“Do you know how to use this stuff?” I asked, and Ara nodded her head, sitting down in front of a computer console and keying in her identification. She glanced around before pointing to a stool.
“Sit there,” she said and keyed in a few command strokes that lit the space with bright broadcasting light.
I did as she bid me, wiping at my face with my hands in a lame attempt to make myself more presentable. For all of my love of movies, I had never been on this side of the camera before. I peered into the wide-angle lens and saw a little red light go on above it.
“All right,” Ara said, turning to face me, “we are live.”
I swallowed hard and cleared my throat and tried to think of what I should say. “My name is Danovan tel’Darian,” I began, “and I am…” At a total loss for words. The story was so large and convoluted, I had no idea where to begin. I looked desperately over at Ara, whose eyes were wide with concern. She looked around as though there might be someone there to help us, someone who knew what they were doing. But there was no one. It was just us, standing between the great GenOriens conspiracy, led by the inimitable Lucille Ward, and the rest of civilization. “Uh… I am…” What? I am what?
Finally Ara rose to her feet and joined me on camera. I smiled faintly, relieved, and said, “And I am joined today by Dr. Araceli Cross, of the Nova Genus project at GenOriens. We are here to tell you who is to be held responsible for the attacks on the Leviathan, the GenOriens base, and villages across the continent of Galatea, including the village of Hiropass.”
Araceli stood by my side and took my hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. Then she took in a deep breath and spoke the truth of our story. It poured out of her, and I held her hand the whole time.
Epilogue
After the broadcast, Danovan and I broke into a run toward our rover, thinking that the entire compound would be on our heels. But by the time we reached the vehicle, we noticed that everyone nearby was standing, watching us, with their weapons pointed toward the ground. No one made a move to detain us, no one threatened us, no one even spoke to us as we put the rover in gear, circled it around, and headed back in the direction from which we’d come. But as we drove, I turned around in my seat and looked out the back window, only to see all of them grouped together and following us just long enough to watch us disappear over the horizon.
We drove and drove, searching for Mason and Cleoh in the vast and empty terrain we’d left them in. We spent days on our own until we found them, settled at the base of a small mountain, making a home of a cave and their tents and rugs and pillows and blankets.
Shae was bubbling happily in Cleoh’s arms when we approached, and Mason had a small tablet tucked in the crook of his elbow. He showed us our broadcast and the subsequent coverage on the newsfeed, and we were pleased to see people beginning to rise up against the Cleansing, and against Lucille Ward’s machinations.
“They’ll want a leader,” Mason said, angling his eyes at me.
“I’m sure they will,” came my tepid reply.
“And one might say,” he continued, shutting off his tablet, “that the people responsible for disseminating all this information might have a certain responsibility to the uprising.”
I glanced at Danovan, whose mouth was a terse line. “I… I wouldn’t know what to do. I mean, would you?”
Danovan shook his head. “For most of my career, I’ve been following orders, not giving them.”
“It’s something to think about,” Mason pressed, propping his hands up on his hips. “You started this thing; you might want to see it through.”
“Well, but what about you?” I countered. “You feel the same way we do about the Cleansing, and everything that Lucille Ward has wrought.”
“We have Shae to consider,” Mason said, somewhat abashed. “Otherwise, I’d be there. Right on the front lines.”
“Well, we have… er, that is…” I pressed my hand to my belly, finding it difficult to think of myself as an expectant mother when none of the telltale signs of pregnancy had started to root in me. But I had seen it with my own eyes, in a glistening holographic image suspended in the air above me, like a message from the heavens.
“No,” Mason said, breaking into a grin. “Well, that’s wonderful.” He came forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek before shaking Danovan’s hand and wandering out of the tent to tell Cleoh the news.
“But maybe he’s right,” I said quietly to Danovan after Mason had gone. “Maybe we do have a responsibility.”
“Right now, I’m concerned with helping you through the gestation and birth of our child. After he’s arrived healthy and happy, then we can consider our other obligations.”
