Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel

by Ruth Anne Scott

  Marissa compressed her lips. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to meet these friends of ours and show their young people around our village. You’re responsible for making sure they have a good time while they’re here. Is that understood?” She faced Emily. “This is my daughter, Aeifa.”

  Emily smiled at the twins. “They’re lovely. I’m sure all of you will have a good time together.”

  Aeifa looked away. Chris spoke up. “Taig and Tara and Ari and Aeifa have a gang of sorts. They run off together into the forest for weeks at a time. I’m sure they would be happy to take your boys with them. Why don’t you take Allen and Taman to the swimming hole over the hill?”

  Aeifa scanned the Ursidrean boys. “Can you run?”

  Marissa started to say something else, but Tara interrupted. “Never mind, Aeifa we’ll show them the swimming hole. I’m sure we can find something to do while the old people talk.”

  Marissa relaxed. “Good.”

  Tara addressed the Ursidrean boys. “Unless I’m mistaken, they’ll be talking for weeks, so we’ll have all the time in the world to show them the best spots. Come on, Taig.”

  She started to walk away when Renier spoke up. “If you young people don’t mind, I would appreciate if you took Reina along with you.”

  Tara glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see a small slight girl step through the crowd. She stopped next to Carmen, and no one could mistake the resemblance. Short hair surrounded her face, but her human inheritance made her features tiny and delicate. Taig, Ari, and both Ursidrean boys stared at her. She had her mother’s black hair instead of her father’s red hair, and her quick black eyes took in every detail of her surroundings.

  Chris gasped. “Is this your baby daughter, your little baby who slept in the basket while we negotiated with the Avitras?”

  Carmen and Renier gazed on the girl in rapture. “This is Reina.”

  Chris took the girl by the hand. “Welcome to our village. Don’t feel any pressure to run off with these rough kids. You’re welcome to stay with us.”

  Reina smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll go. I want to see everything.”

  Renier laughed. “She’s tougher than she looks, and game for anything. She’s been looking forward to this for ages.”

  Tara exchanged glances with Aeifa, and Aeifa pursed her lips and turned away. Tara sighed. None of the others would take the responsibility of making this expedition a success. She would have to do it herself. “Come on, Reina.” She swept the others with her eyes. “Anybody that’s coming, come on. Let’s go.”

  She and Taig set off through the trees, but they didn’t take off running the way they always did with Ari and Aeifa. They walked slowly enough for the Ursidreans to keep up. Aeifa walked at Tara’s side and muttered in her ear. “Why did we have to bring them?”

  “You heard your mother,” Tara murmured back. “These are honored guests. Their parents came all this way to negotiate the peace agreement. If we can help by keeping these kids amused, we should do it.”

  Aeifa glanced back over her shoulders at the Ursidrean boys. Taman eyed her back. “They’re hardly kids, are they? They’re bigger than we are.”

  Tara chuckled. “I meant Reina. She looks like she’d break in half if you sneezed at her.”

  Reina trailed behind the group. She gazed up at the treetops and kicked dead leaves out of her way. She took barely any notice of the others. “What do you think she’s thinking about back there?” Aeifa asked.

  Tara shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’s got a sweetheart back in Felsite territory. Maybe she told her father the story he wanted to hear about how excited she was to come out here and see Lycaon territory when she really wanted to stay home with her sweetheart.”

  “Not likely,” Aeifa countered. “Did you see the way she looked at Taman? She doesn’t have any sweetheart back in Felsite territory, at least not one she’s dreaming about.”

  “At least she didn’t look at Taig that way,” Tara remarked. “That would give me a stomach ache I’d never get rid of.”

  Aeifa laughed. Taig and Ari walked behind them and talked in low tones, no doubt discussing the new arrivals, too. The Ursidrean boys came behind them, shoulder to shoulder. They didn’t talk, but inspected the surroundings with direct and curious intensity. When Tara looked back, she found Allen staring at her with a fixed expression on his face. She turned around and didn’t look back again.

