“I love you so much,” I said aloud.
“I love you too, beautiful human woman.” He said.
It must be Luke. Only Luke would say that. This is happening. How is this possible?
He sat up with me still in his lap, the way Luke always did, and he took my face in his hands.
“Please never stop.” He said. “This is the place where you belong.” He held me so tightly, and I felt his enormous chest and arms. He made me feel so small and so protected.
“I missed this so much,” I said.
“What?” He replied.
I opened my eyes and I saw Christian. Shit. This isn’t good.
“It's been days,” I responded with a smile.
“You know that I get busy.” He responded, defending himself.
“It’s okay,” I responded.
An idea came to me. A very potentially dangerous idea. But I decided to take a chance.
I continued to imagine that this was Luke here with me. Those were Luke’s arms around me, and this was him inside of me and filling me with so much pleasure and rapture. The results of the self-deception were indescribable.
I was on the edge of falling apart, my body tingled and writhed so rhythmically.
Finally, there was that familiar sensation that Luke always gave me. It was like my heart and body and mind exploded all at the same time, and I was caught in wave after wave of pleasure.
It’ was so intense. Beyond euphoric.
And then my little test started to work. My skin, my hands, everything that I saw was fading. I was being pulled through the Gate.
What am I going to find on the other side?
CHAPTER 4
Luke
I had been struck. We were so close, and I couldn’t give up now. I had killed 34 Krill aliens on this day, but there was only one now that was worth killing. Grim was nowhere in sight, but he had got to be around here somewhere. It was hard to see on the battlefield because a thick haze had settled over it. The haze was made out of little particles of laser light that were deadly to ingest in mass quantities, so I was wearing my protective mask.
I was attacked from the back, and I quickly yielded my laser sword and cut the alien in two. He squealed in that disgusting, Krill way and I had showered yet again with his slimy blue entrails. I was absolutely covered with blue slime at this point, and I needed to keep wiping it from my mask so that I would be able to see.
“You had it coming!” I grunted. At this point, I was on fire, and if it weren’t for the blood pouring from my side I would have be able to kill more, but I was beginning to feel a little faint. I ignored this annoying human sensation and continued to kill like the hybrid-human that I was.
“Arias, you’re wounded. It’s time to use the firearms.” One Corin soldier beside me said. Through the haze, I couldn’t make out who the soldier iswas but I didn’t want to heed his advice. Although the quantum firearms that the Argyles invented should have be the only weapons that could penetrate the nano-armor, on this day, I was so filled with fury and passion that even my laser sword was able to penetrate and kill. I couldn’t explain this phenomenon, but it felt more honorable to kill the aliens by my sword - I could even have done it with my bare hands if I had to.
“Why don’t you rest in the tent, Arias? You’ve done enough for one day.” I heard another voice say.
“Not on your life. Today is the day, and when we win this war I’m not going to be lying in some tent!” I yelled.
I saw my own blood pooling below me, now. The vivid red color was mixing with the blue Krill blood, and it created a ghostly purple. Would that be the color of the blood of a human-Krill hybrid? That’s the kind of creature that Grim wanted to create…..with Candice.
Candice.
The thought of her filled me with a surge of strength, and I felt as though I could continue fighting even with every last drop of blood gone from my body.
“Have you spotted Grim anywhere?” I asked, wiping the entrails from my sword.
“I believe he was spotted by someone on the top of that hill.” The soldier said.
I looked to where he was pointing and saw a hill nearby where there were figures standing. I couldn’t make out if they were Krill or Corin, but if there was a chance that one of them was Grim, then that was where I needed to go.
“Come with me,” I commanded, and proceeded to move towards the hill. Just then my foot got stuck in the carcass of a dead Krill lying on the ground. I could feel the still warm body engulfing my foot and stumbled to the ground. “Damnit,” I said. This was annoying.
“Incoming!” A Corin soldier cried.
I was not able to see the blast coming our way but within a moment I could feel the repercussions. The thunderous explosion felt like fire on my skin, and I remained low on the ground. I called out to my fellow soldiers around me.
“Hey there! Are you alright?” I yelled. There was no response to my screams, and I instantly sensed that my fellow soldiers had perished. The only thing that saved me was my being close the ground. Accidentally stepping into the muddy abdomen of an alien ended up being the best thing that had happened to me on this day.
“AR-I-ASSSSSS!” I heard an alien wickedly cry from the hillside. His voice reverberated throughout the valley. It was hauntingly furious and venomous, and I knew instantly that it was the voice of Grim. He was the one who sent this blast our way.
That alien son-of-a-bitch couldn’t win this war like an honorable soldier, so he used his cowardly chemical weapons.