“He?” I asked, smiling.
“I just have a feeling.”
“Mm hm.”
“Besides, you’ll be the first human mother of a Galatean hybrid. You’re something to protect.” He was right—we had seen Galatean mothers of hybrids, but never a human. The only one we’d heard about had died, along with her offspring, in childbirth. I was suddenly grateful for Cleoh’s presence. Her expertise as a healer and as a mother herself would, no doubt, come in quite handy in the months to come.
“But we just… revealed these huge secrets and left them for someone else to deal with,” I continued. It just wasn’t sitting right with me. Danovan moved toward the center of the tent and sat down on one of Cleoh’s plush velveteen pillows. He held his hand out to me, and I took it, moving to sit beside him. He gathered me close to him, and his beautiful brushed-nickel skin smelled of sunlight and fresh-cut grass.
“You’re not wrong,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “We do have responsibilities. But right now, we’re just prioritizing. We’ll keep abreast of the situation as it unfolds, as best we can, and do what we can to be of assistance. But your health and well-being is my top priority—and it should be yours as well.”
I nodded my head and just settled in beside him, letting him hold me. And I wondered vaguely if this would forever be the push and pull of my life: wanting to nurture my body, my baby, my relationship with my partner, and needing to work, either in my field or against those that would subdue me.
I lifted my head and looked up at Danovan, who smiled at me, this strange, beautiful creature who had become my home. And I knew that, so long as he was by my side, I wouldn’t always have to choose: I could be both the lover and the scientist, the mother and the revolutionary. I took his hand and pressed it to my tummy, and thought about the beautiful new world our baby could represent, and I knew that I would fight to make sure that world was safe.
Alien Alpha:
(Qetesh Warrior)
By Juniper Leigh
Copyright 2015 © Enamored Ink
Table of Contents
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part One
Chapter 1: NOVALYN
Okay, just hit “send.” Hit “send.” It’s not a big deal — It’s a text. Everybody texts.
Dating in New York City is probably the worst thing in the entire universe, apart from obvious things like genocide and disease. You would think that the high population density would mean a larger selection of viable options, but in my experience, it actually makes finding the good ones all that much harder: the proverbial needle in a haystack. And some days, it just feels totally overwhelming.
I finally put Tinder on my phone when my manager told me about how her cousin met his fiancée on it. I uploaded a profile picture that highlighted my round, blue eyes and pouty pink lips, and maybe slightly downplayed my unruly mass of brown curls. I included another image that was a full-body shot because the absolute last thing I wanted was for someone to think I was anything other than what I am: curvy and Rubenesque, an hourglass with a prominent backside. I slipped into the back alley behind the bar on my breaks, scrolling through the endless mena
gerie of men that fit within my search parameters. No, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no… I thought of it kind of like a game instead of a dating site, and was slightly unnerved when I received my first message.
Hey, it read, alongside a tiny picture of him, blond and smiling. We’re a match!
I looked at his profile, scrolled through his pictures. He was a Celtics fan, working in engineering, a vegetarian who lived with his brother. He was handsome, with striking blue eyes and long blond hair that hit his shoulders. It wasn’t a hard decision to respond.
Yay, I typed, you’re my first one!
No, that’s dumb. Delete, delete, delete.
So we are, I tried again. Hi.
But I didn’t send it right away. I felt paralyzed. In quantum mechanics, there is a theory that holds that all possible futures exist somewhere, in different dimensions. This felt like a diverging moment: if I responded, one future was certain; if I didn’t, if I deleted the app off my phone, then another future altogether would come to pass. Little did I know then how wise I was to hesitate.
