Alien Forces Of Affinity: Episode One

by Cher Hollis

  Seconds later, Bo was ambushed by the sight that met his eyes as he stepped through the unlocked door of the shower room.

  The woman he’d just viewed in the Cubic stood buck-naked with her back to him, while she took hairpins from her long black hair and fluffed out its length, until it curled to the middle of her back. As she moved, her back arched, and it accentuated the perfect roundness of her tawny, heart-shaped and completely bare bottom.

  A blast of anger and immediate lust rose together and charged through Bo. Then it went right into his deep voice, as he snapped, “Don’t you believe in locking doors?”

  A high-pitched squeal erupted from Cassie as she bent over ... whoa—what a sight—and she frantically grabbed a towel, then she tried to hold the scant length in front of her. When she turned to face him, her brown eyes were wide with surprise.

  She was breathtaking, while her vulnerability caused a slight blush to flower across her cheeks.

  Deliberately, he took his damn time as he surveyed her from the top of her head to her dainty toes, with a bold and raking gaze. The meager towel only enhanced her attraction.

  “Get out of here!” she sputtered with indignation, while she tried to rearrange the inadequate towel.

  There was no hope for that, as her hands clutched it to her chest, which raised the upper mounds of her breasts provocatively over the top edge.

  “I wouldn’t be here if you’d told me you were leaving your quarters, as I ordered you too, or if you’d locked this door. That would’ve been smart.”

  His voice was harsh, but he wasn’t certain who he was angry with, him for his reaction or Cassie for her carelessness.

  Cassie was obviously infuriated, which only enhanced her punch-in-the-gut attractiveness, as she sputtered, “I will not stand here unclothed and discuss the merits of locked or unlocked doors with you, Colonel. Now get out! Or I’ll ... well I’ll-I’ll—”

  She stammered to a stop, and she seemed to realize she had no leverage for her unfinished threat.

  His stern mouth lifted, and then he propped his bare shoulder against the dividing half-wall, while he crossed one long leg over the other, as if he hadn’t a care in the world and all the time to consider it.

  “It seems you don’t have a choice but to discuss this with me, which we will do, until I’ve made my point strongly enough,” he half drawled, half growled.

  Cassie looked down at her clothes for a moment. She was obviously trying to judge if she could make an attempt to put them on. Her movement caused a wave of her black hair to fall forward and its edges curled around the contours of her body. There was nowhere she could hide behind to get dressed, except possibly the half-retaining wall that he leaned on.

  When she looked back up at him, her dark eyes seemed to liquefy. She took a tiny step backward, and she asked, “What is it you have to say? I know I was wrong and I should have locked the door. No excuses, it was careless.”

  Her eyes lowered to his chest while she spoke, and they seemed caught in a hesitant survey. He was only wearing a sleeveless undershirt, tucked into his black dress pants. His Variant-enhanced senses detected Cassie’s breathing had quickened and the heat of her body had raised slightly along with her pulse, then she hastily looked up and somewhere behind him.

  He felt an immediate reaction to her once-over look, and he realized that maybe he’d been thinking about things between them all wrong. Too easily, he threw aside the fact that she was a natural born. That little towel could make him reverse his thinking on anything.

  Shifting gears, he let his anger go with a slow lift of his lips and a sweep of his gaze over something he realized he desired. He decided he might discreetly go after what seemed to be a shared attraction, and see where it would lead them. Maybe after months alone in the hospital and with the looming threats of possible annihilation by aliens, he needed it.

  But he’d barely opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly the lights blinked, and it caused Cassie to look up at him with startled brown eyes. The lights flickered again and her tawny bare limbs jerked, and then the lights completely went out.

  The blackness was disorientating, followed by a sound, which vibrated through the darkness. It was the clanking of metal on metal.

  “That shouldn’t happen,” Bo muttered. The power going out wasn’t unusual in older barracks, but the automatic security-bar locking down was.

  “Oh, God,” Cassie gasped.

