Primal Planet Guardian_A Science Fiction Alien Romance

by Skylar Clarke

  It falters further still when I begin to move, using my arms locked around Mathios’s shoulders for leverage, and the muscles of my own body.

  “You’re strong,” he says with a low chuckle. I smile, having never really thought about it before.

  Mathios meets me halfway, one arm hooked around the rafter, the other wrapped around me, holding me steady and offering another layer of security that feels needed with the ground a good twelve feet below us. His hips thrust upward, adjusting the angle just so, until he finds a new way to make my muscles give into the same tremors that had seized them before.

  I have often heard making love described as becoming one, but I have never truly considered that it might feel like this. Mathios breathes when I do, gasps when I do.

  By the time we find our simultaneous pleasure, I feel as though our very heartbeats are in sync. He fills me fully with his heat, a surprising and tingly contrast to the coolness emanating from his every inch of smooth skin.

  As my eyes flutter shut and then open, muscles slowing their trembling and relaxing, I feel a sense of belonging that I cannot explain. Mathios has become entirely languid as well. Even hanging suspended in the air, holding up the weight of us both, cocooning me, there is peace on his face that I have not seen before now.

  I find that I very much want to see it more often.

  “Soulmates,” I whisper into the skin of his chest, and he whispers the word back in satisfied agreement. My whole body hums a silent tune that only his can harmonize with.

  It’s weird, a little dangerous, and a little alien, but at the same time, I have never felt like things were more right.

  11

  Mathios

  Anna stays, cradled carefully in my arms, as I extricate my tail from its secure hold around the rafters of the ceiling and climb down the wall to the floor. Her eyes are heavy lidded, body fried with pleasure, and I don’t want a quick jump downward to alarm her.

  She is still awake at the moment, fully capable of walking down the hallway to the bunkrooms. I know this, but I cannot stop myself from holding her. Now that I have known what it is to have her in my arms, it is hard to voluntarily let them be empty of her, if only for the few moments it will take her to walk to bed. I carry her to my own bedroom and lay her on the comfortable mattress piled high with blankets and pillows. Ice Velorians do not feel the cold like other races, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in how warm and welcoming my room is.

  Unlike the rest of the ship, which is bereft of personal effects, it looks lived in, with a few photo-screens lining the shelves alongside real books, the sort that collect dust, and various, well-cared for weapons. It is the first time Anna has seen the interior as, in the days prior, she has always kept a careful, polite distance from the one space on the ship that is truly my own. I watch her eyes travel around, taking in the various objects, and filing the information away.

  I pull the blankets down and slide the two of us beneath them, arranging the pillows to my liking, before lying back and positioning her atop me. Her weight is not even close to uncomfortable. Rather, it feels strangely comforting, grounding, and I will never grow tired of her warmth. It reminds me of standing in front of a fireplace.

  Velorians have far more stamina than the average human, and I could have continued, hanging from the ceiling or not, all night. But I am just as content here, with Anna lying relaxed as close to me as possible, her eyes finally slipping closed. I am overjoyed at how this has gone, but at the same time, I am terrified of it ending. Part of me wants to abandon the mission because of how much it has the potential to complicate things.

  What if seeing the gang she had spent so many years entrenched in causes her to doubt our mating? After all, whatever her true feelings about the man, she had nearly married Lukas—he may still have some pull on her decisions, however small. There was also the issue of her brother. Perhaps he cannot be convinced to leave his adopted family. Even if he does, will Anna truly want her brother to grow up around me—a veritable monster from a human folktale, with a true monster living just beneath my skin?

  Her ear is close to my lips. Her hair stirs with each breath I exhale.

  “I have never felt anything close to this,” I whisper, hoping the words don’t wake her. “I would do anything for you.”

  She surprises me by stirring, opening her eyes. They look bright and awake, burning still with passion that has not quite been extinguished by our earlier activities. “Me too,” she says. “There’s not exactly a neon sign above your head that says soulmate. But my heart is telling me that I should stay by your side. These past few years, I’ve neglected my heart almost as much as my stomach.” Anna grasps my hand, laces her fingers through mine. “No longer. I think it’s time that I let myself be a little selfish. I want you—no one else. Whatever happens when the find the Red Novas, when we find Jackson, you and me are staying together.”

  “I’m all for being selfish,” I say, “if having you is what it leads to. But … are you sure this is what you want?”

  She looks confused now, but still determined. “What do you mean?” she asks. “We mated, and I can feel that it was something more than normal. You said there would be a tether if we were soulmates; that we couldn’t be apart.”

  “As far as Velorians go, that’s mostly true. It would feel wrong for two mated beings of my kind to be apart, and for that matter, they would not want to. But you aren’t a Velorian. The connection isn’t one way by any means. We both can feel it. But if you were to leave, if you were to choose another life, it would be tolerable for you.”

  Her eyes narrow further. “What about you?”

  “I have faced worse pain, Anna. I would be fine.”

  “That’s bullshit,” she says, squeezing my hand.

