by Sahara Foley
Lurga’s rumbling chuckle filled the room. “You were your worse enemy, my Warrior Woman. You convinced yourself you lost your powers, so you never knew when they returned. If you had, you would have blasted those Penna loving Calens from the sky, leaving me nothing but boredom when I arrived.”
Karrin sat silently as she leaned against Lurga’s muscular, broad chest, his triple hearts beating away. How could I not realize? I spent weeks freezing to death that first winter. Wouldn’t a part of me want to be warm and safe? She remembered how much effort it took to light the first fire, and how much it still required. No, they can’t be right. Can they?
The teenager mentally focused inside herself, trying to find anything that reminded her how she’d felt when she trapped the Others. She tried starting a fire until the throbbing in her head became too much. She huffed with frustration. Nothing. I’m just an average, weak Earthling. I can’t even start a fire, now.
“Nope, sorry, but you’re wrong. I don’t have any abilities,” she enunciated with a trace of anger.
“That is because of us,” the ship said softly. “We are using all our resources to contain your powers. While you laid unconscious, we were concerned about the damage you might inflict if you became delirious. We tried to protect ourself.”
“Really? Then, why did you ask me to return to the safety of the silver hut if nothing could harm me?” Karrin asked sarcastically.
“The Omar made us fearful for your safety. It knew of your powers, and it wanted to return to its original form. Since you thought your abilities lost, you would’ve been defenseless against it. It seems they have trouble against the radiation of the silver from Lear, too.”
“No, I don’t believe you. Brownie would never hurt me. He could’ve attacked me anytime over the last three years, but he didn’t.” Karrin crossed her arms like an impudent child, mad they accused her friend of being mean and spiteful.
The woman gave a slight nod. “This we do not understand. No one can understand how an Omar thinks, or why they do what they do.”
Lurga growled. Weesa was upsetting Karrin, and he didn’t like it. “In my opinion, I think the Omar cared for you, Karrin. There was a bond between you.”
“That may be,” the ship acknowledged. “Or, it could be the silver Karrin ingested prevented the Omar from harming her in its breeding form. However, in its energy form, who knows?”
“No,” Lurga rumbled and bared his teeth at the screen. “That is not what happened.” He gently placed his huge, clawed hands on the young woman’s small shoulders, turning her to face him. “Karrin, your friend, Brownie, loved you, and he would never harm you.” He ground his teeth as he fought against his Ispepyein training and nature. Karrin needed to be told how he truly felt. With a loud sigh and fluttering of breathing vents, he said, “Just as I love you and would never harm you.”
“That isn’t true,” Karrin declared as she pulled away from him and hopped off his lap. “You left me. Why did you leave without telling me, at least, goodbye?” All the pent-up emotions from him leaving her – just like everyone else in her life – came rushing out.
“Because, I thought you dead.” His hearts ached when he saw the little lost girl showing through Karrin’s eyes. He hadn’t seen that look for many years.
“Why would you think I was dead?” Her voice quivered as she tried keeping her emotions under control. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up, you were gone.”
Lurga cocked his head. “You don’t remember what happened?” Maybe he imagined her small foot sticking out from under the rock? No, the image was still too vivid for it not to be real.
Karrin bit her lip as she thought back to that dreadful day. “Well, I do remember waking up without any clothes. I thought it strange you undressed me before you left. You didn’t?”
Lurga shook his head.
“Then, what happened?”
“I am not sure, little one. All I remember is I left to fight Kargan in the Challenge.”
“Yes, Tatum told me. I assumed you had been killed since he declared himself Leader of Ispepyein, and he showed up in your personal fighter. He wouldn’t tell me any more until after the Council voted. Once he told me that, I figured you and Kargan both died during the Challenge.”
Lurga grinned at her. “You do remember your teachings. The Council does indeed vote for a new Leader if both challengers die during the combat. However, they will, also, vote in one other scenario. One that hasn’t been voted on for many eons.”
Karrin’s brow furrowed.
“Come, sit, while I tell you what happened.” Lurga patted the chair Karrin had been sitting in before, then sat cross-legged on the floor. His massive bulk would never fit into that small of a space.
Karrin eyed him with a frown. She needed to understand what happened to him, but she still wasn’t sure why he thought she’d died. With a resigned sigh, she sat in the chair and picked at a loose thread on her pants.
“Being the cowardly, scoundrel he was, Kargan hid a Seeder pistol in the arena. Concealing a weapon for a Challenge is against the rules, but he was cunning enough to plant it unseen. As soon as I saw him pushing the trigger over and over, I knew I faced my final battle. Still, I did not care. My heart was filled with a black hatred never experienced by an Ispepyein before. In my sorrow and grief over losing you, I rushed him just as the grids pierced my skin. To my utter astonishment, they did not shred me to pieces. Instead, filled with rage, I attacked him and tore him apart, limb by limb. Zelka’s smirking face fueling my anger.”
