by Ines Johnson
No. The best thing would be for them to stay away. To let Chen go so they could save themselves. Chen's hearts felt heavy that his brother would receive this same message a second time in his life, but it had to be done.
Chen sent the message along the bond. His inner voice was weak, but he knew the message got through. Knew it for certain when he heard the vehement reply of both his brother and his mate.
For a moment, their outrage and refusal made Chen’s hearts swell. He yearned to be with them both. To hold Shanti to him, to let her know she was not alone. To place his hand at his brother's back, to let him know he had support.
Chen couldn't shake the image. It was his hearts' desire. Was he wrong to give up so quickly? To not put up a fight for the ones he loved? His death would cause them both great pain, and though he knew they were strong enough to persevere, it pained him that he would be without them.
Chen straightened his spine to sit up. Ngai and Manu had left long moments ago and not returned. Chen reached out and sensed a great deal of agitation. Just then, the ship twisted and turned in the Heaven's abyss. Chen felt the unmistakable sound of sonar coming towards them and then the ship shook as a blast impacted them.
Chen's mind was rattled along with his body. Could that be his brother come to rescue him? But no, the Mothership had no weapons. She was a vessel of peace.
Cold dread went down Chen's spine as he realized where the blast came from. There was sonar power on this cold, Grey ship where he was being held captive. That could only mean that another Grey Reticulean ship gave chase.
As the metal ship maneuvered, Chen was thrown into the side of the metal room he'd been put in. His body twisted awkwardly as the shackles held onto his wrists. The metal smashed into his shoulder, sending sharp pain down his arm. As the ship sped through the Heavens, Chen imagined he heard screams.
Was that his Shanti? Did she sense his pain? Chen centered his mind. The last thing he wanted was to cause her any more pain.
After long moments, all was silent. Deathly silent. Chen opened his eyes. Before him stood Ngai. Ngai looked battle weary and in pain. When he came near, Chen felt minuscule movement beneath his robes. The hungry plant yearned for the marred Eloh. Chen tuned into the plant. Through its awareness he sensed the toxins within Ngai.
"Are we captured?" Chen asked.
"No, the grey ones did not capture us. Manu blasted them out of the sky. They are all dead. But more will come. They are a family. They will seek revenge. That is how they take care of one another."
"We are a family too, Ngai. We take care of one another through healing. Come home."
Ngai laughed. He looked down at his hands. Then he looked back up at Chen. His eyes were empty pools of mist.
Ngai held his hands out to Chen. "Every thing I touch dies." He looked back at his hands as though they didn't belong to him. "That is not right, is it? That is not how I am meant to be?"
"No," said Chen. "You are Eloh. You are Yin. You are a protector.”
Ngai shook his head. "Can you not see it?" He raised his eyes to Chen. The orbs were no longer empty; they were full of an aching darkness. "Can you not see the blood?"
Chen shook his head. "I see remorse. That is the first step towards redemption."
"I do not want redemption. I want death." Ngai came to Chen's shackled wrists. He unlocked the lock and pulled the metal free of Chen's flesh.
The skin from his wrists tore. Chen cried out at the pain of his release.
Ngai pulled a dagger from his robes. He turned the blade towards his own gut and handed Chen the blunt end.
Chen recoiled.
"If you take my life,” Ngai said, “you could return to the Mothership, to your family."
"I will not take your life. I want to save it."
Ngai shoved the dagger into Chen's hands. He would not let go until Chen grasped it.
"You will change your mind when you see what we have done." Ngai walked out of the room.
Chen’s fingers shook with the dagger in his hand. He was a being of peace. He'd never harmed a living creature in his entire life.
He thought of the scorpion that'd poisoned Shanti. It had acted in self-defense. He thought of the Draconians who severed his parents. He knew not why the reptilians had come after his people? For sport? To turn the Eloheem into weapons?
