by Aubrey Cara
Out here in the full light of the sun, Oathar’s scales appear clammy. I want to get up and smack those two for not being more concerned over their Yon Tor’s state. I rest my hand on his chest, over his heart. I know it’s where his heart is because I can hear the strange rhythm of it each time I’m up against him.
My own heart seems to stop. I can’t feel it. I don’t like that I can’t feel the usually strong tempo under my fingertips. I rearrange my awful huzzah umbrella to block as much sun as it’s able and then scoot down until I’m full-length against his side and put my ear to his chest.
The beat of his heart is faint, and though I’m relieved he’s still alive, the weak, barely there patter shakes me. I know how sure and strong it should be. I’ve matched my breathing, fallen asleep, and woken up to the sound for the past few days.
I wrap an arm around his middle and squeeze tight. “Please don’t die.”
~*~*~
With my head resting on Oathar’s chest, I doze in and out. When the air turns clean and floral my senses snap to. My eyes blink open only to squeeze them shut again. I squint against the glare of midmorning sun that sneaks in under my Silence of the Lambs umbrella. The not-so-wonderful stench of stegorhinuffalo is still being carried back on the breeze—gag me—but outside of the stank, there’s sweet grass and flowers.
Sitting up, all I see is the same desert I’ve been looking at for days, until I shift my umbrella and crane around. Then I see it.
The village.
Adobe structures are stacked one on top of the other like something pulled out of ancient times. Beautiful pink blooming trees, and darker, nearly purple bushes and shrubs are scattered about. We ride past a pen of brightly colored…
“Are those fat snakes?” There’s a ton of them, all different shades of bright blue and green. Their giant, brilliantly hued slug bodies slowly slithering around a pen.
I’m still pondering what the hell those things are, when we come to a stop. Beavis and Buttmunch jump down, just as a huge Alogorian comes out of one of the adobe structure’s doorways. Or, at least, I think he’s Alogorian. Holy big alien, Batman. He’s so tall he has to squat to exit, and I wonder why they didn’t just make the opening bigger.
My eyes go wide, and my cheeks heat at the sight that walks through the doorway. He has all the regular Alogorian traits of honey-toned scales, but the ridges on his head are lined with spiked horns. And the behemoth is wearing nothing but leather band around his thickly packed biceps, and a belt of bushy green...herbs? If we were on Earth I’d assume the plant he’s wearing to be basil. Here? Who knows. It’s just for show anyway. His crotch is fully exposed.
All his boy-parts are blessedly tucked away, but I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. It’s super freaky to see him all Ken-dolled.
Beavis and Buttmunch bow to him, and I sit up a little straighter. Who is this guy? They start talking and pointing at me, and he strides over to the conveyance.
His facial features are rough cut. If Oathar is the sexy lizard king, this guy would be Conan the Barbarian. Hello, well-muscled savage. The spiked horned ridges do nothing to detract from his good looks. He catches me checking him out, and I realize he’s been checking me out, too. The corners of his mouth pull up until I’m graced with a full, somewhat terrifying toothy grin, and something pathetically girly inside me gives a warm quiver.
For another alien.
When I already may be carrying the king alien’s egg baby…
Shit.
Who am I? I don’t even know anymore.
I put the back of my hand to my forehead, checking my temp. Ugh, I’m just sweaty. I wipe my hand off on my thigh; that’s just as slick. Maybe I’ve been out in the heat too long. I need Brook and Bri, if only for guidance. I obviously cannot be left unattended.
“Take the Yon Tor in and set him on the center platform,” Conan the Lizard Barbarian tells the younger Alogorians. His voice is deep and melodic. It makes the Alogorian language sound sexy.
My mother has warned me against European men since I was born. Anyone this sexy is not to be trusted. Especially if he knows it. That’s how you end up with a foreign STDs and your bank account drained.
I’ve heard this lecture so many times, it’s playing through my head in my mother’s voice right now, and my mind is already making up excuses for him, such as I don’t have a bank account here…
As for an STD… On a scale of getting gonorrhea from Euro-cock to being impregnated by aliens, it’s not looking good for me.