  The darkness pressed in on her and made it instantly hard to breathe. Cassie couldn’t see her hands in front of her face. Then because of the blackness, old terrors started to race through her mind, where they rapidly gathered fear.

  Cassie heard Colonel Wyatt’s voice as it echoed, as if he were inside the black void with her.

  “Private, cool down. These older buildings have power outages.”

  “I have to get out of here, now!” she cried, and her voice cracked with sharpness, as she tried to control the quick rise of panic. Then without thinking, she stepped forward in the pitch-blackness, but she immediately tripped.

  Colonel Wyatt’s command came out of the darkness too late. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  Cassie fell onto her hands and knees, losing the towel, as she cried out.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Colonel Wyatt’s demand seemed to punch the blackness.

  “Colonel, you don’t understand. I have to get out of here! Out into the light, now,” she cried, as she fought back sobs.

  “Can’t. That was the security bar we heard locking.”

  That was when Cassie understood, with acute terror, that they were trapped inside the black blindness.

  “It’s like before,” she whimpered, as her body began to shake uncontrollably.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark?” Colonel Wyatt sounded incredulous.

  Old fears stalked Cassie, and they choked out the air around her, until she couldn’t breathe. She was too far gone to care if the Colonel mocked her, as she panted with fright.

  “Damn, Cassie, I’m sorry. Really, it’s all right.” He sounded closer to her.

  “You don’t understand,” she wailed, through the pounding fear, and then she collapsed onto the cold tile of the shower room floor.

  “Explain it to me,” he demanded.

  Cassie heard his voice as it faded into the obscurity of blackness around her. Time began traveling backward, until she was devoured by its passing, and old horrors jumped into the present.

  He was coming for her!

  Cassie felt his hands as they tried to take her away, and she screamed, then she struggled to fight him. But he was too strong. His power left her with nothing but begging.

  “Don’t put me in there!” she begged and pleaded, as she wrestled against his control, and she fought, even though she knew she’d lose.

  “Close your eyes,” he commanded.

  Cassie whimpered. Then a demanding hand seized her shoulder, while an iron arm clamped around her bare waist. She gasped for air and struggled, as strong legs grappled with her legs and forced them to be still. A rough hand covered her mouth, then it slid up to her eyes and pulled her head back with a powerful grip.

  Cassie snatched at the hand, while mewling sounds escaped her, and she was driven into stillness by his sheer strength. She remembered that dominating strength, which had bent her beyond belief and defeated her.

  “Korpal!” Cassie screamed, and she gagged on the horrible name, then she cried with hysterical fear. “Please don’t put me in there! Don’t close me in the cylinder! I’ll do anything. Anything!” she pleaded.

  “Won’t put you in there. I swear I won’t.”

  Cassie hadn’t been able to understand the words that the deep voice commanded her to do. Over and over, that bass voice vibrated against her ear, until she gasped out its order, and cried, “Bo!”

  “That’s it, Cassie. Say my name again.”

  Cassie’s throat was rough, as she once more rasped, “Bo.”

 
“We’re in the shower room, Cassie. You’re safe. No one will hurt you. No one.”

  Cassie felt her tears dripping on Bo’s hand, which covered her eyes, as she sobbed, “In the shower room?”

  “That’s right, Cassie. You’re safe here with me,” he said, with his breath warm against her ear.

  She collapsed, with her bare back going lax along the length of his chest, as the tension released from her and she quaked in the aftermath. Bo’s strong arms that had held her immobile became an embrace of comfort, as he held her from behind.

  “Keep your eyes closed, it helps,” he cautioned, as he held her close.

  Cassie tried to catch her breath as the terror slowly ebbed away. Her emotions were drained and she quivered, then she felt Bo’s warm hand as it smoothed the hair back from her temple.

  “I’m so sorry, Colonel,” she gasped, with a small accompanying hiccup.

  “Hush, there’s nothing to be sorry for. It was a sensory deprivation cylinder, wasn’t it?” he asked, in a whispered voice.

  She was surprised that he knew about the cylinders, as she nodded and it moved the back of her head against his chest, while his hand continued to caress her hair away from her face.