Chen had planned to take his own life in sacrifice, but he would never kill another. That's what he told himself as he placed the dagger inside his robes and followed Ngai out.
They went down the hall. Chen heard sobs and wails. They were feminine. His hearts kicked into his gut. It hadn't been his imagination. Ngai had Shanti. She was here. She was in pain. Chen reached out passed the metal doors, but he couldn't feel her within.
Ngai reached out to unlock the door.
Chen reached into his robes for the dagger.
When the door opened, the sight was not what Chen expected. It was sickening just the same.
"I thought that if I replaced the link with a new mate then I would be free. But I was wrong."
Strapped down on examination tables were three human females.
Chen couldn't take his eyes off the small female who clearly was a child. She had her dark hair styled in tiny knots about the crown of her head. She could have been an Eloh youngling. The sight of her strapped to an examination table turned Chen's stomach. The knife trembled in his hand, slipping from his grasp.
"Will you take my life now Chen-Na?"
Chapter Twenty-Five
"No no no no! Chen!"
The agony in Shanti's voice chilled Hsing's blood. He pulled her to him and buried her face in his chest so that she would not have to look at the sight any more. Before them was a debris field of metal. It was a Grey ship, blown apart by sonar blast.
"No, he's not gone," Shanti sobbed.
With the ship’s innards floating around in the abyss of the Heavens there was no way that any life on board had survived. When their marred brethren severed Hsing’s parents he'd felt an emptiness open and threaten to swallow him whole. He didn't feel that now. He felt numb.
Part of him wanted to shove Shanti away, fearful of what his first action as a marred Eloh would do to her. But another part of him, a louder part, clutched her to him, unwilling to ever let her go.
"Hsing-I?"
Hsing turned his head at the sound of Pakua's voice.
"This ship could have only been destroyed by another of its kind. The Grey ship that destroyed this one can not be far. We are still in danger. We have to get out of here now."
Pakua was right. Hsing had a responsibility to his people. He'd kept them safe this far. He'd first have to get them to safety, and then he would have to turn over leadership to prepare for his demise. Pakua was the best candidate. Although Eloheem tribes were communal, there had to be one voice, one mind that spoke above others. It was the way of things.
"Hsing." Shanti tugged at his attention.
Hsing looked down into her lovely face. He ran his fingertips over her eyelids, felt her breath on his palm. He'd just lost his brother and now he had to give her up too. Giving her up would surely be the thing that broke him.
"He's not gone," she insisted.
Hsing wanted to tell her all would be well, to use comforting words with her as Chen would do. But it was not in his nature. He only knew how to speak whole truths. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out.
"There is something else out there." Pakua peered out of the bay window. "It is another Grey ship."
Hsing released Shanti and dashed over to the command. "They have to have seen us. We cannot outrun them."
"Hsing."
Hsing turned at Shanti's raised voice.
"Chen is on that ship," she said. "Can't you feel him?"
Hsing turned back to the second ship. It sat still in the Heavens, not advancing nor retreating. A very un-Grey-like position.
The ship was dark, as though powered down. From this distance, H
sing could just make out scratches and dings on the ship. The damage looked as though it had been from small debris.
Like discarded satellites.
Which meant that his brother, and the Marred Ones were on this other ship and the debris field was a different Grey ship.
Hsing reached out.
And there he was; Chen. He felt his brother. Alive.
They were close enough to communicate, but Chen didn't answer Hsing's psychic hail. Along their connection, Hsing felt pain, despair, and shame. And then Chen shut him down.
"Pakua, take the command. I will board the ship."
"I'm coming with you." Shanti made to follow him.
Hsing put a hand out to stop her. Before he could, she stopped him.
"Did we not just have a whole heart-to-hearts conversation about this very thing a few minutes ago?”
Hsing didn't have time to argue and compromise with her. He had to get to Chen. It was his responsibility.
"You are not alone," Shanti continued. "I'm with you."
