by Jane Hinchey
I tipped my head back to rest it on his shoulder as my body accommodated him once again. He moved slowly, withdrawing almost all the way, then sliding back in. Agonising slowness. I tried to push back, to take him into me faster, harder. His mouth dropped to my neck and nibbled at my skin, then licked the sting with his tongue.
“Keep your hands there,” he instructed.
His other hand came around to cup my breast, fingers kneading my flesh, brushing across my nipple. I shivered in his arms, and he suddenly thrust hard.
“Oh!” I cried.
“Brace yourself.”
With each thrust, he brushed his thumb across my clitoris, and within seconds I exploded, biting my lip to stop myself from crying out in case my brother heard us. Alrik slowed as I came down from my high, still moving but at a more leisurely pace. I marvelled at his control.
“Let me turn around,” I said. “I want to see your face.”
He obliged, pulling out, picking me up and spinning me, pinning me to the wall. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I lowered myself onto him, the water and my own slickness making it an easy slide. This time, he groaned, and it was his hands against the wall that kept us balanced.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him. Kissed him with everything I had, tongue duelling with his, nipping at his lip, gently pulling it between my teeth before soothing it with my tongue. Still he kept his pace leisurely. I knew he was drawing this out, waiting for me to recover so he could make me come again. My hunger grew, as he'd planned, and soon I was pulling myself up and down his length. As I was building to another orgasm, he took control, crushing me against the wall and driving his hips into me like a piston.
“Open your eyes. Look at me,” he growled and I obliged, blinking the water from my lashes to look into the depths of his eyes.
I blinked. Slowly.
“No! Keep them open. I want to watch you come. I want you to watch me come. Together.”
Our faces were so close that he was a blur, but I kept my eyes trained on his as the pleasure mounted. My orgasm was there—I was right on the edge of it, but it remained just out of reach. Rebalancing on one arm, his other hand squeezed between our bodies, stroking my clitoris. And then my orgasm hit, shattering through me, my muscles milking him as he grunted and strained against me. Keeping to his word, he came, his eyes never leaving mine.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We sat at Daniel’s breakfast bar, wrapped in bath robes and eating omelettes—though they didn't taste like the omelettes I remembered—and listened as my brother outlined his plan.
“To avoid quarantine, you're going to need to be chipped. there's no way around it,” he said. “There's no way to survive in Redmeadows without a chip. You need it for shelter, food, water. As you’ve seen, there are no crops, no fields to scavenge for your own food.”
“Why is that? If you have your own water supply, why not plant crops?”
“So people can't live under the radar. So they can’t survive on the land. So they can't do what you're doing. It’s a way to control us.”
I frowned. “That doesn't sound right.”
“Doesn't matter what we think, whether we agree with it or not. It is the way it is. No point arguing.”
“Okay. So how do we get chips?”
“We're going to have to make our own.”
“What? You're suddenly a tech head, Daniel?” I teased. “How can we make our own?”
“I don't mean literally make our own. I mean we're going to have to break in and steal a couple of chips and implant them ourselves.”
“Break in? Steal? Daniel ... you're an Inspector for the Redmeadows Police. You can't do that.”
“You're family. Family comes first.”
“That wasn't our motto, Daniel. Dad always said the people came first.”
“And look where that got him. Shot and killed,” Daniel said angrily. “And look where we are now. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's my choice.”
“But you believe me, that I'm really your sister?”
“The proof is right before me! This is going to take some planning, though. We can't just walk in and request a couple of blank chips. We're going to have to learn how to program the chips first, then how to implant them. And we need to figure out how to steal them without getting caught.”
Dawn had broken while we were in the shower. Now daylight bathed the kitchen in a warm glow. I yawned. We'd been up half the night, and had gotten to sleep late the night before. I needed to rest. Even as the thought crossed my mind, darkness closed in around me like a mist. I felt only a vague pain as my head hit the counter, and I fell into a dark slumber.
* * *
“Besides your new tattoo, I see you've developed a technique to fall asleep remarkably quickly.”
I woke to Alrik's voice in my ear. Grinning, I rolled into his arms. We were naked in a bed.
“I remember thinking I was tired and that was it. I was out.”
“You certainly were,” Alrik said with a chuckle. “The same thing happened earlier, back at our camp. One minute I was talking to you, the next you were asleep.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. I'm teasing.” His smile faded, and he tucked my hair behind my ear, a gesture so tender it caught me off guard. “But this is something we need to keep an eye on. When you're tired, you need to rest, or your body literally just shuts down. Keep that in mind, okay?”
I nodded, stifling a yawn, and rolled over in search of a clock. Daniel’s bedside table was bare, except for a lamp. “How long have I been asleep?”
“About four hours. It looks like you don't need as much sleep as you did before. Pros and cons.”
He was right. I felt fantastic, refreshed and full of energy. “Where's Daniel?”
“Said he was going to check in at work and see what he could find out about the micro-chips we need.”
“So we have the place to ourselves?” My eyebrows wiggled.
“We do.”
“Well, let's not waste it with talking.”
