by Corbin, C. R
"Simple, i'm going to help you kill your attackers." I remarked and took a seat next to Amanda, she moved away from me and keeps her gaze leveled with mine as I sat, her face conveyed a suspicion of me that still lurked in the interactions I had with these humans.
"And how is that?" asked Kelly, sitting straight up with her eyes glued to me and her blond ponytail flickering in the cool cavern air.
"I know what Jorathian warriors are capable of and these guys don't strike me as being the kind of men to be honorable about it so make no mistake. If they see an opening and if they see an opportunity to slaughter all of you, they will take it. That's why it is imperative for us to get as far away from them as possible first. Then, we may focus on developing the tools, traps, and skills necessary to stop them but first we need to flee." I muttered.
"And how long do you think this plan will take?" the man asked me.
"I don't know, how long is 19 days on this planet in your units?" I asked him.
"So three weeks basically...three weeks." remarked Amanda quietly and I nodded, when I gazed over her it seemed that every inch of her was pulling me into a daze that was not so easily escapable.
"Right. Three weeks. Three weeks is what we have to teach you simple skills and to have you aid me in eliminating them. Do not be confused, I will be doing most, if not all of the fighting but you will need to help me in some way and you will need to know how to at least defend yourselves. That I can teach you." I stated.
"And where are we going to flee? Aren't Jorathians some of the best trackers ever?" asked Amanda and I nod with a grin.
"How right you are and thank you for the compliment." I stated but her face kept that stoic facade, there was a slight flicker of amusement in her eyes however, I continued shortly after. "That's why I propose we head across the nearest river running through the area. The thick foliage of this planet will obscure us from ships or sonar readings and the river will eliminate any scent trails that we may leave that we would have if we stayed here. We should depart as soon as possible should that not be an issue to anyone here. Tomorrow preferably." I stated and the man growled.
"And how do we know you're not leading us into a death trap?" he asked me and I frowned.
"You really think I would risk my life just to make killing a couple of weak humans a bit easier?" I asked him, he sighed and turned.
"No guess not...But who are you to these guys? Why did they betray you?" he asked me and I frowned, for as callous as Mephisal and Kol were, I thought their loyalty ran deeper than that but they merely tossed me to the wayside. It gave me even more drive to see this through and slaughter the bastards.
And yet my anger was not entirely selfish. For the first time in years I was caring...actually caring about someone. Her.
I knew that she was my mate from the moment I saw her on that hill, to be close enough to smell her, to hear her voice, to see her in all of her beauty was enough to inform me of what she was to me and I knew instantly that she was the woman that I would be with, although this scenario made it a bit more difficult with regards to the entire process...I would have her by the end of all this, not by force, but by the will of her heart.
And all that was left for me was the debate on whether I should tell her immediately and reveal who I was, or bide my time and keep my past a secret.
Should I inform them that I was a previous associate of the criminals I would likely be tossed away without warning. I needed their complete trust if we were going to make it out of this so beguiling them was in my best interest. Should I tell them that I was a previous associate I would need to inform them of why I refused to attack, because of her, and that was not a strong enough reason for them to buy surely. A hardened criminal would be much harder to trust than say...a contractor or explorer.
So what would be my excuse?
I could say that I was a contractor sent here to mine some ore but that left the question of why I was dressed in combat armor and boots. It would need to be something involving combat, warfare.....I could say that we were traveling and stopped here to resupply, a group of mercenaries. Yes...that would work nicely I suppose.
"The three of us were mercenaries on our way back to Jorath from a mission when we stopped here for a resupply. You landed soon after and we were alerted, that's when they brought up the idea of stealing from you. Our last few contracts hadn't been paying us with quite the same amount of generosity as they used to so... they were going to assault your camp. They were going to attack to retrieve whatever material wealth that you had. I refused because well...i'm not a criminal and that was the end of it." I stated and the three of them looked at one another.
"Do you buy it?" Josh asked Amanda who gazed up at me, her eyes lingering as her eyes shone with a mixture of enrapturement and worry.
"Not entirely...but he's our best shot." she said and Josh scoffed.
"A mercenary huh? Well...fine. I think we all agree that you got yourself a deal. God I need some sleep." Josh said as he got to his feet and stumbled over into a barely illuminated corner of the cavern.
"See you in the morning Amanda. If what this guy says is true then we're going to need the rest." said Kelly as she stepped away into another section of the cave.
Only she remains there with me.
A thousand scenarios ran their way through my mind, a thousand ways that I could tell her what she was to me, the mate that I have been looking for all my adult life was sitting here in front of me. I bite my lip as my gaze lingered on her a bit longer and she sighs, her breath was shallow and I took in every scent of her as if it was my last. My eyes survey her in the dim moonlight from the twin moons of Morathia. Her eyes gleam and I watched her curves shift a bit, her body shakes as she turns in the dim light.
"You finding me appetizing Jorathian?" she asked in a slightly bitter tone.
"You don't trust me." I state and she nodded.