After a prolonged moment of consideration, I went back into the bar and spent the night slinging cocktails to a collection of reliable regulars who didn’t use more words with me than absolutely necessary. They never shared any details of their lives and never asked me for any details of mine. I’d taken the job because I thought it would allow me to talk to people, you know? The bartender is supposed to be something of an ersatz therapist to her customers. But the seedy Alphabet City dive that hired me didn’t exactly have a chatty clientele. I was sick of the silence, sick of the isolation. When I wasn’t tending bar, I was in school, working toward my BA in Mythology. Can you even think of a less useful major? But the heart wants what it wants, I suppose. When I wasn’t working or in class, I was doing homework, or I was asleep. Not much of a social life to speak of. After my shift, I thought I might actually go insane if I didn’t talk to someone, a real live person, and soon. So I took a deep breath, opened the app, and hit “send.”
It was only a matter of days before I found myself in a cozy little Italian bistro, sitting across the table from my match. I’d opted to wear a black dress and flats, an ensemble that was easily dressed down with chunky, colorful jewelry and natural makeup. Plus, it was breezy, allowing my body to better regulate its temperature in the muggy New York City summer. My date, Tymer, was dressed nicely in slacks and a long-sleeved collared shirt, but he also wore a knit beanie and had a blazer slung over the back of his chair, like he was prone to getting cold. Not that I was really looking at his clothes, not when I had those eyes staring back at me. I swear, they seemed to glow with their own inexplicable light.
“Tymer,” I said, leaning forward to scoop up my wine glass, “that’s an interesting name.”
He grinned. “Novalyn,” he said, elongating the oh sound, “isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill either.”
“Actually, it’s pronounced Nah-Vah-Lyn,” I corrected, a faint blush rising into my cheeks. “My parents were hippy artist types.”
He laughed, tossing his head back as he did, and punctuated the gesture with a sharp nod. “Yep,” he said, “mine were, too.” He took a sip of wine and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “So, Novalyn,” he went on, peering intently at me, “tell me more about your family.”
I arched a shoulder in a shrug. “What’s there to tell, really? I’m an only child. An accident. My parents died in a car crash when I was little, so my grandma raised me. She owned a farm in Nebraska, but she passed away three summers ago.”
“God,” he said, furrowing his brow, “I’m sorry. That’s kind of a lot of death for someone your age.”
I shrugged again, not knowing where to place his sympathy. “But what about you?” I asked, eager for a subject change. “What are you into?” He simply gave a shake of his head.
“Things,” he said.
“Things?”
“And stuff.” He grinned. “No, seriously, I’m boring. Tell me more about you.”
And I did. Tymer had broken the dam of my silence, and my words came spilling out, end over end. I told him about growing up on a farm, helping to work the land in the summertime and during the harvest. I told him about the stories my grandmother used to tell me, and how they had gotten me interested in mythology. I told him about how I had wanted a bigger life for myself than what Nebraska could afford me. I told him about coming to New York for school, and how lonely it had been, how alone someone can feel in a crowd full of people. I just kept talking, addicted to sharing a piece of myself with another living, breathing person, perhaps a bit too eager to open up to anyone who showed me the slightest scrap of attention. And when I finally ran out of steam, and our glasses were empty, he stood, held out his hand, and offered to walk me home.
“I’m not going to invite you upstairs,” I said when we’d reached the front door of my building. He flashed me a bright, dimpled smile and leaned down to press a kiss to my cheek.
“Maybe next time,” he said, his eyes twinkling. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked back toward the subway station, turning after a few paces to face me again. “Are you busy tomorrow?”
***
It’s possible that I seemed overeager when I agreed to meet Tymer for lunch the following day, but I didn’t care: I was hooked. In the span of a few hours, I was addicted to telling someone my story, and to having it really matter. And, let’s be honest, I was hoping that the intellectual intimacy would extend to other facets of our relationship. Can you blame me? He was beautiful, shockingly so, and I wanted to have my taste.
I met Tymer in Tompkins Square Park, where we spread a blanket on the grass and nibbled shyly on little pieces of cheese and bread. We had bottles of fresh-pressed apple juice on the blanket between us, but passed a sly little flask of whisky back and forth as we spoke. He was easy company, warm if not effusive, and he had this remarkable ability to make me feel calm, and totally at home.
