Arrival, page 14
part #1 of Captured Earth Series
This planet is filled with raw resources. We scanned and found enough of such.
But these resources are not readily available.
They are deep below the surface.
It’s a primitive world, this Er’th. Our technology is not compatible.
Setting up an offence will be difficult. We need the resources to build more weapons and we need to do so soon.
One Gryken node is dead. The hivemind will know now that a threat is in their midst.
They will think it is the hyu’mans though. At least, we still have the element of surprise.
As we head to my quarters, Adee’ra a slight step behind me, we walk past several Vullan. Despite that my mind is on many things, I sense my brethren’s curiosity as their eyes flick to Adee’ra.
I want to shield her from their eyes.
Some of them must see the ba’clan on her arm as well.
That is something I am sure will spread across the ship.
Something I do not know how to address.
As I stop walking abruptly to activate the door to my quarters, Adee’ra almost bumps into me.
Her soft body brushes against my back and my ba’clan shiver a little before every muscle in my being refuses to move.
I can feel them stretching toward her.
I’ve never…I’ve never felt anything like it before.
“Fer’ro? Are you all right?”
Her soft musical words tickle my ear and I turn to look at her.
She isn’t looking at me though. Her gaze is wide and on my back.
My ba’clan snap back to my skin the moment I look down and realize it hadn’t simply been a feeling.
They had physically been leaving my being, going toward Adee’ra in spikes.
Reaching toward her.
“Do you feel threatened right now?” she whispers, her gaze darting around us as her fear scent begins to grow.
“No,” I growl in her language.
“Your suit was…your spikes…the blades…”
I’m both impressed by her level of observation and her fortitude for standing so still while she thinks danger might be near.
She has already realized our hackles rise when we feel threatened.
“Those were not my hackles…”
Her brow knits in the most curious of facial expressions, and for a moment I find myself trying to mimic it.
I cannot. My ridges do not allow my forehead to move so freely.
“What was it then?”
I do not know.
“In time I may be able to tell you.”
Her brow knits farther and she glances behind her down the empty corridor.
Around the bend, I sense several of my brethren.
They are listening to our conversation.
Adee’ra is looking past me now, into the dark room that is my private space.
“Where is Sam? I thought we’d be sharing…”
“No. You will not be sharing.”
Not with the other female, at least.
“Ah,” she says and looks around me into my dark room. “So…these are my quarters?”
Her words are hesitant as if she finds it out of place to be asking such a thing.
“No,” I reply. “They are mine.”
I turn and finally step into the room. The light activates enough for me to see clearly but I’m sure Adee’ra is still mostly blind to what is inside.
I click an order to the onboard computer and as the light brightens, I hear her gasp.
It is a singular room but it has everything I need. A cleansing area and a resting space.
Adee’ra takes a single step inside, leaving half of her body out the door. She is particularly staring at the geometric lights forming patterns in the walls.
“Wow,” she whispers.
I assume it is a good thing.
“You should rest.”
I click a command and the floating sleeping area descends from the roof. It’s filled with feathers from great flying creatures from Edooria and should be comfortable enough for her.
I do not know.
Only Vullan women sleep on the feathers.
Adee’ra’s eyes bulge out a little, her cheeks growing warm, but she nods and steps forward, allowing the door to close behind her.
Now that she is in my space, a feeling envelops me that I did not expect.
Her scent is already invading my quarters and my ba’clan begin to react again.
I shut them down and head to the washing station.
I must prepare myself for the work ahead and tend to my wounds.
Anything to take my mind off this hyu’man being that my whole body is drawing toward.
ADIRA
I sit on the edge of the strange bed, my eyes on Fer’ro as he moves toward the corner of the room.
I have so many questions for him, I do not know where to start.
And everything is so different now. It’s moved in a direction I did not expect.
I thought I was going to die in that orb…
Now I’m in an alien spaceship as a guest staring at an alien who is…
My breath stops in my throat as I watch Fer’ro.
He’s n—naked.
Completely.
And this is a whole different situation than when he’d been in that forest with me in the dark.
Now I can see everything clearly. And my God…
The ba’clan seem to have disappeared somehow, as if they melted into his skin.
His body is like sculpted charcoal magnificence.
There are more ridges down his chest, his back, his arms, his legs and his skin seems to glisten in the light.
He’s not aware of me staring at him and I’m glad, because I can’t pull my eyes away.
There’s a circular ring on the floor and he sits within it, his back turned to me.
There are deep gnashes in his skin and I see dark blood seeping through.
He’s hurt. Much more than I realized.
I thought the ba’clan protected him but apparently not?
There is so much that I have to learn about these things.
