His to Claim (Alien Masters Book 2)

by Kallista Dane

  “She doesn’t have to be smart to spread those legs for me. Rip off the rest of that thing and let’s see how she’s put together down below.”

  “No.” His voice was level but the others knew better than to test Ayron’s patience. He turned around, pulled off his own cloak, and wrapped it around her. His own body had already shown a shocking response to this female. If she inspired this degree of arousal in him and his group, he couldn’t let her appear in front of the entire Tryb nearly naked. The younger men wouldn’t get any work done tonight. They’d all be fighting for the chance to claim her.

  “Let’s go.” The other men obeyed immediately, heading back toward the kill site. The woman simply stood there, staring at him.

  “I said, let’s go.” He took a few steps, waved at her to join him. She didn’t budge. Finally, frustrated, he grabbed her arm, turned her in the direction he wanted her to head, and swatted her on the ass, propelling her forward. She shot him a nasty look but fell into step behind the others, clutching the edges of the cloak around her.

  They could hear the singing long before they caught sight of the Tryb. When they arrived at the kill site, she stopped dead and Ayron could understand why. Even after all these years it was an amazing sight. He could imagine how it must look to someone who had never seen it before.

  Torches flickered in the purple moonlight, illuminating a swarm of workers atop the beast, busily stripping the hide from the narliphant. The men chanted an ancient song of victory, while the women echoed back the refrain after every verse as they hacked the carcass into chunks of bloody flesh small enough to carry. A steady line of workers, made up of the old and the young from the Tryb, disappeared over the crest of the hill, lugging the smaller bones and pieces of meat wrapped in the hide back to the caves. They’d all sleep for hours when the night’s work was done.

  The oldest women, those who couldn’t carry a heavy load any longer, were even now tending a fire in the massive pit back at the cave, ready to cook huge slabs of the meat over a bed of coals all day. Tomorrow night, the Tryb would have a huge feast, eating and drinking their fill, then singing and dancing till dawn. Many a child could trace his or her beginnings to a night like the one in store.

  A murmur broke out among the crowd when they caught sight of the hunters with their latest prize. Everyone crowded around them. Dozens of hands reached out to paw at the female. She drew up to her full height and pulled the cloak tighter around her. Ayron caught sight of Mother Eva, the matriarch of the Tryb, and called her over.

  “What have we here?” Eva’s keen eyes sized up the situation. The group parted to allow her to proceed regally to the center. She moved slowly, painfully, as befitting her advanced age.

  “We’ve found some kind of female creature,” Ayron explained. “She’s obviously humanoid but she doesn’t look like us and she seems unable to understand us or to speak. I thought you could take her back to the caves, clean her up, get her food and water. I don’t know how long she’s been out here or how much radiation exposure she’s had.”

  Eva moved closer, taking the female’s face in her hands. The captive shied away, jerking her head and staring down at Eva with a look of cool disdain in her eyes.

  “You’ve found a feisty one, that’s for certain,” Eva remarked. She turned to Nazery and Khan. “Hold her.” They spread the female’s arms wide, keeping her in place as she struggled. Eva opened the cloak, shielding the female’s body from view by the other Tryb members while looking her over. Their prisoner shrank back and lowered her eyes, once again exhibiting distress at being exposed.

  Mother Eva waved a hand and the men released the female, who yanked the edges of the cloak from Eva’s hands and wrapped it tightly around herself again.

  “She does have the body of a human. But we must be careful. There are still dangerous creatures lurking in the outlands. Many years ago, when I was just a young girl, our Tryb took in a mutant male the hunters found. The creature was barely alive. We nursed it back to health, fed and cared for it. We kept it tied up but let it sleep and eat in the cave as though it was one of us.”

  She lowered her voice, so only the hunters around her could hear. “One morning we found the creature covered in blood, feasting on the raw flesh of the young boy in charge of bringing it water. I didn’t blame the mutant. It was a wild creature that didn’t know right from wrong. It was only doing what it had always done to survive. Mother Vana, our matriarch at the time, killed the beast herself. Afterwards, we burned its remains and scattered them to the wind, lest its spirit remain and enter the body of one of our unborn young.”