* * *
Sometime later, the sound of footsteps outside the door alerted us that Daniel had returned. I slid out of bed, catching a glimpse of my naked body in the mirror opposite the bed. On the outside, I hadn't changed—I was still the same height, still had curves in the same places. But I felt different inside. Stronger, somehow.
Turning, I angled my back to the mirror and looked over my shoulder to see my tattoo for the first time. It was magnificent. I had thought it would be ugly—disfiguring—but it wasn't. Geometric lines interwoven with softer arches flared from my lower back, covering my entire spine and stretching to each hip. It looked like a pyramid, wide at the bottom and slimming to a few tendrils near the nape of my neck. Alrik was right. The white glow of the markings were achingly beautiful.
Slipping into the bathrobe, I cracked the door open to discover a pile of neatly folded laundry on the floor. Daniel had washed and dried our clothes from yesterday. Gathering them up, I shut the door, sorting through the black pants and shirts. I tossed Alrik's to him, then pulled on my own.
After freshening up in the bathroom, I went in search of my brother. I found him in a room decked out like an office. A large desk was pushed up against a window with another magnificent view of the city. A screen and keyboard were built into the desktop. Computers sure had come a long way in thirty years.
Daniel turned to greet me. “Oh, hi, you're up. I figured you were out for the count this morning.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. It's been a bit of an adjustment to Earth's atmosphere after being in space. Plus, I guess this new atmosphere under the dome isn't what I'm used to either, so yeah, when I get tired, I'm out.” I shrugged, smiling. It was the story Alrik and I had agreed upon.
“I thought you'd sleep all day.”
“Nah, I'm good now.” I trailed my fingers over the desktop, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. “So how did it go? Find anything useful? About the
chips?”
Daniel typed something into the keyboard and a blueprint of a building came up on the screen. “The chips are stored in the security building. They only keep a dozen or so in stock, for when faulty chips need replacing, and are programmed there as needed.”
I glanced at him. “What sort of data?”
“Name, date of birth, address, bank info, medical history.”
“We don't have half of that stuff.” I said, shaking my head.
“Well, you can use my address and bank info to start with,” Daniel offered. “We'll have to make up some of the other stuff, but we need to get you chipped first. Once we know that's working, we can open bank accounts and update your info later.”
“That's how people were paying for their meals in the café.” I said, remembering our close call the other night. “They placed their hands on this imprint thing on the table. The funds were deducted directly via the chip?”
“Correct.” Daniel said. “We don’t have physical cash or banks. It's all a big database.”
“I'm guessing it's going to be tricky to set up a bank account.”
“We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Like I said, for now we'll use mine. It's not a problem.” Daniel closed down the computer and stood. “Coffee?”
“Oh my God, you have coffee?” Though it had only been three weeks since I’d last had a cup, it felt like years. “I could kiss you!”
He laughed. “Well, it’s probably not the same as you remembered, but it does the job.”
We returned to the kitchen and found Alrik there, filling our water bottles at the sink. He glanced up, nodded at Daniel, smiled at me.
“Daniel’s making us coffee,” I said, sliding onto a stool and leaning my elbows against the countertop. “You have to try it. It’s totally not like Deka tea.”
“I'm game. Let me just put these away.”
Daniel watched Alrik walk away, his face thoughtful.
“So you two ... definitely an item?”
“I guess. We haven't put labels on it.”
“So it was him who abducted you in the first place?”
“Good God, no. He rescued me.” I told him the story of my abduction, leaving out the part about my new alien DNA. Alrik returned halfway through and sat silently by my side while I recounted the tale. Daniel listened and made coffee, interjecting now and again with questions. “And now we're here!”
Daniel smiled at Alrik. “That was very noble of you to follow her to Earth to make sure she was safe.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Alrik said. “It was wrong of my people not to prepare her beforehand. It puzzles me why they did what they did. It goes against everything a Rescuer stands for.”
“So a Rescuer is different from a Warrior?”
“Yes. Although we are trained in warfare and expected to back up the Warriors, our main role is to rescue, whether our own race or another,” Alrik said. “We strive to see situations resolved, agreements made, or, when those aims can't be achieved, relocate innocents to keep them out of harm's way.”
“But you don't just travel around in rescue ships, right?” I cut in. “Your rescue team is part of the overall team.”
“Correct.”
Daniel brought a tray loaded with three mugs of coffee, a creamer, and a small bowl of sugar, and set it down on the table. “Why did you decide to be a Rescuer rather than a Warrior?”
“It’s more of a challenge. A Rescuer has to think, has to strategize. Rescuing isn’t just about brute force and violence. That is often a component, of course, but for us there is a whole other layer.”
“Strategizing, huh?” Daniel spooned some sugar into his coffee and stirred. “So we should be working together to get this whole chipping thing sorted.”
Alrik nodded. He hadn’t yet touched his coffee. “It would be wise.”
“I have a feeling you've been watching everything I do, anyway.”
“Correct,” Alrik said. “I will not allow myself or Sierra to blindly follow another's plan. Family or not.”
Daniel watched him for a moment, eyes narrowed, before smiling and holding out his hand. Alrik shook it. He'd obviously been studying human customs.