He’s still studying me in a friendly manner. Disarmed by his attention, my grip on Oathar tightens.
“Ri and Myk tell me you are the Yon Tor’s bhnt ky’ab yhar.”
I slowly nod and reluctantly release Oathar, scooting out of the way while two younger Alogorians carefully lift and carry him inside a dwelling. My eyes track where they’re taking him even as I get up to follow.
The huge new guy steps in my way, and I hesitate.
“Come.” He holds out his hand, and my heart pinches, stupidly wishing it were Oathar instead of the Jason Momoa of Lehor. “I will check on the progress of the ling after I check over Oathar.”
My gaze jerks to his in surprise. I’ve never heard anyone, outside of myself, call the Yon Tor by his given name. He hops into the desert sleigh and scoops me up before I realize his intentions.
He doesn’t even grunt with effort, and I barely jostle as he hops down with me in his arms. My heart skips a beat at how petite and light he makes me feel, even as I want to scramble away. I’m too naked to be touched by anyone, let alone an attractive alien someone.
A squirmy sensation, closely resembling guilt, hits my tummy, which is strange, since I have no loyalties to Beast Boy, healthy or not. Before this whole mess, he was working on trading me faster than an underperforming athlete.
I try to derive a moment of comfort at being held up against all this guy’s powerful muscles, but the sense of comfy relief I always experience in Oathar’s arms doesn’t come. Then, realizing he’s all fresh and dry as a daisy, smelling exotic and wonderful as Beast Boy, while I’m probably twice as ripe as a slick pig, I die a little inside.
You can sell an Earth girl to aliens, but you cannot take away her sense of shame.
“Oathar told me he had acquired a human from the Zapex. Are there more of you?”
I shake my head.
He sighs. “Unfortunate.”
I roll my eyes. “For who?” It’s certainly not “unfortunate” for all the humans who didn’t get abducted.
He snorts as if he understands me and finds my ire amusing. A trickle of that relieved sensation I’d been missing a moment ago, creeps in. “She talks. Does she have a name?”
I’m tempted to tell him, Nonya Business—but instead give him my name.
“Bohombee,” he sounds out much like Oathar did the first time he heard my name. “I am Bo’hob. I am the profound healer of Lehor.”
My mind stutters.
Bob?
Profound healer?
Does that make him Dr. Bob?
Before I can ask, he turns and ducks to enter his dwelling.
The first thing that hits me is the smell. It’s very old apothecary meets botanical garden. The main room is dug out of the ground, and we go down a few steps to enter the main space. Just being out of the sun makes this place at least ten degrees cooler than outside. Plants, some living, many drying, hang from every inch of the ceiling, creating an indoor canopy of sorts. The floor is stone, and there are counters and cabinets along one wall covered in mixing bowls and grinding stones.
A fire pit with an ever-present blue stone floating in the center is in front of the kitchen-like space. Two stone tables sit opposite a circular seating area consisting of a thin fur rug in the center and plump leather cushions here and there, with more furs thrown about.
It’s hippie homey. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dr. Bob was totally into leading drum circles and group meditation.
He
sets me on the platform next to the one Oathar is stretched out on, and I’m surprised to discover the stone slab is warm. He turns his attention to Oathar, tutting as he pulls something out of one of the cabinets then comes back and waves Myk and Ri over. “Grab his arms, and legs, and keep him steady.”
“Why do they need to hold him down?” I ask, genuinely concerned. He’s passed out already.
“He will object to me flushing out and neutralizing the huzah venom,” he says as he pours a noxious smelling liquid out over Oathar’s wound.
“But why?”
No sooner are the words out of my mouth, Oathar arches off the table as he yells like the demons of hell are being ripped out of him.
His wound smokes and bubbles, and I jump off the table and shove at Dr. Bob. “What are you doing to him?”
“Healing him.” He pushes me aside, not fazed by my outburst, and pours more of the awful fluid on the gash.
Again, Oathar screams. Internally, I’m screaming, too.