Even as I think about them, I feel them pulse against my arm and I look down at myself.
My arm looks alien to me but it’s quite obvious my hand is no longer swollen. It doesn’t hurt anymore either.
It feels…normal.
There’s a blast of air and when I look up, Fer’ro is standing.
As he faces me, like magic, his ba’clan crawl back over his skin.
It takes just a second to happen but I’m staring at him in awe.
The only thing he leaves uncovered is his face.
“You should cleanse yourself then rest,” he says.
I glance around the room. I would gladly take a bath but I don’t see a bathroom anywhere.
“Where?”
He pauses for a second before turning to look at the ring on the floor.
“What?” So that’s what he’d been doing? Taking a bath? So quickly and without water?
“Sit or stand here,” he says, gesturing to the circle as I slip off the bed.
My tentative steps toward the circle are met with patience on his part. He’s just watching me move and as soon as I get to the edge of the circle, I pause.
I will have to get naked.
I glance at Fer’ro, contemplating this.
Maybe it’s okay.
He’s been nothing but respectable so far and despite that he is male, I doubt my pale, bruised, fleshy human body appeals to his kind.
Now is certainly not the time to be modest.
The world is ending.
My nakedness doesn’t matter.
As my clothes slip to the floor, I watch them fall.
Stained. Dirty. They are as every bit a reminder of the last few days as my scars are and I realize I never want to see them again.
I’ll just have to find a new way to cover myself.
I slip off my shoes and leave them in the pile too before stepping into the circle and sitting the way Fer’ro did.
I’m about to ask what I should do next when the ring of light moves up from the floor and passes over my entire body. A blast of warm air follows before the light settles back in place.
A moment passes where I’m wondering what’s next. I look down at my body and it looks…clean.
The dirt and smudges that were all over my arms and legs are gone.
“Tha—that’s it?”
I turn a questioning glance in Fer’ro’s direction and my breath catches in my throat.
His gaze is like fire as he stares at me and his ears are perked off the side of his head.
But what’s more alarming is his ba’clan.
They are stretched off the front of his body toward me, like dark fluid contorting.
My eyes widen as I scramble to my feet and I watch as they snap back in place.
This is the second time I’ve seen them do that.
It happened at the door too.
“Fer’ro?”
He is staring at me and his pupils have become so narrow that the slits look like lines.
“I should take you to He’rox,” he says. “You need to be…checked.”
I swallow at this and wrap my arms across my chest.
“Is there something wrong? Do you think something is wrong?” I glance at the ba’clan still on my arm.
I’m getting so used to them there now. I keep forgetting they’re on my skin unless they pulse or I look directly at them.
“You have wounds.”
His gaze is moving over my skin and I shuffle on my feet. I have several scratches, bruises, and cuts, but I feel fine.
The thing is, I should go to He’rox, just to be sure everything is all right.
But I don’t want to…
“I don’t want to be around the others. I don’t…”
I don’t trust them.
But somehow…I trust him.
“Can I just stay with you for now? Until I get used to all this?”
His ears twitch and I wonder what the action means in this instance.
He studies me for a moment and he’s standing so still, it feels like the air in the room doesn’t move.
“Rest on the feathers. I will heal you myself.”
My eyebrows shoot up a little but a sense of relief flows through me.
I didn’t know he could do that and I release a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
It’s a much better option. I’d rather only deal with him and him only.
Apart from San’ten, the others don’t seem hostile but…the more time I spend around Fer’ro, the safer I feel.
As I walk back to bed, I allow myself to relax a little.
It’s a huge thing and it has a soft wool-like layer on top of it.
I feel small as I climb up, the thought that I’m completely naked lingering in my mind.
I should be more concerned about that.
But Fer’ro doesn’t make me concerned.
That’s until I turn around and notice he’s climbing up on the bed behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FER’RO
Adee’ra’s fear scent appears as soon as she turns around and sees me behind her.
Maybe she’s changed her mind about me healing her.
I was surprised she agreed to it in the first place. Vullan females don’t usually allow males who are not their mates to give such healing.
It can be an…intimate act.
Adee’ra is on all fours and I have a clear view of her center.
Her sweet scent wafts into my nose and I inhale deeply, unable to pull my gaze away from her.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I know her skin is pale. So much paler and thinner than mine.
But until she discarded her strange outer suit, I did not realize that all of her was pale and soft.
It is a strange hue I’ve only seen on young hubri.
She is thin, frail, I can see her skeleton underneath her skin, but she is mesmerizing still.
I cannot stop staring and only when a gasp pulls from her throat does my gaze rise from that strange triangle at her center.
She sits back on her legs and grabs those mounds on her chest that stand out with twin peaks.