“So, you’re a classics and mythology major,” he said after a brief lull in the otherwise constant conversation. I bobbed my head in the affirmative. “So, then: what’s your favorite story?”
“Hm…” There were so many from which to choose: Persephone and Hades and the origins of spring, the Muses, the Fates, Odysseus… But there was one that had always stood out. “Well, maybe it’s a little trite, but I’ve always been partial to Psyche and Cupid.”
Tymer scratched at his head — still wearing the black knit beanie — and smiled in recognition. “I know the story,” he said. “After Persephone incurs Aphrodite’s rage, Aphrodite enlists her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a monster, but Cupid scrapes himself with his own arrow and falls instantly in love with her.”
“Mmhm — but the part I really love is how she fell for him without ever seeing how beautiful he was. How she loved him despite fearing he was a terrible monster.” I smiled, snaking my fingers around the flask to drink deeply of it. “It’s where Beauty and the Beast comes from.”
“I’m more familiar with it as a tenet of psychology,” Tymer said, plucking the flask out of my hand to take a drink. “How a mutable person matures within the constructs of family and marriage.”
I leaned back on my hands, my legs out in front of me and crossed at the ankles, and I couldn’t help but smile. Talking about my favorite myth with someone who actually got it.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “It’s just an incredible piece of history. Consider the art it inspired, the music, the reinterpretation. It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s extraordinary.”
“You’re extraordinary.”
I froze and locked my eyes on him, startled by the sudden warm swell I felt at his compliment. He was looking at me with an expression of wonder on his face, and before I could part my lips to protest, he’d leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine. He kissed me like it meant something, like he had never been so hungry for anyone or anything
in his life. And I responded in kind, lifting a hand to brush my fingertips over the smooth slope of his cheek. His tongue lapped at mine with a little come hither gesture that sent a shiver down my spine, and I found that I nearly toppled forward when he broke the kiss and whispered, “Invite me upstairs.”
We were several blocks away from my tiny studio apartment, but I just nodded, stunned into silence, and helped him gather up our picnic supplies. He took my hand as we walked together, and I smiled to think of us as a typical New York couple: going to brunch, hitting tag sales, taking the subway home together late at night. I tried to reason with my brain, tried to stop it from getting ahead of itself, but it had already begun to spin its fantasies. My life will be different now, I thought, less lonely, more exciting. And, I suppose, I was right.
We scaled four flights of creaky old prewar stairs to get to my studio, and he had his hands on me as soon as I’d gotten the key into the lock. His touch was light, gentle, tentatively exploring the peaks and valleys from my rib cage to my hips, from my shoulder blades past my tailbone. Inside, he allowed the picnic things to fall to the floor and he tugged me into him, encircling me with his arms. We kissed like we had never tasted lips before, and his hands were two explorers on the continent of my skin.
I shimmied out of my jean shorts and lifted my tee shirt up over my head, unabashed and full of wanting. He watched me carefully as I undressed, and I reveled in the feeling of his eyes on my form. My bra was the next to go, freeing my full breasts to the open air, and finally my panties dropped to a puddle at my feet. I was bared fully to him; I don’t know what it was that made me bold.
“Is it all right if I just look at you for a minute?” he asked, his voice a husky whisper in his throat. I nodded and forced my hands to stay at my side, forced them not to cover the most private parts of myself. Tymer walked in a slow circle around me, sweeping his fingertips over my flesh as he moved. He drank in the sight of me, taking his time; he pressed a kiss to a spot where I knew there was a small birthmark on my left shoulder blade, ran his finger along the line of a scar I’d gotten from a trowel when I was seven. He must have noted every tiny blemish and imperfection, but when he moved to stand in front of me again, he cupped my face gently in his hands and said, “Beautiful.”
Alien Survivor: (Stranded on Galatea) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 22