by Kyanna Skye
“Yeah, about that…” she said inquisitively. “What was in it?”
Simone lightly shrugged. “Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yes. A drop of it, to be precise and it was from Luke,” the skinnier woman replied. “It was mixed with fruit and vegetable juices that make it easier to swallow. Believe me, drinking the blood straight is not a pleasant experience. But it’s the only way for you to see the memories as they were intended.”
A thought crossed her mind. “Does… does that mean… that I’m… that I’m?”
“Becoming one of us?” Simone supplied. “No, it doesn’t. No need to worry about that. The process is a tad more sophisticated and we reserve the juice simply to make people understand why it’s so necessary for our lives here to remain a secret. We wouldn’t turn you unless you asked for it specifically. I don’t think you’re quite ready for that, to be honest.”
She felt a small sense of relief. “That’s a lift.”
Simone smirked. “So… you and my sons, eh?”
Tris knew that she should have felt embarrassed, but the emotion did not come. Neither of the men she had shared her body with tonight were her biological sons after all. If anything, she felt flattered. “Yeah… uh… apparently a side effect of the juice is… lust?”
Simone nodded. “It is at that.” She looked at the door as if searching through it and then back to her. “Are they both still in there?”
Tris shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“No… Jacob must have gone while I was asleep.”
Simone’s face brightened. “And Jon? He stayed behind?” she asked hopefully.
Tris gave a short nod, recalling how he had slept with his arm draped over her protectively. “Yeah… he did.”
Her hostess clapped her hands together happily. “Wonderful!”
“Wonderful?” she asked. “Why?”
Simone lowered her hands. “Well… it means he’s fond of you, Tris. I didn’t expect that Jacob would stay behind. He’s still too young for his other half to have settled in. But Jon… well… he’s about the right age to want to settle.” The elder woman’s face flushed a little. “So… I take it that it was… uh… Jon… who…?”
She didn’t need to finish, Tris understood well enough what the other woman was getting at. She felt herself blush a little at it. “Yes. It was.”
Simone’s smile lingered. “Good.” She bounced on her feet excitedly.
Tris thought back to the passions that she and Jon had shared only a few hours before and felt a smile form on her lips. “You know, I think I’m a little fond of him too.”
The blonde began to turn aside. “I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Oh?”
“Yes… it means that you’ll be staying with us.”
The words should have had a more profound and darkening impact on her heart, but Tris found that the words were less condemning and more welcoming. A lifetime – or more if I want – on an island paradise with a gorgeous man? There were worse ways to spend time.
“Yeah…” she said. “I guess I am.”
When Simone had gone she slipped back into the darkness of her room and let her robe drop down around her feet. She crept back into her bed and tried to slip back under Jon’s waiting arm. She managed it easily enough and settled back in upon her pillow.
“So… what did my mother say?” Jon’s voice asked softly in the dark.
Tris held for a moment and continued to settle. “She was just wanted to say she was sorry for how things went today.”
“Is that all?”
She chewed her bottom lip with anticipation. “She was excited that you stayed here with me tonight.”
He snuggled closer to her. “Just her?”
She chuckled. “Well… I am too.”
He gently pulled some of her hair aside and planted the gentlest of kisses on her neck. “Are you sorry? That any of this happened?”
She rolled over to look at him, and saw his very human eyes staring back at her in the light of the moon from the outside. She held up her fingers and his gently played around the edges of her hand. She drank it all in. The proximity, the sights, the smells, and the sensations of having him so close to her who, impossible as it seemed, she had grown so attached to in so brief a time. She shook her head. “No.”
His smile outshined the moon. “Good. Me neither.” He traced the edges of her fingers with his own. “I… I like having you here… with me…” He blushed.
She chuckled.
“What?”
She stifled her laughter long enough to respond. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“No, tell me,” he said playfully.
She didn’t have the energy within her to be evasive but chose to give in rather than keep it to herself. “Promise not to laugh?”
“Promise.”
She sighed. “The whole reason that I wanted to take the cruise… was so I could maybe meet some wild and exotic man. Love on the boat and all that.”
He burst into laughter that bore some kind of appeal to it that she couldn’t help but join in. Their joined laughter continued for a few moments before they finally settled back into the quiet of the room.
“Well, you got your wish, didn’t you?”
She smiled at him. “You know what I’m wishing for now?”
A new smile formed on his features with just a slight hint of animalistic desire. He reached for her.
THE END
Conquered by the Alien Dragon
At night, while the others in the camp slept around him, Kirin stared up at the stars. With his backpack for a pillow and only a blanket separating his body from the hard ground, he was reminded of camping trips he took when he was a boy. When he was sixteen, the year that boys came into their manhood, he’d spent many a night like this one, staring up at the stars and charting their positions in the sky. Only his world had skies that were the deepest magenta at night, a dark blue-green during the day. Here, on this teeming, restless blue planet his people had come to as last resort, the black night skies seemed cold and alien. He could, however, see the shine of a very distant star, his home world as it had been many millennia before. Yet more light years would pass before his home world was visible from Earth as it was on the night his people fled: a cratered planet in the burning throes of death.
