The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution)

by Mike Arsuaga

  “I’m eight weeks along, not eight months,” she retorted. Suddenly, masking her scent to keep him guessing seemed unimportant. “I want you,” she hissed in his ear. Cupping his chin in both hands, she ploughed her tongue as far into his mouth as she could.

  Somehow, Ed managed to close the door and walk the awkward, top-heavy contraption their entwined bodies made to the bedroom without stumbling or knocking anything over. Since their faces were welded together, they made most of the trip by feel. Her fingers entangled in the thick, straight red mane.

  “A ponytail?” she muttered huskily when she reached the back of his head. The hair was tied off, leaving a three-inch lock curled downward, not visible when she’d seen him on the monitor.

  “Just a small one. Do you like it?” he asked, placing her on the bed.

  Tugging gently, she giggled. “Something else to pull.”

  Enjoying the soft feel of quality sheets caressing her skin, she lay back. Ed started to work the waist of the biker pants over her hips and butt. His rigid flesh bulged against the dull copper gleam of his trouser fly. Adroit, shimmying hips worked her pelvis free of the garment. A last lift of her butt, and the clingy piece slipped off. With a sideways move of her foot, she pushed it onto the floor.

  “Now your turn,” she said, burrowing fingers into the region of his pants buckle and fly. In a flash, nimble digits undid the restraints and were soon holding his erect member, maroon with arousal and hard as an oak root. A surge of anticipatory pleasure filled her womanhood.

  “You have no scent.” An expression of confusion crossed his face.

  Lifting a guileless face to him, she spoke with a tease in her tone. “That’s right. You’re going to have to figure me out on your own, like the humans.”

  The succinct arrangement of her pelvis on the white sheets summoned him boldly. The hips flared straight out, like the top edge of a small, tan, rectangular box with rounded edges. The slight parting of her legs sheltered her pubis veiled by fine brown hairs. “You make my part easy,” he said. “I don’t need scent.”

  Adjusting to an offering position invited his descent toward the juncture of her thighs and their manifold offerings of ecstasy. Just before closing the final distance, he paused to survey the expectant, bright-eyed, smiling round face, hair radiating all around, dark on the white pillow.

  “You are my love as well as my soul,” he said.

  His eyes, jade in the light, washed over her with tenderness. For whatever reason, he’d chosen her from among every other being on earth. His act of loving her made her into something different. Whether for better or worse, she would never know in advance, only that the love they shared would forever be a part of what she now was and forever would be.

  His manhood slipped into her with frictionless ease like the closing mechanisms of the bureau drawers. Reaching deep inside, he probed nuances of her dark, viscous scabbard, with slow, deliberate strokes, while she milked him with the unique musculature of her molten core. The pace of his strokes increased. Burning air exhaled from both pairs of ever more labored lungs.

  Lorna locked ankles and dug heels into the small of Ed’s perspiration-soaked back, using the leverage to adjust her pelvis for perfect entry. He reached pink folds of flesh in the fluid-soaked darkness no man had ever touched. The growing tension within her released in a series of silvery screams, along with pelvic contractions. With convulsive shudders, he responded by spilling hot seed into her wanton sheath.

  For a long time, he lay alongside. Under the weight of his stare, she filled with contentment. For both of them, the act of love not only relieved stress, but more important the uncertainty about the fate of their relationship that had haunted them for the last few weeks.

  “I dreamt about us,” she said sleepily, upon awakening. “We lived on Mars. The children were grown. We were happy.”

  The box spring groaned when Ed turned to face her. “Children? When you said we were a family, I assumed only one.”

  Throwing back the covers, she showed a flat, hard abdomen. “We have twins, a male and female. Lycan females don’t mess around with single births.”

  Before she could say more, Ed’s face erupted with happiness. “This coming from the woman who never wanted to be a mother,” he said, laughing.

  She reached up to his cheek, which glowed with a serene pink flush. “This woman has learned a lot since she said those words. The challenge is greatest because they’ll be hybrids. All we can do is raise them with love. If there’s a Bobby, we’ll make the best of it, dealing with the grief the best we can.” Slowly she traced his profile with the back of her hand.