  As she spoke the female stood motionless, as though taking in every word. Her eyes darted from Mother Eva to the hunters, watching them warily.

  “I will deal with this one myself,” Eva proclaimed. She scanned the faces of the men clustered around her and made her decision. “I want Ayron and Khan to accompany me. She may be slender, but she looks strong. Who knows what harm she is capable of doing?” Eva smiled ruefully and shook her head. “Once, long before any of you were born, I hunted alongside the men. But I can no longer wield a sword the way I did when I was young. I may have need of your skills.”

  Eva took Khan’s arm, leaving Ayron to walk beside the female as they joined the line of workers hauling the carcass back to the caves. He suffered a pang of guilt walking unencumbered when he passed fellow Tryb members struggling under their heavy burdens. The female next to him stumbled along wearily, hardly able to stay upright. She certainly didn’t look dangerous. But if this creature was only pretending to be weak and suddenly went on the attack, it was up to him to spring to the defense of the others. He couldn’t do that with a huge hunk of narliphant bone strapped to his back.

  * * *

  Lexi shuffled along in a daze. If not for the pain stabbing her head with every step, she’d have sworn she was dreaming—or unconscious.

  It had taken everything she had to pull herself together when she realized she’d been dropped down in the middle of the deserted wasteland of Iridia. Once she got over her fit of hysteria, she took stock of her situation. One: she was alive. Two: she was uninjured, except for the symptoms of a mild concussion. Nausea. Dizziness. And that throbbing headache. Maybe by now her fellow scientists had discovered what happened and were preparing to send out a search party.

  Don’t be naïve. No one is coming for you. They can’t possibly recreate whatever anomaly it was that transported you here instead of Neodyma. Angrily, she shook off the demon of doubt whispering in her ear and gave herself a pep talk. I’m alive. And where there’s life, there’s hope. I just have to find shelter and water. Survive until someone comes for me.

  The twin suns had disappeared over the horizon. It would be dark soon. She struggled to her feet and set off toward a distant outcropping of enormous boulders. Maybe she’d find a small cranny there to wedge herself into and get some rest.

  Every step was an effort, more than she could attribute to the effects of her head injury. The pull of gravity must be stronger here on Iridia than it was back home on Earth. Lexi called on her mental training, sending her mind far away, separating it from the signals of pain and weariness her body was sending out. Still, she had to stop every twenty or thirty steps to catch her breath.

  She reached the first giant outcropping of rock but its smooth surface provided no shelter. Blinking back tears of frustration and weariness, she persuaded herself to go on another fifty feet or so to the next before allowing herself a much-needed break.

  She heard the harsh sound at the same time she slammed face down onto the ground. Lexi tried to move but she was trapped, pinned there by something heavy lying over her.

  Lexi froze. What kind of hideous creature could survive on this barren planet? The pressure on her eased, the creature flipped her over, and Lexi found herself staring into a pair of glowing green eyes with unusually large dark pupils. They stared back, mirroring the shock she was certain her own eyes held.

 
This was no bizarre freak of nature. It was a man. An exceptionally well-built one, she noted. Bare chested, with sleek powerful muscles that rippled under his deep bronze skin. He wore thick gold bracelets on both wrists, and a glowing stone on a leather thong around his neck nearly matched the green of his eyes. He’d tossed a cloak made of what looked like animal skin over his shoulders and wore some sort of garment slung low round his hips, ending just above the knees straddling her body.

  Another strip of leather tied around his forehead held back a long flowing mane of dark hair, shot through here and here with strands of gray. Her genetic training automatically catalogued his features, making a guess at his origins.

