by T. S. Ryder
***
Erdal found Natalie unconscious on the dark floor. She was pale and her skin seemed gray in the dim light. Her breathing was ragged and her pulse faint, but she was alive. He carried her in his arms to the sickbay, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Dr. Barca took her in. Kissing her forehead, Erdal left her in his care. An hour later he reported she was stable and the baby was fine. She needed breathing pills and was dehydrated. He had given her a sedative to put her at ease. She was stronger than she seemed, the doctor reassured.
Erdal heaved a sigh of relief as he gazed at the now confused and scared faces of the council members. Half an hour earlier, when he got back to the meeting room, there was chaos among the council heads. Ornek had already briefed them about the situation and showed them the documents that proved Erdal was the true heir to the throne.
They wanted some time to think it over, but as Ornek said, there was no doubt about it. They had no choice but to agree.
Epilogue
Erdal sat by the bed in the sickbay and watched her sleep. He had almost lost her. Again. His chest constricted at the thought. If something had happened to her or the baby, he could never have forgiven himself.
Natalie stirred and her eyes fluttered open.
“Erdal,” she whispered his name, and he felt a familiar pull toward her.
“I’m here, my love...” he bent down and planted a kiss on her soft lips.
“Oh, Erdal!” she cried, as he took her in his arms. “I thought I would never see you again!”
“Hush,” he whispered into her hair, taking in her sweet scent. “I rule this land now, so everything will be okay.” He smiled down at her, and then kissed her deeply. “And you will be my beautiful queen,” he said pulling apart.
“You have claimed the throne?” she asked, ever so softly. “What happened to Zutaar?” She saw the side of his face was still slightly swollen, and she could only imagine what he must have endured.
With Dr. Barca’s treatment, his wounds had healed quickly.
“He’s dead,” Erdal said darkly. “We don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Even if he’s gone, don’t you ever leave me alone...” she said.
“I promise you, I will always be at your side,” he said as he gazed deep into her eyes. “And, as my queen, I will lay the world at your feet. I will make you feel loved like no man has ever loved you. I will mark your soul with my touch so deeply that you will crave for nothing more. I will ensnare you with my love, touching you in those secret hidden places you don’t even know exist. Only then will you know what it means to be my queen.”
She gasped, speechless, as her heart beat faster.
He kissed her again. “Oh, and Dr. Barca tells me that it’s a boy,” he said, smiling his gorgeous smile, as he placed his palm on her belly.
“Really? What should we name him?” she asked, smiling.
“Arion,” he said, “he will be Arion Erdal Bu’rak Urquiorra.”
***
Six months later, he stood waiting at the steps leading to the pavilion overlooking the sea. It was draped in gold and white with ivory flowers encircling the gold columns. He wore a dark suit with dark pants, the royal cape draped over his shoulders. He couldn’t stop gazing at the beautiful woman who walked toward him.
She wore a low-cut, backless gold silk and chantilly gown with intricate ivory and gold designs. She held a sleek, gold staff in her hand, a tradition of their race. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun, and she wore an intricate gold tiara on her head. She ambled up to him with a civilized grace gazed into his eyes. The women from the harem were her bridesmaids. They had been set free. Many of them had volunteered to work at the palace while others left for their home planets. One of the bridesmaids held their two-month-old son as she stood by, watching.
Natalie took his hand and he slid a large sapphire onto her finger. They exchanged their vows and Ornek declared them man and wife.
After the ceremony, they stood alone at the far end of the pavilion, gazing at the beautiful sunset arcing over the sea. He held her hand and she rested her head on his shoulder, gazing at the horizon awash with golden and purple hues. He turned to her, his emerald eyes full of love and warmth, and she blushed. He could still do that to her. She bit her lower lip, and he bent down and claimed her mouth with his, his tongue demanding and receiving all of her. As always, he took her breath away, and she wondered what she had done to deserve such a man.
Their hearts beat as one, and the calm sea reflected the peace within their souls. Together they ruled their kingdom and their people loved them. They were remembered long after they were gone.
*****
THE END
The Alien Warrior's Secret Baby
Description
A curvy girl held prisoner on planet X29 PLUS a hot alien who is commander at her camp PLUS a secret human-alien baby!
A generation ago, an alien force named The Gosebs invaded earth and imprisoned the entire human population. Mereen Silver has never known a life different to the one she has. She was born on a Goseb garrison and spent her entire life in their servitude. She has never known hope or happiness, only hard work and despair.
When Mereen is transferred to a different ship, she meets the revolutionary Goseb Commander Detro Mirol. He is not cruel or malicious, he is kind and gentle and, even more, he wants to help the human prisoners under his control.
As time passes Mereen and Detro grow closer and he shares his vision of a peaceful future for humans and Gosebs alike. Mereen is happy to help him in any way she can. But the rest of the Goseb commanders do not agree. They like having power over the humans, using them and discarding them as they will.
But then Detro suddenly disappears in the midst of a fight with a fellow commander over Mereen...