Those words warmed Hsing's hearts. He wanted to crush her to him, but he steeled his features to impassive. "It is too dangerous. The Marred Ones can hurt you through me."
"Then you take on the Marred Ones and I'll find Chen. You can't do this alone."
She had a point. Hsing raised his head to Pakua.
"No," said Shanti. "You can't ask him to go. If you fail, then his brother will be hurt as well. It’s you and me."
Hsing sighed, realizing she was right.
"We're going together," Shanti said. "And we're bringing him home.”
Shanti led the way to the heliopad. With a small smile on his face, Hsing followed behind the defiant, little creature. She stepped aboard the pad, then turned and held her hand out to him. Hsing took it and then wrapped her body into his.
"Once we are on board," he said, "you will follow my lead."
"Yes."
"If I see it is too dangerous and I say return to the heliopad without me, you will do it."
Shanti hesitated, shut her eyes. When she opened them, she nodded. Hsing saw the truth in there.
They landed onto the Grey ship's landing pad to no ceremony. Looking over at the command, Hsing saw the reason. There lay the Yin Eloh, Manu, slumped over the command. Hsing assumed his demise had been from the blast of the other Grey ship. He saw he was wrong when he saw the dagger sticking out of Manu’s back.
Cold dread went down Hsing's back. He recalled Chen's feelings of shame. Could his brother be capable of such a thing?
Hsing reached out for his brother. He felt him deep within the ship. With Shanti tucked at his back, Hsing found his way down.
Chen stood in a room with three cowering human females. The females shook further when they spied Hsing. Chen looked up to see his brother. There was something hollow, dead in his eyes.
Shanti flew past Hsing and into Chen's arms. Chen closed his eyes and breathed her in. Hsing felt the strain melting away from his brother. He stepped further into the room. In a corner, he saw the slumped figure of Ngai, Nse and Niao’s Yin father, a dagger on the floor beside him. Hsing's eyes connected with his brother's.
"He is not dead," Chen said. "I subdued him."
"He took these women?"
Chen nodded as he held Shanti near. “We will return them to Earth."
"We cannot,” said Hsing. “More Grey ships will surround the planet once they find both these ships. We must return to the Mothership."
"But you said we could go home," wailed one of the females.
Shanti stepped up to the females. "I'm sorry. But it’s not safe. We have to go now."
Shanti helped the females up and out of the room.
Chen lifted the marred Ngai’s body off the floor.
"What are you doing?" asked Hsing.
"He is coming home with us. There is redemption for him, I know it."
"Chen we can not-"
"I was prepared to sacrifice my life for you and Shanti. I was also prepared to kill him to protect the both of you. I thought through both scenarios with a rational mind. And when presented with the opportunity, I chose forgiveness. Both light and darkness exist within us. If there is a chance for him, we have to give it to him."
Chapter Twenty-Six
"Really, this is the safest place to be." Shanti could hardly believe the words coming out of her mouth.
She sat across from the females. The Eloheem had left them alone with Shanti as they fled the scene of the destruction. It had been a trying few days for Shanti.
She'd thought she'd died. Found the love of her life. Been abducted. Fallen under the spell of her true love's domineering brother. Been abandoned. And now she was not only doing the rescuing, she was insisting that her former cage was safe.
"Did they abduct you too?"
This came from the younger girl. She wasn’t quite a woman. Perhaps fourteen or so? She had large hazel eyes. Her thick hair was pulled back and tamed in a bun at the base of her skull. She wore a vest overtop of a frilly shirt that was likely white, but now was covered in dirt and grime. On the lower half of her body was a long gray skirt that covered her knees and a pair of something Shanti hadn't seen since her short stint in a Southern grade school; Penny Loafers. With an actual penny slipped in the top.
"They did, didn't they?" The young woman’s eyes went wide with fear. Esther she'd said her name was.
"No, no. They didn't." But Shanti hesitated as the words rolled off her tongue.
