by Ella Maven
With a flick of my wrist, I gunned my bike, and we sped off into the safety of the tree copse. Already, I could feel a shift in the air. The Uldani would soon discover we didn’t intend to deliver their cargo as asked. Ward’s question lingered in my head along with another—what did the Uldani want with human females?
My female’s long hair rippled behind her, teasing my chest and flooding my nostrils with her scent. Under the smell of her sweat, was a musk that drove me crazy. I had to focus on my riding before I drove this bike into a tree. She was smart and intuitive and leaned with me, helping me keep the bike balanced. We entered the copse at full speed, and my female gasped as the trunks whizzed by. She let go of the bar and clung to my arm where it was wrapped around her waist. Satisfaction filled me that she’d sought out my strength and chose to touch me.
I wanted to put as much distance between us and the ship landing site as possible. The northern hemisphere of Planet Torin was comprised of two massive land masses connected by a thin strip of dense, rocky terrain. Ever since the Uprising, we’d kept to our side while, on the other side, the Uldani fortified themselves in their towers behind their tech and walls.
Before the uprising, all Drixonian males had had access to that tech and had been one of the Uldani’s most prized possessions as their effective Defens. We hadn’t realized we were possessions for many cycles. We’d protected them from invaders and kept their borders peaceful. In return, they betrayed us.
One of my biggest regrets about the Uprising was that we hadn’t worked harder to completely defeat the Uldani, and instead had retreated after we’d gained our freedom. We were now scattered across our own land mass on Torin, each Drixonian clavas an independent community. Busy with survival and fighting for resources, the Drix long ago lost the motivation that had made us work so hard to be free of the Uldani. They had no respect for other beings—we Drixonians had learned this lesson well—and I shuddered to think what they’d do to the human females.
The female’s grip on my arm had loosened. I surveyed the terrain, searching for a stopping place so I could assess her injuries. Suddenly her body went slack in my arms, and she pitched to the side, falling from the bike’s seat. I grasped for her and my hand came up empty.
Three
Frankie
Everything hurt. My face. My neck. My legs from straddling that massive bike. My stomach from the twists and turns. Motion sickness had always been my weakness, and apparently it was a shit thing to have on other planets as well.
Distantly, I felt a change, like we were no longer speeding through the air at jet-engine speed. I felt a weird sensation, like I was falling. And then my body jolted to a stop. I opened my one good eye to find myself in my big alien’s arms. When had I started calling him my alien?
He’d taken the only thing from me that I knew on this planet—the other women. Were they okay? Why was I singled out? I’d only known Miranda for… Well, I wasn’t sure how long, but she’d been my lifeline. I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Despite the situation, I’d felt some safety as a part of the group of women. Now we were separated, I felt even more anchorless.
Angry at this stupid alien and this stupid planet, I began to struggle in his arms. His grip tightened, but when I kept up my efforts, he stopped walking and gently placed me on my feet. I pushed away from him, seeking distance because his proximity was messing with my already damaged head. Oh yeah and I was pissed at him. I promptly fell on my ass. He exhaled roughly, his black eyes narrowing into an expression that could only be interpreted as patronizing, like I was a child.
“My depth perception is fucked,” I snapped. “I can only see out of one eye, man, so give me a break.” My one working eyeball was wonky. I probably had a concussion.
I squinted up at my alien, helpless. I could try to steal his bike, but where would that get me? I couldn’t just ride into space. The thought of me cruising a hover bike past a satellite and moseying my way into Earth’s atmosphere, maybe crashing into someone’s barbecue, had me laughing. I was concussed.
I snorted as my alien looked down at me, hands on his hips, his brow lowered over his eyes, mouth turned down. He was frowning at me. Yeah, well, join the club. This was why I’d never had a boyfriend for longer than a few months—most of them had found me ridiculous. Maybe at first they thought my habit of acting silly and being in my own head was cute and endearing, but when they realized I wasn’t going to change, they didn’t last.
My alien scooped me up and placed me gently on a small patch of blue mossy-type stuff that was surprisingly soft. I had to admit, it was a nice gesture, and I probably should have let him carry me instead of struggling so hard.
