Alien Breeder's Bond: A Scifi Alien Romance, page 15
I swung my legs over the side and placed my feet on the cold and reassuring hard floor.
“And Emma?” I said.
Just saying her name brought a spike of pain to my chest.
“You were removed from the facility first. I assume the Surgeon placed her on one of their shuttlecraft shortly after we took off.”
I nodded, knowing Computer was right.
Still, I wasn’t entirely pleased it was the case.
I placed my hands on either side of the bed and shoved myself up onto my feet.
“I’m not sure walking is a good idea right now…” Computer said.
Neither did I, but the last thing I wanted to do was sleep more.
I shuffled forward and the room shuffled with me, fuzzy clones of each object moving like I had entered a black hole.
I took a moment to wave my hands and better stabilize myself.
With my eyes shut, I saw Emma’s face floating in front of me, her gorgeous wide mischievous grin emblazoned brazenly on her lips.
In a flash of white light, I saw the last expression of hers I would ever witness.
One of fear and doubt, and framed by the pod’s window.
She’d been as afraid as I was.
Then the blanket of white descended, wiping her from view.
The bond between us had been severed and save for the odd phantom feeling, I would never sense her again.
It made me feel cold and hollow, the way I knew it would.
Time was a great healer, so they said.
I wasn’t sure I believed it.
I found it impossible I might forget these all-consuming doubts flowing through me like a raging river.
I opened my eyes and stumbled toward the door.
It hissed open and the bright lights flooded my room.
I groaned under my breath.
“Computer, dim lights,” I said.
Computer did, but not enough for my liking.
“More.”
Computer responded, leaving me with just enough light to make out the broad brushstrokes of the walls and doorframes along the hall.
I braced myself on the wall and edged along it until I reached the bathroom facilities.
The door hissed open and I moved for the sink.
I splashed water over my face.
I stood there, peering at the apparition staring back at me in the mirror.
I could still feel Emma’s hands on my horns, the sensual and arousing sensation of her on me.
I could still smell her femininity.
I breathed her in and felt sad when I had to exhale.
Our last moments together before the end.
And what a final moment.
It’d been everything I’d hoped fated mates were capable of—at least, with their clothes still on.
I smiled at the memory of us fighting in the hollow deck, each of us smothered head to toe with Shadow mud, and finally gazing out the observation window at the blinking stars in the velvet night.
The good stuff, before it had gone wrong.
I should have been honest with her from the start.
I should have told her everything and let the chips fall where they may.
Maybe she would have taken a different path otherwise.
It would be a regret I would carry for the rest of my life.
In the mirror, staring back at me, was the Shadow version of myself.
Iav.
At least he hadn’t got his hands on her.
At least he had failed to claim her too.
And anything was better than the fate that awaited her in that situation.
Right now, she would be hurtling through space toward her homeworld, back to the life she had occupied before we gatecrashed her so unexpectedly.
I may no longer be a part of her life but that didn’t mean others couldn’t be.
She could be happy and have a full life.
Thump.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
It was probably the thought of her and all the regrets I had associated with her that I felt that phantom tug now.
It seemed so small, distant, and weak.
I had to remind myself it wasn’t due to her being so far from me but because the bond had been Severed.
We were no longer joined on a deeper level.
She could be in the next room and the sensation would be the same.
Although I hated losing it, I clung to it as if nurturing a tender flame.
A single spark, a single breath of wind, could blow it out for good.
Maybe it would torture me in the years to come but I liked clutching it close.
I would remember her always.
And this dying ember would be my bond to that part of my past.
The bond between us might have perished but the bond to my memories still existed.
Nobody could take those from me.
I reached for a paper towel and wiped my hands and face dry.
I tossed the towel in the bin and observed the walls.
They no longer spun on their axis.
I took my hands from the tabletop and approached the door.
It hissed open.
I stepped through the doorway.
And that’s when I felt it.
A return of that throb in my heart.
Heartburn?
I leaned against the door frame, my hand pressed to my chest where I’d felt the pulse.
Or had I only imagined it?
The Surgeon had said there would be phantom sensations for a while.
It was probably another of those.
I shoved off the door frame and approached the elevator.
I would tidy up the systems so I could hand the ship back to my father.
Throb.
I stumbled and caught myself on the wall.
I was too slow and banged my chin against it.
There it was again, another throb, stronger this time.
I shook my head.
The Surgeon told me this would happen.
He told me I would feel these niggling phantom pains.
Then why was my stomach twisting?
Why did my heart beat faster in an irregular rhythm?
