by Jenny Foster
Behind her, the hangar doors opened with a soft hiss.
“That won’t be necessary,” Melanie said. “You can tell him yourself.”
All of her bravado disappeared with her next breath when she heard Jack’s smooth voice at her back. “Are my two favorite women arguing? Why so angry?”
What had she ever seen in that man?
“Jack,” she said, and turned around. “What are you doing here?” She made it sound like he had just crashed a tea party, uninvited. “It isn’t like you to throw yourself into the fray. Shouldn’t you be a few thousand star-miles away, so you can watch from a safe distance, as others risk their lives for you?”
Jack came over to her and put his arm around her waist, which Melanie acknowledged with a dark look. “I see you have found out why you are really here,” he said.
“Let me go,” Sally hissed. “You don’t understand what is going on here. Melanie was just about to leave,” she pointed to one of the rescue pods. “You should go with her if you value your life.”
“That is exactly what I am planning to do.” He smiled. “But not without you, my darling. You have just become my most treasured possession.” He caressed her cheek. She pushed his hand away.
“Careful, careful,” Jack cautioned and grabbed her wrist. “You have something poisonous in your fingers and we don’t want anything to happen to your beloved Jack, do we?”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second too long. Melanie took the scale away from her, while Jack held her wrist tightly. “You wouldn’t believe how dear you are to me,” he mumbled and buried his face in her hair. Sally wanted to vomit. “Humanity will celebrate me as the man who catapulted them into the next millennium.” Suddenly, the mask of geniality disappeared. “Enough talk. I don’t know how long my cloaking device will work, so we should be on our way. I lay the world at your feet, darling.”
He pulled her with him roughly and no matter how much she resisted, how much she dug her heels into the floor, he and Melanie were stronger. She raged and screamed until it was too much for the two of them. They communicated with a short nod – they really must have already known each other for a long time, in order to be able to communicate with each other like that – and each grabbed one of her arms.
They picked her up between the two of them, and simply carried her towards Jack’s small and maneuverable space ship.
Damn it, how had he managed to circumvent the security measures on Zavir’s ship and dock here?
She heard the doors to Jack’s space ship open. A man’s voice came from within, deep and growling. At first, she thought it was Zavir, who had managed to sneak on board the ship. But no. A figure came into view. It was a man who resembled her Zavir in build, but his torso was covered in tattoos that flowed into each other in a mysterious way. They almost seemed to have a life of their own. Something flashed in the strange man’s eyes. Was he trying to tell her something? At the moment when she thought everything was lost, all hell broke loose, just as Melanie had said it would.
Only, it wasn’t the hell her enemy had meant. Sally was sure that Melanie had been talking about an attack on Zavir’s ship.
The silhouette of a man appeared in the hangar door. He stood there, broad-shouldered and confident.
Sally’s heart beat so hard she thought it would burst.
He changed without warning. Melanie and Jack were still occupied with dragging Sally up the steps into the ship. They couldn’t see what was happening behind their backs. The man with the strange tattoos was the only one who seemed to sense that something wasn’t right. His shoulders tensed and his head jerked up.
Zavir roared. It was the only warning Melanie got before he was upon them in his dragon form. He flung the woman to the side like a little doll. Sally was grateful for the size and height of the hangar. Zavir was the largest creature she had ever seen in her life.
Then, before she could stare any longer at the blue-gold shimmering dragon, someone threw her on the ground. It was the stranger.
He shielded her with his body as a burst of fire hit the stern of the ship. Within a fraction of a second, the man was back on his feet, lifting her up, just as Zavir had done. He carried her towards the hangar’s exit. She raised her head in time to see a very pale Jack looking at what remained of his ship. The dragon’s claws scraped on the floor as the mighty beast went towards him.
The sound echoed in Sally’s head for a long time.
The tattooed man carried her a few more feet into the hallway before he put her down, leaning her against the wall like a package. “Can you stand?” he asked and answered his own question. “Well, that will do. You must be braver than you look, otherwise you wouldn’t be a suitable partner for Zavir.”
“Who are you?” It was absurd, but the only thing Sally could think about right now was that a complete stranger had helped her.
“Allow me to introduce myself. Ar’Van. Bounty hunter and huntsman for hire. At your service.” He bowed slightly, which seemed to suit him, despite his wild appearance.
“Did … Zavir hire you?”
“He can tell you all about it himself,” Ar’Van replied. “I am discreet and as tight-lipped as a grave.” It was an unfortunate choice of words, because the silence in the hangar was deafening, and much worse than the screams had been. Sally felt queasy.
The next thing she saw were green eyes looking at her with worry. She blinked and felt around her with her hand. She was lying on something soft, and it smelled almost familiar. Her fingers ran into hard muscles. “Zavir,” she said.
“Sally,” he answered just as seriously, but she could see the smile pulling at his mouth. He helped her sit up. Hesitantly, she felt his face, and then his chest, as if her hands had to be convinced that he was unhurt just as her eyes needed to see it.
“Where are we?” she asked. “I mean, are we still near Earth, or …”
He shook his head. “No. We are on our way to Zevkoria.”
“My mother …,” she said and felt the memory of Jack’s double and triple betrayal eating away at her like acid.