  “What about those boys?” she whispered to Aeifa.

  “Not much,” Aeifa snapped. “They’re so coarse and thick-headed.”

  Tara couldn’t help laughing. “They aren’t as thick-headed as their father. They take after their mother.”

  “You can have them both, then,” Aeifa replied. “I wouldn’t touch either of them with a ten foot pole.”

  Just then, they emerged from the deep dark forest onto a sunny ridge. A sheer chasm plummeted from their feet to a pitch black canyon below. Reina gasped at the breathtaking view spreading away into the hazy horizon, and the Ursidrean twins craned their necks to look over the edge. A faint music of running water tinkled up from the canyon floor, out of sight in the shadows. “What is this place?”

  “This is the swimming hole,” Tara told them.

  Taman started back from the precipice. “This? How can you go swimming here? There’s nothing here.”

  Ari chuckled. He walked back to the last trees at the edge of the forest and, with a wild whoop and a shriek of laughter, he charged toward the cliff edge. He threw his arms and legs out in every direction and plummeted over the side.

  Reina screamed and shrank back. Allen stretched out his hand, but it closed on empty air where Ari used to be. The group stood in silent awe and horror. Tara and Aeifa gazed down into the chasm until a distant splash of water touched their ears. Tara grinned at her guests. “See? The swimming hole is down there.”

  The two boys stared at her. “You don’t jump off here to go swimming. You can’t.”

  “We do it all the time.” Tara turned away. “But you don’t have to. Follow me. I’ll show you the other way down.”

  They followed her along the cliff edge, but Aeifa hung back. She tossed her head at the boys. “I’m going down this way, too.”

  Tara put out her hand. “Come on, Aeifa. You’ll frighten them.”

  Aeifa shot the boys a savage glare. She ran her eyes down to their feet and back up. “They look to me like they need a little frightening. They’ve been holed up in their safe little city too long. If they want to walk down the path like babies, let them, but I won’t.”

  She tossed her head with an indignant snort and walked back to the edge of the trees. Then she charged the cliff edge and hurtled off into nothing. The group watched her fall, and a moment later, another splash echoed off the canyon walls.

  Taig sighed. “Well, come on, if you’re coming.”

  He and Tara led the boys away from the cliff. They almost passed between the trees when Tara noticed Reina still standing at the precipice, gazing down into the dark. Tara went back to her side. “Are you coming, Reina?”

  The girl didn’t answer.

  “It’s all right,” Tara told her. “They’re down there swimming right now. Come with me and I’ll take you down the safe way.”

  Reina let out a long sigh, but she didn’t move.

  Tara waited, but when Reina didn’t answer, she laid her hand on Reina’s arm. “I know it’s frightening when you see it the first time, but we’ve been doing it all our lives. They shouldn’t have scared you like that, but it’s all right.”

  Reina leaned back with another heavy sigh. “I wish I could do it.”

  Tara stared at her. “You do?”

  Reina nodded, but she didn’t take her eyes off the distant dark far below. “It must be wonderful to live out here.”

  “It must be wonderful to live where you are, too,” Tara ventured.

  Reina shook her head. “It
’s not the same. We live in cities. We know where to find all the food plants. Nothing challenges us. It’s such a tame life.”

  Tara blinked at her. “I thought you would want it tame.”

  Reina turned away from the cliff. “I’m tame because I live in a tame little world where everything is provided for me. I don’t have to struggle for anything. I wish I did. I hate being so tame all the time.”

  Tara brightened up. “Well, if that’s the way you feel.....”

  Reina fixed her with glittering eyes. “Could you teach me how to jump from that cliff? Could you show me how to land in the water the way they did?”

  Tara hesitated. “I don’t know if your father would want me to do that.”

  “He would never have to know,” Reina told her. “Show me how to do it.”

  Tara looked around. Taig and the others were nowhere in sight. “Well, all you do is go back there by that tree and run. That’s all there is to it.”

