by Regine Abel
“You are mine,” he whispered again, breathless, his heart pounding in my ear.
“All yours,” I whispered back.
* * *
In the follow days, training proved quite challenging as we struggled to remain focused on the task at hand. We couldn’t seem to keep our hands off each other. Zayek frowned when I brought up the topic of contraception. I was falling hard for him, but until I knew we’d be in this for the long haul, it would be irresponsible to bring a new life into the mix. According to him, we couldn’t conceive until I had completed the final stage of my transformation. And even after that, it would be at least another three to six months before I became fully compatible. Although he didn’t flat out say it, I got the distinct impression that Zayek wanted me to bear his child.
That thought pleased me.
After spending my time almost exclusively with Zayek since my arrival I, and all those from my group still present in the facility, individually met with Linda. She updated us on our status and ran us through the next steps. In two weeks, we would permanently leave Earth for Sikaria. Over the past fourteen days, we’d only been allowed very brief communications with our families. The message, pretty much dictated by the CDC, let them know we still lived but that our worsening condition made our return unlikely. We now only had the time remaining before our departure to bid our farewells as they would then inform our loved ones that we had died. To stifle any questions about the absence of remains for them to bury, the CDC would first cremate ‘us’ and return the ashes to prevent any risk of further contamination.
Although I’d known that day would come, it hit me harder than I’d expected. The worst part was not having anything of my parents, except for a few old pictures on my phone. As soon as I’d been diagnosed, the CDC had acted swiftly getting my carrier to drop me. The internet in the quarantine zone operated solely on a closed circuit, keeping us from reaching out to the outside world.
Some of the others were hit much harder than me. Sherry had a young daughter and a fiancé she’d never see again. Callum’s wife had given birth to twin boys only a week before he became ill. But Diana probably had it the worst when she miscarried her three-month-old fetus during the second stage of her transformation. We rallied around her, each of us mourning our own impending losses, while the CDC provided us with any form of counseling we desired.
The next day, we said goodbye to the previous group who had completed their transformation. With a mix of fear and anticipation, we watched them board the spaceship that would take them home to their new life, light-years away from us. After their departure, we were given a far too rare reprieve from training, allowing us to mingle. Although we hadn’t spent more than a few hours together between our trip here from the hospital, and the handful of group meetings in the early days, it felt like a high school reunion with cherished, long lost friends.
As we gathered around one corner of the bar in the common room, for the first time, I got a good look at their transformation.
Like me, Callum, Josie, and Alexandra were Thalans, each of them with different scale colors than mine. Sherry was a freaking angel, although they called her breed Elohim. Like others of her kind, she no longer bothered with a shirt. Her white down feathers, spotted with a few darker feathers as often seen around the neck of a hawk, covered her chest, stopping shy of reaching her nipples. Instead of the usual pink, their alabaster color blended with the rest of her skin. Pearly scales ran from the back of her hands up her forearms like shimmering evening gloves. The tips of her pristine wings, folded behind her back, brushed against the ground. The bone structure of her face had changed, taking on an elfin edge. While her eyes were clearly bigger, she didn’t seem to have a nictitating membrane like Thalans.
Luca and Diana turned out to be Khilzains; essentially, dragon shifters. Both bare-chested, they’d grown by nearly a full foot, and gained substantial muscle mass. Their scales ran in a straight line from their foreheads, over their skulls—parting their hair—and down their spines, ending in a scaled, lizard tail. Horns of various sizes protruded from their brows and the top of their heads. Scales and rounded facial bones ran down their temples, tapering off along their jawlines. Thick, shiny scales, covered their chest, arms, and hands. Their fingers, longer than humans’ possessed, included vicious retractable claws. Contrary to me, whose eye-color had adapted to that of my scales, Luca’s scales had taken on the original green of his eyes. They were enlarged as well, but his pupils were undeniably reptilian with vertical slits.
He looked completely alien, and good enough to eat. And yet, I didn’t feel sexually attracted to him. Zayek had swept me off my feet.
“So, you’re a fish, too,” Luca said teasingly, his now deep voice rolling like a distant thunder.
“I’m not a fish, Mr. Lizard!” I exclaimed with false outrage.
“That’s Mr. Dragon to you, Little Trout,” he replied, a taunting glimmer in his eyes.
“Pfft, that’s Little Siren to you Mr. Dragon-Without-Wings,” I mocked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Oh, I most certainly have wings,” he said smugly.
His face took on an air of concentration and, moments later, a massive pair of leathery wings protruded from his back. They were magnificent. However, in spite of his brave front, Luca appeared in a bit of pain.
“Put them away, silly man,” Diana said in a sharp tone. “You’re hurting yourself to impress a woman already claimed.”
My face heated, but I ignored the far too insightful last part of her sentence, focusing on the first part instead.
“It’s hurting you?” I asked as Luca made his wings disappear.
“Not yet, but eventually, yes,” he admitted. “Dragon wings are too heavy for us at this stage. Our training focuses on building the muscles in our backs. We only take the wings out for short periods of time to prevent them from becoming atrophied before our musculature is strong enough to start using them normally. I must admit to being a little jealous of Little Bird over there,” he said, indicating Sherry with his chin.