“I am sorry, but your mother isn’t alive anymore. It is probably of little comfort, but the traitors are dead, too.” He probably meant that she was too tender-hearted to be able to feel any satisfaction from the death of another human.
“That’s good,” she answered shortly. And it was true. The thought of Melanie and Jack, alive and celebrating, would have been unbearable.
“What will happen to us now?” she asked and accepted his outstretched hand. Until now, he had given her space. If she slid over to him now and snuggled into his arms, then she assumed more than just a touch would follow.
“We will see,” he answered.
That wasn’t the answer Sally had counted on.
Of course, she hadn’t expected any declarations or assertions of love, but on the other hand, he was the man who had made her his companion and thus had saved her life in a twisted way. “I suggest we get to know each other a little better first.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that sooner,” Sally said. He shrugged and laughed.
“I keep forgetting how little you humans live by instinct,” he said. “The first time I saw you, I knew. I want her or nobody else.”
“Is that a dragon shifter phenomenon?”
“It is a Zavir phenomenon.” Against her will, Sally had to laugh. She would have never expected an awe-inspiring man like him to have such a dry humor. “Seriously, Sally. I knew you belonged with me as soon as I saw you. Maybe you think I made you my companion out of sympathy, or because I urgently needed descendants, but I am telling you, that isn’t the case. The dragon in me recognized you and I have no reason to doubt his abilities.”
Finally, she took his hand. “There are so many things I don’t know about you yet. What does your home planet look like? What does being your companion mean for me? How do your people live?”
“You have enough time to learn everything you need to know,”
he assured her.
“What if I am not your companion, after all? If I don’t want to be?”
“Is it that you don’t want to be, or does the thought of being my companion scare you?” He pulled her to him and leaned his head down to her. Their lips almost touched. When he spoke, his breath tickled her lips. “I promise you, there is nothing you need to be afraid of. If you really want to leave – well, then I will fight for you. Tell me that you don’t feel the connection between us, and I will let you go. Immediately.” He leaned back and exuded an immense calm, as if he already knew how she would decide.
She looked at Zavir. “My heart has already decided,” she whispered. “I am going with you.”
He smiled and Sally knew he had to have the last word. “To the end of the world and beyond.”
THE END
Dear Readers,
Thank you for accompanying Sally and Zavir on part of their journey. I hope you enjoyed reading about them!
If so, allow me to carry you off to another Sci-Fi world. I would like to invite you to read my steamy Alien Romance Novel “The Captive.” You can read the preview chapters on the next page.
The Captive – Preview
Chapter 1
The battle is over.
The Sethari, who have plundered and enslaved us for the last 100 years, and have reduced the human race to a fraction of its original number, are destroyed. I should be happy and should be celebrating with the others who are now free, and can live their lives on their own terms. The whole world is quaking in a happy frenzy, but my fellow female sufferers and I are not taking part in these pompous celebrations. We are captives, spoils of war, breeding machines for the alien lifeforms who finished off the Sethari. Nobody asked us if we were ready for a journey to a strange world. Nobody wanted to know if we even wanted children, much less if we wanted to mate with aliens. All of this was decided for us by the powers that be.
They told us that humanity would survive because of our obedience. I am lined up in a row with 167 other healthy, young women and wait for the president to shake my hand and thank me personally. I would love to ask him why his wife, with her expansive hairdo and stark face, isn’t taking my place. Where was he, when people like me had to hide behind the scenes, so they wouldn’t be executed? In World War II, they called people like him a collaborator, someone who will betray his fellow citizens, just to hang on to his little piece of authority. He is nothing but a game piece who was put into play by the Sethari in order to drive the last little bit of resistance out of us. This man, who is supposedly the most powerful person in the world, and is the president of the World Federation, had signed countless death warrants, just to save his own skin. The minute he saw a way to get rid of the tyrants, he jumped on the chance. I have to give the gray-haired man with those cold, blue eyes credit: As soon as the Qua’Hathri had made contact with him, he was ready to throw the Sethari to the lions.
Not that I had any sympathy for them – they took advantage of the human race for over one hundred years. They are energy vampires, and I don’t mean that metaphorically. The Sethari imprisoned the humans like livestock, and extracted energy from them. They needed this energy in order to survive. And Mr. President, who is approaching me now, supplied them with a constant stream of replacements.
Now that I see him for the first time in person, my anger brings tears to my eyes. The huge screens that are on almost every street corner, and from which he regularly spoke to us with his effusive words, don’t do him justice. His tailored suit hides a small potbelly under it. Knowing that he had it good enough to have a belly, while my siblings had to dig through the trash to find food, makes my heart race. I ball my fists and try to calm down. But the only thing I see is his self-satisfied expression. Later, he will be able to proclaim to the world via Livestream how he saved humanity from complete destruction.