  Reina studied the terrain. “How do you know where to land? How do you know if you’ll hit the water?”

  “You just run,” Tara told her. “If you run from there and jump off where Aria and Aeifa jumped, you’ll hit the water. You can’t miss it. The pool is enormous, and you’ll fall straight down into it. You just have to make sure you run as hard and fast as you can so you get far enough out from the cliff.”

  A shadow crossed Reina’s face. “Hmm.”

  “Would you like me to show you?” Tara asked. “We could run together, and I’ll hold your hand. Just don’t lose your nerve and quit at the last minute or we could crash on the rocks.”

  Reina drew back. “Well, maybe next time.”

  Tara smiled. The weight of responsibility lifted off her shoulders. “Everybody has a first time. Think about it. Maybe we can do it tomorrow or the next day. You’ll be here a week. We can come back another time.”

  Reina smiled in relief, too. “Okay.”

  The two girls started through the trees after the boys. After a moment, Reina murmured. “Thanks.”

  Chapter 2

  They followed the path along the cliff edge, into the trees where it dropped downhill. The sound of rushing water grew stronger until they found the river rushing over stones at the bottom of the canyon, through large pools and over waterfalls.

  Reina gasped at the scenery. “The river’s so big! It sounded so small from up there.”

  Tara pointed. “Look how high we were. We’re a long way down.”

  Reina arched her neck to look at the cliff towering overhead. “And you jump from there? You’re crazy.”

  Tara shrugged. “We’re used to it. That’s all. We’re used to running a lot, too.”

  “You’re born to it,” Reina countered. “Our people don’t run everywhere, and we don’t jump from cliffs like that to go swimming. We live on flat land.”

  “Every faction is different, I guess,” Tara remarked.

  Reina gazed at the river. “It’s so wild and free and beautiful. I never imagined anything like it before.”

  “What’s your territory like?” Tara asked. “I’ve never been outside ours.”

  “I guess that’s the whole point of the peace agreement,” Reina told her. “Soon we’ll all be able to travel and see all the parts of our world.”

  “That would be nice,” Tara agreed. “I’d like to visit the other factions and see how they live.”

  Reina made a face. “You wouldn’t like our territory. It’s flat and boring compared to yours.”

  Tara cocked her head. “How can you think your own territory is boring? It’s your home.”

  “My mother says I’m a throwback,” Reina replied.

  “A throwback?” Tara repeated. “What’s a throwback?”

  “She says I must have inherited a longing for something different from her side of the family,” Reina explained. “She says I inherited a connection with Earth from her.”

  Tara frowned. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “She says I’m not like any Felsite,” Reina went on, “and I’m not like an Earthling, either. I’m somewhere in between.”

  “That must be hard,” Tara exclaimed. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why should you be sorry?” Reina asked. “You didn’t do it. Besides, my mother says once I grow up a little, I’ll be able to find the place that suits me. She says if I don’t want to stay in Felsite territory, I don’t have to. She says everyone goes through a process of growing up where they have to find the place and the work and the people that make them feel at home. She says everybody goes through it.”

  Tara stared at her. “Really?”

  Reina burst out laughing. “She drives my father crazy when she talks like that. He gets mad and says she putting ideas into my head. He says I would be content to stay with my family if she wouldn’t fill my head with nonsense.”

  “I guess I can see both sides of it,” Tara replied.

  “What about you?” Reina asked.

  “What about me?” Tara asked.

  “Do you dream of a world outside your own territory?” Reina asked.

  “Not really,” Tara replied, “except sometimes I dream that I never had to go back to the village. I dream me and Taig and Ari and Aeifa just keep on running forever, that we keep living in the forest, hunting and sleeping in piles of leaves, and we never have to go back and behave ourselves around our families.”

  Reina nodded. “I can understand why. If I lived here, the way you do, I wouldn’t want to go back, either.”