"Of course I don't. Two Jorathians attack the place and suddenly another shows up claiming to want to help...That injury made the possibility of you working with them quite unlikely but know that we're not going to be buddy buddy immediately." she remarked.
"What a shame. I thought a beautiful Earth woman would be swooning over me but alas she just batters me with her probings." I stated and she scoffed.
"Beautiful? This your idea of charm?" she asked me.
"No, my idea of charm is much more physical." I said with a wink, my muscles tensing up as I forced them to flex. There were patches of scales across my back and my sides that glimmered in the light and she watched each of them with a great deal of interest.
"Uh.....I..." she finds herself at a loss for words and I laughed at her.
"So I see you are charmed." I stated and she growled.
"I am not." she denied it vehemently but the red in her cheeks told another story. I was fortunate I had such sharp eyesight in the darkness so I could see every inch of her body quiver while I watched her.
"I do want to thank you though. Sincerely. The way you patched me up was...impressive." I remarked and gazed at my stomach wound, it was still sore and the only thing binding it together was the film of the medgel as well as the stitches but it was healing at a much faster rate than any self-repairs that I had done in my past.
"I didn't have a choice and besides....one of the other doctors would have done a better job. I don't know why I survived and ended up fixing you but....I don't know. Someone else should have been in this spot instead of me. All of those people, all of that lost potential....all because of Jorathians." she growled.
"Just because two of them commit an atrocity doesn't mean you can accuse all of us girl." I snarled at her and she nodded, shamefully looking away.
"I don't know how that thought flashed through my mind....i'm sorry. I've never really met a Jorathian before since this side of the quadrant doesn't have many of them. We have Neborans and Kasorians but from what I understand your species are...homebodies." she rem
arked and I nodded.
"That is true. Regardless girl..you shouldn't be down on yourself." I remarked and turned to face the entrance of the cave, turning to sit down right beside her as she turned to face me while I looked out of the cavern.
"But...Someone else could have done a much better job than I. You know how many people were at that camp? Some of them could have ended up being generals or lead researchers. All of that gone! All of that potential snuffed out because your friends wanted to get greedy." She said with an element of distrust lingering in her voice and I can only pause as I watched her unload all of that anger.
"So you hate yourself?" I remarked and she shakes her head.
"I....I don't feel like I should have survived. My life was much less than some of the people there. I'm just a med student that tagged along, I don't....I didn't have any extraordinary galaxy shaking plans. I was not going to create some new drug or heal millions or be the leader of a colony. At best I would be a doctor, maybe a good one, but never great." she remarked and I frowned, glancing her over and reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. She pulled away and I frowned but kept my gaze leveled with her.
"Me still being alive is proof that you were worthy." I remarked and she turned, facing the glowing cavern walls and frowning.
"I...I don't know. The stitching could have used some work and maybe that wound could be completely healed in someone else's hands. We could have had a general with us and....god I feel so helpless." she remarked and placed her head into her hands. I wanted to reach out to comfort her but I knew what had happened before and paused before I could fully commit to the action.
"You shall come to realize your value soon enough, I know it and I suspect that you realize it too, you just won't give yourself the honor." I remarked.
"It's just....we just came here to have fun, we just came here to enjoy the last couple of years of our youth and look what happened to us! What kind of malevolent decrepit beast would do such a thing to a bunch of people just trying to have fun? For what? Some spaceship parts and that's it!" she stated and I continued to frown while glancing her over, my lips pursed and I sighed.
"I....I'm sorry." I muttered.
For the first time in a while I meant those words. I actually...meant what I was saying. I still found it hard to care about the lives that were lost in that assault but still...I hated seeing her like this. It pulled at my heart strings and made me want to caress her and yet her voice was awakening something that I thought I had buried during all of those youthful missions when we were fighting for scraps. It was making me resurrect that light that used to live in the pit of my stomach.
My conscience.
It was faint and minuscule but I could still feel it there, lingering and flickering to life whenever she conveyed the loss that they had suffered. At first I thought it was only a feeling of empathy for her and her only but when I thought of the camp and the bodies that could be left strewn across the forest floor...the feeling didn't settle well with me. The way their eyes glimmered in the darkness while Kol and Mephisal stepped over the corpses without so much as a glance, their hands stretching upwards to reach for their goods....it was...unexplainable. It was such an alien feeling but I knew that I didn't like it and I knew that...well I knew that it was all because of those tears that fell from her.
And again, it was small and I largely didn't feel a thing but still to feel any discomfort from seeing others in pain was a real rarity for me ever since I had started on this path to become...well become what I was.
"I need to sleep I guess, were going to need it for tomorrow..." she muttered and walked off, I turned to stare at her as she walked away and I could only mutter. "Good night." She turned to me and nodded, not wanting to give me the honor of announcing her departure for the evening.
And I was left here to wait under the moon, wondering if I had gone astray during my life.
I was the perfect warrior, I was ruthless and took what I wanted for years. Initially we only started off with small jobs, no one was murdered during those early days of the gang, we mostly did robberies and theft. Then a year after I had joined we killed our first man, and then in the years after that the extremes only continued to surpass the last. I was disgusted at first and then after a while...everything got numb. Like I was purposely blocking it all out and I was. I knew I was.