His bike thing rested on the ground near a large tree trunk. The trees here were… familiar, yet not. The trunks were all covered in a blue moss, while the leaves were a variety of blues, teals, and greens. They were stunning. At least I’d been kidnapped and taken to a planet that had some lushness. I didn’t do well with extreme temperatures, so desert and ice planets—if they existed—were on my shit list.
He crouched down and reached toward my face. Unsure why he wanted to touch me, I scooted back. He froze, his scales rippling. I was figuring out I could read his scales the same way I could read a human’s body language. When his scales had rippled quickly—the camouflage moving like wind whistling through leaves—he’d seemed angry, aggressive. Now, in the light of the setting sun, surrounded by quiet, his colors were muted and still. This close, I realized his eyes weren’t black. They were a very deep purple and in the center was a wide black pupil.
“Ch-ch-ch,” he said softly, and I wondered if that was an order for me to be quiet, or calm.
“Are the other women okay?” I asked. Like he could understand me. Fuck. “Where did you take them? Why am I not with them?”
Of course, he didn’t answer me. He had no idea what I was saying. Tears pricked my eyes, which frustrated me because I fucking hated crying.
“Ch-ch-ch.” He reached for me again, and this time I let him. My face hurt, and I was sad as hell and feeling a bit defeated. His skin was weird beneath my palms, smooth, kind of like a snake’s, but also warm from within, so not cold-blooded. Did he have blood? He was like a giant blue-sequined human.
His fingers gently probed the swollen part of my face. His jaw got hard and his scales flashed violently before settling. He was angry I was hurt, I realized. Really freaking pissed. Did he want me to say thank you? He’d punished a thing who hurt me, but I wasn’t sure if this were an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing, or if everyone here was my freaking enemy. I should have been terrified, as this alien was clearly deadly as hell, but he held me gently, almost gingerly, and he seemed to be trying to calm me.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I mean, you did defend my honor in a way, didn’t you?”
He tilted his head, like he was trying to understand. His features fascinated me—gorgeous full lips and high cheek bones. Up close, his hair was even more beautiful, shining in the sun. He smelled like leather and fuel, and a little bit of dirt, which shouldn’t have been enticing, but was. Since when did I have an alien kink?
There was a lot going on behind his eyes, so he had to be intelligent. Or maybe I just wished like hell he was intelligent because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my—probably few—days with a dummy. There I went being mean. I was sure he had valuable skills of some sort. He did have a clan, gang, or something. He was clean and well-muscled. But that didn’t explain why he was involved in whatever human-trafficking scheme they seemed to have on this planet.
He rose to his feet and retreated to his bike. I remained on my mossy pad and watched as he unhooked a bag from his bike and returned to my side. He laid the bag on the ground and pulled out a leather pouch, a square wrapped in cloth, and a metal box. He grabbed the pouch and popped off a cork-like top. He held it out to me and said, “Qua.”
Qua. What was I supposed to do with that? “Uh, okay?”
His
lips pressed into a thin line. He tossed his head back and upended the pouch above his face. A stream of clear liquid ran into his mouth, and he swallowed. He wiped some drops from his chin with the back of his hand, which was somehow a casually attractive move, and held the pouch out to me again. “Qua.”
I cautiously took the pouch and sniffed the contents. It didn’t have much of a smell. Sure, my alien could drink it fine, but how would it react with my body? But fuck, I was thirsty. My throat was dry from the dust and the screaming.
“Okay, well, here goes. If it kills me, that’s on you.” I took a small sip and smacked my lips. Although this qua looked like water, it had a weird, thick texture and a slight vinegar taste. It wasn’t so bad. I waited a minute, and my stomach didn’t rebel, so I drank more, loving the feel of the qua on my sore throat. I handed the pouch back to my alien, who looked incredibly pleased.
Next, he unwrapped the square cloth to reveal a brown, rectangular block. He bit off a corner and chewed before handing it out to me. “Tein.”