  “I get it about the darkness, Cassie. I was a prisoner of war, and they shoved me into one of those—”

  His voice became rough, and he didn’t finish, while she felt the connection with him become closer. His leg moved off the length of her bare ones, from where he’d held her panicked struggles down. He shifted behind her, lowering his arm that had collared her shoulders. The movement barely brushed his forearm over her exposed nipple and a new shiver jumped through her.

  He cleared his throat. “I better find your clothes—”

  “No, please!” she exclaimed, pleading. “Don’t leave me.”

  She felt his arm return quickly to hug her closer.

  “I won’t,” he reassured her. “We’ll stay right here. Together.”

  She felt him bend his legs up on either side of her, and it brought warmth to her nakedness.

  “I’m so sorry, Colonel, but I can still feel it. It’s still so close.”

  She leaned her head back on his shoulder and tried to concentrate on the comfort of his presence, which helped to make her feel safer in the blackness.

  “Bo ... call me Bo. I like to hear your accent saying it,” he said. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Cassie. Have you ever told someone what happened? I mean really tell them. It helps.”

  “N-no ... Bo,” she answered, with a hard gulp. “Have you ... I mean, did you tell anyone?”

  He started stroking her hair again, along the side of her face.

  “They debriefed us. Insisted on details, but it’s not the same.”

  She felt his closeness calm her, as the darkness turned from terror into a cloak of concealment, and she wondered if she could put a voice to her hidden fears.

  She fought with the fear, before she said, “I was kidnapped.” It was a blunt statement, but the truth, and she tried for more. “Four men, right on a busy city sidewalk.”

  She felt the trickles of desperation as they loomed, and she reached up and closed her hands over Bo’s forearm, so she could feel his strength beneath her fingers.

  “Tell me,” he urged, and the warmth of his breath fanned over her cheek.

  “T-they were four militant Variants. At first, they said they’d kidnapped me to collect a ransom. A ransom from my father’s estate. A ransom to seek restitution for his crimes against the Variant race, for the legacy he’d committed against them.”

  She shivered again.

  “It’s all right, Cassie. Take it slowly.”

  Bo’s voice sounded deep and reassuring, then she felt his lips touch her ear—it made her know he was right there with her, so she took a deep breath.

  “It seemed like I was held prisoner forever. As the days passed, I found out they had no intentions of letting me live. But they still wanted the money from my father’s estate. I overheard the one called Simon saying that no seed of De La Fluenta would ever be allowed to survive to breed more abominations.”

  The words caught in Cassie’s throat and she laid her cheek on Bo’s arm.

  Bo continued to stroke her hair. “Militants,” he muttered, with disgust in his voice.

  “I never understood how people could hate so much. I kept thinking, it wasn’t me they hated—but they did. And Simon wasn’t the worst of them.” Her voice became lower and more measured as she continued, “His name was Korpal. I will never forget that name. He was their leader, and he played a sadistic game of pain, then seduction, then more pain with me … until, I-I begged him.”

  Cassie took ragged breaths and she buried her face in Bo’s forearm, while he held the back of her head.

  She knew she had to finish, she could feel it. She knew if she told Bo everything, it would lift the burden of fear that had crushed her ever since it happened, and then she’d hidden away from the world afterward, because of it. So she heard her voice coming out of the blackness, as if it didn’t belong to her at all. The words tumbled from her mouth.

  “Beaten, tied up, forced, and pain.” She spilled out the memories in hypnotic monotones, until she heard herself blurt, “Then he locked me into a deprivation cylinder.”

  She stopped and gasped. She felt the fear stalking her. It was her worse fear, the one that brought them all colliding together—being put into that deprivation cylinder. Then she knew why, as she remembered the shame of begging, because Korpal had broken her to his will, and then he’d laughed at her as she’d groveled.

  “Baby, it’s gone now.” The sound of Bo’s voice held edged tightness, as he held her closer. “It’s gone. You’re safe.”