He gnashed his shark-like teeth. “After the battle was over, I did what no challenger did before. I declined the Leadership.” Lurga took her soft, delicate hand in his huge, scarred, gray one. “How could I take a mate that was not you?”
Karrin’s mouth gaped slightly open.
“So, I left the arena and searched out Tatum. I traded him my silver fighter, pistols, and rifle for his own. I traveled to the planet Lear, where I remained, alone, for a very long time. In my intense grief, I only wished to expire, but such was not my fate,” Lurga finished in a hoarse whisper, his head hanging in misery.
Karrin gazed at the top of Lurga’s pointed skull. How can I stay mad at him? We both suffered because of misunderstandings. She wrapped her arms around his head and pulled him to her chest, hugging the warrior tightly. “If you thought I was dead, why did you come back to Switch?”
He pulled away from her and reached into one of his flight suit pockets. “Because of this.” He held out the pictograph of the young Karrin. “Once I landed on Lear, I never went back to Tatum’s fighter. I had no hand-link for the Contruda, so there was no way of communicating with it. I wandered aimlessly around Lear, waiting to die from its toxic radiation, when, one day, an overwhelming urge to see your face, one last time, overcame me.
“So, I returned to the ship, which turned silver from the ore, to find your picture. When I stepped inside the fighter, I discovered rows of messages streaming across the screen. The first message was from Tatum, ordering me to explain to the Warrior Child what happened to me and why I had not returned to Switch. He did not know where I disappeared to, and that message was several years old by the time I read it.
“The second one was from my sister, Zelka. She thanked me for saving her life and advised me of the Calens plan to attack you, here, on Switch. Thankfully, her message was only days old. Then, I read the Calen and Senod’s messages… and yours.” He gave her a shark-tooth grin. “You did not back down, even knowing you faced insurmountable odds.”
The warrior woman returned his smile.
“After reading the exchanges, I left immediately, bypassing Ispepyein to come here. The foolish Calens thought I died during the Challenge.” He huffed at their ignorance. “They believe only what they want. I did not contact you as I wanted them to think I was only an observer sent from Ispepyein. I wanted to surprise Martek. I think I did.” He burst out in his loud growling laugh.
“I think you did, too,
” Karrin said as she giggled along with him.
The face on the screen scrutinized them for a few seconds before it said, “The Warrior was convinced you died. We kept tabs him, hoping to locate you, but his sorrow and emptiness were so profound, we couldn’t penetrate his thought processes. All he could think about was you, and death. We were almost convinced you passed on until the Omar was drawn to you. It was our only hope in finding you.
“We could not leave the rim, for that was where the Wtcha would contact us if it located you. So, we sat, waiting, and watching the Ispepyein, and seeing his sorrow and loneliness. Do you understand he is no longer a true Ispepyein? Peps do not feel these types of emotions.”
Lurga jumped to his feet, hands fisted at his sides, baring his fangs. “I am an Ispepyein Warrior,” he growled. “The greatest in Ispepyein history.”
The woman’s face calmly regarded him. “Has an Ispepyein EVER shed tears of grief?”
Lurga grunted, his breathing vents heaving in and out.
“Has an Ispepyein EVER proclaimed love for his mate or experienced loneliness?”
“No, but –” Lurga tried injecting, but Weesa overrode him.
“Have you, or any Ispepyein, EVER been consumed by hatred?”
Lurga’s shoulders slumped. “No, but . . .”
“Have you, or ANY Ispepyein, EVER needed a mate other than for breeding?”
A soft, “No.”
“Have you, or any Ispepyein, EVER feared losing someone?”
A very soft, “No.”
With each answer, Lurga shrank more and more. He stood with hunched shouldered, and his head hanging in defeat.
The radiant female face beamed at him. “Lurga Pukani, this is what most species refer to as love, which is not an Ispepyein emotion. Therefore, you are no longer a true Ispepyein. I proclaim you as half Human, and the child is half Ispepyein. Do you agree?”
Lurga stood tall, trying to muster what dignity he had left. They attacked his belief in himself. His whole life centered on being the best and meanest Ispepyein Warrior in history, but now… “No,” Lurga snarled, “I refuse to –”
Arthur Merlin’s face replaced the female’s, his eyes hard, and his mouth set in a tight line. “Then, why are there tears coursing down the Greatest Ispepyein Warrior’s face as we speak?”
Lurga fell to his knees, face in his hands as he sobbed away. They had stripped him of self-identity. If I’m not an Ispepyein Warrior, what am I?