Okay, so this was food, I guessed. It resembled a Larabar or some other kind of protein bar. There were suspicious lumps and weird discolorations, but I was hungry. The qua hadn’t killed me, and I couldn’t refuse food for long. I held the tein between my index finger and thumb and nibbled the end. The taste was… unique. Not sweet. More aromatic and nutty. Also, not terrible. Of course, I was sure cardboard would taste delicious right now, that was how starving I was. My lip hurt, but fortunately I didn’t have to open my mouth too wide to eat the tein. Before I knew it, I’d eaten the entire bar. After another sip of qua, I felt almost normal, except for the massive ache in my face. I touched my swollen eye with the pads of my fingers and winced. My alien scowled and reached for the metal box at his side.
I really needed to start calling him something other than my alien. I cleared my throat, and he glanced up. Pointing to my chest, I said, “Frankie.”
He stared at me. I knew he could talk. He’d held a whole conversation with one of his friends.
“Frankie,” I said again. I pointed at him.
“Fra-kee,” he repeated haltingly, his mouth moving awkwardly over the syllables.
Close enough. I nodded and smiled. I pointed to him.
He patted his chest. “Fra-kee?”
I tried not to be annoyed, but I was tired and in pain, and I just wanted to know his damn name. They did have names, right? I shook my head, and I pointed to my chest again. “Fra-kee.” Then I pointed to him.
He didn’t move for a moment, then he slowly raised his palm to his chest, fingers splayed. “Dazeem.”
I nearly shouted with glee. “Dazeem? Is that your name, or what kind of species you are?”
He only patted his chest again and said, “Dazeem,” because of course he did. Well, whatever. He picked up my wrist, which nearly disappeared in his massive hand, and placed it on his chest, over where a heart would be on a human. “Daz,” he said, quieter this time.
My breath stilled in my chest. He was so close, his scaly skin so warm. He wasn’t so scary now, not at rest, not while his scales glowed a pretty blue, and those arm spikes were nowhere to be seen. “Daz,” I repeated, curling my fingers slightly into his scales.
His mouth did something then, his lips parting and turning up at the corners. Was he… smiling?
And then, just as the almost-smile appeared, it was gone. His head bent, and he flicked through the contents of the metal box. He withdrew a syringe, and I nearly lost my mind. Panic spiked through me, hot and paralyzing. I tried to skitter away from him but only succeeded in slamming my back against a tree trunk. No fucking way was I getting pricked again. Last time that happened, I’d been dumped on an alien planet.
Had he fed me only to gain my trust before he drugged me and shipped me off somewhere? He was making that “ch-ch-ch” sound, but I wasn’t having it.
“No way!” I yelled. “No fucking needle. No needles!”
I tried to crab walk away from him, but Daz was persistent. With disgusting ease, he lifted me up and placed me back on my mossy pad. He held me there with one hand as he raised his other. His forearms spikes lifted, and I began to shake, thinking he was going to punish me with them. Instead, he slashed them across his abdomen. He stabbed himself in the goddamn stomach.
I screamed as a black liquid oozed out. What the hell was happening?
He held the syringe in front of my face, like he was telling me to look at it. With a grunt, he plunged it into the wound.
The broken scales knitted back together. Like fucking magic. I stared as the wound closed, and only a thin line was left, like a mostly healed scar.
I reached out tentatively, and he nodded, encouraging me. I touched the scales, and sure enough, the wound was gone. Healed. The only evidence it had been there was the thin line and the bit of blood that had oozed onto the waistband of his pants. He pulled out another syringe and uncapped it. He pointed to my face. “Fra-kee.”
He wanted to heal me, and I wanted to let him, but I was terrified of that needle. What if it killed me? He seemed so confident though, waiting for me to give him the go-ahead. Did I trust Daz? He hadn’t done me wrong so far, but I’d seen what he was capable of.
I couldn’t go on much longer like this though. My skull felt like it was splitting open. My eye was swollen. It hurt to swallow and eat. If that medicine did half of what it did to Daz to me, then I’d be ecstatic.
Fuck it. Here went nothing. “Yeah. Okay.” I nodded at Daz. “I’m ready.”