  I don’t have an answer.

  She sighs. “Bullshit is when you—“

  “I know that one,” I say, leaning forward to plant a kiss on the end of her nose. It is one of many places that my lips have not yet touched. I would happily spend the rest of our eternity discovering these places, mapping them out.

  I wonder which ones will make her shiver, which ones will make her moan, and which ones, like this one, will make her laugh.

  “I was being serious,” I say. “It is no easy thing, to be bonded to someone like me. I still lack control, and though I believe your presence keeps me grounded, I am no less dangerous given the right set of circumstances.”

  She returns the kiss, eyes open wide as if to prove that she is awake and capable of speaking intelligently, conclusively. She kisses first my chin, then my lips, before ending on my nose. I find that it stokes the odd urge for laughter within me as well, despite the seriousness of the topic. Then again, if two people cannot laugh at darkness together, perhaps they are not meant to last.

  “I’m sure,” she says. “I know what you are. You’re beautiful,” she echoes my own words back to me. “You’re strong. You’re brave. You call yourself selfish, and here you are offering to suffer just to keep me safe. You may not believe it, but I’m safer with you than I’ve ever been without you. I know with everything in me that I can handle this—I feel like I’m meant to. More than that, I want to. That’s what matters, Mathios.”

  When she speaks with such conviction, it is impossible not to believe her. I can think of no possible words to refute her statement, and to be honest, I am glad that I cannot.

  “I’m supposed to be with you,” she says once more. “Any problems we have, we can fight them together.”

  ‘Fighting’ problems. The phrase makes her sound more like a Velorian than she realizes. Perhaps we are more connected than either of us has yet to realize, bonded on some level far deeper than the physical. Soul-bonds are new to me as well. Up until this night, they have been nothing more than myth to me. We will have to figure this out together, make it up as we go along. Luckily, we seem to be pretty good at that so far.

  “Partners in crime?” I say, and there is a slight c
huckle there, half hidden in my voice. I have spent long decades avoiding any and all connections, but now, from Anna, I could not be happier with the suggestion. There is no one with whom I would rather share everything.

  “Exactly,” she says, and then wrinkles her nose. “But not necessarily in crime. You see, I’m dating this guy in law enforcement, and I don’t think—”

  I cut her off with a kiss. It devolves into a series of slow, lazy presses of our lips against each other. It seems we are determined to explore every inch of the other’s skin. I feel myself growing hard, making the sheet we lie beneath rise. Her eyes catch on the slight change in our dynamic, and she smiles, climbing astride me, running both hands along the thickness of my muscled thighs. She lowers a hand between my legs and wraps her fingers around me. When she raises her eyes to my face, they have grown intense with purpose, her mouth parted.

  “Can I?” she asks, her voice halting.

  “Please,” I answer, because what can I say but yes. She moves lower, taking me into her mouth. She goes slowly at first, rolling her tongue over the head, before moving her mouth as far as she can manage down my length. My right hand runs through her hair, while my left tangles in the sheets. Her tongue curls again, and I am suddenly very grateful for the fact that I’m already lying down. Standing through such pleasure might be difficult. Her hands are at my hips, and it seems we have always been there, like we have always been this. I have the insatiable urge to look down, but I know I will not last long once I have the sight of her lips stretched around me in my head. I can only resist it for a few moments before I open my eyes and find her already looking up at me.

  The playful glint in her eyes is what does me in.

  “Anna, I’m—” I warn her, but she does not pull away. Every one of my muscles tenses one after another as I release myself inside her small, deliciously warm mouth, down her throat, and feel as she only takes me further, deeper.

  I return to myself in increments, the gentle pressure of Anna’s hands as she crawls back up the bed bringing me back to awareness.

  “I would love to return the favor,” I manage to say, surprising myself when the words emerge relatively coherent despite the fog of pleasure still dampening my brain.

  “Next time,” she answers. When she kisses me, I can taste traces of myself on her tongue. She lies down beside me then, tucking herself beneath one of my arms.

  Many things are still uncertain. The mission is far from complete.

  Still, I feel impossibly, wonderfully at home.

  12

  Anna

  Nadar is very brown. I’ve been here once before, but I have somehow forgotten how utterly bereft of color it was. Under a blue, Earthlike sky, the plains and the rows and rows of various crops that covered it might have instead looked bright and colorful, but under this dim sun, everything appears a sad, washed-out version of what it could have been, like an old photograph that has been left to fade in the sun.

  Earthen crops would never have survived such conditions, but these were foods native to the planet, consumed by the various alien species that now lived here, as well as shipped off planet and sold. Most of them were safe for human consumption, though it took a sharp, experienced eye to tell which ones were not.

