by Alix Labelle
***
Sarah’s eyes flashed open. She glanced down at the bed she laid in, at the satin sheets and the blank walls. A sigh slipped out of her lips and with it, the word, “Coel.” She understood now. He must have taken her back to his place.
She gazed around at this temporary arrangement, wondering how he could have possibly managed to set up a camp like this when she could barely manage the tent she had haphazardly erected for herself.
When she tried to get up, she noticed something strange. Her whole body ached. Her skin felt tight and stretched. Her heart thudded in her chest and yet energy poured out of her. In one subtle movement, she had climbed out of her bed.
She towered over his room, forced to duck her head to keep herself from hitting the ceiling. Had she grown taller? Everything looked brighter, sharper, as if she looked through the lens of glasses for the first time. She stumbled through the small cabin with jerky, awkward movement until she found what she searched for: a mirror.
“What the hell?” She whispered as she got a good look at herself.
She pressed her dark green hands into her dark green face. “Oh my God.”
None of it made any sense to her.
Chapter Five
“Sarah?”
She turned to find Coel standing in the center of the room with a bowl in his hand. He looked almost apologetic.
But he wasn’t the man she had spent the better part of a fortnight with. He was the man she had dreamed about with the skin and the eyes and…
He had turned her into him.
Her skin crawled. “What did you do to me?”
He shook his head as if he didn’t understand. “I saved you.”
The warring urges to slap him and to get as far away from him as possible possessed her. “No, I don’t fucking understand. What is this? What are you?”
“I’m a Kaharan,” He said, his voice even with caution.
“What is that?”
“I’m here to find others like us.”
Sarah shook her head. “Oh no, no, no, no. I am not like you. You did this to me. You changed me.”
“I only enhanced what was already there.”
Sarah glanced back at the mirror, her eyes stinging with tears. What was already there? No. She refused to believe it. “I don’t believe you.”
“Your human was killing you.”
“You had no right!”
“You were going to die!” He yelled.
Sarah flinched. “And I’m not now? Now that you destroyed me?”
“I figured you would be stronger this way. I wanted to see if your Kaharan DNA was enough even if you only had half of it. I didn’t know if it was going to work.”
“Right. So that’s what I am: a little experiment for you.”
“No. No, you’re more than that.”
“How long?” She asked, approaching him with arms crossed.
He shook his head in confusion. “How long what?”
“How long did you know this about me? Was this whole seduction just so that you could kill me?”
“I did not kill you. Please do not reduce my actions.”
“You made me hideous. Change me back!” She yelled, shoving him.
Coel took a step back to steady himself. “I can’t!”
Sarah ripped the bowl out of his hand and chucked it at the wall behind him, the shards raining down behind him.
He grasped her shoulders with both of his hands.
She shrugged out of his grip, surprised at her strength, her speed. “Why not?”
“Because this is who you are. You can try to deny it because you’re afraid, but there is no turning back. Your only options were death or this. So get a hold of yourself.”
Anger turned Sarah’s vision red. She shoved him, watching as he flew across the room. The entire raider shook. “You don’t get to tell me that!” With that, she turned and made her way to the door.
“Sarah no! You can’t be seen!” Coel lunged after her, grabbing her arm.
“Oh fuck you!” she screeched as she yanked herself out of his grip, opened the door and ran out into the evening anyway. She ran through the small clearing and into the dense coverage of wood. Dry air filtered through her body as she sprinted, going faster than she ever thought possible.
But she could feel Coel right on her heels, could hear his breath. It sickened her. She started to harness her strength, deliberately manipulating her environment. One tree came crashing down, then another, then another. It was all calculated at first, but then she lost control.
As she continued to run, kicking up mud and ignoring Coel’s pleas, things started to fall around her of their own accord. Branches and leaves rained down on the both of them, the ground trembling below their feet. She travelled up and around the mountain, tears covering her face and dry sobs filling the air. She paused on the ledge of a large platform to catch her breath.
“Sarah.”
He sounded desperate and out of breath. His voice stirred a sympathy in her that she wanted nothing more than to crush as soon as possible. She raised her arm, her lips pursed as she brought the biggest tree down between them. As the dust settled, she could hardly see him on the other side of the fallen trunk.
She sat down, catching her breath, but her relief was short lived.
The ground began to rumble beneath her, the dangerous purr foreshadowing until, just like that, the dirt split from beneath her. She plummeted down into the dark hole, instinctively reaching up to grab the edge of the trunk, but her hands slipped off almost immediately, snapping a nail off.
Coel’s surprised scream echoed through the darkness before a deep thump cut him off.
She slid through the natural tunnel, her skin scratching against the hard, rock surface as the gravity threw her against the walls before spitting her out of the mouth of the tunnel. A shot of sharp pain rushed from her back up her spin as she hit the ground.