Just then, Mereen learns that she’s pregnant with Detro’s child. Will Detro come back for Mereen, and can she survive until he does? Will their love win out, or will the horrors of war crush them both?
Chapter One
Happiness was in short supply on X29. The planet should have had a better name, but we humans trapped on it felt no love for the strange, dusty place. It didn’t deserve a nickname. We called it Ex sometimes, but that’s all. It wasn’t home and it was never going to be. It was Ex, a place where we had to live because we had no other choice.
The klaxons rang loudly from speakers spread through the camp, signaling the start of another day. It was a horrible, loud, shrieking noise designed to wake even the drunkest man. The klaxons meant that it was time to get up and go to work. They were a call to the men of the camp, telling them to descend into the mines for another day of hard labor. The days were endless, filled with work followed by more days filled with more work, each one leading to the next with no break or rest.
With a loud sigh, I pulled myself out of bed and stretched. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open. I felt tired all of the time. It was an endless exhaustion. All I wanted to do was stay in bed. Nausea hit me when I moved and I put my hands to my lips, struggling to contain it. I couldn't afford to be sick. I needed to keep every bite of food I ate in my body.
I rubbed my soft belly. I could feel the start of a swell there. Or maybe there was nothing. Maybe it was all still in my imagination. But the symptoms were clear enough. I was pregnant. It was good I wasn’t showing yet. Hopefully, I could hide it for a while, wear baggy clothes, wrap myself in rags. I had always been curvy and I was thankful for that now. It would help hide the pregnancy for a little longer.
“Knock knock,” I heard a low voice say. I looked over to see a man with a red face and yellow eyes leaning into my tent. He was tall and thin, with that sunken-cheeked look that all the miners had after enough time spent here. He had dirt permanently trapped under his fingernails and his clothes were thin rags, though he managed a wan smile.
“Good morning, Rob,” I said, as I stood and stretched my already aching back.
“Ready to do some
business, Mereen?” he asked me. Behind him, I could see the glaring morning sunlight of the planet. Morning and night were words that had no meaning here. The planet sat between two suns. There was no night. The temperature ran from hot to hotter.
“Always,” I replied. Rob was my salesman. He sold my wares to men in the mines for fifty percent of the profit. It was a high markup, but it kept me safe and away from the more dangerous side of the business. It was too risky for me to deal with the miners. Rob was better at it, and he knew them. He knew their schedules and personalities; he knew who could be trusted. I handled the supply, Rob handled the demand.
Rob and I had done this countless times. He didn’t need to be told to close the flap and wait on the other side. Once the flap was closed all the way and I knew he couldn’t see, I reached into my rucksack at the foot of my thin mattress. Inside, sewn into the lining, was a secret compartment. Reaching in, I took out a handful of small bags filled with a clear liquid. Alcohol, concentrated and deadly, but easy to smuggle around the camp.
“Enter,” I called to Rob, and he opened the flap and came inside. He handed me a heavy clump of copper ore and I placed it on the scale. It was three pounds, exactly. “How do you always get the number so perfect?” I asked.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Rob said, grabbing the small capsules of alcohol and slipping them into the many hidden pockets of his vest. “Same time tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here,” I answered, and with a tip of a nonexistent cap, Rob left. I let out a deep breath and sat down on my bed again. Just that small act had taken the strength out of me.
There were no comforts in my Spartan quarters. This was a work camp; it wasn’t meant to be pleasant. My tent had a thin mattress on the floor, a bucket for waste and a jug for water. I kept the few personal items I owned in my rucksack, and carried it with me wherever I went.
Our settlement was in the northern half of the planet. Anything further south would have been too hot and inhospitable, though I knew the southern pole had a small tropical island. It was the one place on the planet that wasn’t a miserable desert.
We lived on a huge, wide, flat plane. Thousands of tents lined up in neat rows, each one with human men and women working and struggling to survive another day. There were children as well, though only those boys that would one day be suitable for work were allowed to live.
The klaxons outside changed their tone. Tent check. I stood up, my body crying out from exhaustion. I grabbed my shawl and brought it over my head to shield my skin from the bright sun.
Standing next to my tent, I nodded to my neighbors. To my left was the wife of a miner who had already left for work. Women were considered too weak and small to be functional in the mines, but there was still plenty of work for us to do. There was washing to be done, food to prepare and Goseb commanders to care for.
According to the ID chip implanted in my neck, I worked in the washing facility. I should be spending my days elbow deep in suds. But a bribe every week to the woman in charge of the laundry ensured that I got credit for work without ever actually washing a single thing. The laundry was where I made alcohol and I used to surplus income to stay alive.
The Goseb guards walked between the tents. They held a sensor in one hand and every time it passed over a human there was a quiet beep that meant the human was exactly where they were supposed to be.
The guard loomed over me. He was wearing armor that both protected and cooled him. His face was covered with an expressionless black mask, but I knew what was underneath. Goseb’s were oddly human-like in stature and size. The guard in front of me was only a few inches taller than I was. Underneath the armor his skin was green and his eyes a bright violet color. He would most likely have short hair and a body decorated with tattoos. Not that I would ever see him. The Gosebs only took their armor off when they were at home among family.