Kirin had in fact been drawn to this particular spot on the map because it reminded him of home in some ways; this part of the Northwest still had land that was mostly unspoiled by humans. There were great swaths of wilderness. But what they were looking for was a place without major roads cutting through. This was difficult to find, as most areas were annexed. They needed to find an isolated spot, one as few humans would come near as possible. It was his hope to find somewhere his people could settle in peace. If that option were not available, they would need to resort to force. He hoped it would not come to that. In his experience, violence only brought more violence. But he had certain orders from his superiors which could not be dismissed out of hand.
“Why are you still awake?” Tarik asked.
“Probably for the same reason as you,” Kirin replied. He hadn’t been aware that his comrade was awake but was slightly relieved that he was. “It will be dawn soon. We can head out again.”
“The river is close,” Tarik added. “We’ll get there.”
“I worry about the people we left behind,” Kirin told him. “It’s hard enough being away from home, I just don’t want them to lose hope. We’ve come so far now that it’s within reach, I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“The men are getting restless,” Tarik admitted. “I guess we all are.”
Kirin wouldn’t say so, but he didn’t blame them. Much had been promised to the people, and it felt like they had not delivered upon many promises made. As things were now, their people were scattered, living in secret, some in groups of ten or fewer. While it was easier to blend in with humans that way, it also
made them vulnerable. One directive they had been given was that no one was allowed to shift into their dragon forms. In itself, that was enough to make them anxious. To remain in their humanoid forms for an extended period of time was uncomfortable. Some would even say unnatural.
Kirin had four men with him; Tarik was his right hand. They had been friends since they were boys, roaming the skies of their home world as fledgling dragons. He had requested Tarik as his Co-Commander once they both graduated. They evened each other out; Kirin was impulsive, where Tarik was measured in his decisions. In many ways, Kirin thought of them as brothers in ways that his parent’s other sons could never be.
The other men in their unit: Pol, Jerrod, and Fenn all held the rank of lieutenant. Pol and Jerrod had played cards for most of the night while Fenn occupied himself with a book. These small things were relics of their lives back home. Comforting, but not enough to fill Kirin’s troubled mind. It was good to hear the others chat and laugh with each other, but as soon as they were asleep, Kirin had felt his own worries settle in.
“I will wake them soon,” Kirin said, watching the sun make its slow ascent in the east. “You ever think what life would have been like if home were still there?”
“Are you kidding?” Tarik rolled his eyes. “Constantly. Sometimes it irritates me that I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Once we have a settlement here, I think that will fade. We won’t be in this state of unease, being neither here nor there.”
“I hope you’re right,” Kirin replied. “Don’t we lose part of who we are if we forget?”
“Yeah, if we could forget. Which we won’t. We still have the blood of our people within us.”
“And their fire,” Kirin said, completing the old maxim.
He longed to find a place where he could roam free in the sky, spread his wings and feel the fire burst through his body. There was no feeling like it, the freedom of being one with the elements of fire and air. Back home, it was believed a dragon had entered the last phase of life when they were no longer able to shift into the animal form. It was the beginning of death. As much as Kirin would keep a positive outlook in front of his men, he feared that this was what was already happening to them because they could not allow themselves to shift properly. Not a physical death, but a spiritual one.
Kirin and his men had been in search of a safe place for the better part of a month. While it was important to be selective, Kirin was very aware of the passage of time. Once they were assured they had found a good location for the settlement, there was still the matter of moving everyone there. He could only hope that people were sitting tight and following orders in their various corners of this alien world.
Not long after they arrived on the planet, Kirin had “convinced” an unassuming human to give them his SUV, and to even show the men how to drive it. The man walked away with a smile and no memory of the exchange. He was thankful to have secured the vehicle.
Kirin’s superiors had told him that some humans would be easier to influence than others; some would follow orders without thinking twice, while others were quite stubborn and were harder to influence through mind control. He’d been shocked at how easy it was to control the man.
“Smoking him still would have been faster,” Pol complained.
“More messy though,” Fenn said.
“You’re complaining because you’d be the one who had to clean up the ashes. The youngest in the unit always gets the dirty work,” Jerrod sneered.
Jerrod and Pol both laughed. Fenn was not amused.
“It’s beside the point,” Kirin said. “We’re not here to kill these people for folly. We’re supposed to work without attracting attention.”
Pol sighed. “Yes, sir.”
There were a grudging agreement and a murmur from the men in the backseat. Kirin smiled. Sometimes he thought to be a good leader was much akin to being a father. There was a need for affection and toughness to make a Commander worthy of the loyalty his charges gave him.
According to their estimates, the lake they sought was one hundred miles away from their campsite, one of many in this region. It was treacherous land to reach, with mountain passes and lonely stretches of broken road before they dipped down into the valley. It would have been much easier to reach by air, but for the moment they were stuck using manmade modes of transportation.