“Stop! You’re hurting him.” I know I’m being irrational, but I’ve never seen anyone in this much pain. I duck around Bo’hob and root myself to Oathar’s side. I grip his hand and stroke his knuckles as if that will somehow soothe the agony he has to be experiencing.
Bo’hob moves to put more on, and I growl at him. “Back off. That’s enough.”
That catches him off guard, and his features soften with a touch of sympathy. “Just once more. If your sensibilities are too delicate to watch, you may go lie down in the back room.” His tone isn’t mocking, but, damn, I don’t want to be seen as some wilting maiden.
I shake my head, and straighten my shoulders. I know this is for the best. Or at least I hope so. “Go ahead.” I grip Oathar’s hand tightly, and I’m not sure if it’s to comfort him or myself. The substance fizzles and pops. Green smoke rolls up from inside the gash, like a witch’s bubbling cauldron, and my stomach turns.
Oathar pants through his gritted teeth.
“I do not know why he didn’t begin flushing out the wound last night,” Dr. Bo’hob says. “Did you two not make it to a mah-cun?”
“We did.”
“Was there no water?”
“There was, but…” He used it all to tend to me. He washed me instead of cleaning out a potentially deadly wound. Of all the stupid…sweet things he could have done.
My heart does a happy flip before I can squash the little rays of sunshine and sparkle rainbows that shoot out like a Care Bear stare.
He was probably just worried about his pirate eggs, I rationalize. I’m his bent cabbage. Of course, he’s going to see to my well-being. I cannot let myself think he cares. That’s a slippery slope. Especially with a guy who gives me rock-star orgasms that get the oxytocin a-flowing.
I cannot allow myself to be one of those calf-eyed, ride-or-die chicks just because the dick’s too bomb to quit. I’m better than this. I’ve spent my life watching my mother be led around by her vag: falling in love with losers who must have been good in the sack for her to stick around or jerks she let treat her like trash because they had money.
I surreptitiously check out Dr. Bob again, wondering how it would have turned out had I met him first. I bet he wouldn’t trade me to the Monroks. And he’s a doctor. That should count for something. I’m not sure what…
Bo’hob sends Ri and Myk on their way, and we fall into an awkward silence. Or, at least, it’s awkward for me. I can feel him glancing over at me from time to time, but I keep my attention on Oathar.
“Hey, how come you understand me, but Ri and Myk couldn’t?”
Smiling that disturbing toothy way Alogorians do, his taps his temple. “Translator. My father was second in command to Oathar’s father. They took Oathar and me on many of their off-world trips.” He casually wipes away mucusy pus while he talks, and I try not to be sick.
“You two grew up together?” I ask, mostly to distract myself.
“Yes, and had it not become apparent I was the profound healer, I would be his second instead of Jhyr, but the ancestors had other plans for me.” He points to the spiky horns on his ridges that obviously mean something.
I guess only profound healers get horns.
I’m not sure how long we wait, watching Oathar struggle through the process of the “neutralizer,” Dr. Bob cleaning the wound each time nastiness spills out, but it seems like forever.
“He is strong and healthy,” Bo’hob says after my fiftieth sigh and whimper. “You dishonor him by fretting.”
I roll my eyes. I so don’t get the machismo factor 1000 that is the Alogorian male. “You know, it’s natural where I come from to be concerned about people who are in pain or dying.”
“So, you honor your people by thinking they are weak?” He pulls out a tube and draws Oathar’s blood, which is a strange blue-purple color.
“You two grew up together. Aren’t you the least bit concerned he may die? Don’t you feel bad he’s in pain?”
He levels me with an unreadable stare. “I cannot take his pain, and I have done all I can to heal him. If it is the will of the ancestors, he will die, and my worry will not change this.”
“That’s so cold.”
“I do not understand what this has to do with temperature.”
Ugh, aliens. “It’s a saying. It means you’re being emotionally cold. I can’t believe you’d be so casually accepting of his death.”
He grunts in acknowledgement, adding something to the blood sample, and shakes it until the blood in the tube becomes clear. “The venom is all but gone. Now we let him heal.”