I kept my eyes downcast as the sensor moved over me. I heard the beep, and then the Goseb moved past me and onto the next human. On and on down the line he went. It would take them about half an hour to scan every human, and we had to wait outside of our tents until they were finished.
I glanced at the faces of the tired and broken down men and women around me. They all looked aged and stooped, though there was no human on the planet over the age of sixty. No one made eye contact with me. It was too dangerous to make friends. At any time, the Gosebs could kill any one of us. They could wipe the whole planet clear if they wanted to, set their bombs down on us and torch the entire planet. We only lived as long as we were useful to them.
The klaxons stopped and I went back inside of my tent. I pulled a small working table out from underneath my bed and began to chisel away at the copper. I chipped and cut it into small portions and measured them out. Some of it would be used to bribe the guards, some to buy additional food and vitamins. The rest I would add to my stash. I had managed to save quite a bit of my copper, but I would need all of it and then some once the baby was here.
Nausea came roaring through me again and I closed my eyes and waited for it to pass before continuing to separate the copper. Once my work was done I set the alarms on my tent: tin cans and spoons hanging on a line. If anyone tried to get in, the noise from the rattling metal would wake me up. I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes. The heat of Ex wafted over me. I closed my eyes and began to doze, slipping in and out of a light sleep.
Outside, I could hear people moving up and down the lanes between the tents. There were boys selling water and homemade sweets, and women selling themselves to men. What was going to happen to me here? It had been two months since Detro and I had been separated. I’d had no word from him at all. He could be anywhere. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he’d been re-educated by the Gosebs. What if he had found some other woman to keep him warm at night? What if he had forgotten about me? He didn’t know about the child. I hadn’t known about the child when we were separated. There was no way to get a message to him.
Think happy thoughts, my mother used to tell me that. Think about happy things and better times. She spent her days cooking and cleaning and doing other things for the Goseb army. Whenever I cried, she would tell me to think of something happy. That was her trick for getting through long days. So, remembering my sweet mother who had been taken so long ago, I thought back to happier times.
Chapter Two
I was twenty years old when I was informed that I would be going to X29 to be a servant to a Goseb Commander. I had no possessions; I owned nothing. I didn’t even really have any friends, just the fellow human prisoners. Some of them I got along with, some I didn’t. I don’t remember if I was happy or sad. I can barely remember my life before Detro. I didn’t have any dreams or hope. Back then I assumed that my life would be short, unpleasant and defined by work.
It seemed the prisoners that were to go to X29 were chosen at random. I stood, chained to the women in front of and behind me, and shuffled slowly through the Goseb garrison. Even though I was a prisoner, I had considered this place home.
Did I feel sad when I left? It’s hard to say. I remember realizing that I would never again see the little corner where I slept at night, the one place in the world I considered mine. I would never again get to see the dull red sun rise over the Goseb home world as I washed the cobblestone steps of the garrison.
My journey to X29 was my first trip into space. Single file, we were led into the cargo bay where rows of hard metal chairs waited. We were ordered to sit. Once I was down, a cold metal bar was strapped across my chest, trapping me in the seat. I remember looking around, hoping to see stars or the Goseb home world from space. But there were no windows in the cargo bay. I could only see the sad faces of the other humans. It was always hard to look at them, hard eyes, permanent frowns, a defeated air. I knew that I must look just the same.
I gasped as the acceleration of the ship pushed me back against the cold metal chair. My neck strained as the ship fought the planet’s gravity. For a moment I could ne
ither breathe nor move and panic flooded through me. I had no idea if this was normal or if I was about to die. But then the pressure relented and I realized we had made it into space.
I could smell the gas first. We all could. We weren’t permitted to speak to each other, but murmurs echoed around the cargo bay. Some struggled against the bars of their chairs, but I knew it was futile. I let my head fall back and took a deep breath. I could taste the gas. My eyes grew heavy, warmth spread through my body and the next thing I knew I was waking up. My head pounded and my throat was dry. I would later learn that I had spent forty-nine hours unconscious on the ship. I heard voices around me as my fellow humans moaned and cried out. It was harder on the older ones. An elderly woman two seats down didn’t wake up at all.
The transport ship shuddered then reverberated and an announcement came over the speaker. We had docked with the garrison ship orbiting the mining planet of X29.
About twenty Goseb guards entered the rooms as the bars along our chair released us.
“Kneel,” said the commanding guard. There was no question, no argument from any of the humans. We were beyond expendable to the Gosebs. It was easier for them to kill us than negotiate and we were reminded of that every day.
I knelt on the ground as Goseb guards moved up and down the lines of waiting humans. A tingle went up and down my spine as the guard stood behind me. I closed my eyes and there was a loud buzzing noise followed by a painful burning sensation on the back of my neck. I bit down a gasp, but it was over quickly. A quick sting. It was a tracking device linked to the ship. Anywhere I went, they would know. Anything I did, they would know.