First, he wiped my cheek with something that smelled strongly like alcohol, then he plunged the syringe into my cheek. I barely felt the needle prick the swollen skin.
Within seconds, my cheek began to tingle, then the tightness eased. I couldn’t see what was happening with my injuries, but soon I had sight out of both eyes. The pain in my head eased and filled with a nice warmth, like a hot compress.
I blinked at Daz and prodded my cheek with my fingers. It was barely sore. “Damn,” I said. “Who are you guys, and what other kinds of superior medicine do you have?”
His fingers grazed my once-injured cheek. He grasped my chin firmly and turned my head to inspect me. I let him, because, damn it, it’d been a long day, and I felt taken care of in a way I hadn’t ever felt before. My dad had done his best, but he wasn’t affectionate. Love, to him, was telling me what I could wear and establishing a strict curfew.
I reached out and squeezed his biceps. “Thank you.”
His eyes flickered to where I touched him. His lids lowered and his lips parted. Was he going to… kiss me?
Suddenly, his head whipped to the left, and he peered into the dense forest. His entire body tightened, and he inhaled deeply. In the next second, he scooped me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and sprinted toward his bike.
Daz leapt onto his bike and threw me across his lap like a sack of potatoes. A roaring shriek filled the air. Peering through my messy strands of hair, I nearly had a heart attack when a whole herd of tusked, six-legged, hippo-sized things poured into the clearing. Fear slid up my throat and wrapped its icy fingers around my neck.
“Oh my God!” I hollered, slamming my hands on the bike’s handlebars. “Go, Daz. Go!”
Four
Frankie
The hippos converged on us, shrieking with what seemed like glee at the sight of prey. Their jaws were wider than their bodies, their teeth dripped with thick drool, and their hides were covered in a dark, wiry hair. With a rumble between my legs, Daz’s engine roared to life. We rose in the air, and I thought we were in the clear until the bike jerked to the right. I screamed as I slid to the side, sure I was going to plunge to my death into the gaping jaws of the hippo creatures.
Daz gripped me with his right hand and hauled me against his chest. With his left hand, he held up a gun-looking thing and began firing at the beasts with what looked like orange laser bullets. The first beast he took out was the one with its teeth clamped on the side of the bike. As it
fell away in a spray of blood, the bike righted itself and rose higher, only to jerk to the left when another beast got its teeth into the machine.
Daz lifted his arm and fired again. And again. And again. Every shot was a kill shot, aimed with deadly accuracy. The beasts didn’t stop coming, even as they had to climb over the bodies of their dead. After a final shot, the bike soared out of the reach of the creatures, and we took off into the trees.
I trembled in Daz’s arms, unable to believe I’d come so close to being hippo food. This planet was no joke. Were there other creatures like that? I found myself peering down to catch signs of any other wildlife. I thought I saw some deer-like things with antlers, but it was hard to tell. And hey, on this planet maybe deer were carnivores. I shuddered as I imagined being gored by a ten-point buck. No, thank you.
We rode and rode. At first, I tried to keep track of where we were going, wishing I had breadcrumbs to leave a trail in case I wanted to get back. The landscape didn’t change much. I would’ve wondered if we’d circled back to where we’d started if I didn’t occasionally see some unique rock or landmark. Eventually, I gave up on tracking our path as we twisted and turned, and I merely observed what this new planet was like. Several times we passed buildings that looked to be damaged and crumbling, almost like they’d been purposefully demolished. What I didn’t see was a sign of other intelligent life. What had happened to this planet?
When the sun sank lower, and the temperatures dipped, Daz slowed the bike to a stop and touched down in the middle of a copse of trees.
He placed me on another mossy spot with a tree at my back. I leaned on it with my knees drawn up to my chest, hugging the blanket around me. He inspected his bike, running his hands over it like a rich man checking the body of his Lamborghini. He frowned at a few puncture marks and hissed out a sharp word when he spotted a hole in one of his saddlebags. He reached inside and pulled out a slim rectangle that reminded me of a cell phone. Then shouted, using same sharp word, as he ran his fingers over a crack in the screen. He banged it on the seat and hung his head before tossing it back in his saddlebags.