  She knew that, like Neodyma, Iridia had been colonized thousands of years ago by one or more civilizations that vanished mysteriously from Earth. Judging from the sculpted planes in his face, the high cheekbones and strong jawline, he might be descended from the Anasazi. That nearly mythical Indian tribe disappeared without a trace from the American Southwest after creating a thriving culture that endured for over a thousand years.

  All these thoughts flew through her mind in a flash. Then panic hit when he tried to rip off her helmet. She’d die without the oxygen rebreather. Lexi struggled fiercely but she was no match for his strength. He pulled the helmet off.

  She held her breath as long as she could. Suddenly the realization hit. He had no source of oxygen, yet he was alive. Tentatively, she took a little sniff. The air was thick and heavy and left a strange metallic taste in the back of her throat. But she could breathe it.

  Shouts rang out and she panicked again when four more men appeared. They looked like the savage barbarians of ancient times on Earth she’d learned about in school. One had his face tattooed to look like a fierce jungle cat. When he opened his mouth to speak, she saw his teeth were shaped like fangs.

  The man next to him wore a full suit of body armor, made of squares of a metallic stone pierced with holes in the corners and strung together with a thick gray metal wire. He said something and poked her hip with the tip of a sword. Her captor shoved the sword away, responding angrily in a guttural language she couldn’t yet understand. Lexi hoped the Tellex chip would begin working soon.

  Another had skin so black he blended into the growing darkness. Except for his eyes. They glowed too, a brilliant gold surrounding the huge black pupils.

  The men seemed to be arguing among themselves. Her captor reached down suddenly, ripping apart the white suit she’d worn in the transporter to expose the skin-hugging, nearly transparent cylerian. Lexi cringed under his gaze. His eyes widened and he reached a hand out toward her. She swatted it away.

  In her modern world, adults did not appear unclothed in front of each other. Illness was virtually unheard of and rarely needed medical procedures utilized scanning machines that sent focused lasers and electron beams directly into the tissues while the patient lay covered from head to toe by a sheet. No one had seen her naked body since she was a tiny child, except for her holographic lover. Appearing almost unclothed in front of these savages left her feeling even more vulnerable.

  The fourth man, the one wearing a shapeless garment made of some sort of bristly animal skin, seemed bent on exploiting the weakness he’d sensed. He sank down on his knees and ran a rough hand over her. Lexi shivered. Though her body was completely covered by the cylerian, she could feel his callused fingers graze her through the fabric. He grabbed her breast, cupped his palm around it, and squeezed. Even as her brain registered the strange sensation of touch, her arm shot out automatically, backhanding him in the face with her fist. He reeled back, bellowing with rage.

  She didn’t need a Tellex chip to recognize the raucous outburst of the others as laughter. The man caught her fist in his hand, clamping his fingers around it and applying pressure until she thought her hand would be crushed. But she refused to show any weakness, staring back at him defiantly until he finally let go.

  The man who had wrestled her to the ground stood up, pulling her to her feet along with him. He stood eye to eye with her six foot frame, though he probably outweighed her by a good hundred pounds—all of it pure muscle from the looks of him. The torn transport suit slid off her, falling to the ground in tatters. His gaze traveled slowly down her body, making Lexi painfully aware of her nearly naked state. She tried hard not to let him see her distress. It wouldn’t do to show any weakness in front of these savages.

  When his eyes fixed on the golden brown patch of pubic hair plainly visible through the cylerian, she felt herself blushing. Without thinking, she covered herself as best she could with one hand. The man who grabbed her breast spouted off a remark and grabbed his crotch. She followed the movement of his hand, then turned away, shocked and embarrassed, when she saw he had grasped his male member, stroking it up and down roughly.

  She’d never seen a real penis before—only the one on her holographic lover. This man’s appendage protruded from the folds of his garment, sticking out thick and hard, with a bulging purplish-red head. Not much longer than the width of his hand, but so large in circumference his fingers barely closed around it. She shuddered in distaste.

  Her captor suddenly became her protector, stepping in front of the crude savage and blocking him from her view. Then he took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders. She pulled the edges together in front of her. It covered her from neck to mid-calf, large enough that she could practically wrap it around her body twice.