She heaved dry coughs, clouds of dust forming around her lips. No sooner had she managed to sit up did a second rumble catch her attention. Rocks and debris came rushing through the short tunnel, plugging their only way out.
Chapter Six
Coel’s eyes flashed open. It took him a short moment to adjust to the darkness. He flexed his jaw, sucking on the cut in his lip. His aching hands found the ground as he managed to push himself up. The stale, moist air told him they only had a limited supply. He wandered away from the plugged tunnel and into the large space before him.
Stone markers dotted the area with carvings in them. He approached one of them, running his fingers over the groves in the rock. “Unbelievable,” He whispered at the sight of Kaharan writing. After sweeping the area with his gaze one more time, it became obvious. He had fallen right into a tomb.
He continued on, weaving in and out of the markers, until he saw something glinting in the starved sunlight that streamed through the tunnel. He rushed towards it: a medallion lodged into a marker. The Noble Settler had worn this pendant, but Kahara so despised him that it kicked him out of her planet and exiled him on earth.
This was his colony.
But they were all dead.
“Coel!”
Sarah’s broken voice reached him easily.
“I’m all right!” He screamed back, but he went deeper into the tomb.
“Coel come back! Help us get out of here.”
But Coel couldn’t answer to her, at least not yet. He was too mesmerized by what he had fallen into. The farther back he went, the more densely packed the stones became. Before he knew it, they weren’t just stones. Dusty jewelry and shoes, Kaharan novels and gadgets covered the ground.
He picked up a stack of thick paper that had been bound together with string and attempted to read it. But he couldn’t get enough light back there, so he made his way back to the mouth of the tunnel, where Sarah stood, yelling into the debris in the misguided assumption that someone would happen to walk past them and be able to help them out.
He
scanned the material, his eyes shooting wide when he realized what he had come across –a Kaharan history account. The first few pages were boring, nothing more than recounts of dates and book-keeping, a record of their settlement. But as he went on, things got darker.
Soon enough, he scanned words that spoke of an illness. Their colony had grown larger and larger, encompassing the locals and fully assimilating into human culture. Then a “famine struck”. Life expectancies plummeted. The men and women barely lived into their thirties and with every one, death brought the same symptoms: weakness, vomiting, chills, heart failure.
Coel glanced over at Sarah, predicting how her end would have come about. He shook his head. “No. It can’t be.”
Her cancer would have caused heart failure. The vomiting, the weakness, the flu-like symptoms would have been her body’s last attempt to rid of her Kaharan blood.
Coel’s lost settlers, his life’s mission, had been annihilated.
Sarah was all he had left.
***
A film of sweat covered Sarah’s whole body and yet she shivered in the chill. The air had grown stale and every breath felt less nourishing than the last. She wanted to kick herself. How stupid could she be? She had single-handedly caused an avalanche and now they were stuck underground with no way to get out.
Just the same, Coel wouldn’t help her.
He just sat off to the distance, staring into the ground.
She told herself she never wanted to see him again, told herself that she would force him to change her and then get out as fast as possible, but the longer she stood in her own body, the more right it felt. She could finally stretch out her muscles and, according to Coel, she was no longer going to die.
It was the stupidest most impossible thing but he had saved her life and now, looking at him, she couldn’t help but feel a king of gratitude.
So, she approached him.
“This whole place is a tomb.” His voice sounded stripped and raw.
“What do you mean?”
“The Kaharans. There are none of them left.”
Sarah furrowed her brow. “I thought that was a given.”
He looked up at her, his eyes red. “You are the only one left.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I’m not. I can’t be, because you exist.”
“No. I am full Kaharan. I’m from Kahara and... There is no one left there. No women. It’s why I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“A meteor crashed down on us. My men and I only survived because we were underground in my lab when it happened. We will go extinct without a way to…” His eyes grew large. “… To procreate.”
“No. No, I can’t be the only one.”
Coel stood up, placing his hand on her shoulders. “But you are.”
Sarah ripped herself away from him. “I’m not!” her voice echoed. She stalked right up to the tunnel. “We have to get out of here right now.”
“Sarah, please at least listen to me. I cannot force you. It wouldn’t be right, but—”
Sarah raised her hand. “Please do not talk to me about this anymore.” Her mind sprinted in circles.
She could call someone… or something.
“I have an idea.” She breathed.
Then she closed her eyes and let her own energy inform her judgements. She could feel something else, another being, close by. So, she reached for it with her mind. No sooner had she felt contact did a roar sound off in the vicinity.
“A bear?” Coel asked, stepping up next to her.
Sarah slumped over as the steps grew louder and closer, shaking the earth with every thump. The rocks shifted from right to left. The bear lifted a large stone, allowing sunlight to pool through the cave. “Oh thank God.” Sarah did not wait a second. She climbed over the rest of the debris towards the opening.