Karrin lunged to her feet and hugged Lurga’s large, shaking body. “Leave him alone,” she yelled at Arthur, her eyes turning silver. “Just leave him alone. Can’t you see you’ve beaten him?” She rocked his quaking body. “It’s okay, Lurga. I love you just as you are.” Her own tears mingled with his.
Lurga’s arms came up and engulfed her in a tight embrace. “Karrin, my Karrin,” he rasped through his tears. “They are correct. I am no longer a true Ispepyein. I love you too much.”
“Bingo,” Arthur said. “Time to call Pam and Excalibur.”
The same female face appeared next to him on the screen. “Already done.” She sniffled, her blue eyes glittering with unshed tears.
“You know ships don’t cry. Right?” Arthur asked with a smirk.
CHAPTER SIX
After a few seconds, Karrin lifted Lurga’s head off her shoulder. “You pronounced my name right,” she said with a teary smile.
He grinned back at her. “You heard. Every day on Lear, I spoke to you until my voice was gone. I will never mispronounce your name again.”
As Karrin and Lurga stood, lost in each other’s eyes, Arthur said snidely, “This is the part where the boy kisses the girl. Now, shift into a Human male and kiss her, you idiot.”
Lurga glanced over at Arthur’s face, uncertain what to do. It’d been many years since he visited Earth, and he couldn’t remember what a male looked like. Other than the shape he took while hunting down Karrin.
Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes. “Like this.” The attractive face of a young, dark-haired man appeared on another screen. “By Earth’s time, you’d be about twenty-one years old.”
Lurga studied the figure of the Human male. Is this what Karrin wants? He stared at his calloused, claw-tipped hands. Hands that ripped and shredded when needed. He was a monster compared to the soft-skinned Humans.
Seeing the glint of determination in her lover’s eyes, Karrin responded, “No, Lurga. I will kiss you as you are. It doesn’t matter to me what you look like.” Standing on tip-toes, she threw her arms around his neck and planted her warm, soft lips against his cold, hard, and scaly ones.
After a few stunned seconds, he drew her into his embrace. Lifting her off the floor, he returned the young woman’s affection. Surrendering to his suppressed passion.
Karrin kissed Lurga many times when younger, but not in this fashion. The electrifying sensations flooding her body were new and exciting, but didn’t compare to the love she felt for her Pep.
As their kiss intensified, Karrin’s lips and tongue connected with warm, soft flesh. She opened her eyes in surprise. When she did, she was staring into two very dark, almost black, Human eyes.
With a moan, the young woman arched her back and closed her eyes. She touched her lips against Lurga’s, deepening her kiss. It made her body tingle all the way to her wiggling toes.
Panting, breathless with need, the room abruptly lit up with a blazing, silver light. The effect caused the couple to jump back from each other in alarm.
Heart pounding in her throat, Karrin stared wide-eyed at a very handsome, middle-aged man with shoulder-length dark hair and a sardonic grin on his face. Next to him stood a breathtaking woman. She had a silver streak in her long, black hair and a beautiful smile that made Karrin feel like she just found ‘home’.
The man turned his attention to Lurga, his eyes and mouth hardening as he looked him up and down. “Huh. Are you sure this is an Ispepyein Warrior, Dad? He doesn’t seem like much.”
“I’m not sure, Excalibur. He isn’t, either.” Arthur nodded toward the teenager. “Meet your granddaughter, Karrin, and her, uh, friend, Lurga.”
The woman winked at Karrin. “Sure didn’t appear like a friendly kiss to me, Father.”
The female face on the screen scowled at Excalibur and his companion. “Stop teasing them, you two. There is much to discuss.”
“Yes, Daisy,” the woman said contritely and nervously picked at one of her fingernails.
Karrin stepped farther away from Lurga as she glanced around the round room from Arthur and Daisy to the middle-aged couple. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Now, I remember. You’re Arthur and Daisy. And, this is your daughter, Pamela, who’s, also, my grandmother. Excalibur is my grandfather.”
Her brows crinkled, deep in thought. “I even remember my parents, and my brother and sisters.” Her face transformed from joy to sorrow at the memory of the explosion that turned her into an orphan. “The Calens killed my family, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did,” Excalibur answered tenderly as he reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Karrin. Your grandmother and I were in another dimension, taking care of some vital business. We didn’t realize our grandson and his family had been killed until Weesa contacted us. Arthur and Daisy didn’t know until after the fact. They’re the ones who discovered you still lived, but by the time they got to you, you disappeared. We’ve been searching for you ever since.”
When tears formed in his granddaughter’s eyes, Excalibur drew Karrin into his arms. “We miss your father and mother as much as you do.”
Karrin’s body stiffened, and she pushed herself away as she peered up into his compelling blue eyes. “You’re a Shalit, aren’t you?”