My gaze fastens on them and I see the skin against them prickle.
“Fer’ro?”
Her fear scent tingles a little and despite that I want to scent her some more, I snap my nostrils shut.
If I smell her fear right now, in this state, I will want to chase her. Hunt her.
Her eyes are wide as she stares at me and when I glance at myself, I realize why.
My ba’clan snap back as soon as I notice what they are doing.
They’d been trying to touch her again.
I am losing control.
The thought registers and echoes through my mind.
Losing control?
Vullan never lose control of their ba’clan.
I need to figure out why that is happening now.
Maybe it has something to do with this planet.
The atmosphere. Something microscopic that I cannot see.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with that at all.
My gaze meets Adee’ra’s and her wide round pupils are still on me.
Maybe it has something to do with her.
I make the decision immediately. I recall my ba’clan within me and they disappear beneath my skin like water seeping away.
I am bare for the fourth time in her presence.
If Ga’Var knew…
A sliver of pleasure fills me.
Adee’ra is with me, not him.
He does not get the pleasure of her presence.
Adee’ra shuffles on the feathers and glances around me.
Her legs are still crossed and even though I am not her mate, I wish to ask her to open them once more.
Behind my fold, my sazi throbs.
It is erect.
It always is.
But right now it throbs so hard I want to release it.
For a moment, I consider moving away from Adee’ra.
My senses are overloading.
I really am losing control.
But the sound of her musical words have me frozen.
“Where is the first aid kit?”
What aid kit?
“You know, with the bandages and alcohol…if you have that?” She glances around again. “For my wounds?”
Ah.
“A med kit?” I click to her in my language and confusion floods her gaze.
“We don’t have a med kit,” I say so she can understand. “I will heal you.”
Her brow furrows in those lines that look like they’re etched permanently into her skin before they smooth out as if they were never there.
“I don’t understand, you will have to explain to me.”
“I will show you.”
Her eyes widen a little more but she doesn’t protest as I come all the way onto the sleeping feathers.
She’s still sitting in a guarded position though, so I focus on the wound that is closest to me.
One by her ankles.
“It will not hurt,” I say as I take her foot into my hand, stretching out one of her legs.
Five toes, not four. And small too.
Her foot is soft and delicate like the rest of her and her skin feels so smooth against my own.
I wonder what I feel like to her.
My body is filled with ridges. Plated bone that rises and falls underneath my skin.
I am hard where she is soft.
I turn her foot in my hand as I examine it.
It’s cracked in several places underneath and the one I hold looks slightly bigger than the other.
Swollen.
It must hurt, and I do not believe that what I’m about to do will help her in that regard.
My “treatment” will mostly soothe her until she is comfortable enough to let He’rox see her. A sort of temporary fix to what ails her.
Bending, I give her one final glance before I dip low, my tongue slipping from my mouth as I run it over the skin at her ankle.
Adee’ra yelps, and if not for my hold on her leg, it would have slid from my grasp.
“Um…what are you doing?” Her eyes are wide before they fall on her ankle.
My tongue is still there and I lick her again.
Her leg jerks again.
I take her lack of resistance as consent to continue and I run my tongue over another wound close to her ankle.
Her breath hisses into her nose as she inhales deeply.
“Relax,” I say, “I will not harm you.”
“Y-yes, I know that, but what the hell are you doing?”
I pause then and blink at her.
This is obviously not something hyu’mans do.
“My saliva has enough healing properties to soothe these wounds,” I say. “It will help you until you are ready for He’rox to see you.”
“Oh,” she says and her throat moves but she doesn’t pull away.
There are several tiny wounds on her legs and I tend to them one at a time.
Adee’ra tastes like sweet food and I resist the urge to thrum. I could lick her skin for eons.
For a moment, I slip my nictitating membrane across my eyes so I can relish in her flavor without scaring her.
Without making her withdraw from me.
For I know my eyes have bled completely, my pupils invisible.
I want to thrum loudly at the taste of her skin on my tongue, but I doubt she will understand that I am not being aggressive.
For what’s suddenly coursing through my being is not aggression.
It is the exact opposite.
I want to engulf her…
But I am not her mate.
I thrum a little at that thought.
There is just one problem.
I am not her mate…but I do not care.
I want to taste her still.
Each time my tongue flicks over her skin, I hear Adee’ra’s breath shudder in her chest but I focus on what I’m doing.
The number of small cuts and scratches run all the way up her leg and there are so many, I might as well suck on her skin.
So I do.
Her breath makes her belly shudder and she suddenly falls back, staring at me down her body.
It takes everything in me not to bury my face into her skin and I am happy I recalled my ba’clan.
