as I sprint through the snow, looking for the thin pink wispy trees of this planet. Kira’s gone, and both aliens are wounded. They need my help, and I can’t let them down. My feet sink into the snow, but I trudge forward over a drift-covered hill, and when I see trees in the distance, I pick up the pace.

  I have Haeden’s knife, since he’s too wounded to use it. When I get to the first tree, I touch the bark and wince, because it feels spongy and damp despite the chill in the air. It doesn’t feel like a hard, woodsy tree at all. I have no idea if this will work, but I’ll give it a shot. Kneeling down, I begin to hack at the base of the first tree. The knife sinks in with a squishing noise, and sap squirts out onto the snow. Ugh. I wrinkle my nose and keep cutting.

  The snow crunches nearby, and I stand upright, surprised. It almost sounded like a footstep. “Hello?” I turn around and look. “Aehako?”

  No one’s there. I must be imagining things. Or maybe it’s a rabbit. Or…whatever the rabbit equivalent on this planet is. I can’t be a silly chicken and freak out at every little sound, though. I turn back to the tree and continue hacking at it.

  I hear the crunch of snow again, and a moment later, a heavy thudding. No, not quite a thudding, a…purring? What on Earth…

  Something slams into the back of my head, and I pitch forward into darkness.

  Even there, the purring follows me.

  AEHAKO

  There’s no sign of Harlow. Damn the human for abandoning us.

  I’m loading an unconscious Haeden onto a makeshift travois when a roaring sound comes from overhead. I look up and watch as the black smudge of the alien ship on the horizon approaches. My heart slams in my chest as I watch it slowly crawl across the sky. Is it leaving? Taking my Kira with it? Helpless fear burns a track through my guts.

  The oddly shaped flying ship seems to be tilting to one side, continuing its slow descent. It flies overhead and I turn, then realize it’s heading directly for the side of the nearest mountain. “No!”

  My hoarse shout echoes on the lonely, snow-covered plains. It doesn’t stop the alien ship from plunging headlong into the rocky slope, or the crash and fiery explosion afterward.

  “KIRA!” I fall to my knees in agony.

  No. My mate. My sweet, sad-eyed mate. The pain of loss is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’ve always been a lucky one, born into a large, loving family. We were spared when the khui sickness hit the caves hard many years ago. I’ve never lost someone I loved so intensely as I loved Kira.

  The thought of going on without her staggers me.

  I fall forward and press my fists to the icy snow, trying to contain my rage and grief. Haeden needs my help, even though I want nothing more than to chase down that black, smoking char of a ship
and find any traces of my sweet Kira. Was she in fear when she died? Hurt? A harsh sob breaks in my throat.

  She deserved better than this.

  Dully, I look over at Haeden’s unconscious form. It would be easy to just roll onto my back and wait for my own end to come. To give up and join my Kira in death. But Haeden is here, and he needs the healer, and for a moment I feel a wave of ugly resentment for my wounded friend, that he won’t let me join her.

  But that doesn’t mean I cannot grieve for her.

  I sit up on my haunches, ignoring the stabbing pain of my wound. I grab a fistful of snow and begin one of the mourning songs, the one for a mate. I have no ashes to pour over my horns, so I let the snow trickle down over my brow, and I give my dead mate the respect she deserves. I will have a better ceremony when Haeden is safe. I will give my horns the proper cuts, smear ash upon my brow and chant songs of our love before I can go on without her.

  If I can go on without her.

  Right now, the thought seems impossibly cruel.

  I pour another handful of snow over my brow and horns, my mourning chants growing louder. I’m so lost in my grief that I don’t hear the noise around me until a shadow passes overhead. Then, I realize there’s a thick buzzing in the air, a hum not unlike the elders’ cave.

  I wipe the snow from my eyes and watch as a pod, the same dark color as the alien ship but much, much smaller, lands delicately in the snow nearby. There’s a whoosh of air, and then a hatch opens, like an egg cracking. Something is immediately flung out into the snow, and the scent of blood and char touches my nose.

  It…looks like a severed hand. An orange, alien hand.

  Then, a small figure stumbles out of the pod and lands, face-first, into the snow. It’s a human, with pale brown hair, dirty, torn leather clothing, and the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.

  “Aehako,” Kira chokes.

  “My mate,” I growl, surging to my feet. I forget my wound. I forget the mourning rites. I forget Haeden, lying unconscious nearby. All I care about is that my Kira — my beautiful, delicate human Kira – is in front of me, alive and whole. I stagger toward her and sweep her into my arms, clutching her against me so tightly that I fear I’m going to crush her.

  I can’t let her go, though. She’s never leaving my sight again.

  “Aehako,” she sobs again, and her voice is full of laughter and joy as well as tears. Her arms around my neck are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt, and when she grabs my face and begins to press sweet kisses to my mouth, I nearly explode from joy.

  “Kira! Kira! My mate! How is this possible?” My fingers dig into her hair and before she can answer me, I claim her in a rough kiss, my tongue seeking hers. The need to brand her as mine, to take her before she can be stolen from me once more, overwhelms me. I want to devour her whole, if only so she will never be apart from me again. It takes every ounce of my strength to stop kissing her long enough for her to draw breath, and when she looks up at me with a dazed, hungry look on her face, I kiss her all over again.

  I will mate with her mouth for days on end now that she is back in my arms. There is no part of Kira that will be safe from my hungry tongue. I will worship every bit of her.

  Her breathless moans are utterly intoxicating, and I want to rip my loincloth free and thrust my throbbing cock into her welcoming cunt. I press her back into the snow, only to hear her gasp.

  “I smell blood, Aehako—“

  “It is nothing, my mate,” I tell her between fierce kisses. “Let me mate your mouth with my tongue before I mate you with my cock.”