As the water came into view, sparkling in the bright afternoon sunshine, Kirin felt his heart leap. There were similar reactions from the other men. Though they were silent, he could feel the movement of their emotions. This could be home. It could be a new beginning.
Kirin parked the SUV at the shore, and all the men climbed out and looked around. Before them was a mountain, the remnant of a long-dead volcano. The water was beautiful, reflecting back the blue sky. It was a well defensible space, only accessed by
“It reminds me of Mt. Spaura,” Tarik breathed.
“The home of kings,” Kirin affirmed.
Fenn was the first to toss aside his backpack and shoes, and go running into the water. The other men followed suit, even Tarik. They played and splashed in the water, hollered and screamed in joy, their voices echoing through the canyons. Kirin watched them from the shore, laughing. They needed this release.
He turned away from them a moment, took out his cell phone and placed a call. In lieu of a greeting, he gave his coordinates and last name instead. “I believe we’ve found a place,” he said.
“Remain where you are. We’re coming to your location, Commander.”
Tarik yelled.
The Blackhawk helicopters were silent, flying towards them so fast Kirin barely had time to move. Kirin had seen a white flash before everything went dark.
Rayna Michaels double checked her reflection in the mirror, turning one way and then the other. She had bought a new suit for this day, but when the alarm clock rang at six that morning, the first thing she did was rush to the closet to see if she had anything better to wear. After making three wardrobe changes, she was back in her original pick: a black skirt with matching, fitted blazer and a white, sleeveless blouse with a ruffle down the front. She thought about wearing heels but decided on flats instead. She had no idea how much walking she would need to do on her first day of work, but orientation usually meant being shown around the facility.
DynamicTech was a huge building. She’d read somewhere that it was over ten thousand square feet, with four levels, including a subterranean floor that held most of the company’s research laboratories. Though she was intimately familiar with the building, Rayna reminded herself she couldn’t expect to be treated differently than any other laboratory research assistant the company hired. And frankly, she didn’t want to be. As the daughter of one of the company’s founding members, Ashton Michaels, she had a lot to prove. Already there were rumors floating around about nepotism, and she couldn’t blame people for thinking so. She intended to prove anyone with doubts about her professionalism wrong.
One of the things that made her choice about what to wear even harder was that Rayna was a little shy about her body. She was curvy with generous, breasts, hips, and butt. Often times she felt like dressing for work was a fine line between wearing something close fitting enough to draw attention to the fact that she was voluptuous, or wearing clothing that hid her body under shapeless forms that made her look like a chunky square. Sighing, she decided the current outfit would have to do. She pinned her red-brown hair into a sensible bun, rimmed her green eyes with brown eyeliner, and applied a light pink gloss to her lips. With a nervous, breathless smile, she grabbed her purse and was out of the door.
It was only a twenty minute drive through morning traffic, but when she arrived at the building her hands were shaking. She cracked her knuckles, popped a peppermint into her mouth, and took a deep breath in. When she entered the lobby, her father was standing at the front desk. The receptionist was looking at him nervously.
“Well you’re early, so that’s good,” Ashton said to his daughter
. “I hope you know I’m expecting you to do me proud,” he said coolly. Bending down towards her, he whispered in her ear. “Don’t blow this.”
“I won’t,” Rayna replied, with more certainty than she felt. This was her first job post graduate. Up until then, she had worked on a couple of internships at other companies, and a couple summers at the local coffee shop. College students from all over the country applied to DynamicTech for jobs which they were roundly rejected for. She knew exactly the kind of talent she was up against. The company did major work for many contractors, including top secret work for the federal government. Her own security clearance had taken eight weeks to complete.
“Good!” Ashton patted her shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it then. Dr. Edwards will be here to take you on a tour,” he said. Rayna took a breath when he walked away. Rayna looked over at the receptionist. “Hi Tina,” she said.
“Hey Rayna,” Tina smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, he does that with all the new assistants.”
“Good to know,” Rayna admitted.
“Want some coffee while you wait?” Tina asked. “Dr. Edwards always takes longer than expected.
“No, I think I am amped up enough as it is.”
“Water, then?”
“Sure.”
True to form, Dr. Edwards did arrive late.
He whisked her away to a room with three other new employees. A woman gave them a long list of forms to sign, and a speech about confidentiality and how they would soon be privy to sights and information they must not share with anyone. Once this formality was completed, he whisked her away from the others and onto a private tour. He explained that they would all work in different areas, with their own labs, and other staff to show them the ropes.
Rayna had known him since she was a small child, and it was a bit of a comfort to her that he was the one showing her around. He was a gray-haired, mild-mannered man with thick, black-rimmed glasses, which appeared to be the same ones he’d worn since she was five years old. Over the years he seemed not to have aged much, other than his hair, which was chestnut brown when he was younger. She remembered him having dinners at her house. Afterward, he would sit with her father in the den of their home, where they would debate science theories, ethics, and politics. Though she had never called him an uncle, Rayna thought of him that way.