“Hey!” Realisation dawned on me. “How come Daniel can understand you? He doesn't have a—”
Alrik cut me off with a slight shake of his head and said, “I'll explain later.”
Okay. That was weird. It was clear Alrik didn't want Daniel to know about our translator chips. And I still had no idea how Daniel could understand Alrik, unless Alrik was actually speaking English.
Boy, did he have some explaining to do.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I worked out in the gym in Daniel’s building for the remainder of the day while the two men pored over blueprints of the security building and nutted out a plan to not only get them into the building undetected, but also program the chips and implant them.
I was becoming more familiar with my new and improved body, my increased strength and stamina, but also my limitations. If I felt tired, I needed to rest. If I did so immediately, I could be up and at full speed again within an hour. If I pushed myself to the limit, until I physically passed out, it took me at least four hours to recover. So basically, I could get through a day with a nap or two in there somewhere.
I also noticed that when I slept, I no longer dreamed. My sleep was simply sleep with no entertainment value. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
Returning from the gym, I napped on the sofa while Alrik and Daniel continued their research. For all intents and purposes, they appeared to be bonding. I hadn't had the chance to grill Alrik about the whole speaking English thing yet, but that could wait until later.
“Daniel, why are there no insects? Or birds? Surely you didn't eat them, too?” I was sitting at the kitchen counter while Daniel prepared dinner that evening.
“The birds, like the insects, died when the dome went up,” Daniel said. “I think it was something to do with the signal the dome emits. I'm not really sure. I've never really thought too hard about what the dome is made of or how it works. I just know it's not actually physical. It's like a force field.”
“To get the dome up so quickly, after the bombs, it must've been ready to go right away.” Daniel had already mentioned something to that effect. “Otherwise, in the time taken to invent it, the effects of the radiation and ozone damage would have found its way here.”
Daniel looked at me, rubbing his earlobe and shrugging. “I guess. Like I said, I don't know much about it.”
He was lying. He'd forgotten I knew his tell. Daniel always rubbed his earlobe when he lied. Why would he lie about this?
Alrik appeared behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder. I swivelled to look at him. Reading my face, he raised an eyebrow, but I gave a quick shake of my head. We had much to talk about later in the privacy of our room.
I set the table while Daniel served dinner, a delicious cheesy pasta dish and a bread substitute that tasted just like the real thing. We’d cleaned our plates and were sipping on coffee when it all went to hell.
The lift at the front of the apartment slid open.
“What the hell?” Daniel got to his feet so fast he knocked over his chair. “No one should have access.”
Six men dressed in grey combat outfits with an orange insignia on the chest stormed in, weapons drawn. A woman in a white combat outfit emblazoned with the same insignia followed.
Alrik sprang to his feet, his body suit morphing into armour, his helmet materialising from his collar, the visor sliding down over his face. His hand grabbed for his weapon, only it wasn't there. He'd left it in our bedroom. Cursing, he grabbed me and shoved me behind him, using his body as a shield.
“What is this?” Daniel demanded. “Who are you?”
“Stand down, Inspector. You don't have jurisdiction here,” the woman said.
“What are you talking about?” Daniel snapped. His cheeks were flushed, his body stiff with anger. �
��This is my home. Of course I have jurisdiction.”
“No longer. Inspector Daniel Walker, you are under arrest for harbouring fugitives.”
“Bullshit. This is my SISTER. And you're not law enforcement. Try again.”
“Yes, we know she's your sister. So kind of you to provide us with a DNA sample. Her results were most interesting. As were his.” She indicated Alrik with a nod of her head.
“Daniel?” I looked at him fearfully. “What does she mean, she has our DNA? What have you done?”
“Tsk, tsk.” The woman smiled at us. “He didn't tell you? He brought in some hair samples for analysis, wanted to confirm you were a familial match to him.”
It was my worst nightmare realised. My biggest secret unearthed and about to be used against me. How could Daniel do this? The pain of his betrayal cut like a knife.
“I had to be sure,” Daniel muttered, not looking at me.
The blonde woman sighed, glanced at the armed man closest to her. “Take him down.”
“What? No!” I cried.
The man whose gun was trained on Daniel fired. I screamed.
“It's a tranquiliser,” Alrik whispered. “Stay behind me.”
Right. So these people weren't the police, they were just pretending to be. And their guns didn't carry bullets, but tranquilisers. What on earth was going on?
Daniel hit the floor with a thud, unconscious. Okay. Fast-acting tranquilisers.
“Look.” The woman held out both her hands, palms towards us. “You can come quietly, or you can come unconscious. The choice is yours, but rest assured, you're coming with us.”
“Oh, I don't think so,” Alrik replied, voice as cold as ice.
He stepped back from the table, keeping me behind him. The woman nodded and the soldiers—if you could call them that, for with their grey uniforms they looked like janitors—opened fire. Six darts bounced off Alrik's armoured chest.
“Impressive.” The woman smiled at him, her red lips curling.
Alrik looked at me over his shoulder. “Run.”
I did. I could hear him behind me, could hear the guns firing, but nothing hit me. They must've been hitting Alrik in the back. I heard his steps start to falter, realised a dart must have found its target. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw I was right. He was staggering.