  In a quick move, he rolled on top of her, pinning her down. “I didn’t understand how much I loved you until this moment.”

  “You’re lucky to be a spirit who finds contentment with the love that passes through his life, even if not perfect. I’m a more restless sort, unable to be satisfied with what I have, always searching for perfection. My life has been a string of brief, failed relationships. After each one ended, I felt more isolated than before. Mike came closest to the real thing. We might have made it.

  “After each, I compensated with compulsive work, which makes me not so different from you. Work had almost taken over my life. Then I met you…”

  Ed caressed a cheek of the round face below him. “I am yours for as long as you will have me.”

  The reciprocity of the love she had for this man, on many levels, hit her like a runaway freight train. Ready to call it eternal, for sure, she determined to see things through, even to a broken heart.

  Getting up from the bed, his imposing figure walked to the sink for a glass of water. The profile of his buttocks jutted out like two cast-steel hemispheres, but pink, with a spray of freckles spilling around from the small of his back to end at the hollow on each flank. His manhood hung straight down, still glistening with the liquid remnants of their lovemaking. A picture lodged in her mind of riding him, embracing the delicious shaft within the crevice between her legs, which once again ached for attention.

  When he returned, she pressed him into the bed. Flinching when his back touched the wet spot from before, he complained, “It’s cold.”

  “Don’t be a baby. You’ll soon forget about it,” she said huskily, straddling his hips. He easily supported her weight with the front of his thighs. Her quickening breath fanned his face. Arching her back, she positioned above him. “Now be a good boy, and attend to your mate’s needs.”

  Saliva-wetted fingers rubbed the velvety tips of her breasts. Reaching for his member, she drew the pulsating shaft toward the heat source in the dark apex of her thighs. When she inserted him, his eyes opened wide. Wiping a dribble of their mingled fluids from the entrance of her inner canal, she rubbed it across his chest. Retrieving the aromatic blend with a finger, he had just enough time to lick the digit clean before her hips began to rise and fall with the relentless, repetitive movement of an oil well pump’s saurian counterweight. An expression of exquisite torture grew on his face; she increased the friction by squeezing her thighs together to narrow the inside of her wet cleft.

  Lorna remembered a dream in which Cithara had experienced a similar situation with Aliff, understanding for the first time the power she held over Ed. His chest heaved with deep, rasping breaths.

  How did Cithara put it? Like holding a wolf by the ears.

  Two large hands captured her petite buttocks between them, kneading the flesh. The thrill of his manipulation rippled throughout, forcing a last orgasm that sent them careening through timeless time and spaceless space—where infinity meets nothing to become everything. Ed’s loins contracted, propelling their offering down his shaft to deposit in the temple which was the wellspring of all life. His eyes opened wide. A ragged, deep breath like a death rattle welled up from his throat. As deep within her as penetration could go, the torrid impulses of fluid erupted from him.

  “I love you,” he gasped, falling silent.

  Getting off
, she expelled his sex, which fell in a flaccid, wet, pinkish loop onto a thatch of orange hair. Noiselessly, he raised a long arm in the warm air of the room, opening a space for her to tuck underneath, against his torso. With a wide, deliberate sweep, the arm returned to envelope her. She snuggled in the warmth, like the sensation that came with the first mild sunlight of spring after a cold winter.

  And the winter had been cold.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They slept through the night, awaking in anticipation of measuring whatever time remained by marathons of unbridled lovemaking. Not that they wouldn’t do a lot more, but other equally important considerations crowded in. Lorna lay in Ed’s embrace, listening to the steady beat of his heart. She believed that until they discovered a final cure, their lives, and those of The Others were not safe. The prospect appeared promising. With one in hand, they’d have a lifetime to concentrate on perfecting their love and commitment, but until then, everything else would take a back seat.

  The next morning found Lorna on the web cam with Cynthia. The clan prepared to arrive in the afternoon. Cynthia killed time waiting for some of the others who had brought families along.