  Her hand pounds on my shoulder, and her outraged gasp echoes in my ear a moment later. “Aehako! You’re bleeding!”

  I sigh and simply hold her close, hugging her against me as her frantic hands move over my chest. Has ever a sa-khui male been so happy? I stroke Kira’s soft hair and inhale her scent. Nothing else matters except my mate is alive.

  “You’re wounded!” Her cry of surprise screeches in my ears. “Aehako, stop! Let me look at you!”

  I cannot stop smiling, cannot stop touching her. “My wounds do not matter, Sad Eyes. Where have you been? How did you escape?”

  “Your wounds matter to me,” she fusses, and it feels good to have my mate’s small hands pulling at my clothing, determined to care for me.

  I could die happily in this moment.

  As she strips my tunic from me and binds my wound, she tells me how she escaped from the ship. Her eyes are troubled as she presses a thick piece of leather to my wound. “I killed them all, Aehako. I’m not even sorry about it. I just keep thinking of what would have happened if we went back with them. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “You protected your people, as fiercely as any chief,” I tell her, caressing her cheek. “I am proud of you.” Proud, and so utterly beside myself with joy that she is alive.

  “I keep telling myself that maybe I should have negotiated more,” she says in a soft voice, wrapping a long strip of torn clothing around my chest. “That maybe they’d have listened to reason and left us here. But I couldn’t take that chance.”

  I say nothing. It’s clear that she’s working through this on her own. All I can do is support her and love her – two easy tasks.

  “And I just thought—,” her thoughts stop and she looks around, then back at me. “Where is Harlow?”

  “Gone,” I say, unable to stop the irritation from flooding my voice. “Abandoned us and fled like a coward.”

  Kira’s brow furrows. “I didn’t think Harlow was a coward. I wonder what happened?”

  “She left to get poles for the travois, and never returned. She has ran for the hills seeking safety from your aliens. She is foolish and has caused her own death, and possibly that of Haeden.” I force myself to get up, even though I want nothing more than to remain here, seated in the snow with my mate as she fusses over me. “We must get him to the healer, and soon. I do not know if he will last another night.”

  Kira’s eyes are wide. “But Harlow—“

  “We must choose,” I say gently. “We can wait here and hope she returns, and Haeden will almost certainly die. Or we can leave her to her fate and take Haeden to be healed.” I leave the choosing to her. It is not my choice to make, because I will never be able to choose flighty, fickle Harlow over the man I have grown up with and whom I think of as a brother.

  Kira’s gaze moves to the travois, and then back to me. “Of course we can’t stay,” she says, her voice soft with sorrow. “I just thought…” she shakes her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Poor Harlow. I hope she can find her way back to the caves at some point.” She gets to her feet and then presses a hand to my bandages as I stand. “Let’s get Haeden back safely. If he dies, I’ll blame myself.”

  “Then we will not let him die,” I tell her in a firm voice.

  KIRA

  The return back to the caves is brutal. I worry about Harlow, who’s gone missing. She’s so secretive, though, I don’t know if she’s all right and just in hiding, or if something else has gone terribly wrong. Aehako is wounded, and Haeden is hovering at death’s door, so there’s no time to wait and see if she’s going to return. We load Haeden onto the travois and pull it across the crisp snow.

  For once, the weather holds on us, and the day fades into night with clear skies and not a bit of snowfall. We don’t stop even when the sun goes down. We walk through the night, endlessly trudging back to the tribal caves. Aehako’s weaker than he tries to let on; he has to pause and rest several times. I take the poles of the travois from him and drag it for a while to help out, though my strength is not even half of his. He kisses the top of my head and murmurs words of thanks at my efforts, though.

  It’s a long, miserable night. I make it by simply concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. As long as I’m with Aehako, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I wish I could hold his hand, but when he doesn’t have the travois poles, I do. So I just tuck my hands into my fur cloa
k and imagine what life is going to be like when we get back to the caves.

  Because I’m moving in with Aehako. He’s mine and I’m not waiting any longer to claim him, khui or not.

  Eventually, the sun rises. My feet feel heavy and cold as ice, but when we pause to check on Haeden, I can tell that Aehako’s worried about him. He doesn’t need to say anything; it’s obvious that Haeden might not make it back to the caves. I bind his wound tighter, take off my fur cloak and wrap it around his unconscious body, and then we continue on.

  I’m utterly numb with exhaustion when I hear a high pitched cry. It sounds a bit like a bird. I look over at Aehako, and his face lights up with joy. He cups a hand to his mouth and repeats the cry, adding a shrill yi-yi-yi at the end. “Hunters,” he tells me. “Raahosh is near. They will help us.”

  “Oh, good,” I breathe. Right now, I’d take a piggyback ride all the way home if it was offered.

  “There,” Aehako says, and points over a rise. Two fur-covered bodies are jogging toward us, one wearing snowshoes and a thick fur cloak, the other dressed in simple leathers and a loincloth. One horn twists up from his head where there should be two.

  Sure enough, it’s Raahosh and Liz.

  “Marco,” Liz calls, laughing as they approach.

  I want to laugh at her joke, but I’m too tired. I lean against Aehako’s arm as we wait for them. I could fall asleep on my feet right about now. Actually, I don’t think I’ve slept in a long time.

  “Yo, dude, you’re supposed to say ‘Polo,’” Liz says, hopping over to us before flinging her arms around me. Then, she blinks, takes one look at my pale face and the travois, and then at Aehako. “What’s wrong? What the hell happened?”

  “We were returning to the caves because we saw the alien ship,” Raahosh says in a grim voice.

  “Yeah, but it left again, so I thought everything was cool,” Liz says.