The suturing process involves a solvent that, when spread over his gash, seals it shut. He smooths out the excess, and little puffed up pink scales variegate into his normal honey-tone, covering the wound just like scar tissue.
The pallid-green tint to his scales is giving way to a healthier tone. He’s still paler than usual, but no longer writhes in pain.
“Had he died, I would have mourned him like a brother.” His voice rings with emotion, and I’m sorry I gave him a hard time. “That does not mean I would not accept his death with respect and grace. We honor the will of the ancestors here. How difficult it must be to think you have any power over such things.”
Well, shit.
“Now let’s check on the yhar you carry.” He says this like he hadn’t just dropped more knowledge than a box of fortune cookie fortunes written by the Dalai Lama. My mind is still reeling when he picks me up with ease and sets me on the stone platform once again.
“How long ago were they implanted?” he asks, striding over to the cabinet and grabbing jars and a roll of something dark greenish-black that reminds me of the seaweed they use at sushi restaurants.
My cheeks heat, and I fidget with my hands, remembering the “implanting” that happened two days ago. I glance down at my lap, suddenly very aware of how naked I am. “I need some clothes.”
“Are you cold? Temperature-wise, not emotionally.” His lips pull up in a grin, and I’m pretty sure he just made a joke. I groan. Alogorian humor is a lot like dad jokes.
He picks up my foot, and I jerk back.
“This will not hurt. Only soothe.”
“You can’t blame a girl for being cautious.” I let him take my foot. He puts a dark paste that smells herbal and clean on one abused and blistered foot and then the other.
“No walking for at least one cycle. Possibly two,” he instructs.
As promised, it doesn’t hurt. In fact, it’s wonderful, if strangely numbing. He wraps my feet in a seaweed stuff, and asks me again when Oathar did the dirty “implanting” deed.
“The day before yesterday,” I mumble, not looking him in the eye, but I see his bald eyebrow line go up in surprise.
“That recently?” He tuts and glances over at Oathar. “Our Yon Tor will need to heal quickly, so he may get back to delivering nutrients to his yhar.”
What’s this now? “How exactly does he “deliver” the nutrients?”
“T
hrough basic copulation, much like the implanting of the yhar, though less time-consuming. But still enjoyable.” He adds the last at my frown. I guess that’s supposed to be reassuring.
When I continue to stare, his bald brows draw together, and his mouth pulls down. “Was it not pleasant?”
I gasp in outrage. “I am so not answering that.”
“My studies on human conception have been somewhat limited—”
I snort at the understatement that’s turning into the motto of the human stealing Alogorian males.
He adds, “But, it’s important for our eggs to get as much nutrients as possible through their developmental cycle.”
I snort again. I just bet.
“A well-fertilized yhar, makes for a healthy ling.”
Huh, well, it will be difficult for Oathar to be sexing me up and watering his fertile field if he sends me to the Monrok, but I keep that bitter thought to myself.
“I need you to lie back.” With one hand supporting me, he helps me ease down, and I try not to freak when he bends my knees with my feet on the platform.
And I thought my regular gyno appointments were awkward. What’s a girl got to do to get a sheet around here? “Do you have any children, Dr. Bob?” I ask, trying not to pay attention to the fact some alien witch doctor is examining my junk.
“It is Bo’hob.”
“Bo’hob, by any other name is Bob,” I reason.
He shrugs, and it strikes me as a very human gesture. “I do not understand this. And no, I have not yet created life. I was in my Wisdom Trials at the time I was first eligible to participate in the mating cycle.”
“Wisdom Trials?”
“Those of us with prodigious callings must go to live with the elders. We gain knowledge and endure the trials set out for us as foretold by the ancestors.”
Before I can respond, his face is wedged between my thighs, and my ladytown is fully invaded by Dr. Bob’s super-long alien tongue.
“Wha!” I can’t close my thighs or beat his head, ’cause horns! I shove at his shoulders with my wrapped feet.
“All the yhar are placed well, and healthy.” He sits back and smiles at me like this is a completely normal procedure he does every day.