  “That’s cool,” Cynthia said, filling the screen with a white porcelain face, wide-jawed like Ed’s. “How many are in the oven?”

  “Twins,” Lorna answered. “A boy and a girl.”

  Downcast eyes, with heavy, dark-shadowed lids accented by thick, ebony eyelashes like curled wire, looked at something off screen. “The whole thing really crept up on you, huh?”

  “Yes. Except for my boobs getting larger, and the one bout of nausea after Bobby’s attack, I showed no signs.”

  “Speaking of Uncle Bobby, he was sighted somewhere out west. What’s left of the X-10 is doing everything they can to hide their new hero.”

  Lorna’s mouth curled downward into a frown. “He should be their hero. He was responsible for more deaths of our kind than the rest of them put together.”

  The toll stood at a hundred and forty worldwide.

  Cynthia sighed. Then she brightened, saying, “I made myself a promise. If we live through this, I’m going to do something useful with my life, like Mom and Grandma Cynthia did.”

  Lorna was happy the subject had changed from Bobby White. “What’ll you do?”

  “Not become a Corporation Girl, like Mom,” Cynthia answered. “Not that there’s anything wrong with what she does. I want something more exciting. Grandma’s mission work during the Basque Drought, especially what she did for the UN in the capture of Basque Separatists, is more like what I have in mind. I think I need to stop living in Mom and Gran’s shadow and start doing things on my own.”

  “That’s a pretty big thing to jump into. How will you begin?”

  “Dive in like Grandma Cynthia did. The right moves came to her naturally. I believe we’re alike in that way. If not, I can always go back to work for Uncle Ed. Now, if only they’d find a real cure for our little plague.”

  “All the touching and breathing on people seems to work. The sick ones, even Ethan’s wife, are better. There haven’t been any new cases in two days. Those who left are returning. I feel like the fountain at Lourdes.”

  “I know. The pregnant girl here says the same thing.” For a second, Cynthia’s head moved out of camera view. By way of explaining the absence, she held up an Emory board. “We’re better off than before, but we can’t spend the rest of our lives tied to pregnant females, although the males are willing to do their part to keep more of us in that condition.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lorna said. “A cure will happen. I’m sure there’s something we can turn into a vaccine. By the way, I’m moving in with Ed. My apartment’s vacant, if you or your mom wants it.”

  “Oh, how perfect for us. Leave the key with Housekeeping.”

  * * * *

  For the next week, The Others worldwide arranged into groups with close proximity to a pregnant member, and the virus abated. The breakthrough that led to the vaccine came soon after.

  They gathered in the conference room. Lorna sat to Ed’s right at the head of the large table. Doctor Kelso called the meeting. When his face, hard like worn, brittle saddle leather, filled the screen, he went right to the point. “We discovered something.”

  Ed showed Lorna a jutting, chinned profile when he faced the screen, asking, “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a hormone produced by females of your kind in pregnancy to regulate adrenaline, produced in high levels by morphing. This hormone, stuvestorol, dampens the adverse effects on the fetus from the excess amounts of the chemical.”

  Lorna sensed hope in Ed’s tone. “You’ve tested this substance?”

  “On five near death cases. Four are in remission. The fifth is stable.”

  “Can we produce enough?”

  Old Leatherface smiled, the wrinkles in his face deepening. “I can have five thousand doses ready in a week.”

  “I want to be absolutely sure this works before saying anything. We’re no longer working against a doomsday clock.”

  “A week or two should be enough, but I’m optimistic,” the scientist said.

  Lorna’s hand shot out under the table, squeezing Ed’s. Above the table, the Chairman showed nothing, but below, Shadow Ed returned her clasp with gusto.

  * * * *

  Until confirmation of a cure arrived, the local community of The Others remained barricaded at company headquarters. On the big day, Ed walked alongside Lorna down the wide hallway, under the modern art that covered the walls. “This is the answer. I just know it,” she said. “Can we at least tell the family we made a discovery?”