“I’m not a bird, I’m an angel,” Sherry said, making a face at him. She turned to me and smiled at my confused expression. “Compared to them, I may look small and fluffy, but my bones are like steel, and the strength of my muscles can put to shame big boy over there. Unlike them, I’m encouraged to keep my wings out as much as possible to make my muscles more flexible, and to work on my balance. You have no idea how much time I’ve spent on my back feeling as helpless as a turtle. These damn things weigh a ton.”
We burst out laughing, and my heart warmed for my new friends, my new family. Despite being envious of their ability to fly, being able to live both on land and underwater totally rocked, not to mention mind-speak and ultrasonic communication. As an added bonus, we could walk around naked without being deemed indecent. Since they had no swimming tail, the other breeds didn’t have a scaled membrane covering their privates.
But even as we spoke, the sorrow each one felt at their respective losses sometimes peeked through. We carefully avoided anything related to children and family. Keeping to the safer topic of our adventures here and the wonders of our new bodies.
Time flew by as we exchanged anecdotes of our successes and failures during training. Diana nearly set the gym on fire when, instead of crying out in effort as she tried to lift heavy weights, she spit out a huge stream of blue flames, incinerating the clothes of her trainer. Like me, Callum and Alexandra had both shattered windows and various other glass objects by hitting the wrong frequencies while training to learn our ultrasonic communication skills.
Between all our blunders, it was a miracle the building still stood, and our trainers hadn’t keeled over.
Too soon, the evening came to an end. We hugged each other goodnight, knowing there would be little to no time to mingle for another week, when we’d have completed the final stages of our transformation.
Zayek waited for me by the entrance of the common room. We didn’t
flaunt our relationship but didn’t hide it either. Since that morning when we’d become intimate, Zayek spent every night with me. I wanted to believe we had something deep, something real, building between us. His every word and action towards me seemed to indicate that this wasn’t a game for him. He had claimed me as his, and yet he hadn’t mentioned leaving Earth with me two weeks from now, nor had he asked me to stay here with him. So, what did our relationship mean to him?
Part of me wanted to flat out ask him, but every time, either courage failed me, or pride kept me from what I believed would make me sound clingy or needy. But worse, I feared that bringing up that conversation might drive him away if he didn’t see the potential of a future between us. If so, would it be better to end it now rather than prolong a relationship doomed to fail? Or should I simply enjoy what time we had left?
After three days of back and forth with myself, I finally made the choice to let the chips fall where they may. I was happy with him right now, and God only knew what awaited me on Sikaria. I’d take what joy this world still had to offer me before leaving it behind forever. If Zayek didn’t choose me, I’d cherish the memory of our time together and move on. But, wishful thinking or not, every fiber of my being told me that, when all was said and done, we’d be together.
That same day, at peace with my decision, I fell asleep in his arms for the last stage of my transformation. For the next forty-eight hours, while he kept my pain at bay, a set of earpieces played a recording of his voice teaching me the Sikarian language as new connections formed in my brain, and my vocal chords mutated.
When next I woke, only memories of having once been human would remain.
EPILOGUE
Zayek
Before I even opened my eyes, I knew Malaika had left the room. The absence of her warmth pressed against mine produced a hollow ache within me. Over the past three weeks, her presence had become an addiction I never wanted to be cured of.
She’d been growing increasingly restless in recent days, the call of the sea drawing her. Although the CDC had calibrated the ventilation system in this section of the facility to reflect Sikaria’s atmosphere, Malaika often felt like she couldn’t get enough air, feeling better oxygenated when underwater. Funny when only three weeks ago, she’d been terrified to breathe through her gills. With her new lungs now fully formed, she would finally feel sated.
Impatient to see her, I wolfed down my breakfast, barely sparing any time to chew before I swallowed. Hurrying through the hallway, and then across the garden, I made my way to the pool. I felt her presence as soon as I approached the frosted doors. The bond between us had strengthened with each passing day, growing even faster since our joining.
The ultrasonic pulse greeting me as I reached for the door startled me. And then my heart soared.
She felt my presence.
Something only true mates could. When a ‘newborn’ formed their last cerebral connections in the final stages of their transformation, it could sometimes take weeks before some of the higher functions, such as psionic ones, manifested.
The doors parted before me, revealing my beautiful Malaika treading water in the middle of the pool. I detached my pants while approaching the edge of the water. Her eyes suddenly lit up, their yellow glow hitting me like a punch in the gut. My breath hitched, pure joy filling my heart as my mate had at last acknowledged our bond. She recoiled and blinked rapidly, confused by this involuntary reaction of her body. I’d taught her how to use the reflective property of her eyes when swimming in the dark, but had deliberately omitted this particular edge case.
Swiftly discarding my clothes, I dove into the water and closed the distance between us. My own eyes glowed, triggered by her mating call as I drew her into my arms.