I was so filled with rage now that I couldn’t even see straight. Between that and the chemicals from the explosion my eyes were watering and burning. I began to crawl towards the hillside. Eyes or no eyes, that alien, would die today.
Crawling and sliding, I could feel that my wound was getting worse. The blood was really pouring from me now. I ripped off my armor because I felt that it was digging into my wound and instantly felt relief. I felt the coolness of the air on my bare chest and took a deep breath. I examined my chest and shoulders to make sure that there were no other wounds that I was unaware of, and I proceeded.
I heard something strange off in the distance. It wasn’t coming from the hill but from the opposite direction. It was a sound that was oddly familiar and for a moment I wondered if I was hallucinating.
Is that a woman’s cry?
Candice
I had not been pulled through the Gate for so many years, and so the sensation of it came as a total shock - and also a reminder. It was pain and pleasure mixed together. Stars and galaxies whirling by and vacuous, piercing sounds.
Once pulled through I was completely disoriented and weak. I had no idea where I was, and the air seemed to be filled with thick smoke. I couldn’t breath and began to cough. The ground beneath me was slimy and warm, and there were sounds of explosions and gunfire.
I was on the battlefield. Oh. My. God.
This can’t be. Why would I land on the battlefield after being pulled through the Gate? Is this Grim’s idea? He is the keeper of the Gate, after all.
So the battle was still raging. Luke did not forsake me.
But I couldn’t think right now about these things. I had to find shelter because I sensed that my life was in incredible danger.
And I had no clothing on.
This last fact was only one in a list of problems that I faced at this moment. Since I could barely see further than two feet in front of me, I was not terribly worried about the clothing part, but I knew that my skin needed protection. I felt around with my hands and found a piece of fabric that was attached to what seemed to be a dead alien body. With all my strength I began to pull it, but it was incredibly hard to get loose.
“Ahhh!” I screamed as I pulled with all my might. Finally, the fabric came loose, and I wrapped it around my body like a Grecian cloak.
There’s one problem solved.
Now I crawled over bodies, and the smell and feel of it was utterly disgusting. All this death
was a hard thing to stomach, but I had to worry about my own life right now, and it could only be saved by getting off this battlefield.
“Ah!” I screamed again as I felt a deep pierce in my hand. It had landed on top of a sharp object that I thought was a sword, and it was hard to tell with no visibility, but I thought that it ran me right through. I held the wound in my hand and felt the warm blood beginning to pour out of it.
I finally stood, realizing that there was too much strewn upon the ground that was dangerous. Crawling wasn’t a good idea. Then in a cruel stroke of irony, there was a huge blast, and I was knocked again off of my feet and back into the sludge on the ground.
I wailed yet again. The knocks to my body were now becoming too much to bear, and I was beginning to wonder if this might be the day that I would die. Not on my beloved Earth, but on Hecate. Alone and afraid. I wrapped my arms around myself and began to fade. I took a hard hit to the head from the blast, and the haze was thicker now. This must be my fate - to die on the battlefield of the man that I always loved, but was never allowed to spend a life with.
I feared that I was hallucinating now as the colors in the haze mixed with the lights flickering behind my eyes.
But an important realization came from the rational part of my mind that was trying viciously to keep me alive, I may had a concussion, and if I didn’t get up and move, then I would most certainly die.
I can’t go to sleep, I can’t go to sleep, I can’t go to sleep.
Slowly, painfully, I got to my hands and knees. I needed to walk, and I would do everything in my power to get myself to do so. I fought through the overwhelming need to lie back down and let the darkness envelop me.
Once on my feet, it was like the world was spinning, but I focused my eyes and moved forward. The fog from the blast was now beginning to clear ever so slightly and off in the distance I could see a hill with figures standing upon it. I would walk towards that hill and see if there was someone there that could help me, or at least, not kill me.
Each step was filled with pain and I clutched my head with my bloodied hand.
I looked from side to side to see if there were any soldiers nearby, but it was almost as though everyone in this valley - as I perceived it to be one from the look of the hillside in the distance – had perished.
Then, mysteriously, goosebumps popped up through my skin. It was like a volt of electricity was sent up my spine and my head started tingling. Why is this feeling coming over me?
Off in the distance, perhaps 100 paces away, the haze cleared thanks to a benevolent gust of wind. There was a figure standing there. He looked almost human, but I could only tell this from his height. The sky behind him was electric in swirls of pink and purple and blue. These colors outlined his thick, sturdy form, but the figure himself was still dark and indistinguishable.
There ws a sword in his hand. I could see this now.
He had been stripped of his armor. I saw blood on his side.