  “Not until we’re sure…”

  “We should tell Karla. News of a cure would mean a lot for her peace of mind.”

  None of the hybrids had contracted the disease, but the malady threatened the family the elderly hybrid loved along with the world familiar to her, and Karla was Karla.

  After considering the suggestion, the CEO said, “All the more reason to be sure. Imagine how devastated she’d be if this is a dead end. Let’s wait.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  The hallway opened into a stairwell with an overlook of the atrium and swimming pool two floors below. When the disease was in full tilt, few used the pool. Now everything had returned to normal. A crowd, mostly children and teens, did a good job of churning the clear, aquamarine-tinted water. While the youngsters filled the pool, adults laid claim to the sunning benches and cabanas lining the perimeter. You spotted the vampires by the dark glasses.

  “There’s Cynthia,” Lorna said, pointing to a figure sitting in the shadow of a blue umbrella, wearing a wide- brimmed hat. A thick coat of sunscreen covered the exposed parts of her body. “She’s a lycan,” Lorna added. “The sun shouldn’t burn her.”

  Ed laughed. “Try telling her that. She’s convinced her pale skin will cook.”

  “Who’s that?” Lorna pointed to a willowy, long-shanked blonde entering from the women’s locker room. A terrycloth robe wrapped her from shoulders to mid-calf. Sunglasses gave a touch of mystery to the narrow face.

  “It’s my dear Valeria.”

  “Oh, yeah…” Lorna felt guilty about the animosity she’d had toward Ed’s goddaughter. Fortunately, except for the slip in front of Ethan that led to clearing up the misunderstanding, she’d never voiced her suspicions out loud. Still, Lorna approached meeting Valeria for the first time, earlier in the week, with trepidation. The young hybrid’s cool gaze from oval brown eyes didn’t help. Valeria extended a narrow hand with long, tapered fingers.

  “You’re the one Poppy Ed’s so smitten by.” A super nova of a smile brightened her face, breaking the ice.

  Every feature about her except for the large, inquisitive, brown eyes appeared small in the well-articulated face. She was tall, five feet nine, with well-shaped, thin legs and comparably proportioned arms, long for her body. Her hips were so narrow, when she stood, a plumb line could drop straight
from her shoulder to pass a slight indentation at the waist and brush a hip on the way to the ground.

  Relieved by the warm greeting, Lorna introduced herself, adding. “I’ve heard so many nice things about you.”

  Lorna returned to the present. Valeria joined Cynthia under the umbrella. The young blonde, wearing her trademark chignon, leaned over to kiss Cynthia’s cheek, presenting a compact rump for inspection by the left side of the pool. Several males alerted before she sat.

  “Come on,” Ed exhorted. “Let’s join them.”

  “I don’t know,” Lorna answered. “We’re not exactly dressed.”

  “Now who’s sounding like the Chairman?”

  Lorna remembered how she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with Toby. Now they were on good terms. Valeria should be no different. “Okay,” she said, smiling up at him. “Let’s hang out with the beautiful people.”

  By the time they arrived, a crowd of males had gathered around the two women, to disperse at Ed’s approach.

  “Oh, Poppy Ed,” Valeria said in her throaty voice. “You ruin our chances with the lovely boys.”

  “That’s what the Alpha male does,” Lorna muttered.

  Ed and Valeria didn’t understand lycan humor. Cynthia simpered.

  “We don’t need them,” Cynthia said, locking her arm in Valeria’s. “We’re BFFs.”

  To the question on Ed’s face, Lorna explained, “Best Friends Forever. It’s an old expression.”

  “They’ve always been close,” Ed explained lamely.

  “I’m so pleased my Poppy Ed found another mate.” Valeria reached across the table, enclosing Lorna’s hands in hers. “For so long, he seemed serious and glum. You made him happy, the way I remembered him when I was a girl. For doing this, I’m so very grateful.”

  Lorna flushed with pleasurable embarrassment. Besides her and Ed, no one had characterized their relationship as a mating. “Thank you, Valeria. Your kind words mean a lot to me.”