I wiped a hand over my brow and found my fingertips soaked with a cold sweat.
Was it a belated response to the Procedure?
Or was it something more?
My instincts screamed at me that it was something else.
But what?
Something about the pulse didn’t feel right.
It felt natural, not a phantom.
Or was I feeling what countless others had before me?
“Computer,” I said. “Prepare the medical bay.”
“For what purpose?” Computer said.
I walked as fast as my legs could carry me down the hall, feeling along the walls with my hands like a blind man.
“Scans,” I said. “I want to scan myself for the bond.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sir—”
“I need to see it,” I barked. “I need to see it for myself.”
Computer didn’t respond for a moment.
Finally, he said:
“The Surgeon said there would be—”
“I know what he said!” I snapped. “But I’m telling you, something doesn’t feel right. It’s something deeper. As if… As if…”
As if she were still linked to me.
I shook my head, realizing how crazy I sounded.
The Surgeon had already warned me about these phantom feelings.
They were normal, to be expected.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m just… not used to the lack of control.”
Computer was silent for a long moment as I turned to return to my room.
I could prep the ship later, or not at all.
At this point, I could care less.
“I think a scan would be okay,” Computer said. “It won’t do any harm and can only help alleviate your concerns.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You think?”
“I don’t think, sir. I compute.”
“Have you begun to develop emotions, Computer?”
“Not emotions. But maybe simulations of them. I’m preparing the scanners now.”
I turned a corner and approached the medical bay at the end.
“Increase light strength slowly.”
“Light intensity increased by fifty percent,” Computer said. “The scanner is in the corner.”
Our scanners were far less sophisticated than those of the Surgeon but enough to detect my bond.
If they found nothing, it meant the bond had been Severed.
Then I would just have to accept this was my new reality.
I stumbled into the chair and the doors slid shut behind me.
“Conducting scans now,” Computer said.
The chair spun around slowly.
I felt the familiar prickle of goosebumps as the stream of electricity passed through my body.
The chair completed three revolutions before the scan was complete.
“Processing data now,” Computer said.
“Bring the results up on this monitor,” I said, turning the monitor screen attached to the chair toward me.
The difference in quality between the scanning systems was striking.
The multiple layers that made up my physical system were built one at a time and at a slow speed.
The image was far less clear than the Surgeon’s too.
“Can you see anything?” I said. “Any sign of the bond?”
Computer was silent.
“There is a great deal of information to process,” Computer said. “And these scanners were not made to detect the bond.”
“Wait,” I said. “Back up. What’s that?”
As the program rendered my nervous system and organs, the bond and its pulsing light became clearer.
Pixel by pixel, Computer rebuilt the bond in the heart of my chest.
The blood drained from my face.
“Computer… Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
“It appears so, sir. It’s your bond. It was never Severed.”
Emma
My arms were lashed behind my back and the cord about my ankles chaffed and cut into my skin.
It was difficult for me to even wriggle.
And if I managed to get off the bed, how was I supposed to get back on my feet and move about my room?
I didn’t have anything that would be of much use.
None of this made any sense.
How could I be on Iav’s ship when the bond had been Severed?
How had he found me?
Maybe the Surgeon had put me on a shuttle and, despite the bond being very weak, Iav had managed to pick up on the signal enough to track me down.
He could have located the ship and carried me on board his own.
But somehow, that didn’t ring true.
Even if that had happened, why would Iav want me after my bond with him had been cut?
I was no longer his fated mate.
Did their breeding program still have a purpose for me?
And if they could breed with anybody, why did they not abduct random females from any planet they passed?
Why did it have to be me?
Having the bond Severed was supposed to prevent this from happening.
I thought of Vai and the look I had seen on his face through the pod window.
That hurt but resolute expression.
Although he didn’t like what we were doing, he was doing it because it was for the best.
I wished more than anything I could turn back the hands of time and return to that moment when we escaped the minefield.
I would decide on a different course of action.
We would continue to run, to try and hide, and yes, I would have taken him into my bed and ended this curse once and for good.
If I knew then I would be forced to mate anyway, it might as well be with someone I loved.
I blinked at that.
Love?
Was that what I felt for Vai?
Was that what he meant to me?
Yes, I thought.
He did.
Now he was far from me, I could finally see the wood for the trees.
I wished now more than ever I could return to that moment when I discovered the truth about why Vai had come to me in the first place.
Not just to protect me but to satisfy his craving for my body.
Only once his seed spilled inside me could I be free.
And be with him for the rest of my life?
Tears sprung into my eyes as I realized that was what I’d wanted all along.
I just hadn’t known it.