“What’s happening?” she asked, baffled. “Why are they doing that? What… What’s this I’m feeling?”
“You are feeling what I did the first time I laid eyes on you,” I said softly. “It’s the mating call, which only occurs when two soulmates find each other. You couldn’t respond then since your body didn’t have that ability.”
“Soulmates?” she whispered, her now midnight blue eyes flicking between mine, searching.
They were even more beautiful than I’d imagined, shock and hope lighting them as she gazed upon my face.
“Yes, my darling. I’ve impatiently waited for you to finally feel the mating call for me. When I said you were mine, I meant it. My soul recognized yours. And now, you know that I am yours forever.”
A trembling smile stretched Malaika’s lips, and her eyes misted.
“But… But I’m leaving in less than a week,” she said, uncertain.
“No, my love. We are leaving in less than a week. Do you really think that I could bear to be separated from you? That I would let another show our home world to my mate? In the past year, I’ve learned all that I cared to about humans. Another will take my place here. You have no idea all the wonders that await you. When I’m done showing you the marine life on Sikaria, I’ll take you to explore any neighboring worlds you wish to.”
“Oh, Zayek!”
She crushed my lips in a searing kiss, and I held her tight, my tongue dancing with hers as our bodies sank into the depths of the pool.
“You are my mate, Malaika,” I mind-spoke to her. “Now and always.”
“As you are mine, Zayek.”
The membranes of her tail parted, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Her hands feverishly explored me, nails scraping at my scales just the way I liked it, sending my blood rushing straight to my groin. We had never mated underwater before, her still-forming lungs making it difficult to sustain strenuous activity too long. But now, nothing prevented us from giving in to our passion.
My scales parted, liberating my painfully stiff cock. Without delay, Malaika guided it towards her opening, impaling herself on my length. My chest rumbled with pleasure at her exquisite tightness closing around me. She started gyrating, but I immediately stopped her. My hand on her rear, I pressed her pelvis to mine, immobilizing her before I made my mating node vibrate against her clit. Although underwater joining wasn’t as conducive to foreplay, I would see my woman satisfied before I sought my own pleasure. Malaika threw her head back and emitted an ultrasonic shout, her nails digging into my back.
“Zayek!”
Even through mind-speak, hearing her say my name in the throes of passion always undid me. I would never tire of watching my mate fall apart for me. Rubbing my pelvis against hers, I increased the intensity of the vibration until she toppled over the edge. As her body shook and trembled from the violence of her climax, I stopped the vibration and began to pump in and out of her. Lightning coursed through my body, electric sparks igniting each of my nerve endings with each stroke inside her burning core. Malaika’s inner walls squeezed and caressed me. With her soft body wrapped around me, her lustrous scales rubbed against mine, stirring a myriad of blissful sensations.
My balls drew up and my abdominal muscles contracted, liquid lava swirling in the pit of my stomach, ready to erupt with my impending climax. Wanting my woman to fall over with me, I resumed the vibration of my node and increased the pace and strength of my thrusts. Within moments, Malaika’s legs trembled, and she called out my name through mind-speak as another wave of ecstasy swept her away. My spine seized, struck by lightning, blinding light exploding before my eyes. I shouted my mate’s name as my seed shot out into her. Her walls contracted around me, greedily squeezing out all I had to offer.
Our bodies intertwined, drowning in a sea of pleasure, we drifted away in the cool embrace of the watery depths.
* * *
Departures were always bitter sweet. For the first time, I had stood among the ‘newborns’ watching Planet Earth grow increasingly smaller in the window of the observation deck of the Sikarian ship. Despite their best effort at putting on a brave front, every single one of them had teared up. I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to leave behind the only world a
nd life you’d ever known.
But after a few days of travel, as we closed in on our destination, excitement and a sliver of fear replaced the sorrow in their eyes. Drawing Malaika to me, I tucked her under my arm while we stared at the purplish-red silhouette of Sikaria.
“Every end marks a new beginning,” I said softly. “I cannot give you back what you have lost but, together, we will form countless new, wonderful memories. This, I promise you.”
“I love you,” Malaika whispered, her fingers sinking into my hair.
“I love you, too, my mate,” I said, brushing my lips against hers. “Welcome home, Malaika.”
The End.
ABOUT REGINE
Regine Abel is a fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi junky. Anything with a bit of magic, a touch of the unusual, and a lot of romance will have her jumping for joy. Hot alien warriors meeting no-nonsense, kick-ass heroine give her warm fuzzies. Through her Veredian Chronicles series, Regine will take you to an exciting alien world full of mystery, action, passion and new beginnings. Follow Amalia and her Veredian sisters as they fight for their freedom and the right to love.
When not writing or reading, Regine surrenders to the other passion in her life: video games! As a professional Game Designer and Creative Director, her career has led her from her home in Canada to the US and various countries in Europe and Asia.
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/regine.abel.author/
Website
https://regineabel.com
Regine’s Rebels Reader Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/184551832176494/
Newsletter
http://smarturl.it/RA_Newsletter
Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16289162.Regine_Abel
Bookbub