  I spent the entire morning explaining the finer details of the Red Novas to Mathios. He already knew their total number (12), in addition to their names and races. They are mostly humans, including Lukas, but the man has a few aliens in his employ. Most are decent fighters, if a bit dumb, but none were so dangerous as Crux, a Jidrup of exceptional strength, or Myra, the group’s only female aside from myself. She is human, but older than me by a good twenty years, and fights with twin knives as opposed to a blaster. Above all, I made sure to warn him of the alien called Rirn, a member of the tall, spindly Kilp race who claims he can sense things. The only tricks I’ve ever seen him pull involve picking which towns are safe to hit, which doesn’t exactly make him psychic to me.

  “They won’t be too far from this dock,” I tell Mathios, as we leave the ship and begin to make our way into the small town.

  He nods as we walk. “They’ll want to be close enough to easily ferry everything back to their ship.” He stops, smiles. “Speaking of.”

  The Red Nova ship is badly hidden at the very back of the landing zone, purposefully behind a large transport ship. “That’s them,” I confirm. “That big dent on the front end has been there as long as I have.”

  It feels strange, speaking of the Red Novas as a separate entity; something that does not include myself.

  “We’ll need a ground vehicle of some sort,” Mathios says. “We’ll have to check the surrounding land and villages as quickly as possible. We’d likely have better luck setting up at the docks and waiting for them to return, but then we run the risk of someone getting hurt before we stop them.”

  He waits after saying this, looking at me and nothing else, and I realize that he is waiting for my opinion. When he said partners, it had not been an exaggeration or a kindness meant to appease me. In the Red Novas, I had a say in nothing but navigation and what jobs Jackson was allowed to participate in. I was not an integral part of the group. I was fodder, good at lifting things and at choosing routes to throw the local authorities off our tail, but still, replaceable.

  “Villages then,” I say agreeably, voice carefully pitched so that the rush of emotion tightening my throat is not audible. Mathios nods and we begin walking once more. I am used to reading the mood of any given area, discerning whether it’s a safe place to steal from, or if I should try my luck in another neighborhood. Something here is wrong.

  “Even in a village small as this,” I say. “There should have been someone at the landing zone to clear us for docking. And there’s always a little market set up nearby to squeeze money from people coming and going. Something’s wrong.” I look out the fields stretching away from the town’s last visible buildings and see not a single trace of movement. “No one’s working. The equipment’s been shut off.”

  Mathios frowns, looking back at the ship. “Perhaps they decided to try their luck with a slightly larger village in exchange for an easier getaway.”

  I nod. “They must know they’ve got the law on their trail. Someone must have tipped them off—could have been that person I spoke to on Morda-6.”

  “Could have been,” Mathios says. “Or they could just be paranoid. Whatever the cause, we need to move.”

  No sooner than Mathios says this does the first shot sound. It is the noise of a high-powered blaster being fired. There are distinctive sounds for both stun and shoot, but the noise from this far away is too muffled for me to tell. The location is similarly hard to pinpoint, even for Velorian hearing. “Shit,” I say. “He must have them in a building somewhere.”

  “I don’t like to split up,” he says, “But perhaps we will find them faster. I’ll take the east side of the village. You take the west. Press the alert button on your comm if you locate them, and I will find you.”

  Before I can think to ask if he plans to do the same should he find them, he is already gone. I jog through the town, weaving between buildings and tearing through a few gardens. My side is only home to several large buildings. One is a small school, while the other seems to be a temple of some sort. It doesn’t take much intelligence to know that I will have the best luck by heading toward the third building, which bears a large sign reading community storehouse. Outside, there are two flatbed hovercrafts, one of which is already piled high with pallets containing various canned and dried foods, sacks of grain, and other goods. It’s certainly suspicious, and it seems as good a sign of Nova activity as any.

  I move to stand in front of the door, checking my blaster at my hip, but decide not to draw it. If I come in guns blazing, I’ll have no chance of getting Jackson to listen. Appearing threatening first thing will likely only result in Lukas or one of the other Novas shooting me. Even among our supposed family, they wouldn’t be loyal to me after
what I did. To them, the simple act of my leaving them was a betrayal, unless, of course, I can think of a great reason that merited stunning Sami and stealing a precious escape pod.

  Another shot rings out from inside the building. There is no time to stand on the doorstep and craft lies.

  The door opens easily into a darkened hallway. I follow the sounds of destruction until my reaching hands find another door. The next room is large, filled with shelf upon shelf of food ready to be shipped off-planet. There are metal pallets everywhere, equipped for transfer, along with a few conveyor belts and lifts to speed things along. There is a single open space in the center in which the villagers are kneeling.

  It is a small village; I do a quick scan and estimate that there are less than forty when all is said and done. There may be more scattered throughout the village, hiding or out working the fields too far away for even Mathios’s vision to see. A few of them have been put to work clearing out the storerooms and piling their more valuable contents by the door. The various Red Novas are all around, most of them standing in a loose circle around their captives, guns pointed lazily. Myra and Sami each stand by a window, doing a terrible job at keeping watch if my own easy entrance is any indication. Lukas seems to be the one that fired his blaster, as it is still pointed up toward a now shattered light, glass littering the floor below it. It was likely done for the sole purpose of showing the captives that he was perfectly willing to shoot.