His wife is standing two steps behind him, just like any good and virtuous girl should. The looks she is giving her companion are not quite so virtuous. His name is Khazaar Drasurq, the warlord of the Qua’Hathri. In some ways, I can understand why she is drooling over him. He is handsome in a strange way, and I am sure she watched, onscreen, as he fought the Sethari to destruction. I have to admit that I can’t take my eyes off of him, either. The memory of this tall warrior beheading one Sethari after another with his gleaming sword is still very fresh. He reminds me of a medieval warlord who isn’t afraid to ride on to the battlefield himself, to dive headfirst into the fight. Despite all of the progress technology has made over the last two thousand years, the Sethari were basically invulnerable. That is, until Khazaar Drasurq and his warriors showed up. Their swords, daggers and lances, made out of Qua’Hathri steel, enabled them to pierce the Sethari’s rubber-like skin.
They have almost made it to me, the president and his entourage. I try to tune him out and look at Khazaar, instead. Despite the scales that cover his pale skin, and despite his strange eyes, he looks very masculine. Human traits dominate his appearance. His eyes brush over me and then stop for a second. His yellow-gold iris is the shape of a slit, just like cats’ eyes are – just like cats’ eyes were, I should say, since most pets have been exterminated by now. I like his hair best. It falls in dark waves onto his shoulders. It shimmers blue-black and looks silky. While he is looking at me, his scent wafts over to me and wraps around me. Immediately, I want to close my eyes and bathe in his smell. To me, he smells like milk and honey, like marzipan and butter croissants, things I haven’t eaten since I was a child. His scent makes me relax, probably because it is tied to the last beautiful memories I have of my parents. I sniff unobtrusively, and sense something rough under the sweet overtones. A hint of musk brushes my olfactory receptor and increases my heart rate. If they all smell as good as this warlord, then the sex might not be as bad as I had feared. I might even be able to forget the fact that the other women and I are nothing but breeding vessels for the children of the Qua’Hathri.
The president exchanges a few pleasantries with the blonde next to me, and then he is in front of me, holding out his hand. I take it, and look into his eyes, smiling. In the resistance, I learned how to incapacitate enemies by applying targeted pressure to sensitive body parts. Even though I only use a fraction of my strength, the most powerful man in the world falls to his knees in front of me. That does me good, even if it isn’t particularly smart. His bodyguards, who don’t even deserve that designation, have been standing in the background, smirking, until now. Now they surround me and have their weapons trained on me. Since I am not a Sethari, I don’t have rubber-like skin that can deflect bullets. A thought flashes through my mind. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad, after all? If I died, that would nix the plans of the man who is now sweating under the strain. But if I were dead, then they would just find another woman who would have to go to the Qua’Hathri, so I let him go and take a step back. I am still smiling, but this time, it is a smile of pure satisfaction. He will remember me. Of that I am certain.
Khazaar has watched all of this unfold without intervening. Do I see a smile dart across his otherwise closed features? Only after the president has regained his feet, supported by his wife and surrounded by his concerned bodyguards, does Khazaar speak up. He steps very close to me, and I have to lean my head back to look him in the eyes. The women on my left and right shrink back in fear of the huge commander, but I force myself to stay right where I am. Even though my heart is beating much too fast, and my knees are trembling, I am not afraid of dying. In his strange eyes, I see something like appreciation, and in the way his gaze wanders briefly over the sweating president, I recognize contempt for the man.
“Why did you do that?” he asks. His deep voice sounds pleasant and calm, almost as if he already knew the answer. Something scratches very carefully at the barrier that I have built around my spirit. It feels like a polite knock, like a polite request for access. But I am definitely not ready to grant anyone else access to my thoughts. Instead, I send my spirit out, just like
I have learned, and knock on his. For a split second, his eyes widen, and to my great surprise, he grants me access to his thoughts.
His thoughts are as foreign as his appearance. I am too excited to feel anything more than a small part of his perceptions. Almost all of his thoughts center on conquering foreign worlds. Killing isn’t what excites him. Subjugation is. I understand that he spared us humans for only one single reason: We are genetically compatible. The Qua’Hathri are a race on the brink of extinction, just like the humans. He has set out to find appropriate women. Suddenly, he slams the barrier back into place, and with a jolt, I am back in my body.
The whole episode couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. To observers, it must have looked like we were staring into each other’s eyes too long. My mouth is dry, and I swallow. Now he knows my secret. My gift. I curse my lack of self-control and my curiosity, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to punish me for it. Quite the opposite. His interest in my gift is obvious.
At that moment, a bodyguard hits me in the back of the knees, and I fall to the ground. “Answer the lord’s question right now!” he roars, and makes as if to intervene again. The pain is indescribable, but even worse is the humiliation of lying on the floor in front of Khazaar.
Before I can open my mouth to yell at the coward who attacked me from behind, everything starts to happen at once. Without warning, the bodyguard is on the floor. Khazaar’s foot rests on his ribcage, and I hear crunching and cracking, as two ribs break. The man screams, and the warlord takes his foot off of the warrior in one gentle and unbelievably elegant move. In the blink of an eye, a sharp dagger, decorated with red gems, gleams at the bodyguard’s throat. Khazaar’s voice is barely louder than a whisper, but literally everyone in the hall stiffens at the ice-cold tone it carries with it. “How dare you touch the bride of the warlord of the Qua’Hathri?” The tip of the dagger pushes into the vulnerable spot under the man’s twitching Adam’s apple.