She was looking at me with a mixed expression of anxiety and intrigue, and I allowed myself to tell her one more thing before going to my quarters to think.
“My name is Duke.”
8
Emily
I lost track of time somewhere around the second week I’d been held captive inside the alien ship, but I guessed I’d been imprisoned for nearly a month when I had my chance to escape.
Despite his behavior when he’d first brought me to the ship, Duke was actually rather sensitive. He brought me blankets made of silky-soft skins from animals I had never seen or heard of before to cuddle into when I slept. I was given food so frequently from sunup to sundown that I was rarely able to finish it all, and, though the meals were made up of meats and vegetables completely foreign to me, they were more delicious than any I had ever had. I wasn’t permitted to leave the cage for any reason, which meant he had to supply me with things to take care of my personal business, but he always turned his back or left the room completely when I needed to tend to my needs. Overall, he made sure everything necessary for me to survive was taken care of, and he did it without resentment.
Interacting with him was more difficult. After he’d told me his name, he refused to say another word to me for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until I’d woken the next morning that he finally spoke to me again, and that was only to ask if I was okay. I’d tried to engage him in conversation, asking him what he wanted with me and if he would please just let me go, but he’d refused to respond. Questioning him about why he’d come to Earth in the first place and what his warriors were doing didn’t go anywhere, either.
Two days of no answers to any of my questions and no acknowledgment for my statements left me feeling dejected and lonely, so I eventually just occupied myself by thinking. No matter how hard I tried, my mind kept wandering back to that moment when our eyes had locked when he’d found me. The most logical explanation at the time had been mind control. It was certainly the belief of many people that aliens were able to tap into our brains. When Duke had demanded to know what I had done to him, however, I’d known it was something else. He was just as confused by the connection as I was. I had never felt anything so powerful, so moving, before, and whatever it was seemed to have scared Duke into rejecting any socialization I offered.
Finally, however, when a full week had passed in mostly silence, I was unable to hold back any longer. I waited until we had both eaten, and then I spoke for the first time in days.
“What happened?” I asked. “You know when we met.”
His back was to me, as he was looking out the window like he did most of the time, but I could see his shoulders stiffen and his body become completely still. Every other time I’d tried to talk to him, I’d pressed him even when he’d refused to answer. This time, though, I remained quiet and just waited for him to respond.
Finally, he turned around. He moved so slowly it was almost like he had cinder blocks attached to his feet, and the expression on his face looked pained. His jaw was tightly flexed, his eyes were hardened slits, and his back was straighter than usual. When he looked at me, I tried to delve beyond the surface of his emotions, but it was as though impenetrable walls had come up.
“What do you mean?” he countered. He spoke almost as slowly as he’d turned, which led me to believe he was trying to manipulate his vocal and facial reactions to the inquiry.
I stared back at him unflinchingly. “It was like there was nothing in the world but you.”
His lips parted slightly, and I heard an almost imperceptible gasp. The thin slits that were his eyes opened until I could see his alabaster irises completely. He moved as if he wanted to step toward me, though he didn’t, and his fingers unfurled from his fists like petals on a flower. “I do not understand,” he said softly.
“Yes, you do,” I insisted, grabbing the bars and pressing my cheeks against them in earnest. “You felt it too. I know you did.”
There was a second in which I was certain he was going to confess. His sharp features softened just enough to notice, and his breathing slowed. Then, without warning, I saw everything revert back to the guarded state it was usually in. His eyes became steely once more, his mouth snapped shut, and his shoulders squared.
“You are mistaken,” he said icily. He spun on his heel until his back was toward me and started to stride to the window again.
“Why did you ask me if I had magic, then?” I cried out, panicked that I’d lost my chance of hearing his answer.
He froze again, and then he whipped around like I’d hurled a fist at him. This time, he looked at me with a fire I had never seen in him before. His very gaze was smoldering, and I was sure I felt the heat radiating from him even across the several feet of space between us. I was frightened by the expression, but I was also excited by it. A thrill burst in my belly and shrouded me in completely unexpected desire.
“Fine,” he hissed venomously. “I felt it. Unfortunately, I am unaware of the cause, and I do not know what happened.”
“What did it feel like for you?” I asked. I was filled with sudden eagerness at finally getting something out of him that I’d been dying to know. “Did you feel like you couldn’t breathe? Like something was grabbing your insides?”
“I—” He stopped talking abruptly, and a faraway look came over his face. When he resumed, his voice was quieter and more thoughtful, though still with his characteristic grit. “I could not move. Something had taken control of my body. I felt nothing and everything all at once. It was as if I was being born for the first time.”
I stared at him through the bars, breathing slowly in and out as I absorbed his words and felt the intensity behind them. He continued staring into space for a moment, and then he shook his head and snapped back into reality.
“It is irrelevant,” he said brusquely. “I have a job to do.”
That was the last we spoke of the odd connection between us, but I quickly discovered he did, indeed, have a job to do. While the first week I spent with him was just between us, at the beginning of the second, he started to bring new company in the form of radio updates. I wasn’t aware of them at first and was alarmed when he started making loud clicking and clacking noises to himself without warning.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a panic the first time I heard it. “Are you okay?”