  He turned back to the other men. After a terse exchange, they moved as one, heading back the way they’d come. He said something incomprehensible and gestured for her to follow them. When she didn’t immediately obey, the barbarian took her arm and twisted her around. Then he pulled up the edge of the cloak and struck her sharply on the buttocks with the flat of his hand, propelling her forward.

  During her training, Lexi engaged in hand-to-hand combat and took her share of blows. But she’d never been struck in such a fashion.

  Shocked at the harsh sting, she glared at him over her shoulder while sizing up her chances against him. He brandished his palm in a threatening fashion. Lexi knew in her weakened state she couldn’t possibly fight him and all the others too. Bowing to defeat, she fell into step, her captor bringing up the rear so she couldn’t escape.

  She tried to come up with a plan to get away from the rude savages but her head still pounded so hard she could barely think straight. She’d been in contact with the indigenous population for only a short time, yet already she’d been pawed and groped and now she’d been physically assaulted. She dragged her steps, but her exhaustion was more real than she wanted to admit. Frightened and wary, Lexi tried not to imagine what new torments awaited her when they arrived at their destination.

  She heard the sound long before she caught sight of the others. Masculine voices raised in a low rhythmic chant, echoed by a female chorus blending in with a much higher, different melody. The voices got louder the further they walked, until the sound seemed to reverberate through the very ground at her feet. But nothing prepared her for the tableau in front of her when they rounded the last bend.

  A full moon shone down, bathing the scene in an eerie purple light. Flickering torches stood here and there, jammed upright into the coarse sandy soil. Dozens of men and women swarmed over the fallen carcass of an enormous creature, the likes of which she’d never seen before. Lying on its side, it had the squat body of a giant rhinoceros, with a huge thick horn protruding from the top of its head. A long snout stuck out below, like an elephant’s trunk.

  Those animals had long been extinct on Earth. Lexi had only seen holographic images of them as a schoolchild. Yet here in front of her was a creature combining the features of both, along with something entirely new. Instead of four legs, this beast had eight. Four short thick appendages on each side of its body. The extra legs would help support its bulk against the planet’s strong gravity.

  She felt a quick burst of excitement. If she had to crash land on a strange planet
, at least it offered a rare opportunity to make discoveries in her field. She’d come away from this with a fascinating paper she could present at the Hall of Science’s next InterStellar Convocation.

  The workers were stripping the carcass down to gleaming bone. An endless line of others, both old and young, marched up to the creature, loaded hunks of raw flesh and small bones into packs on their backs, and then turned, plodding off into the distance. Several of them stopped in their tracks when they saw her. A low murmur spread through the crowd and the chant died away as everyone ran forward. Her captor and his crew had to circle around her, forcibly keeping them at arm’s length.

  The murmurs faded into silence and the crowd parted automatically as a woman made her way slowly to the front of the group. Lexi stared. She’d never seen anyone who looked so old. On Earth people routinely lived to be 150 or more. But they maintained a youthful appearance of a century or more through the regular hormone injections. It wasn’t unusual to see a woman of 130 or 140 looking like she could be the older sister of her middle-aged 90-year-old daughter.

  This woman was much shorter than the others. Lexi guessed her spine had been contracted by the crushing force of Iridia’s gravity over the years. She moved slowly, as though each step caused her pain. She had deep bronze skin the texture of leather, with a mass of wrinkles covering her face. Piercing brown eyes seemed to bore into Lexi’s mind and she wondered whether this woman had been gifted with the innate power a trained psychological evaluator spent years perfecting back on Earth.

  An elaborate headpiece was woven into her flowing white mane of hair; gold wires intertwined with a dazzling array of glowing stones in every color of the rainbow. She wore a full-length purple garment and a pair of flat sandals crisscrossed with laces that disappeared up under her dress. Her body was not fat as much as sturdy. Despite her advanced age—or perhaps because of it—she walked with a regal bearing, head held high.