  She’d spoken the last parts out loud, not realizing she’d done it. Her mind was playing tricks on her in the blackness. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her body was trembling again.

  Bo took hold of her shoulders and turned her around to face him. She went to him, putting her arms around his neck, as he hugged her. His warm, slightly calloused hands stroked her bare back, and it calmed her, until she wasn’t shaking so much.

  She felt Bo’s warm lips on her temple, where he kissed her, and then he asked, “Is it better now?”

  “Yes,” she whispered close to his ear, and she felt the heat of his chest brushing against her breasts.

  “We need to find your clothes, Cassie, before—it just would be better if we did.”

  Cassie felt his big warm hands circling her bare waist as he helped her stand. The touch and feel of his hands sparked pleasure inside her that ignited low and spread.

  “Give me your hand,” he said, and she put her hand over his. “I won’t let go, Cassie,” he promised in the blackness, and she believed him. “I’m just looking for your clothes.”

  He found her panties and her blouse, then he helped her put them on in the darkness. He never left her side, and he always kept his touch close, which reassured her that he was there with her. She fumbled with the buttons, but she managed to get some of them closed.

  “Here,” he said. “I feel the retaining wall, let’s sit against it.”

  She followed Bo’s guidance in the darkness, thrilled when he pulled her back into his arms to lean against his chest. She curled up between his legs and laid her head on his shoulder with one arm around the back of his waist, while he leaned against the retaining wall.

  “How long do you think it will last?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Cassie. Strange though, that security bar shouldn’t come down. But there’s nothing we can do, except wait it out.”

  “Thank you for helping me. I feel like a weight has been lifted off me,” she said.

  “Glad I was here. I mean that. I want you to know I’ll never tell any of it. You have my word.” His sincerity touched her. “I can’t believe that all happened because you’re his daughter.” His voice was hard. “It must be hard to live like this.”

  Cass
ie couldn’t believe how much it meant to have a Variant feel that way, as she said, “Any unfair persecution, for me just being his daughter, isn’t anything compared to what your race has had to endure,” she whispered, and she tightened her arm around his waist with meaning. “I don’t blame any Variant for hating him. I think my own mother did, but she kept it well hidden.”

  “I don’t understand—your mother?” he asked, while his hand stroked through her hair, then down her back. “Why would she hate him?”

  “She was a Variant, Bo. One of the first. She died when I was eight.” Cassie felt his quick intake of breath.

  “I didn’t know—a Variant.” His deep voice sounded slightly awed.

  “My father didn’t treat her very well, more like a possession than a human being. She was his way of loving his own creations. His arrogance never had any boundaries. He didn’t love her; he just loved what she represented. Her name was Marella and she was very kind and wise. I-I loved her so much. All I ever knew, as a little girl of eight years old, was that she didn’t come back home one day. Without any comfort at all, my father told me she’d been killed in a transmobile accident. That was all he said about it, and he never spoke about her again.”

  “Angel,” Bo murmured, and his embrace tightened around her. “It seems we Variants wish our whole life for family, but we never really consider the reality of it.”

  “I know ... I’ve tried to imagine what it must have been like for my mother, but of course I could never come close to her feelings.” Cassie sighed before she whispered, “Bo ... it had to have hurt deeply when your wife didn’t want children.” She felt him stiffen, and then she quickly added, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  “No.” His deeper voice sounded tight. “It’s just hard to think about. I don’t let myself think about it, since it happened.”

  “You said to me it helps to talk to someone, and it really does.”

  She found his hand in the darkness and brought it to her cheek and willed him to let go.

  “Darkness boosts honesty,” he muttered, as he rubbed his other hand over her shoulder. “I tried to tell her before we married about the prejudice. But telling it is not living it. After time it pounds on you, and I think she started to think the cruel jabs people took at me were somehow meant for her. Then one day her real feelings exploded and she said she could never have a child by me. It was crystal clear she wouldn’t conceive a Variant’s child. I’m not sure I blamed her—the prejudice can wear you down. But when she turned to a close friend, Robert, and I caught them in bed together—”