My gut instinct was that he had entered into some kind of seizure, but, when he faced me, he seemed perfectly healthy. His finger was pressed into his ear, and he was clacking his tongue rapidly at various volumes and octaves.
Then, in English, he said, “I am speaking A’li-uud.”
For whatever reason, I had just assumed English was the language of the A’li-uud when he’d first spoken it to me. To discover he had a native language, however, both impressed and intrigued me, and I leaned against the bars as he started clacking again. I listened carefully to notice any recognizable words within the snapping noises, but there were none.
“Who are you talking to?” I asked curiously.
He shot me a look to quiet me, and I fell silent as he conversed with what appeared to be himself. Then, releasing his finger from his ear, he said, “I am in contact with other members of the fleet.”
“You can hear them in your head?” I was fascinated.
“No.” He placed the tips of his thumb and forefinger into his ear and produced a small, off-white sphere. It looked much like the kinds of beads children used to make friendship bracelets. “This is used during missions to communicate between ships.”
I held out my hand, and he dropped the bead into my palm. “Like a radio. Or a Walkie-Talkie.” I pushed it into my ear and listened carefully.
“Do you hear anything?” he asked.
I shook my head, trying to discern any noise that wasn’t from my environment.
“I suppose there would be nothing to hear,” he mused. “The update has been given.”
“What update?” I asked, rolling the sphere back out
of my ear and offering it to him. He took it.
“We are here for a reason, Emily,” he said in his strangely staccato way of talking. “It is necessary to remain in contact with one another. I am the greatest authority on this mission. Thus, crews from every ship report their progress and any difficulties to me.”
My head was full of questions about several things he had said, but I started with the one I most desired the answers to. “What is your mission?”
He fell silent and replaced the bead into his ear again. I could tell he wasn’t going to reply, so I breezed to the next query I had.
“You said you’re the greatest authority. What does that mean?”
“I am the greatest authority on this mission,” he clarified. His chin tilted upward with evident pride as he spoke. “I am an Elder. I rule the kingdom of Montemba. Each kingdom has an Elder, and that Elder is part of the Council.”
“What does the Council do?” I asked with interest.
“The Council dictates the laws of Albaterra. Kingdoms do not have their own individual laws, as it creates division and separation. A’li-uud live as one, regardless of their kingdom of residence,” he explained. “Additionally, the Council serves as judge and jury for crimes too grievous for trial by Elder.”
I crinkled my brow. “Trial by Elder?”
“Those who have committed crimes of lesser magnitude—theft, for example—may be tried by their kingdom’s Elder. On occasion, they may be tried by the Elder within whose kingdom the crime was committed. When a crime is too heinous to quality for trial by Elder, the accused must go before the Council.”
Ever since the moment, our eyes had met when Duke had found me, I’d been enthralled by him. Learning this about him, though, and being allowed into a small portion of his life lit a desire for him inside of me I wouldn’t have expected. I wanted to find out more. I wanted to be a part of his life.
On the other hand, however, this was an alien who was holding me hostage. I’d been trapped in a cage for weeks, and, no matter how attentive he was to my needs, it was against my will. No matter which way I spun it, if a human did to me what Duke was, they would have been thrown in jail for kidnapping. I wanted to see the best in him, but I couldn’t deny the possibility that I was probably suffering from Stockholm syndrome. When I thought about the situation rationally, it didn’t seem possible I would harbor the affections I was certain I felt for someone who kept me a prisoner.
As if to throw my feelings into further turmoil, I learned what the updates were. I was woken in the dead of night by Duke’s rapid clacking, and I lay quietly until he stopped. Perhaps he was tired and forgot about his determination not to tell me anything, or perhaps he decided I could be trusted, but, either way, when I asked what the conversation was about, he told me.
“Baltimore has been demolished,” he said.
I stared at him in shock. My tongue suddenly felt larger than my mouth, and my stomach rolled sickeningly. “What are you talking about?” I croaked.
“There are no human survivors. The Campestrians have eliminated them,” he replied. He spoke so matter-of-factly that he may as well have been talking about the mild chill in the air.
“You’re—you’re killing people?” I asked. “That’s why you’re here? To murder everyone into extinction?”
Duke refused to meet my eyes. “We must protect our race.”
I’d been so stunned, so repulsed, and so horrified by what I’d learned that I didn’t bother to try to continue the conversation. The rest of the night, I’d sat in my prison and rocked back and forth as I realized the feelings I’d developed for him were dangerous, and whatever feelings I thought he had for me were a figment of my imagination. This alien had only one intention. To kill me and everyone like me.
It was then I decided to start planning an escape.
Probably around a month after he’d captured me, I found my chance. Daylight had broken only a short while ago, and Duke was standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back. Suddenly, there was a noise outside of the ship that grabbed both my attention and his. He whirled around with an expression so fierce that I could see the warrior within him. His hand shot to his hip where his sword rested.