  Tara turned away. “Well, we have to go back sometime. That’s the way it works. Besides, you’re not ready to stay out here. You would have to learn everything we’ve learned all our lives about how to survive.”

  Reina fell in at her side. “All right.”

  Tara shot her a smile. “Now that you mention it, my mother sometimes tells me she never wanted to live in the village, either. She told me, when she first came to live with the Lycaon, she and my father spent their first year together running through the woods. They only came back when she got pregnant, and they went back up to live on the mountain as soon as Taig and I got independent enough to move around.”

  Reina sighed. “That sounds wonderful. I don’t blame her.”

  Tara laughed. “The rest of the family had a fit.”

  Reina giggled. “I’ll bet they did.”

  Tara became serious again. “All except Caleb and Marissa. They understood, and I think secretly Marissa was jealous.”

  “So why did your parents come back to the village in the end?” Reina asked.

  “Politics,” Tara replied. “Caleb needed my father too much, and my mother and Marissa got involved with communicating with the other human women in the other factions. It just didn’t work anymore for them to live on the mountain.”

  “All this business with the peace process takes up so much time and energy,” Reina remarked. “It almost seems like a waste of time.”

  “But when you hear the stories about the way it used to be,” Tara pointed out, “with the wars and the misunderstandings between the factions, you understand why we need it. You and I wouldn’t be talking right now if our parents hadn’t worked for a peace agreement.”

  “I know all that,” Reina replied. “I just don’t think I could sacrifice my life for something like that.”

  Tara stopped walking. “Maybe you just haven’t found something you care about enough to dedicate yourself to.”

  Reina studied her. “Have you?”

  Tara turned away. “No.”

  A screech interrupted them. Reina spun around, and Taman jumped off a high rock above them to splash down into a big pool. Ari and Allen waited their turns, and the sun sparkled on their wet skin. Aeifa paddled through the water, and one breast flashed above the water when she lifted her arm. She called out, “Come on, Tara. What are you waiting for?”

  Tara started forward, but Reina held her back. “Ar
e you sure....?”

  “What’s the matter?” Tara asked. “You wanted to stop being tame. Now’s your chance. Come on. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “It’s not that,” Reina murmured. “It’s those boys. My father says....”

  Tara waited. “Your father says what?”

  Reina blushed. “He said I should be careful around so many boys.”

  Tara frowned. “Don’t you have boys in your city?”

  “Of course,” Reina snapped. “But they would never....” She waved her hand toward the pool, where Allen took his turn crashing into the pool in a shower of sparkling droplets.

  Tara snorted. “Boy, you really have been sheltered, haven’t you?”

  “I’m the Alpha’s only daughter,” Reina explained. “No boy would dare to look sideways at me. But here, with these boys....My father wouldn’t want me to.....”

  “I see,” Tara replied. “You mean your father wouldn’t want you to show your body around them. These boys might not treat you so gently. Is that it?”

  Reina dug her toe into the gravel at her feet.

  Tara started untying her waistband. “If you don’t want to swim, you don’t have to. Just sit here if you want to.”

  Reina clutched at her hand. “You aren’t going in there, are you?”

  “Why not?” Tara asked. “We came here to swim, and I’m swimming.”

  Reina opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Tara tugged her arm free from Reina’s grasp. In a twinkling, she shucked off her clothes and dived into the pool. Allen jumped from the rock, and when his head broke the surface, Tara splashed water in his face. Everyone shrieked with laughter.

  Reina sat on a rock next to the pool. She smiled, but she kept quiet and watched from a safe distance. Tara and Aeifa and the boys played and wrestled and ducked each other under the water. Their hoots and screams rang off the canyon walls long after the sun passed behind the western cliff.

  Tara stole a glance at Allen’s flushed face. Blue tinged his lips, and Taman’s lips quivered when he spoke. Both boys shivered with cold. Tara pulled herself up on the rocks. “Come on. It’s time we went back to the village.”