The other female beside Esther, the woman who was full grown, must’ve caught Shanti’s hesitation. Her name was Beulah. In her mind Shanti cringed when she thought of the abuse the woman had likely taken as a child. Beulah was dressed in a long skirt and a demure shirt. Her hair was in a thick plait around the crown of her head.
"What are they going to do to us?" Beulah looked off to the side where the young child lay sleeping peacefully.
"They won't hurt you," Shanti said. "That I promise you."
"But the others-"
"The others were sick. These beings, they’re called Eloheem, they're not. They were just on the Earth to get a plant to help heal their ship."
"So they'll take us back?" asked Esther.
Shanti hesitated. She knew that they couldn't turn back any time soon as they had other aliens on the look out for them. But even more, she'd seen the way the males looked at the women as they boarded. Shanti felt certain that none of the Eloheem would harm the girls. But she'd seen first hand how persuasive the alien males could be.
"I don't know the answer to that,” Shanti said. “I know that you are safe now, and they will do everything in their power to make sure you stay that way. You've all been through a lot. Why don't you get some rest? We can talk again later."
Shanti left the human females to their room and went down the hall to her own room. Inside she found Chen resting on the berth. His eyes were closed. His bruised arm rested across his bare belly.
Shanti took a moment to stand over the bed and stare down at him. She'd known him for less than a week's time, but she felt he was an intrinsic part of her life, a life she couldn't remember without him in it. Her heart ached at the thought that she'd almost lost him. She shuddered to know that his last thought would've been that she didn't want him and was leaving him.
"That would not have been my last thought, my only." Chen's mouth didn't move, but his eyes opened. "My last thought would have been of your smile. And the way you laughed while we were in the reef. And the way your body looked in the crystal blue waters. I would have lingered on that thought for quite a while."
Shanti broke into a smile. Then she went to the bed. Chen opened his arms for her. Shanti went into them, taking care to avoid the injured one.
"I am nearly healed," he said, his breath brushing across her forehead, his lips landing at the bridge of her nose. "The algae is working in the energy mines and the ship has nearly healed my wound."
"Is there anything I can do?" Shanti looked into
his eyes. There was a mischievous glint there.
"I suspect with a little trip to Nirvana I would be as good as new."
Shanti chuckled, but she came to her knees. She threw one leg over Chen. She unbuttoned her shirt slowly. Then she freed her breasts.
She reached for his hand, the hand attached to the wounded arm. Chen didn't wince, but she sensed the mild discomfort that remained. Shanti placed Chen's hand on her bare breast. Then she went to work on her shorts.
Once her shorts and underwear were free, Chen froze. His hand tightened on her breast.
"What is it?” she asked. “Did I hurt you?"
Chen swallowed. She felt him trying to calm himself and pick over his words. Finally he let out a long breath. "Your fertility period is approaching."
“Fertility?” Did he mean her menstrual cycle? Why would that concern him? Unless… “Wait, do you mean to tell me that if we have sex right now, I'll get pregnant? With twins?"
Chen shook his head. Shanti felt relief flood through her. She wanted Chen right now, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to become a mother.
"Not this time," Chen clarified. "But sometime very soon. The pull to procreate is very strong with us."
"Us?"
Chen chucked his chin behind her.
Shanti looked over her shoulder to see Hsing leaning against the closed entryway watching the two of them. She hadn't even heard him come in. Her immediate reaction was to cover her nude body. But when she saw Hsing quirk an eyebrow, as though he dared her to do it, she tossed her hair over her shoulder in a flippant manner instead.
"It takes both our seed to create life within you," Hsing said from his post on the wall.
"Both of you? At the same time?"
Hsing stayed against the wall, but his smirk loomed large. "You would like that, wouldn’t you, little one?”
Shanti opened her mouth, prepared to deny the kinky suggestion. But then she realized, the truth was she would like that. She wanted both of them. They were both in her heart. She just didn't think she was ready to be a mother.