And then I heard something I hadn’t heard in weeks.
It was a human voice.
9
Duke
“If there is anyone inside, come out with your hands up! I repeat, come out with your hands up!”
The man sounded strange like his words were being filtered through something metallic and amplified beyond normal capabilities. There was an audible crackle as he spoke, but it was one brought on by something foreign interfering with his call rather than age or illness.
“We are armed and prepared to shoot! Come out with your hands up!”
I snapped my head to look at Emily. She was sitting on the ground with her back resting against the cage bars, and her eyes were wide with surprise and confusion. When we made eye contact, she started to get up, but I held out a hand toward her to indicate she needed to stay put. She silently obeyed and sank back onto the floor, but her muscles were tensed, and she seemed prepared to leap to her feet at any moment.
Suddenly, there was a massive boom. The world seemed to shake, and I was nearly thrown off balance. Emily’s fingers curled on the floor to steady herself. I realized the ship had been hit by something.
Creeping toward the command center door, I extracted my sword from its sheath. I leaned around the frame to peer down the ship’s corridor for any sign of intrusion. Everything was still. It appeared that whoever was speaking, and any cohorts with him, was outside. I started to cross the threshold when I heard Emily scramble to her feet.
“No!” she whispered in alarm. I looked at her over my shoulder, and her eyes were even wider than they had been when she’d first heard the voice. “They have guns!”
“Who are ‘they’?” I asked in a fierce whisper.
“I don’t know, but it sounds like the police or the Army or something,” she said fretfully. I gave her a look of non-understanding, and she added, “Like your warriors.”
“If I do not go out there, they will come in here,” I said quietly.
She didn’t reply, but I could tell by the dread on her face that she knew I was right. Turning around again, I resumed easing my way carefully down the corridor. When I reached the ramp extending down onto the desert dirt, I peered back in the direction of the command center to look at Emily. I couldn’t see her.
Slowly, I disembarked. When the sun hit my face, I squinted in the brilliant glare of light and blinked rapidly to try and adjust my vision. Slowly, my surroundings came back into focus. I saw nothing or no one, but I could sense a high amount of tension that made the back of my neck prickle. As I stepped onto the dusty ground and looked to my left, I realized who had called out to us.
About a hundred feet away, there was a squared, muddy-green, angular vehicle. A long tube protruded from the top and extended out past the structure. The top seemed to have a round, bulbous cap, and where there would normally be wheels, there were flat strips with raised rectangles. I vaguely recalled notes about them in our observations. They were called “tanks.”
“Drop your weapon!” the same strained, masculine voice bellowed at me.
I stared at the tank, feeling the fighter within me growling to get out. Then, slowly, I lowered myself to the ground and placed my sword at my feet before straightening up again. In an instant, humans started pouring out of the tank. They were dressed alike in uniforms of the same muddy-green as the tanks. They were wielding large black weapons on their shoulders and in their hands what I knew to be guns. I counted a total of eight men, all racing toward me as fast as they could. I had a split second to decide if I would let them take me or try to fight back, and it wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
The moment the man in front came within arm’s length of me, I swooped down, seized my sword, and swung it upward without restraint. I wa
tched as the fuchsia-glowing blade sliced through his jaw. It slid effortlessly up through his nose, his temples, and his scalp. When it burst out of the top of his head, the front of his face dropped to the ground like a slab of meat, and he fell backward with a crash, dead.
All of the remaining seven humans roared with fury and began firing shots at me. I had never trained with a shield in my warrior days, and, since being an Elder, had put even more stock in using weapons as defensive tools, so I flung my sword from side to side and heard the clanging of bullets ricocheting off the blade. They were still advancing toward me, but three ran right past me into the ship while the other four attempted to surround me. I immediately moved to follow the ones entering my ship, my mind on Emily, but I was waylaid by a bullet skimming past my ear. Whipping around, I ducked and twirled, severing the legs of one of the men at the knees. He let out a scream of pain and fell clumsily backward, writhing on the ground.
“Stevens!” a stocky human with closely-shorn hair bellowed, throwing himself at the man with stumps for legs. He looked at me with his face twisted in anger. “You son of a bitch!”
Shoving his hand down to his hip, he withdrew a handgun and pointed it at me. As though time slowed to a near stop, I watched his finger ease back on the trigger. There was a loud crack, and I saw a bullet speeding toward me. I raised my sword. Turning the blade toward the ground to display the flattest, widest side, I guided it up to my chest where the bullet was heading. Just as I heard the clang of the bullet on the blade, there was another crack as the stocky human shot again. This time, he had aimed for my head. I twisted my wrist, turning the sword in a way that made a fuchsia arc of light appear over me, and another clang rang out in the desert air as the second bullet was deterred.
Behind me, the other two soldiers were closing in. I could hear their footsteps, and I knew their tactic; it was one I used, myself. They assumed I was distracted by the stocky man in front of me and used the opportunity to try and grab me from behind. Unfortunately for them, I heard every move they made and knew when they drew close enough to reach for me.
Duke: A Paranormal Scifi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 2 Page 6