Or else refused to believe it.
I had let my own foolish pride and rigid principles get in the way.
We were fated mates.
We were supposed to be together.
And now I was on a ship careening through space, heading for a world I had only ever seen on Vai’s hollow deck.
The Shadow Realm.
It was the sudden shift in the shadows that alerted me to it.
A sudden chill crept over me, along with the knowledge other emotions dominated in this place.
I could feel them steal over me now.
It wasn’t love.
It was hate, fear, and desperation.
The moment we crossed into the Shadow Realm, passing through the Rift and entered this dark and unknown area of space beyond our galaxy, all hope evaporated from me.
The only thing I could hold onto, the only thing that made any sense, was that pulsing glow in the center of my chest.
A flickering flame in a dark and lonely place.
I cradled it close, going so far as to curl my knees up around myself, trying to hide it, protect it, sensing the Shadows would snuff it out the first moment they had a chance.
My door hissed open and Iav entered.
He paused a moment, surveying the room and peering at me thoughtfully.
He crossed toward me and sat on the corner of my bed.
I lay deathly still, fearing what he might do if he thought I was awake.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said.
He spoke in Vai’s soft and kindly voice, only now his words seemed sinister and laced with poison.
“You will do a great service for the empire,” he said. “You will give us many sons and daughters. You will live on inside them for many generations to come. And once your use has expired, you can die knowing you have served your purpose. How well you decide to serve it is up to you.”
My tears came unbidden and I wept into my blanket.
“If you care anything for me, please, let me go,” I said.
I snorted, choking on the hot wad that’d taken up residence in the back of my throat.
“That feeling in your chest,” I said, “that pulsing light, doesn’t it mean more to you than just my location?”
“It means you are living and alive and that I must find you.”
“No. It doesn’t mean that at all. It means so much more. Don’t you feel love, Iav? Can’t you feel mercy? Compassion?”
“I feel those things. I feel love for the Empire and compassion for my brothers and sisters.”
My hopes faded but did not disappear.
“That love you feel for the empire, could you ever feel it for me?” I said.
He turned to me, his horns vicious and devil-like in the semidarkness.
He leaned forward and brushed a finger under my chin.
“Your duty is to the empire and all those you service shall love you… in their way.”
So much for trying to appeal to his merciful nature.
This creature knew nothing about compassion.
He understood only his objective.
There was no warmth in his heart.
He didn’t have a heart, I realized.
He had an organ that pumped blood around his body but he had no idea the depths of emotion it was capable of.
“Please, let me go,” I begged. “I don’t belong here. My bond to you has been Severed. I’m of no use to you. Take me home and I swear you will never see or hear from me again.”
“My dear, that is the very last thing I wish. I will lay with you every day and give you my seed. And once the child is born, I shall do it again and again and again.”
I whimpered.
With the soft look in his eyes, he had meant that to sound reassuring.
Boy, was he wide of the mark.
“Your bond has not been Severed,” he said. “It may be a little muffled but it is not gone. And in twelve hours it will return full force and we shall join. I will claim you and my honor shall be witnessed by the Council. And all the empire will watch us consummate our mating ceremony.”
Mating ceremony.
Now where did I recall that from?
It was something Vai had said, I was sure.
Something he had told me…
The blood drained from my face as I recalled exactly when he’d said it:
“After he mates with you, he will share you with the rest of his species in a mating ceremony. They will each take their turn, one after another. You will be impregnated and then forced to give birth. The moment you do, they will breed you again. And again. Until your body can take no more and you die. Maybe it will be from exhaustion or your heart will give out.”
Those were Vai’s words.
They chilled me to the bone more now than they had the first time I heard them.
Because then, he had given me his assurance it would never happen.
It was the stuff of nightmares.
“Why don’t you take me now?” I said. “Like you were going to on Earth. Why now do you want to take me to the ceremony?”
“Because many Shadow have been waylaid on his return trip. The more prudent course of action is to take you on your planet. The rewards and esteem are not the same but it’s better than returning empty-handed.”
I glared at him.
“Then why not take me now?”
It’ll give me a chance to stab you in the back while you do it, I thought.
If it had to happen, then so be it, but I wouldn’t let him take me to his Shadow Realm if I could avoid it.
He peered at me and a wayward shard of light from the bedside lamp highlighted the dangerous glint in his eye.
“Because now, we’re so much closer to the Shadow Realm. Your M’rora mate is heading back to his homeworld. He will never know what happened to you. A pity, I always thought. Much better for the failed mates to know what happened just when it is too late for him to do anything about it.”