The bear met her with its angry eyes, the tall body towering over her. Its fur rustled in the wind, its teeth bared. She sucked in a deep breath and released it. She calmed it with her mind, reaching out to it once more and allowing her influence to pour over him. With a huff, it turned and moved away.
Chapter Seven
“Have you decided?”
Sarah stared at herself in Coel’s mirror. He had injected her with a serum that toned down the pigment in her skin, making her look more like her previous self. She glanced at his frame. He sat on his bed hunched over and gazing at the medallion he had taken from the tomb.
Sarah could feel the desolation emanating from him. He had saved her life, pouring his confidence into her and yet she wanted to run. “I’m not sure I really even understand.”
Coel stood up, joining her in front of the mirror. “You don’t have to. Nothing else matters right now. I just need to know how you feel.”
I’ve fallen for you. Just say it. It seemed so simple.
Coel placed his hands on either one of her shoulders, his cheek resting on her temple. . “You are all there is left, the only thing that matters to me now.”
Sarah stared at him through the mirror, a lump lodged in her throat. “You saved my life.” It had finally dawned on her. The pressure of a thousand waterfalls rushed through her head because her life no longer had an expiration date.
Coel placed his hand on her cheek. “I don’t know how to be away from you. I know you feel the same way.”
It couldn’t have been an accident, her meeting him. And now that she had, it felt blasphemous to reject him, to reject herself.
“Don’t you want a life with me?”
Sarah nodded. “I don’t want a life without you.”
“Why can’t that be the same thing?”
“Because you can’t take that pressure off of me. Every moment of every day that I spend with you, I will be thinking about the fact that our survival relies on me.”
Coel turned her around to face him. “No it doesn’t. It relies on us. Our Kaharan destiny is no different in nature than what we feel for each other. This is our project. This is our life. Won’t you rebuild with me?”
And suddenly, Sarah did understand. He hadn’t just given her life. He had given her purpose. No longer was she reduced to outsider status, recording the events around her with a removed eye. This was her chance to be a part of something with someone who truly cared for her.
They were each other’s only hope for life, for love.
“Okay.” She nodded.
He released a sigh of relief, his arms wrapping around her.
Her eyes stung with tears as she listened to the thud of his heart. “I’ll stay with you,” She whispered.
THE END
Desired by the Alien Lord
Kahara Lords
Book 4
(Can be read as a standalone book)
By: Lindsay Blanc
Desired by the Alien Lord
Chapter One
Garthen smirked at the guard standing just on the other side of the bars. His lips folded into a sneer as he slammed his baton against the concrete walls.
One.
Two.
Three.
Garthen knew what they expected of him. Stand up. Acknowledge.
The guard let out a huff of breath, his jaw set as he yelled, “Get up!”
Garthen couldn’t help the way his smirk widened at this. Sure he was the one in the cell, but the guard had just lost the face-off. He swung his legs over the side of his cot and stood up, shuddering at the way his muscles stretched. “Am I being punished for breathing again?” He wrapped his hands around the bars, an action that brought himself less than a foot away from the guard.
He flinched, but otherwise kept an even expression. “You know well enough that it was more than that.”
Garthen rolled his eyes. “Please. He’ll heal in days. Don’t be dramatic.”
The guard flexed his jaw, whipping his key out of his back pocket and unlocking the cell. “I don’t have time to discuss this with you. The lottery is in minutes.”
The l
ottery.
Garthen tried to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat at the mere sound of that word. His dissidence had passed. He stepped out of the cell and joined the other soldiers in the hall, marching to the cafeteria.
Garthen listened to the names, jumping when a sound even remotely similar to his filled the air. His heart pounded so loudly in his ears that he barely heard the words, “Garthen Vell.”
“Fuck,” he whispered.
A thin tear streamed down his face.
Garthen took his time stalking through the crowd to the front of the room. The men who had not been chosen stood with their hands folded behind their backs and their eyes drooping with relief.
They were the cowards, the ones who would rather waste the rest of their lives stuck in a brig in the center of an ocean on a nearly desolate planet than go somewhere new and inhabitable and filled with inferior creatures just waiting to be colonized.
His assent from prisoner to pioneer only made him think of his charmed past. Visions of sterile conference rooms, the modern derivative of the thrones that had been burned in revolutions past filled his head. He could just see it, the matching stern faces of his mother and father buried in stacks of paperwork from the council.
The memory had been blurred by trauma and willful forgetting, but the words could never fade.
“Where is my brother?” His voice had echoed.
Their mumbling ceased.
“What do you mean?” His mother’s words meshed together.
“Honey, the calculations.” His father barely looked at him.
“My brother. Aleksey. Your oldest son. Where did you put him?”
His mother’s chest rose and fell with a sharp breath. “Really, Garthen? A comet is going to hit our planet in 32 moons and you’re worried about where your brother ran off to?”