CHAPTER FOUR
Amanda
We depart that morning after Dezdrin uses his tracking skills and tells us that there was a river that was left of the cavern entrance. Kelly uses her element reader and picks up a slightly higher amount of water vapor floating our way from that direction than all the other points so I supposed that that's where we were headed.
I find myself staring at him every step of the way.
Dezdrin clutched his stomach as he walked so I knew that the wound hadn't healed up entirely. A shame, I guess that's the best little old me could do. I find myself getting distracted by that rippling golden muscle...that toned neck that shone in the light. I had no idea how much I was staring until he finally asked me.
"Is there a creature on me?" he asked and I shook myself out of my daze.
"What?" I asked.
"Is there something on my face? You seem quite fascinated with me today my beautiful woman." he stated with a wink with his fangs poking out from his lips and I only stammered.
"N-no I....just keep walking Jorathian. Where I gaze is none of your business." I muttered and he shrugged with a grin.
He walks with a great deal of swagger and I can sense that it is on purpose. I find myself gazing at his backside, so firm, so powerful, oh those golden arms could pin me down right now. How I abhorred that layer of tan armor that he was wearing, a collection of plates around his body with a large one near his chest, that damaged combat armor could be off and I could see that rock hard abdomen that I had grasped while healing him, I could see every inch of him and he could pleasure me with it. filling me with his rugged size. I had heard rumors that Jorathians had a much more...pleasurable anatomy than humans and were completely compatible with us. I could savor every inch as he filled me while he pinned my arms beside my head using his incredible strength before he sinks all the way in...
My god what was I thinking?
"So you're a mercenary then." I stated and he nodded.
"Yes I am." he remarked.
"Are you a good one? Why not just join the Jorathian military if you're looking to make a living fighting?" I asked and he laughed.
"Oh trust me. You don't want to join the Jorathian military if you're in this thing for the adventure. They stay at home all day and only ever go out to deal with attacks which are relatively rare. We have these things called war parties which are responsible for protecting the majority of all extraterrestrial threats, as well as being sent out on diplomatic missions, and you have to work for years to get enlisted in one of those." he remarked with a wistful smile.
"So you don't miss Jorath at all?" I asked him and he shakes his head.
"I do, I really do but I wouldn't say that I was quite fond of the life I would have had if I stayed there. I would like to return one day but...perhaps later." he remarked while gazing up at the golden sky, I could see his skin glow in the light, his blue eyes flickering while that tussle of white hair atop his head shook gently.
"Where are all of you from?" asked Dezdrin, Kelly was the first to speak up. It seems that she was a bit more at ease with his presence than I was.
"A small colony from here. Orsova." said Kelly and I nodded
"We're students from a university there." I remarked and he rubbed his chin with his fingers.
"So you're...scholars?" he asked.
"Why are you so curious Jorathian? What makes you think we want to be friendly with you after what your people did?" asked Josh and Dezdrin turned, his eyes flashed a dangerous shade of blue as he looked over at the young man.
"They aren't my people." he snarled out an
d Josh turned, cursing himself. It was easy to judge them all by the actions of two since we hadn't met much of them but..I could not let myself fall into that trap.
He seems like a friendly enough fellow, there was something that he was hiding, I couldn't quite place it but I knew that there was something lingering in him that was kept under a shroud of secrecy. Whether it was regarding what happened back to the base, I didn't know, but still....everything in me was telling me that I should trust him, that I should....be a bit more friendly. I don't know what it was, but I wanted to believe in what he said and at times..I wanted to even smile in his presence.
The rest of the walk was filled with silence after the two of them had their little confrontation. The silence soon made way for its complete opposite, however, overwhelming noise. There was the roar of the river blasting through the air and it was only getting louder and louder.
The way the forests of Morathia were structured was a collection of trees that were somewhat spaced out from one another with a variety of small shrubs growing at their bases. The jungle here was spread out below but high up in the canopy was where everything intertangled. Most of the trees belonged to three species that were all the same color and only differentiable by the shape of their leaves, a heart, arrow, and square respectively. The rain was constant although it usually fell onto the trees and was absorbed through their leaves or branches while the remainder was taken up by the roots. This meant that it was moderately dark on the forest floor with only pockets of light peeking through, in those moments I could see his golden skin shining in the light, his eyes focused on me with a smile slapped across his face.
"We're almost there, be careful and stick together. Don't want any of you wandering into the waters accidentally." remarked Dez as we reached the apex of the noise. Kelly moves a branch and we see a roaring river ahead of us, the white waters were splashing into the rocks below and washing over with a great deal of force. I could see various uprooted branches and stray rocks sliding down the river as the force of the water drove them down. We could have gone downstream to find an easier path but that would take some time and Dezdrin wanted to be across the river so that a large portion of our path would be obscured from the attackers. We were currently at a small waterfall and there seems to be a stone that was bare in the middle of it, splitting the two sides of the waterfall and that was our path across. If we could get on that rock and hop to one of the trees across from there, we could make it.