He was staring at me. He was frozen - nearly as frozen as I was.
My blood was pulsing in my veins, but my body was quite still. I coudn’t step towards the figure because my legs would not work.
Why will my legs not let me move?
My mind finally caught up with what my body already knew; what it understood from the moment the haze had cleared.
It was him.
“Luke,” I said inaudibly.
Then the lights went out, and I fell to the ground.
CHAPTER 5
Luke
Candice stood before me. My heart was racing, and my sword was frozen in my hand. She must be a vision. A dream.
Just then she collapsed to the ground, and I knew for sure that I did not imagine this. She was here, and she was in danger.
I ran towards her at a speed that I didn’t know that I was capable of and swooped her from the ground with one hand. I took her into my arms and looked up to the hillside off in the distance. The haze was clearing now, and I could see clearly that that was where Grim stood, and I could even tell that he was looking this way.
“Did you plan this?” I said aloud, my eyes narrowing to a laser sharpness. Somehow I could even sense that he probably heard me, saw me, and knew everything.
I could go up there and kill him right now for all that he had done. The best years of my life were spent fighting this corrupt alien general, and for many eons he even got me to believe that I would never see again the exquisite creature that was now resting in my arms.
“It can wait,” I said under my breath. There was nothing that would be more pleasing than to finish him off but it was much more pressing that Candice got taken to safety. I looked down at her beautiful face and put a hand on her cheek. She was still breathing, and her pulse was strong, so I knew that she simply fainted. I could see blood coming from her hand, and there was a gash on her forehead.
“Candice? Can you hear me?” I asked. It was strange, switching from the ferocious animal that I had been for so long and immediately feeling the need to be gentle, reverential, and soothing, even as I still stood on my battlefield.
She was groggy and disoriented, but she managed to open her eyes. Candice looked at me with disbelief, and I felt the need to reassure her.
“Is that really you, Luke?” She said, putting a hand on my forearm. I had not heard someone call me by that name in quite some time, and it was strange to me.
“It’s me,” I said, still stroking her cheek. “I am going to get you out of here.”
I began walking with her in my arms. The terrain was rough with so many dead bodies on the ground, but luckily the haze continued to clear, and I could see the dome off in the distance.
“You’re bleeding.” I heard her say, trying to put her hand over my wound. I stopped her with my own hand. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.” I said.
I heard a tearing sound and saw that she had pulled off some fabric from the material that she had around her body.
“Let me wrap this around your torso.” She said with concern. How was it still that no one else’s concerns meant anything to me but hers?
“Leave it, Candice. There will be medical assistance at the dome. We’re almost there. We’ll get you some proper clothes.” I said. Even bloodied and gashed, I could still make out her beautiful skin being exposed through the fabric. It was making me angry to see something so beautiful in a place that was so ugly.
“I feel so weak.” She said, letting her hand fall to her side.
“We’re almost there. Please stay strong.” I said.
“Will you hold my hand?” She asked. I looked down and saw the fear in her eyes. She was like a little girl and her vulnerability was something that I would never forget at this moment.
“For as long as you wish,” I replied, taking her hand in mine and grasping it firmly.
Within minutes we had reached the dome unscathed. Relief filled my chest as I thought about how she could now be cared for.
“Arias! You are back.” Halifax said, looking down at Candice with concern. “What on Hecate—?“
“She was pulled through the Gate. The fact that she landed on the battlefield must be Grim’s doing.” I said angrily. “Get the doctor up here, now,” I commanded.
“Yes, Arias.” Halifax motioned to an attendant who left the room to fetch the doctor. I laid Candice down upon a cushioned bench and felt her forehead.
“How are you?” I asked. She opened her eyes again and even managed to smile a little.
“How am I? I’m not the one with a gaping wound in my side.” She replied.
I looked down and saw that, indeed, the blood was still pooling below me.
“The doctor is coming now. He’ll be able to take care of it.” I said confidently.
“I never thought that I would see you again, Luke. I thought that you were dead.” She said, a tear falling from her eye.
“I was always focused on returning to you,” I said, and cradled her to my bare chest. The feeling was indesc
ribable, knowing that she was here and safe in my arms at last.
“You did promise that you would.” She said, letting the tears consume her now.
“And I always keep my promises. You were unwise to doubt me.” I said while rocking her back and forth.
The doctor came and bandaged Candice’s wound. He tried to bandage mine first, but I utterly refused. Once she had been taken care of, then he inspected me.
“This is bad, Arias. I’m surprised that you’re still standing.” The old doctor said.
“I don’t feel it much, really,” I said, gazing at Candice with a bandage on her forehead. It was endearing.
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Former: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Books 1-5) Page 121